I need help, taking the rails out!!!

[John316]

Hi guys, try this, dyed in the wool, bus topic. I promise there will be no material in this post that is controversial, or off topic.  

We want to take out the rails that are in the floor, that the seats were bolted to. We have tried almost everything, including a five foot long solid steel pry-bar, to get those rails out. We don't need them, and the thought was that that cavity would be a good wire raceway. (Besides those rails are heavy. That weight would be a couple of sheets of plywood...) It seems that the bus was built around those rails. They are somehow held in very strongly. We want to build our floor, with insulation, but I would really like to get those rails out. Does anybody have ANY ideas?? The only thing that we haven't tried is using our quickie cutoff saw, with a metal blade, but that seems a little extreme.

ANY help from, ANYone would be great!!!

God bless,

John

[Nick Badame Refrig/ACC]

Hi John,

Don't make your project soooooo hard..

Lay down luan between them and Plywood over the whole floor!  Project done, move on to the next! Lol

Good Luck
Nick-

[gumpy]

Well, they are welded to the frame about every 6-8 inches. If you don't have your floor out, you won't be taking the rails out, because the only way to get them out is to grind through the welds with a angle grinder and a cutoff blade. If you do that, they come out very easily, but again, unless you have all the plywood floor out on both sides, don't even bother.

There are photos of the process on my website. Look under the site map.

craig

[Jriddle]

Craig is right you need to remove all the plyboard and get your grinder out and dust mask on. I used a chisel to wedge under the rail and started grinding. I found with a little pressure under the rail that I could tell when the weld was cut. I feel like I should have bought stock in the grinding wheel industry as I used a lot of blades. It wasn't hard but time consuming.

John

[jjrbus]

What Nick said. And the floor is a very poor choice for wire runs!!!!!!!   Jim

[Paladin]

I followed Craig's advice and page when taking mine out. It was a major pain and takes quite a bit of work and grinding and then even more. Lot's of dust and smoke too since I cut around some of the plywood at stubborn bolts and then it got in the way of some of the grinds.
The return line under the floor was the hairiest (pun intended) and grossest that I've found on the bus but I was fairly prepared for it after seeing Craig's, mine was pretty much the same, anyone want a lotto ticket from California or a pair of glasses? Just some of the nicer things found under there in the 30 pounds or so of crud.

I'm glad that I pulled the floor though. It was hard work and really gross and also not in pretty shape under there and I can't imagine leaving it myself but to each his own. I also found some rust that had to be dealt with that I wouldn't have found otherwise, it looked fine for the most part from the bays. There was some rust in the wheel well areas and also a hole in an air beam that I had to weld over to fix which eventually led to a hospital visit for surgery in the middle of the night.
I was going to log my exploits in my bus build so far but Craig did such a good job that it would really only be redundant and I couldn't do any better. I do have a ton of pics though. 

-Dave

[TomC]

I lucked out in that my floor was and still is in great shape.  With the marine grade 3/4" plywood with 1/4" rubber mat glued to it, I wasn't going to remove that excellent floor.  Unless your's is soft, I'd just use it.  As mentioned, the floor is not a good place for wire runs.  I ran all my wiring along the base of the left wall with my wall covering flopped over it just to cover the mass of wires.  Then I can access it at anytime.  Actually I do have some wiring buried in the walls and ceiling-that is the 3 roof airs, 2 Fantastic vents, 5 ceiling puck lights, and the TV antenna.  Otherwise all else is surface wired.  Good Luck, TomC

[belfert]

The rails in my Dina may not be quite the same as other buses, but I ended using the same process as Craig.  Weld is much stronger than the metal in the rails so I cut through the rails around the welds with a grinder and cutoff wheel.  I then ground down the welds with a regular grinding wheel.  The grinding took forever!

The rails on a Dina I am almost certain are not structural.  They are welded on top of the frame and I can't see how they would provide any strength.

[Jeremy]

The rails on mine were substantial aluminium extrusions, held on with lots of solid rivets. Getting rid of those was a nice job for me because I made a tidy profit from the scrapman!

Jeremy

[John316]

Do you guys think that I really need to take the return air duct out? We are taking our OTR out, so we won't be using it. Our floor is a little springy, but not soft. Any thoughts?

God bless,

John

[JackConrad]

Do you guys think that I really need to take the return air duct out? We are taking our OTR out, so we won't be using it. Our floor is a little springy, but not soft. Any thoughts?
God bless,
John

You will be amazed at how much filth is in the return air ducts.  We have been in several buses that, after setting for a couple month, have a very strong musty, moldy smell. I think this is, at least in part, due to the filth in the return ducts.  If nothing I else, I would at leasst try to run a shop vac hose up in them as far as I could.  Jack

[JohnEd]

Jack is Prince and a font of good info.  Having said that:  A shop vac won't get'er done but might improve things "some".  Get that area opened up and sweep and vac and pressure wash it out, in that order.  I say this having only "seen what is in there".  You would get a dead possum out, wouldn't you?

HTH,

[Jriddle]

The choice is yours. I went through a lot of work but will sleep well knowing this stuff is gone

[John316]

Thanks for the advice. My guess is, that we will end up tearing up enough of the floor to clean the return air. That is one of the first of a long list of things that are surprises.

Thanks again,

God bless,

John