| Author | Message | ||
| JW Smythe (Jwsmythe)
Rating: N/A |
Fun with photoshop... (GIMP, actually). I was curious to how it would look if I raised the roof of an RTS about 1 foot. Single result image: http://illusions.gen.fl.us/bus/raised_rts.jpg Animated gif, showing before and after: http://illusions.gen.fl.us/bus/raised_rts.gif There's no harm in doing drawings. The point of no return comes if I actually start cutting up a bus.  | ||
| David Hartley (Drdave)
Rating: N/A |
Oh..No.. Please don't give me any ideas.. I figured out how to do it a long time ago. Just one problem.. I couldn't tackle the project all by myself. Health just won't hold up and I have more than enough to do on my MCI. Notice that I said "one" problem.. I already have the RTS.. Just trying to get the repower job done that I have been fussing with for 3 years. Just can't seem to get around to hooking up the wires and hoses and bolting the last parts into place.... I figured a 12 inch raise, no roof airs and 27 inch tall bays. Besides I am broke anyway... But I do have a plasma cutter.... | ||
| Gary Stadler (Boogiethecat)
Rating: N/A |
That's how you get hooked on a raise! I do/ did just the same... I did my Crown without a plasma cutter. Bluebird is next and I DO have a plasma cutter now... its gonna be FUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN | ||
| john w. roan (Chessie4905)
Rating: N/A |
Looks good, although another foot might look better, at least to me. | ||
| David Hartley (Drdave)
Rating: N/A |
My biggest challenge each day is worrying when the lithium battery in my pacemaker is gonna crap out. Actually it's an Internal Defribrillator and luckily has not fired YET !!!! I have graduated to "Old Crippled Farts" mode and have those pretty blue mirror hanging things with that funky odd wheelchair symbol on them. Yeah.. I need to raise a roof....NOT !!!! So I sit here and Raise H*LL with you guys.. | ||
| JW Smythe (Jwsmythe)
Rating: N/A |
David, There's an old saying.... "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." If you're in "old crippled farts" mode, you get to sit back and teach us youngin's what you know. I think I still have a good 40 years of doin' ahead of me (as I sit here drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette). | ||
| Pat Bartlett (Muddog16)
Rating: N/A |
I used a 4" grinder with cutting wheels to do all of my cutting when I raised the roof. I have a plasma cutter and use it all the time I hope you have a steady hand or use a guide jig when you cut with one. Yes I always use a shield when cutting. I've had cutting wheels explode on me before from being careless and in a hurry. When those babies come apart its like being hit with a baseball bat, and they leave nasty looking bruises, so if you use one becareful! I'm not sure when the "old farts mode starts but I think I'm getting pretty darn close" | ||
| Pat Bartlett (Muddog16)
Rating: N/A |
While I was typing the last post your pictures where loading (dialup), that really looks good and gives the RTS a completely new look its impressive! When we raised my roof we cut below the front window and raised it also, so there was one roof line, we also had to raise the floor around the driver but that wasn't to difficult! Pat http://prevostlemirage.blogspot.com/ | ||
| Richard Bowyer (Drivingmisslazy)
Rating: N/A |
In my opinion the dis-advantage of a roof raise like this is that no one can sit in a chair or couch and see anything outside except for the trees and sky. My wife was very unhappy that it was so difficult to see the surrounding area without sitting on a big pillow. Think about it before you make that first cut and whether to make it above the windows or below. Richard Another old fart. | ||
| JW Smythe (Jwsmythe)
Rating: N/A |
Richard, Good point. I hadn't really thought of that. I'd be preserving the front view by not screwing with the floor height, but didn't think about the seated viewing from inside. I'll take that onto consideration if/when I do it. My girlfriend wanted the curve of the window to be pushed higher, which I agreed with. It doesn't do us much good if we destroy the view in the process. | ||
| Richard Bowyer (Drivingmisslazy)
Rating: N/A |
Yep, it sure isn't any fun sitting in your coach sipping a cool one and watching the birds overhead. Richard | ||
| CRANE Rating: N/A |
