The Bus

Well, what we started with was a pretty-much-stock (and poorly maintained, I might add) commercial passenger bus, currently in use shuttling people like it was designed to do.

After looking for months to find a used 45' bus we could afford (there weren't many at all for sale in our neck of the woods), we finally came across a Craig's List posting for a 1994 MCI (Motor Coach International) 102-DL3, in Miami, Florida.  Yep, almost all the way across the United States - certainly not convenient.  However, with limited options, it was our only hope if we were going to actually do a bus conversion.  So, I flew to Florida (alone), and met with the owner.  To be short, he was a jerk.  I knew nothing about buses, and he knew it (to be honest, I'm not sure how much he actually knew about them, as we later discovered that it was very poorly maintained).  He wouldn't let me have it inspected, and never bothered to even tell me it had a salvaged title (didn't discover that until after I had bought it).  The bus had nearly 1.4 million miles on it (yep, that's MILLION, as in the amount of dollars we all wish we had).

I did have the opportunity to ride around on it for a few hours with one of his drivers... that conveniently didn't speak English.  But, at least I knew it ran.  So, to make a long, frustrating story shorter, I hoped for the best, and told the jerk I'd take it.  After arranging payment, and parking it on the street, he said "You know how to start it, right?"  I replied, "Yeah, I think so...".  "Okay, go around the block this way - the freeway entrance is right there," he directed.  Wonderful.  So, not really knowing what I had just gotten us into, I started it up, took wide turns around the (ghetto) block, and tried my best to merge into the six+ lanes of screaming traffic.  Fortunately, people there are quick to recognize that the bus was much bigger and heavier than their car, and they moved right over.  Whew!  Unfortunately, about 3 minutes after I merged, one of those large, plastic storage bins came flying across the freeway and got lodged under the front axle, giving off a nice scrapping sound down the freeway.  Lovely...

Not a whole lot of places to stop at this point, but I did manage to pull over and get it dislodged.  After tossing it in, I crossing my fingers, and managed to merge as before.

Needless to say, the first hour or so driving it was VERY intimidating.  The thing was over 8 1/2 feet wide, which left a very narrow margin of error at its sides.   After a few hours on the road, though, I grew a little more confident it wasn't going to leave me stranded somewhere.  When it grew too dark to see, I managed to figure out where the switches were for the headlights.  The wiper dials were then discovered a short time later (again, out of necessity).  The cruise control switches were also another pleasant surprise a few states later.  Fortunately, it seemed to run fine all the way home: over 3 days of solid, solitary driving.  Ugh. 

Several months later (around September, 2017), we finally began tearing out seats, and doing other prep work for its conversion into a motor home - something we could live in as a family, and be comfortable, for an extended period of time.