This job was hard and messy. It took a lot of elbow grease to get it done and in the end it was a car jack that saved the day.
Removing the Seats
The first thing that we did was remove the seats. We were luck enough to only have two of the original seats left in the bus. Someone else had already done most of that work for us.
We found the most useful tool for removing the seats was a long hollow pipe (or in our case, motorcycle handle bars). We used it over the ratchet handle for better torque. By doing this we managed to undo every bolt that held the seats in place.
Many of the bolts were so old and rusted that we snapped the heads right off them.
Removing the Trim, Rubber, and Plywood Subfloor
First, all the metal trim around the exterior of the floor and down the walk-way needed to be removed.
Then, it was time for the rubber flooring and the plywood subfloor to be removed.
This is where it got fun.
There is something about utter destruction that is just so appealing!
The rubber subfloor was fairly easy to peel off and came up in big chunks and strips.
The plywood subfloor was a little more challenging. There were a ton of nails holding it down to the metal floor and so many screws that had been left behind because their heads had
been popped off. It was near impossible to pry the plywood up.
Until I introduced the car jack. After that it was only a matter of lifting the plywood by a couple inches, sliding the jack underneath and spinning the handle.
It only took a couple days to remove the subfloor by myself.
This step was so crucial in our bus build and I'm so glad we did it. We discovered that while our metal floor did have a lot of rust, we didn't have any holes. (Except for one spot on our middle entry stair.) With the old subfloor removed we were able to treat the rust and guaranteed the future of our floor and the foundation for our new home.
Removing the Heater
Our bus had a heater that ran along the driver's side to the back. To remove the subfloor this heater needed to come out.
First, we removed all of the metal housing that was protecting the tubing running to the heater.
Then, we unbolted the heater from the floor and pulled it outside.
The heater was full of coolant and we didn't want to make a mess inside the bus when we took it apart. Very carefully, we took the hose off the heater and had a catch bucket ready to catch any coolant that might come out. And it was a good thing we did, because there was A LOT of coolant in that heater.
Once the heater was out of the bus, separated from the hoses and emptied, we drained whatever coolant was left in the tubes and removed those too. The tubes ran from a heater beside the driver seat at the front of the bus, to the heater at back and then back to the heater at the front. We ended up shortening the hoses and attached them directly to each other.
Later, we shortened them even further so they fit inside the front heater housing.
