Yikes! It has been nearly an entire year since I arrived in Mobile, Alabama to pick up my bus, and I am literally still just getting started with my conversion. For the last 11 months and 28 days I’ve been thinking and planning my next steps, but only sparingly actually making any tangible progress. Well, that changed this weekend as I finally began pulling up the rubber floors, the Next Step toward getting my subfloors in.

For some reason I had it in my head that I needed to do a bunch of other stuff before I got to the subfloors, but the truth is I simply needed to move stuff around more than I had been. Over the last couple months since I brought the bus home from storage I’ve been able to steadily remove the bags of trash and piles of scrap metal that had been taking up most of my workable floorspace. With enough floorspace opened up to actually work, this weekend I was able to move the bus into my parking spot (within reach of a power outlet for my extension cord). Then I fired up the angle grinder and cut out all of the steel panels covering the lower half of the port wall. Still not sure if I’m going to be able to use them for anything, being full of holes and really not that tall, but I set them aside for now.

Moving the stacks of styrofoam away from the wall so I could access the steel panels also provided access to the rubber floor, so I took the opportunity to start pulling that up beginning from the rear as well. I was able to pull all the way up to the front of the wheel wells where two sheets of the flooring were joined up, and then I called it a day. Oh, I also pulled up the center aisle floor up to that point as well.

Sunday morning (really like 2:pm-ish) I got back out with the simple goal of just sweeping up all the rust and dust I’d exposed by pulling up the floor. I hoped that getting back into the bus would motivate me to get the angle grinder going again, and yeah, it did. After sweeping, I moved the stacks of styrofoam insulation to the port side of the floor so I could get at the starboard panels. I was only able to cut one panel out since the next one was partially blocked by a bunch of OSB, but that’s okay – I realized that I really don’t need to get the walls cut out to get make more progress on the subfloor.

So, I resolved to pull up the same amount of rubber on the starboard side. The glue under the rubber was holding pretty well, but gave way without tearing the rubber, so it actually went pretty quickly all things considered. There’s a good deal of surface rust underneath the rubber (which thankfully made the rubber easier to pull up in places), but I am actually excited about being at the point where I can get out the wire brush and start drilling that out.

So, current plan is to put ‘removing the wall panels‘ aside again, and to shift focus on getting at least part of the rear subfloor finished. Grinding out the rust, treating it and painting it, then actually installing the 2×2 frames, styrofoam insulation panels, and the OSB surface, then painting again. Once I get the rear floor finished, I can move the stacks of remaining building materials to the back of the bus, and then repeat the process with the front half. This was kind of my original plan, but I got a little distracted for some reason thinking I needed to get the wall panels out before I did the floor.

Anyway, Progress! And time to start organizing for the next steps of treating the metal for rust, and painting it. I was thinking of a marine-grade paint, but that’s some expensive stuff. I think I’ll see what else is out there. Worth a trip up to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.

Oh! And a bonus, I talked to my neighbor who shares the small parking lot, and he said he’s totally fine with me keeping the bus there indefinitely while I’m working on it. He’s a big supporter of what I’m doing, and said he enjoys seeing my progress. I think part of him is living vicariously through my conversion process, and I’ll take that. So, I get to maneuver the bus a bit so it’s more tucked in to the edge of its current parking spot, to make sure he can still get his car in and out more easily. All of which is to ease my mind a bit, as pretty much all of the other neighbors on the street have asked me how long the bus was going to be parked there, and the best I could tell them was, ‘yeah, i’m not sure. Probably a while.’

Also Also: I managed to not injure myself today, and even remembered to wear a respirator mask so I wasn’t inhaling rust and dust all day! Go Team Safety!