Finishing the sub-floor

I finished the sub floor. That is I finished laying in the plywood. I still want to seal the plywood with paint or Thompson's water seal. I will also silicone the joints and foam the areas on the sides.

My next big thing will be to skin seven windows on each side. I am trying to find a place to get inexpensive sheet metal. After that I will be able to start framing walls.

I had not painted this area like I had the rear, so I painted it before I put the plywood down. I did not put insulation under the plywood here because the area would have been higher than the area under the driver and I want any water that may be tracked in to go towards the door.

The area along the edge I will foam insulate.

Till next time....

Been a Long Time, Been a Long Time, Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely time....

Well I have not had the chance to work on DDH in a while. Finally got the time to do something with it. I thought I would have had the floor down the first day I started working on it, but as you can see from previous post, I had to remove seats, strip up the rubber (no plywood underlay), and prep, rust prevent, and paint the floor.

Following are pics of me putting down the sub-floor. It took me about 5 hours working by myself to get as far as I did, and I guess its old age but when I was done, I felt as if someone had beat me with a baseball bat. It took me one beer and a tall glass of Jack and Coke to make me feel better, oh yeah and two extra strength Tylenol.  

Here is my truck loaded up for the days work.

I had thought that using a razor knife would be the best way to cut the panel, but found that it did not work out too well, so I just used my pocket knife.

I don't know how or why but every time I measured and cut for the wheel wells It seemed on the far side (the side closes to the front of the bus) I was off by about one inch. And yes I measured twice and cut once.

First piece of plywood. I used 1and 7/8 inch sheet rock to metal stud self tapping screws to secure the sub-floor to the bus. I was prepared to pre-drill but found that the screws worked fine, with only a few breaking. There were a few times I had to screw into a different location because the screw would not go through the metal floor. 

Insulation vertical and plywood horizontal, to prevent seems from matching up. I also taped the seams. I'll go back and foam insulate any gaps. around the edges.

It took me 5 hours to get this far working by myself, 6 including clean up. As you can see I am keeping the old heater. I don't want to remove it because I will not have heat or defrost for the front when driving. I will figure out a way to integrate it into my floor plan. I will build a chase around the hoses in case I have to repair them, as well as use it for other wires or hoses.

Well that is for now. I hope I can finish out the sub-floor soon and start building out the interior. I have a contact with someone that can get me sheet metal, so I may be skinning the windows next.

Till next time....