November 2017 – Skoolies

Screws, more screws, and even more screws.

All of the seats are gone! Huzzah. All told, I pocketed a total of $41 in scrap metal recycling from the seat frames. I have most of the floor up. The last couple days have been spent mostly working for money, rather than working on the bus.

With daylight savings time (a scam, i tell you) and the colder weather, getting motivated to work on the bus after a day of work is hard. My friend Brian gave me some LED lights that I’ve put up as some temporary interior lighting. I’ve also got two space heaters in the bus now. Extension cord length has come into play, because I wanted to have both heaters on different breakers.

I’ve ordered a gallon of Corroseal 82331 Water-Based Rust Converter. I’m hoping to have the metal floor prepped and ready to put down insulation and then sub flooring. That will feel like a huge accomplishment to have just a subfloor.

I’ve removed all the dome lights, the speakers, and 95% of the screws holding the wall panels on. The screws that remain will have to be drilled or cut off. I’ve been really impressed by my Black and Decker 20v Lithium Drill. I’ve removed 100’s of screws already with it, and I’ve only charged it once.

I pull up in that candy paint, call it Veruca Salt!

Today was fairly productive, although it doesn’t really look like it. After getting the kids ready, putting Grayson (my eldest) on the bus, I took Hunter to Krispy Kreme for donuts. Because I like to get him all hopped up on sugar and then pawn him off on the poor, unsuspecting folks at the daycare.

Once I was free of my spawn, I called Progressive and I bought some insurance for the bus. The lady was asking a lot of discovery questions, attempting to figure out what I was doing, but I shared nothing. I just told her that it was utilized for private use only, that no commercial activity was being undertaken. The seats were removed and that the majority of the time, the bus would be parked in my driveway.

Insurance cards in hand, hot from the laser printer, I drove the bus up to the county clerk’s office. This is our version of the DMV/BMV. Since I had completed the title work with the seller when I purchased the bus and everything was notarized already, it was pretty uneventful. I wrote a check for $77, which included $60 in taxes. I was expecting it to be more expensive.

The deputy clerk hands me the paperwork and thanks me. Then I ask her about the license plate. That is, I need one. I don’t know why I didn’t say something to the guy I bought it from, but in Kentucky, the plates stay with the vehicle. I’m so used to dealing with out of state vehicles that I just didn’t even give it a second thought.

The clerk had to do a license plate replacement affidavit in order to issue me a new one without the old plate. She asked me what type of plate I wanted. I explained that it had a 22,000lb plate, but that it would only be used for personal, private use. No business usage. So she changed the weight class on the title and issued a standard car, noncommercial plate. The cost? $8. Ok, so I spent $86 to title and tag the bus. I can live with this.

Once I had the license plate and registration, I went to the landfill to get rid of the seat covers and cushions. I’ve only been to the landfill once and it was in a pickup truck with a trailer. I remembered it being fairly inexpensive, I thought. So I pulled up and explained to the woman that I just had some seats to dump. She said it was done by the ton, two ton minimum. The cost? $130

If I had been chewing gum, I probably would have accidently swallowed. I gave her my best “thanks, no thanks” and high tailed it out of there. Leaving there, I went to the closest recycling place and sold all the metal seat frames for a whopping $29 WHOLE AMERICAN DOLLARS. I instantly felt sorry for all those people I see hauling junk around. Over 400lbs of steel netted me $29.

I’m not complaining, because I didn’t want to have to deal with them. The fact that someone paid me was just a bonus. But if that was how I was trying to make a living, that’d be a hard pill to swallow.

With that done, I headed home. I took two loads of seat covers and cushions in the flex and dumped the first load in the dumpsters over at Megan’s condo. The second load I spread out across a few different dumpsters. Tomorrow I will continue to do more of the same until it’s all gone. I don’t like dumping in people’s dumpsters, but I’m at least trying to be respectful and spread it out. This way no one should notice the difference.

Tomorrow, I plan to pull the other 4 seats, finish disposing of the seat materials, and then start pulling the floors. I’ll try to get some pictures up on my next post. Stay tuned!

Introducing Kenton

Let’s talk about school buses. I bought one. It’s kind of weird to think about. The thing is MASSIVE. Not only is it long, but it’s tall. You really don’t think about it, until you’re looking at the security camera and you can’t really see anything else, because it’s SO BIG.

I bought the bus from a guy in London, KY which is in the southeastern part of the state. However, he had bought it and it’s twin from up near Cincinnati in Kenton County. Kenton is home to places like Covington and Erlanger. The first bus that I bid on was in New Jersey, in a borough called Hawthorne. I decided that I was going to name that bus, if I won it, Hawthorne. With that in mind, I’ve opted to name this bus Kenton.

Kenton is a 2002 AmTran (American Transportation Corporation) Rear Engine school bus. It is built on a International chassis, powered by the DT466 turbocharged diesel engine, along with a Allison 3000 Series Transmission. You may see me refer to the bus as a RE, which means rear engine. When the engine is in the front of the bus, it’s called FE. Which you’d assume means “Front Engine,” as I did, but it actually means “Forward Engine.” When I was looking for a bus, I really prefered the rear engine buses, mainly because of the improved ride quality, lower noise, and less heat in the driver’s area. While a FE was not a deal breaker, that’s what I wanted.

This bus was originally configured for 72 passengers, which assumed 3 (small) children per seat, 6 per row. I’ve measured approximately 27 feet from the back of the driver’s seat to the base of the engine compartment. The top of the engine compartment has an additional number of feet, but it’s raised fairly high. It may become something like a closet, or possibly have a TV entertainment center, etc.

For now, enjoy a few pictures of the exterior. I will be adding more pictures soon!

And so it begins…

Hi, my name is Addison. Some people call me Addie. This blog is going to serve as an extension of my primary site TransVentures. I debated on just putting this on that site, but I wanted to keep some sort of demarcation between the two.

I intend to document the build out of my skoolie. Once the build out is complete, then hopefully I will be able to take life onto the road and show that to you as well. Along with this site, a YouTube channel will follow.

For those of you that don’t know me, I am from Louisville, KY. I’ve lived here all my life, with the exception of a couple of years that I spent in Texas during the late 2000’s. I have two children, both boys, aged 8 and 2. I am single and it’s complicated. I am also transgender, which is where the name “TransVentures” originates.

The bus that I have purchased, and that I’ll detail in the next post, is a 2002 AmTran RE. It is built on an International chassis and is equipped with a DT466 engine and Allison 3000-series transmission. Original capacity was 72 passengers.