----In my opinion the dis-advantage of a roof raise like this is that no one can sit in a chair or couch and see anything outside except for the trees and sky.---- Well, that depends on if you actually raise the windows with the roof! The windows can remain stationary or you could add a piece of window above the original window space to help fill in the hole from the roof raise. I am a short fellow so it does not matter if the roof is not raised, the 6'6 for me is purrrrrfect. No expensive roof raise in my future, besides, all the wiring in the RTS goes through the roof, FORGET THAT! My way is the KISS way and that means keep with the manual with few changes. that way you have doumentation of what you are driving. interesting thought, but the pic of the raise just does not do the looks of the bus justice. It was designed for the low look and the raise actually messes it up. Well, to each their own Crane | ||
| Geoff (Geoff)
Rating: N/A |
There is no reason to raise the roof on an RTS-- you already have 6'11" of ceiling height. On my RTS I raised the floor with insulation and another layer of 3/4" T&G, then created a flat, insulated ceiling with ducted roof air and still have 6'5" of headroom. Also, raising the roof, or the bus for that matter, throws off the wonderful low center of gravity that makes the RTS the great cornering and handling bus that it is. | ||
| Richard Bowyer (Drivingmisslazy)
Rating: N/A |
snip "Well, that depends on if you actually raise the windows with the roof!" If you look at the illustration he provided it is readily apparent that the raise included raising the windows also. http://illusions.gen.fl.us/bus/raised_rts.gif Richard | ||
| chris 85 RTS
Rating: N/A |
The side of the RTS is a constant curve. Raising the roof would require adding a flat section or sectioning the roof to narrow it up to keep the curve. The RTS shape is one of it's selling points. The raised roof RTS looks like an older GMC highway bus. Are you planning on raising the floor to make the bays bigger, or are you 7' tall, I don't quite get it. | ||
| JW Smythe (Jwsmythe)
Rating: N/A |
> The side of the RTS is a constant curve. Raising > the roof would require adding a flat section or > sectioning the roof to narrow it up to keep the > curve. The RTS shape is one of it's selling > points. The raised roof RTS looks like an older > GMC highway bus. Are you planning on raising the > floor to make the bays bigger, or are you 7' tall, > I don't quite get it. I thought I wrote about the curve on this thread. Maybe it was in a private email. I just didn't illustrate it, because I only spent a few minutes doing that picture. It was a quick "what if". If it was cut immediately under the windows, and moved straight up there. The curve would leave a tapered gap, which could be filled with a thin window. It wouldn't make much of a view, but would add more light, or at least look kinda nice. The reason I was considering it is this.. I have a DLP projector TV. It has a 5" tall projector in the back of the room, and the screen when retracted is about 4" tall. I planned on putting the screen behind the drivers seat. I'm not one for giving up creature comforts, especially a movie theater at home. The problem is, everything we try to put high brings the ceiling height down a little bit more. Other thoughts were for taller cabinets, less curve at eye level, etc, etc... It all goes back to the question, why would someone do something. Why would you convert a bus when you could buy an RV? Why would you live in an RV when you could live in a house/condo/apartment/hotel/hostel/tent/box? Why do more expensive houses have 12', 14' or 20' ceilings, while "normal" houses have 7' to 8' ceilings? The $700,000 house I'm renting now has 8' ceilings in most rooms, and 7'5" in the kitchen, bathrooms and one hallway. Ya, welcome to LA. I still ask why soccer moms drive Escalades and Navigators, when it's only ever them and one kid, and maybe one grocery bag with tofu and soy milk. "technically", I'd be fine with a bus with a 5'9" ceiling, but it'd feel better if it was a little higher. My girlfriend and I talked about putting the bed up a bit higher than normal, to give a bit more under-bed storage. Then I brought up "what about sex?" Someone's going to get hurt, and not in a good way. We're doing a lot of brainstorming. It's better to do it all now, and figure out what we want, rather than doing it after we've done most of the conversion. | ||
| CRANE Rating: N/A |
I had considerd a projector type tv for entertainment. NIX on that for bulb cost and hard to get. How big of a screen are you thinking about?? What if you pulled the screen from the side wall out instead of from the ceiling. the projector can hang on a wall, no ceiling height loss. I think a nice LCD tv would do the job quite well and can fold away into the wall or slip down below the table top. Raising the bed would be fine for more storage but sex might bring a whole new meaning to "Rock'n Roll". Geting hurt from the bed????? How, ya gonna fall off???? LOLOLOLOLOL Crane | ||
| Mike (Busone)
Rating: N/A |
