Pullin up floors!

So, as soon as we got those seats out of the bus and the vinyl floors up, we knew that the plywood floorboards all need to be replaced.  The first step in that process was to get all of that wet, rotten wood OUT OF THERE!  All of work day 3 was spent doing just that, and believe me, it was no easy task!  Very physical work.  We started by removing screws both with a regular screw driver and a battery drill.  Even pulled out the angle-grinder to try and cut through the more stubborn ones, but quickly realized that it wasn't cutting through the wet wood, so we had to pull the wood over them.  With both of us using pry bars, and A LOT of elbow grease, we finally got it all cleared out.  Just in time to clean up & get home for the Super Bowl!

Robbie using pry bar and 2 lb sledge hammer

Work Day 4:  We decided that before we could go any farther, we needed to remove the floor heater in the back of the bus.  This also meant re-routing the radiator hoses (we will later run new ones UNDER the bus from the rear-engine to the front heater).  This job turned out to be WAAAAY messier than I anticipated.  Robbie was prepared and much less freaked out by the bright green Antifreeze gushing out onto the floors.

At top of pic, notice a very hard to reach set of hoses to be disconnected...

Which equals lots of running Antifreeze...

Loop #1 complete..

Pretty sure we're gonna have some Ninja Turtles waiting for us when we return

Floor heater in the back of the bus...

…got to go!

Loop #2 in the rear of the bus

Hoses came up through the floor...

…through these large holes..

Robbie hammered them closed

Finally, with all of that cleared out and cleaned up (including all of the garbage and wood that was stuck under the heater), we were able to get back to the floor.  The metal is pretty rusty, but there aren't any weak spots or holes, so we're really happy about that.

The rest of the day was spent with Robbie on the angle-grinder, taking down the rest of those stubborn screws that were not coming out of the floor, and I on a second angle-grinder with a wire wheel, clearing the rust out.  Definitely reminiscent of my rust-busting days as a Deck Seaman in the Navy.

His sweat was STEAMING off of him during this task

Sailor Brandi busting that rust

So ends work days 3 and 4.  Next weekend, we will finish "busting" the rust and start treating the metal with a coating of Ospho (a chemical that causes a reaction to stop any remaining rust).  There are a couple of spots that seem to be letting water in, we are going to try to find and fix those.. We will also caulk everything that needs caulking.. We'll see what we actually get done!