April 2018

Be Prepared. Be Safe. Survive a Disaster.

I Got the Bus Bug

This Moderne Bus- A 1956 General Motors PD-4104

H3-40 Interior Remodel- A Custom Storage Sofa that Sleeps One — Planning, Design, and Fabrication

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Teri and I had a year and a half before retirement and we had been discussing possible “after job” lifestyles. I had been lobbying hard for getting a motorhome and hitting the road. Teri’s a homebody and made it clear we were not leaving our owner-built home of 40 years. We have two sons who both live in the San Francisco Bay Area. The youngest has our two granddaughters held hostage in San Mateo. The other son lives in Bernal Heights – not far from downtown San Francisco. We live in Augusta, MI – 2,300 miles to the east. I was not going to have our granddaughters grow up seeing them only a few days once or twice a year.

I began researching motorhomes and discovered that most are not very well built, they depreciate rapidly, and they cost as much as a house (that’s a house in Michigan – not a house in California). Bummer. Then I came across an article on coach conversions which I found interesting. As I continued my research,

I discovered that an intercity parlor coach (one of many new terms to me) was relatively inexpensive to purchase. It is built for hundreds of thousands of miles of use and it is not as scarce as you might think. After much enthusiastic promotion on my part (and frequent mention of our granddaughters), Teri agreed

A 1956 General Motors PD-4104 by Gordon Allen

This Moderne Bus

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to occasional travel in a coach conversion. I began researching coach conversions online and fell in love with the GM 4104.

I grew up in Parma, a small “Norman Rockwell” town in southern Michigan and the Greyhound Bus route went right through it on old US-12, carrying passengers between Detroit and Chicago. It made a stop at Davis’ gas station, if there were any passengers to pick up or drop off. In 1956, I was nine, and the 4104 was the futuristic flagship of the Greyhound fleet. With its fluted silver aluminum sides and rounded parallelogram windows; it was a manifest example of the “world of tomorrow” in 1957. The 4104 was classic streamline moderne. It was as iconic as the Chrysler Building or the stainless clad steam locomotives that pulled the 20th Century Limited at the time.

My Grandma Allen lived across the street from the rail tracks which carried the northern branch of the Water Level Route, one of two main New York Central lines between New York City and Chicago. This was near the end of the steam locomotive era and my friends and I spent hours standing alongside the rails, marveling at these mammoth beasts belching steam and smoke. Back then, the freight trains stopped at almost every village on their routes to drop cars on a siding at the lumber yard and mercantile delivering lumber, coal, fuel oil and other commodities. I also watched the construction of the visionary Interstate

highway system from the back of Grandma’s property. I was indeed a lucky kid. I was living in a village of 900 with the busiest bus and train routes passing right through and the revolutionary highway system of the future being built in my backyard.

Yes, the 4104 was a work of art, but the innovative engineering is no less impressive. GM made extensive use of aluminum to drastically reduce weight. The body is a monocoque design with stressed aluminum panels riveted to bulkheads much like an airliner fuselage. It was a revolutionary design that eliminated the need for a heavy steel chassis. The aluminum and steel suspension components are bolted directly to the body. Even the over-the-road heater blower was a precision masterpiece using a spun aluminum Venturi to funnel air into the fan.

Another innovation, self-leveling / load compensating I-beam air bag suspension, which remains the preferred high-end configuration for most buses and trucks even today. Then there was the revolutionary powertrain - the flagship Detroit Diesel 671 – an inline six cylinder 428 cu. in. two stroke diesel engine mounted transversely and transferring power through a unique “V - drive” configuration. This innovation

Center aisle, ceiling console.

Kitchen L-R dishwasher, sink and induction cook-top.

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reduced the length of the engine compartment by half.

After a six month online search, I found a 1956 4104 with a documented rebuilt engine with a four-valve head, less than 20,000 miles on the rebuild, and new air bags all around. It had been converted to an RV in the early eighties. After extensive conversation and negotiation, we took a one-way flight to central Florida and bought our bus. Part of the deal was that the owner put new Michelins on the front before we arrived.

Bedroom featuring silver covers, cat shelves above.

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The bus had sat in hot and humid Florida for two years without being used. It was a giant petri dish growing mold and mildew. Gutting the coach was priority one. Fortuitously, our lifelong friends from college live in the same town where the bus was located. I drove the bus over to Jim and Diane’s place. Jim and I (wearing respirators) threw out all the furniture, carpeting, drapes and anything else we could remove and with Jim’s large flatbed trailer, we hauled it all to the local landfill.

