My new life as a hobo

[jalopi]

Just kidding. OK OK, half kidding. lol

So for the longest time, I've wanted to convert a school bus or an old box truck into a camper/support vehicle for drift days. In the past, all I had access to was a 2.3 Ranger and that truck would barely get out of its own way, let alone tow the racecar behind it. Now that I've started up my own business, I really need to start hitting up events other than Drift Nirvana to promote myself, though the next closest event to me is Club Loose (300 mile round trip) and driving there/back in the BMW is out of the question. Not just from a comfort standpoint, but if I wreck/break I don't wanna get hit with a humongous tow bill just to get back home

I'm sure some of you have had similar ideas, but haven't been sure about which path to go down. I personally decided to use an old uhaul, here is a pro/con list I've thought of when comparing them to school buses


PROS:

-Most uhauls run on gas. Some may consider that a con, but gas can always be found at stations, which can't be said of diesel. Gas engines aren't tough to start in cold weather either

-The ramp that comes with every uhaul is gangster as hell. Makes loading/unloading the truck super easy. I really have no idea how I'd easily get stuff in and out of a school bus. I suppose a ramp could be made to go behind the rear emergency door, but there's no simple solution to storing it. Also, I don't have time for that kind of fab work

-IMO the uhauls/box trucks give you more usable space. I mean... it's a literal box on a truck frame. The interior width/height is 7.75'x8'. School buses are more like 6-7' wide on the inside and have a 6ish foot ceiling... at the middle of the ceiling. I measured my box to have a volume of about 1372 cubic feet. Assuming a school bus had a square interior, since I have no idea what their ceiling arc is, the largest front-engined bus you can typically find would have about 1365 cubic feet of interior space (7'x6.5'x30'). Which initially sounds like the school bus wins the usable space contest, but when you account for a 2'x6' pathway to get from the front to the back of the vehicle, you remove 252cu.ft from the uhaul and 360cu.ft from the bus. The uhaul comes out on top with a marginal victory... if you ignore the arc of the ceiling on the school bus

-Better gearing for highway driving. My truck has a 4.33(?) rear gear, where as many buses (from what I hear) have gearing in the 5.X range

-No need to remove and dispose of eleventy million seats and windows during the conversion. I like natural light, but privacy is nice too


CONS:

-Most uhauls run on gas. I won't deny that diesels, especially the DT466 that most buses come with, are typically tougher and will last longer than a gas engine. They've got more torque and better fuel economy too. Though I guess I'd hate to have to replace a set of fuel injectors on a diesel

-Most uhauls were beat to shit by the people renting them. Uhaul also doesn't maintain their fleet like school districts typically do, at least if they [schools] don't wanna get sued anyway

-School buses give many people a sense of nostalgia. I imagine uhaul trucks give most people a feeling of revulsion. This might be problematic when trying to leave this thing parked anywhere that isn't my house



Anyway, here's the truck I bought - it's a 24 footer with 193k miles on a Chevy 454/7.4L v8






I didn't realize quite how big it was until I put it in my driveway - my Ranger is dwarfed in comparison. I installed my license plates, adjusted the power steering belt (it was squeaking) and then went off to drop it off at my shop in Baltimore City. As soon as I got on the highway, the brake booster completely gave out on me. Turns out the power steering belt I adjusted was a bit rotten, as when I went to check on it, the belt was completely gone.



This is why I hate hydroboost



But at least there's a little motor on the bottom of the booster that gives you SOME brake assist until it overheats and stops working




That was later in the day though, hopefully one of the local part stores has a v-belt that'll work for me in stock

[protomor]

I'm interested in how easy it will be to get parts for it. I thought you needed a license to drive those things. You putting the car IN the truck or pulling a trailer behind?

[tptrsn]

That's a badass rig -- I'm impressed!

Actually not hobo at all, which is a bit of a disappointment since I like hobo-ish junkers haha.

[JesterMX6]

freaking subscribed.

[jalopi]

Remove the box and change the paint scheme, this truck will look way more familiar. The chassis was used to make dump trucks, car haulers, tow trucks, buses, ect from 1990 to 2002; so I'm assuming parts availability should be decent enough. The broken v-belt, for instance, cost me $5 from advance

However, I threw the belt again within a few miles of driving yesterday. Upon closer inspection, it looks like I may have bent the power steering bracket while initially adjusting it, as the pulley is clearly off kilter when compared to the crank pulley. Guess I shouldn't have adjusted the belt tension with a two foot breaker bar :P

I've got another belt coming from rockauto, which should be here on Wednesday. Fortunately, the belt is EZ to access and replace, and the bracket should be easy to "correct" with a three foot pry bar

[beat328i]

I fully support this idea. It would be super slick if you could put your car in the truck too.

I plan on doing something similar but on a smaller scale. In a quick scan of Craigslist in my area, I can find a handful of Ford E350's w/ the 7.3L diesel for ~1000 bucks. You could definitely convert that into a camper/ tool hauler that can pull a trailer/car with ease. And should theoretically have the same ease of finding parts.

So right on man! I look forward to seeing what you do with this thing.

[MikeE36]

Copycat! Jk, nice pickup! Our box truck has been extremely useful for events so far. Enough room to fit 100-200 tires, all our tools, 55gallon drum of fuel, jacks, jack stands, tents, chairs, you name it. So much better locking all that up at night than having it laying out open in a truck bed.



