Removing the Angled Panels and the Wiring Therein

Skoolie School II

Hello again! It's obvious, if you look at the archive bar, how little I really keep up with this blog. It's also obvious, if you've read the few posts I have so far, that our bus's construction is much farther progressed than what I'd documented in the one and only Skoolie School post.

So in an effort to devote more time to the blog (because I have so much to talk about!), here I am, devoting more time and effort. Haha! Anyway...

Removing the Angled Panels

So there are lots, and lots, and lots of these square-head screws holding the bus together (figure 1). Once again, you'll be using a power drill with a square bit (fig. 2) to remove them. 

figure 1

fig. 2 *

Now, don't get all crazy and remove all the screws. The ceiling would fall down on your head, and that would not be good. No, you must reverse engineer your bus. To begin, we're only removing the screws in the angled pieces that run above the window for the length of the bus (fig. 1). Go ahead and remove all the screws on all the angled pieces while you're at it (fig. 3). It's not a bad idea to hang onto these screws, just in case. You never know...

fig. 3

You may have noticed, while studying these images, that the angled panels overlap one another. Remove only the first panel on either side of the bus (fig. 4), the panel that's closest to the rear exit.

fig. 4

Now that the panel is removed, you can see where the wires for the rear lights are connected (fig. 5). Notice the big, white plugs? Those plugs connect bundles of wire from the rear lights to bundles of wire from the front of the bus. Don't unplug these just yet!

fig. 5

We're going to label these wires so, should we need to in the future, we can plug these back together without the guesswork. Observe (fig. 6) below. Each one of these plugs connected to a wire - or bundle of wires - with a matching plug. Before you unplug them, make a duct tape tag for each side of each plug, and code them with matching numbers, symbols, whatever. Then you can match them easily, if need be.

fig. 6 *

So it would be nice if that was that...but it's not. Along the sides are a bunch of speakers and emergency lights (of which I don't have a proper picture). Take your trusty drill and square bit, and remove all the screws. Go ahead and let them dangle down (fig. 7).

fig. 7

Now go back and unplug them all (fig. 8). Don't worry about labeling these wires, unless you're planning on wiring them into your skoolie, which we are not.

fig. 8

Once you're done, you should be able to remove the angled panels one by one, moving from the back of the bus towards the front, since that's how they overlap (fig. 9).

fig. 9

We are not keeping these, since we're going to do a more finished, home-y ceiling inside, and these have a rather institutional look to them. Off to the scrap yard with 'em, and the money will go back towards the bus later (fig. 10).

fig. 10

With the panels down, you'll be able to see that the plastic wire conduit is being held up by little clip thingies. Un-clip the clip thingies (fig. 11. This is the technical terminology. Hope you can keep up).

fig. 11

Nate coiled all this conduit up and set it at the front of the bus (figs. 12 & 13), and there it remains. We're still hesitant to mess with the pneumatic mechanics above the door, so he bundled up the wires just on the side of it. We'll deal with all that business inside the door later.

fig. 12

fig. 13

So that's that for now. We are quite farther than this, but documenting every little thing that is being done is harder than it seems. There's lots of things to go into, and a few I forgot out of order. So next Skoolie School, I will probably actually move backward, since I forgot to document the business with removing the flashing light from the top of the bus, deactivating the emergency buzzer at the rear door, and getting the bus up on jack stands. We'll get there eventually...

* Photo by Aubri Porter, aubriporter.com