MCI 102-C3 coach to RV - General/Floorplan

[JNHEscher]

A little here and there. Started peeling away some of the welded lip that the aluminum sheet was screwed to. I have to go underneath with a grinder to relieve the welds.

There's three tanks surrounding the steer axle. I was thinking about moving all three further up for accessibility, but after considering it some more, I'll likely leave the two holding tanks where they are and just move the dryer tank and protection valve. There's not much else I could store near the axle, so might as well leave the two large tanks in place. Those other two items, however, are troublesome in the winter when they've collected moisture and I'm not sure that anybody enjoys crawling under there to bang them with a hammer in the bitter cold. All the copper lines are now marked with zip ties so I can cut and relocate.

Mild night, so I yanked out more unneeded pieces. Clutch jackshaft, grease lines, brackets, etc. I also pitched the 7x27 hotdog tank that mounts underneath the driver's floor after remembering that it's only for emergency fill to release the bay doors. The only air lines left will be for the brakes and suspension. All kinds of room. I'll be able to mount the dryer tank between the steering box and brake valve.

 

[JNHEscher]

bigun said,

I have been watching this guy for a while
Always drain the air tank starts about 13 minutes in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1dSXEXIHl8

 

[JNHEscher]

bigun said:
I have been watching this guy for a while
Always drain the air tank starts about 13 minutes in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1dSXEXIHl8​

That's Scott Crosby's channel. I've been watching his stuff and conversing with him on FB for a while now. No problem like that with our tanks. Just oil residue. I was anticipating a compressor rebuild anyway. I was thinking of showing Scott our tie rod clamp getting stuck on the air spring bracket for laughs.

 

[JNHEscher]

Much done today. Doesn't really look like it, but the areas I worked in today were a jungle gym. Started off by dropping the dryer and valve. The dryer bracket sandwiched and excellent chunk of iron oxide between it and the spare tire bay wall. Much of the front of the bus is stainless steel. I plan to cut out the mild steel wall and replace it with stainless. The dryer bracket will be removed.

 

[JNHEscher]

I wasn't intending to tear up the driver's floor already until I got so far into the blower box. The blowers needed to go. Motors themselves weren't too bad as they were help by three nuts each. The box, on the other hand, was riveted all the way around. Aluminum rivets, luckily. Drill, hammer, and air chisel annihilated it. Up top, a big section of the box pulled up and out once I had cut away several bottoms sections. There was so much crud tucked away in this assembly.

At some point, I'll be stripping the entire driver's floor, laying down stainless plate and replacing several rusted channels.

 

[JNHEscher]

Gradual but steady day. Continued to sift through the air lines and remove items that are irrelevant to the build. Brackets and loops in the lines, mostly. Where exactly I want to mount valves and switches has yet to be determined.

My youngest helped me remove a bunch of the styrene panels from the upstairs walls. Tried for a proud papa picture, but every time I attempt this, they decide they're done with the task. Alas, it's fun to have one kiddo at a time that wants to pitch in.

 

[JNHEscher]

Some nonsensical stuff for ya. All viewed from the underside of the pit over the steer axle.

Ended last night (this morning) with dropping the air tanks to make room for grinder action. Got busy with the plasma and grinder today. Trimming away all the bits and pieces that aren't needed and in the way of making the entire underside of the area flush for some plate. Just some mounting ledges and the mount plate that held the suspension filter. Went too far with the plasma in a corner. Dark glasses on, working in a dark corner filled with junk led me to believe I was in the right spot. That happens. I'll build it back up with welds and shape it.

I'm hoping I can squeeze in enough time tomorrow to measure for some square tubing I would like to weld in to reinforce areas that I'm removing material from.

