Converting a school bus into a 4wd camper? | 4WDTalk - Overlanding and offroad Forum
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Converting a school bus into a 4wd camper?

Travis Craig

Travis Craig

Well-known member
I was thinking today about what I think would be a fun project - converting a school bus into a camper. On the way home today, I saw someone selling a bus for $8000! Diesel motor and only has 44,000 miles on it. Now I don't know @#$# about a bus, but this might be a fun project?

Can you even convert something this large to 4wd?
 
If I had the space, I would love a project like this. I've seen some pretty amazing bus to camper/rv conversions. I don't know about the 4wd conversions though, that might be pricey. Even for normal vans, that's $$$$$, I can hardly imagine what it might be for something like this.
 
I've seen a couple of 4wd bus conversions. A few companies offer 4wd as an option also. If its a pusher engine, I don't think it can be converted. Most buses were front engine. Your looking at a medium duty drive train. Figure a 5500 or a 6500 chassis. You could go smaller but the cost and work will be the same either way so, may as well properly size everything.

Down the street from one of my friends, I watched a guy build a short bus, 4wd build. Body off frame, complete overhaul. It looked like he was setting up the inside as a motor home then...poof, it was gone. I never spoke to or actually saw anyone work on it, I just saw progress. It looked real cool. I would have loved to owned it.

Embarking on a project like this can be expensive. One of the things right off the bat, isn't the low mileage but how old, how long has it sat and what maintenance was done.
When I was at the shop, we worked with motor homes. people would bring in real low mileage, 20 year old motorhomes. The original owner was either too old to drive it or couldn't afford to drive it. Because it sat and was maybe started and idled once a month, the oil would form acids and the seals would dry out. We would see 10k mileage vehicle's needing major engine/trans/differential work.

After all that, I still like them.
 
I'm amazed at what some of those people did with the limited space in those buses. If diesel wasn't so expensive, I would love to get one of these buses for a fun project.
 
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