As we pulled out to head for Michigan, I hooked the chain-linked fence with the rear bumper and tore out 15 feet of fence and the gate! I got an email from Jim about a week later. It read “New gate $300.00, fence $200.00, concrete $35.00, two days with dear friends, priceless!” We drove back to Michigan in the middle of February. There is an extensive narrative of the eventful trip home on my blog (This-Old-Bus.blogspot.com).

Once home, what remained of the interior was removed: interior panels, old fiberglass insulation, all the wiring, even the entire original plywood floor. The floor removal required the cutting of about 750 bolts with a chisel and hammer. Once the floor was removed, I discovered I had access to all the heating and ventilation ducts. They were covered in a uniform one-eighth inch thick layer of a black greasy substance consisting of (what I believe to be) cigarette tar, human skin flakes, dust, diesel fumes, hair, and compounds yet to be identified by modern science.

The good news was that it all washed off with Simple Green degreaser and hot water. The bad news is that I came to the house every evening looking like a West Virginian coal miner. Teri made me strip at the door and bag my clothes before entering. Fortunately, we live in the middle of a 13 acre woods. The demo phase of the project took about four months.

Slide-out pantry.

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“this MODERNE bus” 1956 General Motors PD-4104

“this MODERNE bus” 1956 General Motors PD-4104

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The new floor was 3/4”,13 ply, plastic coated plywood. It was glued and bolted to the bulkheads. The interior walls were insulated with spray-on urethane foam, covered with aluminum bubble insulation and then 1/2” plywood. The only remnants of the old wiring system were the 000 cables running from the start batteries. Since we wanted the coach to retain its classic appearance, we removed everything from the roof. There was a total of eleven holes in the roof that had to be patched. This was done using 1/8” aluminum sheet that was screwed and glued with 3M two part auto-body panel adhesive which is amazing stuff! It could cure overnight, then the screws were removed and the holes filled with more panel adhesive.

To keep the original look of the bus, we installed two 110V mini-split heat pumps for heating and cooling. The compressors occupy the original compressor bay and the bay forward. It was at this point that I realized a parts bus would be needed. We bought a 1960 4104 for $3,500. The forward bay door was converted

from solid skin to expanded metal salvaged from the parts bus. The minis have worked without problems for five years in temperatures ranging from 19 to 95 degrees.

The galvanized steel covering four of the windows was removed and fortunately the previous owner had left the window frames in place. Some of the frames on the project bus were beyond restoration and several of the bay doors were also in bad shape. The best seven frames from the two buses were disassembled and sandblasted. Twenty-three new tinted laminate windows were cut to replace all the flat glass in the bus. The frames were painted silver and reassembled with the new glass and all new rubber seals.

New windshield glass was also installed with the center pillar removed and the outside edge of the opening narrowed by an inch and a half. The center seam was sealed with clear silicone caulk. Elimination of the center pillar gives the front of the bus a clean, more streamlined look. Because of all the body work needed to repair holes cut in the sides for a furnace, refrigerator, etc., we decided to paint the entire bus to closely match the original “silverside” look. My buddy Mark had been helping me with this project from the start. He’s a master painter with numerous show car awards, magazine covers, plus he has eight years’ experience painting aluminum aircraft for Duncan Aviation.

In keeping with our love for the era, the interior is done in late 1930’s Streamline Moderne style. This decision required all the corners of everything to be rounded, adding many hours to the construction of the interior. Most of the corners were done by cutting 4” PVC into quarters or halves which were rabbeted into 3/4” plywood. Getting solid joints that did not crack the paint along the seams was finally remedied with beveled seams filled with U-Pol filler. The LED ceiling console was designed and fabricated from scratch. I laid it out with a CAD program and then had a 4’x8’x3/16” aluminum sheet water-jet cut into three 16” panels with cutout slots and dome light openings. The panels were sanded with 400 grit using a rotary sander to give the panels a fine swirled finish. LED rope lights were installed, as well as three LED dome lights.

Teri has spent hundreds of hours acquiring items like cobalt blue glass topped end tables, 1939 World’s Fair silverware, cobalt blue dishes, and numerous other accoutrements from that era. Even the handles

Passenger side lounge area. Isa on shelf, Luna on couch.

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on the cabinets are original ‘30’s antiques. Most of the bright trim in the bus was fabricated using aluminum carpet seam binders. This includes the ceiling panel seams, the stair trim, and trim around all the shelves and TV console. I used stainless washer-head screws to give a more finished look. The ceiling panels are made of 1/2” luan plywood covered with grey, foam backed naugahyde, glued with 3M-99. When you step into the bus, you are taken back to the golden era of streamline moderne design.

