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bus conversion

Toyota Coaster Motorhome Conversion – Floor Installation and Wheelchair Lift Dismantle

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There are some days that are just disappointing and our last day on our Toyota Coaster had us walking away with a frown. Not today, today would be great. We just knew it. Our goal was to dismantle our wheelchair lift and replace our damaged sub-floor.

The wheelchair access in our Toyota Coaster was at the rear of our bus, and opens like a ”clam shell’. It is not a standard lift however, and when discussing with people who install the wheel chair ramps, they stated it looked like it actually came off a Ford van or similar, and was made to fit the Coaster. 

As it was made to fit, it has been completely welded to the chassis. Of course we would pick one with something non-standard and difficult to remove. Either way, we decided to still give it a go, and remove what we could. 

Dismantling the wheelchair lift – 

Shane and Claire trying to dismantle and remove the wheelchair ramp in our Toyota Coaster bus conversion.

The easiest place to start was the hand rail, and fold out ramp. These were held in place by a few bolts and were easily removed. 

This now just left the main lift. There was a steel plate on the main lift area, and underneath it ran all of the electrics. The electrics looked like they were connecting each bit of the lift, and needed to be disconnected for us to be able to remove the pieces. So it made sense that we had to start by removing the steel plate.

A lot of the small screws in the steel plate were threaded so it took a fair amount of effort and frustration to try and undo them. Two of the screws were unable to be taken out and a grinder was required to cut the heads off. 

After all of the screws were removed, we were able to remove the steel plate. This allowed us to access the electrics underneath. 

Shane trying to use the grinder to dismantle and remove the wheelchair ramp in our Toyota Coaster bus conversion.

We were right. The wires ran under the metal plate and linked everything together. 

After reviewing the wires (and much to my disagreement!) Shane decided to cut the wires leading to the first piece of wheelchair lift he detached.

‘Check it’ he says. Of course I was not surprised to find it no longer worked. Shane had broken the electrical circuit and now we were stuck with the wheelchair lift down. This became priority number one now as without the electrics, there was no manual way that we were aware of to be able to close it again.

To fix this, Shane got some female insulated electrical blade terminals and a switch. He stripped the wires back, crimped the terminals on and connected them to the switch. 

For anyone out there like me who doesn’t understand that, he basically fixed the broken circuit by adding a new end and reattaching it to where he had cut it off from before. Kind of like cutting a circle, taking part of it away, and reattaching the ends to make a smaller circle.

So now the pieces of the lift had all been disconnected, and the electrical circuit was fixed, we were only left with the ‘clam shell’ doors. 

Replacing the Sub-Floor – 

If you haven’t read the previous post to this one, Shane and I had some damaged sub-floor at the rear of our Toyota Coaster motorhome. Water had leaked in via some damaged seals, and the back 30cm needed replacing. 

If you want to see how we removed the damaged sub-floor, you can read about it here. 

It was now time to replace the floor with some new wood. 

The original sub-floor we removed was 15mm thick. We wanted to replace this with marine plywood in case there were any future leaks. Unfortunately, we were unable to find 15mm marine ply to replace it. We decided to buy 6mm and 9mm marine ply which we would glue together to make the 15mm.

Photo of the new marine plywood cut and ready to be installed in our water damaged floor in our Toyota Coaster bus conversion.

So how did we do it?

  • Start by measuring the wood, and mark it up with a dark sharpie (or similar). 
  • Use some clamps, and secure the wood to a solid and stable spot ready for cutting. 
  • Use a jigsaw to cut along your marked lines. 
  • Make sure the wood fits into position, and adjust and cut as necessary. 
  • Once the wood is ready, remove it from position and spray the metal floor of the bus with some sort of Rustguard and allow to dry. 
  • Apply a layer of liquid nails to the metal of the floor, ready for the new wood to sit on top. 
  • Lay down the first layer of wood, and then apply more liquid nails in between the layers, and place the second layer of wood into position. 
  • Place something heavy on top, and allow to sit until set. 

Shane replacing the floor in our Toyota Coaster bus which was water damaged.

The sun was setting and it was time to reflect on the day we had had. The day started well. Then after multiple trips to the shops and the issues with the electrics we were feeling quite certain it was going to be another day of disappointment.

