Destruction Continues

The destruction of Missy continues.

The seats are out and gone!  A fellow from Craigslist picked them up earlier this week.

Missy was looking quite spacious but then I went to work on the “parcel carrier” – the overhead luggage bins.

Those parcel racks were a real challenge! I have no doubt that MCI builds these buses without consideration for us “converters.” 🙂 So, some “difficulties” are expected.  The bins appear to be a permanent fixture. I can imagine there is no need to ever remove them in normal “bus” operation.

The racks are quite a maze of construction. In the case of my bus, there are two very large – MASSIVE, and long (forty feet long!!), aluminum extrusions that mount to the side and top of the bus frame. The top of the rack is made of aluminum sheets and there are steel bulkheads every few feet that hold the doors. Against the side wall, large steel rivets, some sort of steel rivet that looks like a round head bolt, and hex bolts are used to tie to the frame. On the ceiling, large steel rivets and hex bolts are used to attach to the frame. I would bet they are brought into the coach thru the front windshield space, before it is installed.

All of the rivets are a pain to remove. I tried a variety of things but generally punched out the mandrel and then drilled out the center OR I just ground the head off with a grinder. Not hard but it sure was a nuisance. The ’round bolt head’ looking rivets were dealt with by the grinder. Very crude but it worked.

When one of the parcel racks is ready to come down – STAY OUT OF THE WAY!! They are HEAVY and come down with a serious crash! I cannot guess the weight as I cannot even budge the thing with it laying on the floor. I then had to cut the assembly into four pieces to make it barely manageable for two people to manhandle.

I suspect a better approach to removing these racks is to remove all of the bolts from the inside bulkheads. This then separates the two huge extrusions. Then each can be dropped separately. They are still very heavy and you need to be very careful to stay out of the way but at least each is a slightly more manageable size.

I’m going to have to make another run to a scale to see what the coach weighs with the seats and parcel racks out. I bet it all adds up to 1500 lbs. or more.

So far, I have only the passenger side parcel rack down and cut up.  I’m hoping the driver side is much easier based on the lessons I’ve learned.  Of course, the poor Missy looks like a destruction zone! 🙂