 

[JNHEscher]

I was getting comfortable working on the bus with warmer weather. Then we got freezing temps again over the last two days. Spent some time getting back to rearranging the floor washers so that the line up on all four frame rails. While sitting in the bus staring at the skeleton of a floor for a while the other day, I thought, hell, there's going to be a few dozen 1/2" wheel studs bolting various interior parts down to the floor so I'll put down some double-sided butyl tape on the all the frame and bolt the floor down. Easy enough.

A day or two after my dad and I mounted the two electrical conduits for the steering hoses, I realized that I had at one point attempted to shove both conduits away from the 2" PVC for a reason. The 2" has to stub through the floor and I put the steering conduits right over top of where the stubs need to be. The solution is to aim the fuel conduit T's around the steering conduits and shove the steering conduits over so that the drain pipe can stub straight up for the shower.

 

[JNHEscher]

Waiting out some spring weather. High winds, flooding yard, heavy snow, etc. and fixing the house as more problems pop up. Meanwhile, my wife and I were able sit down together to hash out a floor plan we really liked. We went ahead and sized the boys' beds to twin. I know only so much of this picture makes any sense, but it's looking like something.

 

[JNHEscher]

Started back on the front pit last night. Spending tonight stripping rust and paint in preparation for square tubing to be welded in. Have to give the compressor some cool down breaks and the angle grinder some warm up breaks. Slow going.

 

[JNHEscher]

Notching out the future location of some square tubing. Don't know if I can paint a good picture of what's going on here, but this is a continuation of stripping and building the front pit for a water tank. I'm adding two bars of tubing on the bottom to support a plate from end to end. Had to cut out a couple chunks in order to let the top of the rear tube to sit flush with the rest of the factory tube braces.

I had cut out a section of the stainless wall between the steer axle and original fuel tank bay. The top of the wall was floating, so no structure lost to speak of. I wanted this opened up so that the water tank can be slid out if ever necessary. The stainless will get welded to the new rear tube that is going in which will add a decent amount of rigidity since that wall wasn't real solid before. The new tubing will also give me more structure to tie into when I reinforce the front bay for water tank carrying capacity. That bay held a full, 140-190 gallon tank of diesel before, but water is heavier and I've since cleared more than enough room to hold up to 275 gallons if I really want to take it that high.

To best show what I'm doing in this area, video would be ideal. I don't have the funds for a GoPro and I'm very reluctant to fumble around with my wife's $800 DSLR in this kind of workspace. The phone sucks, so I won't even bother. Pretty sure the latest post are boring otherwise. I still want to share some kind of visual as I haven't seen anyone else modifying this much of an MCI chassis and have been told the same from others.

 

[JNHEscher]

Today's shenanigans. Plasma and grinder put to work. Happy with my idea I shared earlier today and to be yanking this rusty chunk out. I pulled the wheel flares off while my wife began the plasma cuts. I should be back home in time to finish trimming tomorrow so that I may measure for the square tubing that will span between wheel arches.

 

[JNHEscher]

Much like with an oxy torch, I occasionally use a plasma to "wash" metal away. Wears out the consumables quicker, but works great and it's so much quicker. The subframe beams look like they're cleaning up well. The road side is about done. Got the bulk out of the curb side.

 

[JNHEscher]

In case I've been confusing anyone. Slid a tube in to measure across. 100.5". The tubes will sit on top of the subframe beams and underneath the center chase(originally the cold air return) and be welded to both. The excess of the tubes that hangs into the wheel openings will act as the slider posts for the wheel tubs. I'm thinking the curb side tub will double as a slide-out table for bbq's. Make multiple uses of it all, I say.

I would be using the two spare Pepsi kegs as the expansion tanks, but they're too large to shove into the spare spaces I have that are higher than the location of the water tanks. Hence two of these https://www.summitracing.com/parts/air-11956 will go in. I can't weld in the square tubing until these tanks come in so I can be sure that everything is dimensionally accurate. Some air tank manufacturer specs can be a little......inflated.