Yeah that high bed sounds dangerous. You don't want to hit your other head . | ||
| JW Smythe (Jwsmythe)
Rating: N/A |
I already have the DLP projector, and I *LOVE* it. Originally, I was projecting it at a white wall, with ... Aw crap, just look. http://diary.illusions.gen.fl.us/03.28.2005.Big_TV/ I've moved every year for the last 5 years, usually for work related reasons. That's last years house. The new house has a fireplace where the screen needs to be, so I got a 7' wide 16:9 aspect silver screen. It shows *MUCH* better in light situations. Ok, so we can't watch 8' tall movies, but in the smaller room, that was unreasonable. The couch moved from 16' feet from the screen, to just 12'. The bus will move that to 10' (more or less). We're still working on layout. I'm waiting to purchase the bus (hopefully this week), and then we can take final measurements, and finalize the plans. My whole theater setup would be about $3k to replace. I've bought everything on sale, and have waited to find just the right stuff, which has worked out pretty well. If a unit becomes obsolete or breaks, I buy a newer better one. For example, my stereo receiver started acting funny. Quite a bit of research finally told me it was because we were receiving encoding that the receiver didn't understand. I have a Sony STR-DE985, which I'll need to upgrade eventually when HDMI, DMI, or whatever becomes available on everything I want to use. Right now, I'm hooked up with component video and optical digital audio. The only exception is the broken PS/2, that was hooked up to SVideo. It died, so I'm waiting for the PS/3 to come out. I'm not much of a gamer, but somehow kids always end up at my house, and want to play games on the big screen. The only difference between a movie theater and my home theater is that I can pause movies or TV to take a leak, and I don't see that damned 24fps flicker. Oh ya, and there's no one to charge me admission. The bulbs aren't that expensive. I believe mine is $200. I've been using it almost constantly for over a year and a half now, and the estimated bulb life isn't 2/3 gone yet. We just have to be careful to shut it off at night, or else we're wasting the bulb life on a screen that no one is looking at. At the rate that the projectors are improving, by the time the bulb goes, I'll probably replace it, sell it, and then buy a newer projector. The current screen is 7' wide, and pulls from above. I don't know that it's strong enough to suspend from one end to allow it to swing, but it's something to consider. We're going to sell our other TV's and computer monitors, and get LCD replacements. One will go in the bedroom, and another in the living room, so we don't have to run the projector all the time. It'll definately hinder talking to the driver, and sitting in a theater gets kinda loud. Ok, with the doors and windows shut in the house, you can hear the rumble on the street. I'd have to seriously screw with kids and their cars that go 'boom'. "You call that bass? Here's bass." So, to remain on topic, packing and unpacking every year is enough for me to want to move into a house. This last move, I was about ready to give up. I honestly started looking at buses, but with only 1 month to move (I was out of town the preceeding 3 months), it wasn't reasonable to think I could have a bus converted in time. I almost bought a slightly crashed 35' RV, but then I still wouldn't have time to sell all the stuff I couldn't pack, before the house had to be vacated. The current plan is to accomplish it all by October. We have more flexibility this time, and more of a plan. I'm getting ready to flood eBay with listings of all my spare tech stuff. I just have to test everything before I list it. Some of the PC's sitting around either need to be fixed or sold as parts. I think I'll be selling quite a bit of it as lots, but I have to check it all over first. Oh, Box City is going to love me. | ||
| David Hartley (Drdave)
Rating: N/A |
Use your New RTS to haul the household stuff. It's not like that hasn't been done a few times... | ||
| CRANE Rating: N/A |
----I don't know that it's strong enough to suspend from one end to allow it to swing, but it's something to consider.---- I was actually thinking of you attaching the unit to the wall and pull the screen out left to right, or right to left. No attachment to the ceiling at all. Some kind of catch can be designed to hold the screen open/up. The projector might be on the wall to project to the screen. Just a wild thought but with a little work, I think it could work. Boy, playing games on a full sized wall...Gotta be fun Crane | ||
| JW Smythe (Jwsmythe)
Rating: N/A |