But it wasn’t!

We fixed the wheelchair lift and removed what we could. We cut all the wood, and replaced the sub-floor. It was a day of teamwork with our wheelchair lift and sub-floor, and we got there.

It all went well, except our sunburn… that was another story!

Toyota Coaster Motorhome Conversion – Bus Heater Plugging, Sub-Floor Removal and More!

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So you have decided to do your own bus conversion, and you’ve gotten to the point where you are needing to do all those small miscellaneous jobs. It’s the things no one ever talks about and you should just ‘know’. But really, it never is that simple. And that’s what this post is for us; the small jobs we had to work out on our own for our Toyota Coaster, and now we can share them with you.  

Heater Plugging – 

Time to plug the heaters that we removed in the middle of the floor in our bus. If you haven’t already read it and need to, you can check out our post here where explain how to remove these heaters.  

Since we removed them, we have had a few people ask us how we went about plugging the heaters in our Toyota Coaster Motorhome Conversion. Well we can tell you it was a success. 

School bus conversion - heater plugging - Toyota Coaster conversion
  • Shane started by hopping underneath the bus and traced the heater hoses back towards the engine bay until he found where they clamped onto some metal pipes. 
  • Then, he cut the hoses approximately 10cm from this join and, using a bucket, let the coolant drain out until empty. 
  •  After this, he then plugged them with 19mm rubber plugs (purchased from Bunnings) and sealed the ends with hose clamps. 
School bus conversion - Heater Plugging - Toyota Coaster conversion

We have not had any issues with overheating or coolant leaks, so can confirm for us the heater plugging was a success.  

Sub-Floor Removal –    

Claire measuring the damaged sub floor - Toyota Coaster converison

If your sub-floor has any damage, it may be a good idea to replace it now during the conversion, rather than needing to deal with it later.  

Our standard Toyota Coaster sub floor was in quite good condition. However the rear 30cm or so had water damage from a leaking seal. So Shane and I both decided the most cost effective method would be to replace just the back 30cm with water damage. 

  • Start by removing any seals, and measuring the back portion you want to cut out. For us, this was 30cm across the rear.  
  • Remove anything that may prevent you from cutting the floor up.  

We had some wheelchair seating mounts which needed removing.  These are the mounts that were used to hold the seats in at the back of the bus; the seats that were removable to put a wheelchair in if necessary. These were a little tricky to remove; I used an allen key on top of the mount to hold it in place, while Shane unbolted a nut underneath the bus. WD40 was our best friend here. We used a lot of it to loosen the nuts and remove the 4 bolts off each mount. If we were not replacing our sub-floor, we would not have bothered to remove these mounts as they will be located under what will be our bed. However, we decided that considering we were replacing the subfloor, it would be easier to remove these now. Other we would need to cut and shape the new floor around them.  

  • It is time now to measure the depth of the wood. We measured our sub floor depth by taking multiple measurements at different levels and established it was around 15mm thick. Due to the water damage and age of the wood, one measurement could not be relied upon accurately.  
  • Now it was time to remove the wood. We set the circular saw to a depth of around 12mm. Close enough we should be able to pry the wood off; not too deep as to touch the metal of the bus underneath. We cut as much as we could with the circular saw, and used a crowbar, chisel, and anything else we could to scrape the remainder of the wood off.  

So this was our experience of removing our sub-floor. If you want to continue reading about our new sub-floor installation, check out our next post here.  

Shane replacing the damaged sub-floor - Toyota Coaster conversion

Seal Replacement – 

Claire - Toyota coaster conversion

Now that the damaged sub-floor was removed, we had to fix the leaking seals prior to laying the new floor.  

This part was easy; at the back of our bus we have a wheelchair access door. The seals were old, dry and cracked. It’s important to fix the issue otherwise you will continue to have problems later. 

We were able to purchase auto seals from our local hardware store. We purchased Goliath rubber seals. It was a simple task to cut the old cracked seal and push the new seal on in its place, ensuring a snug fit.  

Sub-floor Hole Sealing and Filling –   

Our Toyota Coaster motorhome sub-floor had a few holes – this was expected after the seat, heater, hand railings, and trim removal! 