Mike

[jalopi]

Dope van, Mike! Is that an old Isusu truck? I thought about getting one of those, but we have too many mountains in the northeast to tow with the four cylinder those come with

So who drives that rig? Do they have a commercial drivers' license? Is one even needed? I'm currently under the impression that in order to decorate my rig with business livery, I'd need a commercial drivers' license. Or can you simply get away with putting "Not For Hire" somewhere on the rig? Maybe the laws are different down south? I dunno

Even if laws weren't an issue, as much as I'd like to run around advertising myself, I think a liveried vehicle will be more difficult to park for long periods of time in the same spot without anyone complaining. So here's the paint scheme that I plan on shamelessly copying

[JesterMX6]

i vote for this:

[audioscience10]

Not really a track rig but here is the bus that I am building a tiny house out of. It will tow an enclosed trailer with my garage/ car in it.

[MikeE36]

Dope van, Mike! Is that an old Isusu truck? I thought about getting one of those, but we have too many mountains in the northeast to tow with the four cylinder those come with

So who drives that rig? Do they have a commercial drivers' license? Is one even needed? I'm currently under the impression that in order to decorate my rig with business livery, I'd need a commercial drivers' license. Or can you simply get away with putting "Not For Hire" somewhere on the rig? Maybe the laws are different down south? I dunno

Even if laws weren't an issue, as much as I'd like to run around advertising myself, I think a liveried vehicle will be more difficult to park for long periods of time in the same spot without anyone complaining. So here's the paint scheme that I plan on shamelessly copying

Thanks! It's an old Mitsubishi Fuso, turbo 4 cylinder diesel. It definitely isn't good for towing, especially up mountains. It is extremely good for hauling all our crap in, however. We use a dodge 3500 5.9 to tow the new big trailer with the cars on it, and all the wheels/tools/fuel goes in the box truck locked up.

I drive the box truck, and my dad drives the Dodge towing the car trailer. If you're over 26k GVWR and the vehicle is owned by a business and you are running a business out of it, making money out of the vehicle, etc., then you need a CDL since it is a commercial vehicle. If it is a private vehicle and you are just using it to run your car to drift events, you do not need a CDL. It is somewhat of a gray area, but it can fall under the category of a motorhome or other large private vehicle like that. We are just driving the box truck, and the other truck to events to go have fun. Our sponsors are on the sides of the truck All privately registered/owned.

I'll let you know if I get a fat ticket at some point!

Mike

[audioscience10]

Thanks! It's an old Mitsubishi Fuso, turbo 4 cylinder diesel. It definitely isn't good for towing, especially up mountains. It is extremely good for hauling all our crap in, however. We use a dodge 3500 5.9 to tow the new big trailer with the cars on it, and all the wheels/tools/fuel goes in the box truck locked up.

I drive the box truck, and my dad drives the Dodge towing the car trailer. If you're over 26k GVWR and the vehicle is owned by a business and you are running a business out of it, making money out of the vehicle, etc., then you need a CDL since it is a commercial vehicle. If it is a private vehicle and you are just using it to run your car to drift events, you do not need a CDL. It is somewhat of a gray area, but it can fall under the category of a motorhome or other large private vehicle like that. We are just driving the box truck, and the other truck to events to go have fun. Our sponsors are on the sides of the truck All privately registered/owned.

I'll let you know if I get a fat ticket at some point!

Mike

I know laws differ state to state but MI is like this. There is something about even if its personal you still need a CDL if it has air brakes, but hydraulic you don't.

[jalopi]

As much as I'd love an Archer paint scheme, I'd really like to be able to leave this thing in one spot for more than a few days before people get tired of seeing it and decide to call the cops (technically, you can't leave a vehicle parked in the same spot on a public street for more than a day or two in Baltimore County) I think a standard-looking RV paint scheme will work best at preventing that from happening

And holy crap, that's one hell of a roof raise! What's the overall rig height gonna be?


So as it turns out, I didn't bend the power steering bracket. Using a straight edge and a caliper, I found that the crank pulley was offset to the power steering pulley by almost 3/8". I guess Uhaul did some sort of work to the accessory drive on this thing and either put the wrong power steering pump/bracket on the truck, or they took the crank pulley off for some reason and never reinstalled the pulley spacer. For clarification, the power steering pump is driven by a v-belt and has its own pulley on the crankshaft

Searching for a pulley spacer netted me zero results online, so I decided to just make one myself





I went for a 15 minute local test drive... and it didn't throw the belt! I say this with excitement because it looks like the power steering pulley is gonna have to be replaced too, it's got a bit of runout

Now confident that I wasn't gonna chuck the PS belt and lose my brakes in traffic, I proceeded to drive the truck down to my shop in Baltimore City. Forgot to snap pics in the parking lot (nice view of the harbor), did my work for the day and decided to go fill 'er up for the first time, as I was only about 3/8 full. so I pull up to the gas station



and it was almost as if I could feel my truck telling me




This was my first time filling such a big truck up. I kept telling myself that it would eventually stop filling. It eventually did, just not at the number I was hoping for




Turns out, according to google, these trucks have 50 gallon fuel tanks. I am not looking forward to gas hitting $4 again

[autowa]

The worst part is Your only gonna get like 250-300 miles to that tank if your Luckey.