> I was actually thinking of you attaching the > unit to the wall and pull the screen out left to > right, or right to left. No attachment to the > ceiling at all. Some kind of catch can be > designed to hold the screen open/up. I don't think that's practical, which is why I've never seen a screen like that. You'd have to tension the screen just right from the other side to keep it from hanging funny, and even still, you'd have a bit of droop in the middle. The screen is like the good ol' slide projector screens, except in 16x9 format, and ... well ... a lot nicer than I remember slide projector screens being. This one is silvered like a movie theater screen. I'm avoiding rolling it up and down too much, I'm afraid that the silvering may wear. There's no indication of wear so far, in 6 months of use. I did warp it a very little bit by using the fireplace behind it. The next one I get (after I screw this one up somehow) will be an electric retractable one. This one is manual. I needed a screen, and Fry's had this one in stock. > The projector might be on the wall to project to > the screen. I think it's going to end up in the kitchen in some sort of way. I'm going to have to play with the length of the throw. It's adjustable for size and keystoning, but it's only so adjustable. That's going to be one of the tough parts of doing this build out. If it's close to home, I have all my tools and stuff to put in here, but nowhere to work on it, and no friends to help. If I do it in Florida, I have friends, space to work, and I know a lot of people to ask questions to. Being in Florida though, I can't just grab the projector and carry it around til I find the right spot to put it. I'm going to probably do it in a few trips. One will be a couple months, where I'm installing infrastructure (tanks, bays, generator, electrical and water). The second trip I'd probably bring other things like the projector. In between trips, I'd be ordering supplies and having them shipped. > Boy, playing games on a full sized wall... > Gotta be fun Well, I have to say, there's nothing like it.. Going back to playing games (or even watching TV) on a regular sized screen feels funny. It feels kinda like looking at a 1950's B&W cabinet TV, and thinking "This was state of the art once." I've been meaning to hook up a PC to it too, but in the house it's not practical. Since I'll be designing and layout out the space the way I need, I'll be able to put it together in a more practical way for my needs. I have yet to live in a house that was laid out just right for my needs. Nothing is ever right. I had one house that had a *GREAT* room for TV. It was rectangular, closed walls, with doors. The sound completely filled the room, and watching TV was better than sitting in a theater. We put foil over the windows, and a pair of 20w floor lamps for illumination. Unfortunately, the only room practical for my computer room was upstairs, and the kitchen was a decent walk from the living room. You couldn't just hop off the couch, get a beer, and be back. It wasn't as much of a problem with TiVo (DirecTivo!), but it's distracting to other people who may be watching with you. In the house I'm in now, the living room is the only room big enough to put a couch. If I only had a regular TV, it would need to be stuffed in a corner offset from everything, so it'd be impossible for me to set up a good symmetry with the speakers. Even as it is now, the speakers are properly spaced, but the walls don't allow for the proper acoustics. One side is an open staircase with carpet. The opposite wall is an outside wall. The back of the room opens into the dining area which is an irregular shape, and there's a hallway with a hard flat wall which bounces the sound funny. I couldn't consider putting enough sound absorbing material on the walls to counteract all the funny effects of the shape of the room, without making it look like a cloth lined room or a recording studio. Asthetically, it would suck. The bus seems to make a very happy place for doing this. It gives me a nice hard shape, 8.5' wide, and I can attempt to make the back of the room regular enough to keep from reflecting the sound funny. The couch should be 12' from the screen, and the back wall of the room (behind the kitchen) would be roughly another 8'. That's rough numbers. I tried to lay out the current design in a home layout program, but it sucks. I'm heading to the store tonight to get graph paper, my drawings on plain white paper aren't good enough. | ||
| David Hartley (Drdave)
Rating: N/A |
A 40 foot RTS has about 31 1/2 feet from the dash to the back wall engine hump. Subtract 3 feet off the front section and 5 feet off the back section and that's about all you get. Just FYI.... Oh.. Don't forget the 15 inch tall wheelwells, takes about 17 inches to clear them from the floor. |