No further cutting will commence on the pit until I have those square tubes welded up top. The X member of heavy wall 1.5" square that spans between the bottom of the two subframe beams is about all that currently joins the beams. There's quite a bit a 14-11 gauge sheet metal attaching them as well, but I'm not going to rely on that, even though I have the bus on jacks and the steer axle fully supported right now.

 

[JNHEscher]

All but one corner done. Gotta grab some more discs. Wore down my last one so it won't reach into the last corner. I'm thinking I'll have to scrub the beams with muriatic acid to get in to all the pits without having to grind down 1/16" of steel. Found a rust hole at the front of the curb side beam that I'll need to fix and the front of the road side beam sounds really hollow. I'm not sure why that section would have been made with much thinner steel. Stuff to find out.

 

[JNHEscher]

Measured the freshly opened gap atop the subframe beams last night. 5" tall and 1.5" overhang between the beam edge and underside of the center rail. Glaser Steel had plenty of 2x5 3/16" at $9/ft. Around 400 cubic inches inside each tube. Wonder what I'll stuff inside 'em.

 

[JNHEscher]

About as shiny as they can be. Long list of stuff to do this week while my pops is here. Should be stripping the mill scale off the tubing tomorrow and starting to position them. Air tanks tracking says they'll be here Tuesday.

 

[JNHEscher]

Open a window on both sides, then you have a work bench for materials 8' and longer. Stripped all the mill scale off the tubing and finished prepping the beams. Positioned the 1.5" tubes and mocked up the air tanks. I decided to notch the 2x5 tubes and weld those up before fitting over the 1.5" tubes. Didn't take any other pictures today, so I'll show ya tomorrow.

 

[JNHEscher]

Not as much progress as planned for today. Busy with house repairs and rain turned the yard into a swamp again. Notched the 2x5 for the square tubing, flipped the cutouts around and welded them in so that the 2x5 would be sealed up again prior to welding it in place.

I had to slit the 11 gauge panel that the 2x5 was going under because the pitch in the floor frame tapered down enough at the very front that the 2x5 wouldn't quite fit. A little more tomorrow.

 

[JNHEscher]

All positioned and tacked.

 

[JNHEscher]

Might be able to weld all this up tomorrow. Bottle has plenty of gas and I loaded on a new 10 pound spool today.

 

[JNHEscher]

Got on the welding this eve. Around 75% done. Hopefully I'll have some better stuff to post next week.

Side note - since receiving my uncle's 30-gallon air compressor, I've drained some pretty gnarly piles of junk out if it a few times, each time having to stab something in it to break the clog loose. Got a good look at what came out of it last night and it was an alarming amount of rusted steel chunks. The tank is getting decommissioned this weekend.

On the hunt for some stainless tanks that won't break the bank. I found a 12-gallon. Gotta check the diameters of the OE tanks to see if I could start off with replacing those with stainless and running my plasma and such off those for now. There's three tanks. If a 12-gallon fits in each location, there's my new compressor storage for the time being. I had planned to pull the compressor off the 30-gallon tank to then mount the tank in the engine bay for quick brake and suspension fills and accessory use. 30 gallons in stainless is a bit pricey. Shoot me links of any you know of, though. 12-gallon tanks are $200ish each and 30-gallon tanks appear to be in the thousands.

 

[JNHEscher]

DE Jeeper said,

I picked up standard aluminum semitruck air tanks from the dismantler for $100. If u dont want to go stainless. Not sure how many gallons they r but they have 6 ports so locating the hoses is easy.

 

[JNHEscher]

Steel is probably best for the front tanks. They hang low right behind the steer axle where they're susceptible to debris impacts. Dont mind shelling out a little more for stainless so I dont have to worry about the oxidation.

 

[JNHEscher]

Jumped into the wheel wells and got busy stacking welds. Got both sides done just minutes before the storm-o'clock hour hit. All joints are burned in aside from a couple end openings where I'm going squirt some thin oil in to let creep between welded pieces. Gotta slow the rust somehow because I sure as hell can't keep up against all this sideways rain and hail.

