The Lot

There were about five busses to choose from when we arrived at the lot. We walked through each of them looking for “crunchy” spots under our feet indicating rust damage, leaks underneath, overly worn down tires, broken windows, missing trim pieces, etc..

Keep in mind if you’re looking at busses for your own conversion that size DOES matter! Some national parks have limits on the length of your vehicle if your’e looking to stay in a campground. Also, families differ drastically so while a shorty school bus might work for someone, it would not work for us. Two dogs, two kids….just no way. We didn’t want to compromise and not have a full bathroom in our bus so we chose a 35ft “dog-nose'“ style bus.

Maintenance History

The busses that were available had recently been removed from work in the local school district carrying kids to and from school. In order to be used in the school district’s circulation the busses have to pass inspection by the state two times a year, and once a year by the county so we felt some level of assurance in these busses.

International DT466E 3800 Engine on a 2002 Bluebird Chassis

From the research we conducted it seems like most skoolie folk recommend certain engines as they can cost an arm and a leg to repair. The DT466 engine was not one of those. Apparently with regular maintenance its not uncommon for these engines to last well over one million miles. Paired with the also highly recommended Allison transmission the combo suited us just fine. If we were going to put effort into building a skoolie we didn’t want to worry about the reliability of the bus itself.

Impulsivity Inc. Family

As you may have noticed there are two busses in a few pictures. The other one belongs to some of our family @ Impulsivity Inc. They’ve since taken their bus to New Mexico to finish the conversion.