The driver and navigation seats are second row Toyota Sienna’s with extending leg-rests and integral seat belts. They were acquired as new “take outs” from an RV surplus dealer in Elkhart, IN. The leg-rests eliminated the need for a “filler” over the stairs, and allowed the navigation seat to be moved closer to the front so that Teri rides beside me rather than behind me. The bus features all the expected amenities including a dishwasher, microwave, induction cook-top, a small electric oven, full size shower, vented washer/dryer, short queen bed, pantry, closets, two

couches, and plenty of “high places” for our three cats.

The head features a fancy, all glass sink and ‘30’s wall treatment. We have a 32” flat screen TV that drops into its travel console via a remote controlled linear drive. We have a PlayStation 4 that is used for movies, games, YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon Prime. We can watch current news on YouTube and have an Echo Dot for listening to podcasts or live NPR on Tune in. We use our iPhones as hotspots when campground Wi-Fi is poor – which is almost always. Hot water is provided by a 4 gallon on-demand 110V electric unit which delivers plenty of hot water for showers, dishwasher and washing machine… Just as long as we don’t use them simultaneously!

All the cabinets, closet enclosures, and pantry were built from scratch using three quarter inch birch plywood. All the drawers were ordered online to custom dimensions with soft close drawer slides. The drawer faces and closet doors were finished with five coats of automotive fill prime, sanding with 600 grit between coats and finally, shot with automotive enamel. This gives a grain-free ultra-smooth finish that looks like laminate. Again, Mark’s painting talents rendered them flawless.

9 cu. ft. refrigerator, closets, mini splits above.

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We spent one entire summer prepping the exterior and painting the bus. The roof had at least four coats of paint, so we used a chemical stripper which got us down to the original primer. The original green primer had amazing adherence and most of it remained after chemical stripping. We then hog sanded with 320 grit and immediately etch-primed it with aircraft quality green primer. Mark then shot the roof with what he calls 500 mph white aircraft paint.

The lower part of the bus was stripped and sanded, then every rivet was sandblasted to ensure the removal of any contaminants around the edge of the rivets. Etch primer was applied followed by silver metallic (not pearl, not metal flake) single stage automotive enamel. The color matched the original aluminum perfectly. We then had to lay the tape for the blue metallic trim, which was a several day process. Finally, Mark shot the blue accent. Again, he did an excellent job. Silver metallic is not easy to do well but we had consistent color and no orange peel.

After a week to cure we decided buffing wasn’t needed. The bus looks like it’s naturally anodized

aluminum with a little extra sparkle. We sandblasted the wheels, painted them white, and added chrome hub caps and lug caps.

I doubt we’ll ever be completely done with the conversion. We’ve already redone the interior wall-covering twice and replaced our blue accordion window shades with aluminum venetian blinds. This coming summer I want to replace all the air and oil

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TV console, center speaker, cobalt blue end table.

March 13 - 18 FMCA Perry, GA April 1-22 Home Paron, ARApril 23 -27 RIP Searcy, ARMay 3 - 9 419 Pusher Rally Goshen, IN Please go to page 65 to view

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Gordie and Teri Allen

We are Gordie and Teri Allen from Augusta, MI. I’m a retired physical therapist and Teri is a retired occupational therapist. I designed and built our home, including carpentry, electrical, plumbing etc., in 1977. I was into building dune buggies for a while, and built a ‘39 Ford street rod with my oldest son for his first car. I figured, “How hard can a bus be?” Without the knowledge and support of members of the Michigan based Converted Coach Owners and the members of the BCM forum I could not have completed the rebuild of our 1956 GM 4104. After living in the bus the last three winters in California, we’ve made the decision to go “full-time”. We have a very nice 3,200 sq. ft. home in Augusta for sale if anyone is interested.

You may reach us them at:gleaallen@gmail.com

lines. There are ten or more “small projects” left to be completed on the interior, but we have all the comforts of home, living half the year in Michigan and the other half in the San Francisco Bay area. We spend two or three days a week with our granddaughters, taking advantage of school vacations, and serving as free sitters any time we’re needed. A year ago Teri asked “How would you feel about selling the house and becoming full-timers?” (See the third sentence in this article). The house is currently on the market. For a detailed account of the reconversion you can visit this-old-bus.blogspot.com.

Post Script: As Forest Gump said, “...life is like a box of chocolate”. After four winters in the Bay Area, we have learned that finding a place to stay has become progressively more difficult with a 1956 RV. Of the six RV parks within reasonable driving distance to our kids, only one would allow us in this year. The others all strictly adhere to the “ten-year rule” and/or require a RVIA certification. Also, the housing shortage in the area has led many to choose an RV park as an affordable option to buying or renting. Monthly rates range from $1,600.00 to $2,000.00. With much reluctance, we are looking at moving to a new Airstream trailer, selling our beautiful retro-bus.

Bathroom glass sink and shelves.