Shane and Claire sealing the sub-floor - Toyota Coaster conversion

In NSW, it is a requirement that a vehicle not have any holes. So be able to get signed off by the engineer, we had to fill any visible holes. Not only this, but we want it to be completely waterproof.  

As this was a bus we are converting to a home, we decided to use a sealant suitable for wet areas (just in case there are ever any leaks!).  

After research, we decided on Selleys 100% Wet Area Silicone Sealant in white. Even though the sealant won’t be seen underneath the floor, we chose white in case we decided to use it for our bathroom.  

  • For the larger holes (particularly the ones from the heater plugs we removed earlier), we purchased a thin sheet of aluminium and tin snips, and cut some small rectangle pieces. 
  • Once these pieces of aluminium were ready, we placed a layer of silicone around each hole, and used it to adhere the aluminium in place.  
  • We also used the silicone to seal around the edges of all the subfloor, and joins in between.  
Claire using tin snips and filling holes in our Toyota Coaster conversion

So these are just a few of those jobs that no one ever talks about. Glad we can finally say they are done!  

Make sure you subscribe to hear more about our Toyota Coaster conversion, or watch us in action below ?  

 

Toyota Coaster Motorhome Conversion – Seat Removal

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Once you have chosen your vehicle for your motor home conversion, the first step for most people is to remove the seats and empty the bus. We were lucky that our Toyota Coaster seats were not too difficult to remove. However, we still wanted to provide some handy information for anyone needing some help. Unlucky for us, the day we decided to start our Toyota Coaster seat removal, was going to be over 45 degrees!

What are the rules with seats in a bus conversion? 

Something that can differ between each state in Australia, and definitely something to check before removing the seats; is the amounts of seats, with seat belts required per sleeping berth.

So for example. Shane and I will have a double bed, and our Toyota Coaster bus plan will be made to sleep just 2. This means we are able to remove all but 2 seats. If we were to have enough bedding to sleep 4, we would need to have enough seating with seat belts to match. You cannot have less seats than sleeping berths.

You may be able to move seats by using the current anchorage points.  Possibly even change the position of the seats, build your own, or have additional seat belts added. Either way, it is best to chat to an engineer in your state first to make sure what you are doing will be legal and able to be registered as a motor home once complete. It would be so sad to go to all that effort to not be able to register it!

If you are looking for more information for NSW standards to convert a vehicle to a motorhome, have a read of this RMS link. We have constantly referred back to this link while we have been building our home.

Photo of all the seats that have been removed from our Toyota Coaster bus conversion. Toyota Coaster seat removal.

What tools do you need? 

In our Toyota Coaster bus, we had 5 sets of double seats to remove, 4 single seats, 2 single wheelchair removable seats, and 2 double sets of wheel chair seats.

We started with the standard double seats and the single seats. It was very simple. For most seats, there were 2 bolts in the floor, and 2 bolts in the wall. Each used a 13mm socket to be removed. It only took around an hour in total to remove these seats.

Our Toyota Coaster bus has a wheelchair access and lift at the back of the bus. So the back 2 rows of seats were made to remove easily. We found this out way too late. I won’t tell you how we did it, and will give you the right information instead!

Underneath each seat, there is a lever. Once this is pushed, it undoes the latches which hold the seats in place. This then allows the seats to be removed, and just leaves the mount on the ground.

These mounts of our Toyota Coaster seats are the difficult part to remove.

Each one is bolted with 4 allen key bolts into the ground, and requires a nut to be undone underneath the bus. The easiest way was to start with WD40 to provide some lubrication to the bolts and the nuts underneath. After this, an allen key was held on to the bolts on top, whilst the nut was loosened underneath the bus just enough so we could remove the bolts from the top.

It was not easy. However, we were lucky. Most of these are in the place where our bed is going to located, so we did not need to remove the majority.

For a lot of people, removing the seats can take a long time and be extremely frustrating. From our research, a lot of people need to individually grind out each seat from in the bus, but also underneath.

Considering how long we thought it would take, it wasn’t as bad as expected and the seats were removed. Our next step is to remove the roof, walls and floor in our Toyota Coaster school bus.

Check out all our mistakes from our first day of our bus renovation below –

Now read on to see the fun we got up to next with our school bus conversion heater, floor, roof and wall removal, and how we can help you!

*Literally the only tool required!