 

[JNHEscher]

Lined up the tanks minus one. Right: my 10-gallon portable, middle: one of the front tanks, left: rear tank.

Looks to me like they're all about 10 gallons. There's ample room to mount two 12-gallon tanks up front and I can mount the rear tank wherever I decide is fitting.

I need more than one 3/4" port on two of the tanks. The only stainless tank that I've come up with for a replacement is adorned with a single 3/4" port. That'll be a lot of argon purge to weld in bigger ports.

With all that new tubing welded in, I tackled the lower cross member. Sawzall blade kept binding so I went ahead and torched it. Kicked it out and nothing else fell apart. Managed to also torch out the rusty lips that the cross member was welded to and filled the air with a ton of smoke from what was left of expanding foam. Man, that stuff is horrid. If tomorrow's weather allows, I plan to strap in some tanks so that I can mock up where the new lower cross member pieces should go.

 

[JNHEscher]

Last of the pit crossmember wiped off. Suppose the neighbors think I'm nuts for blowing sparks and setting stuff on fire at 2am.

 

[JNHEscher]

Lit the place up a touch more and headed for the rear pit (house battery location). I was working on removing metal from this area a while back when my dad was here. Went at it with a sawzall, oscillating tool, cut off wheel, and hacksaw. Sure am happy to have a purchased a plasma cutter to continue a project such as this. Flows right through.

Apologies for the sideways fire pic. I keep forgetting to stick the SD card in phone to take pictures on so that I can upload them via laptop. Anyway, the plasma hit some more expanding foam. A bunch of it. I let that shit char. Warped a little sheet metal, but nothing of concern.

Removed quite a bit of metal. Lots of stuff that I was dreading prior to owning the Hypertherm. Did a lot of weld wiping to remove panels and minimize the grinding task.

 

[JNHEscher]

A bit of progress. High wind and cold temps are here. Nice and calm inside the bus so I tinkered with preparing to tack in the rest of the new steel for the rear of the floor.

After welding some stainless on a friend's bus in Toas, NM., I was given the leftover stainless less 1.5,1.5 angle. That turned out to be just the right size to use for attachment of a few pieces. I think I'm just going to MIG it with ER70. Not too picky here.

The wife has the next three days (nights) off, so we're going to try ganging up on some demolition and fabrication. The last of the wall panels need to be removed so that I may weld in the floor frame tubing.

The paint and sealer used on these buses is some gnarly stuff. Wire wheels got it. Probably killing the bearings in my drills, though.

Edit: Added a pic. Got the last steel wall and polystyrene panels out. Took the grinder and diamond disc after the layers if sheet metal stacked around the upright and uncovered another rust hole. That paused the rear floor frame construction for the moment. Cleaned up and moved the plywood to get back to the battery tracks.

 

[JNHEscher]

Pulled out a USB cord that is allowing my phone to connect to my laptop again. Uploaded these pictures via USB. Last time I did that, the uploads were higher quality. We'll see as soon as I submit this post.

Today's weather was great, so I felt like suiting and booting up to go hard at it with the grinders. It's still a slow job because of how frequently I have to switch between tools and angles to cut through some fairly thick MIG welds.

Working my way down the sides of the curbside frame rail and test fitting a piece of 1.5 tubing left over from the water tank pit/expansion tank structure. I had the outer battery track tubes cut to 80" so that they extended from the rear face of the rearmost storage bay to the rear bulkeak for strength and a place for more sliders. I'm glad I did.

Seems that other MCI owners are not aware of how rusty these buses can get. They're just an oversized version of how cars and trucks are built - layers of sheet steel overlapped and stitch/spot welded to make a rigid structure - which subsequently harbors moisture in between the layers and eventually causes heavy oxidation. The pathways that I'm cutting to make way for the tubing is knocking out some rust holes and/or uncovering more rust that I can easily remove and replace while building the battery tracks.