Follow Our Progress

Where is Metamorphobus now?

The Bus Adventure

"METAMORPHOBUS"

Welcome!

Welcome to our bus conversion adventure.  We're not sure exactly what we're doing, but so far it's a lot of fun, so we're going to share it with anyone that might find it interesting to see how this all turns out...

The plan is to convert a 40 foot GMC transit bus into a home on wheels.  Neither my wife nor myself have ever done a bus conversion, so this should be at least mildly entertaining at various points as we learn from our mistakes and celebrate our successes.

We've managed to make it most of the way and now have a fully self contained RV that NEVER needs to plug in to an electrical outlet.  We've gone with solar and wind generated power on our bus and have never been happier.

If you think you might be interested in seeing what we're up to, click on the most current date to the left under "Follow Our Progress".  I try to keep the site updated as I work on the bus conversion each day.  If you want to start from the beginning, click here and on the next buttons at the bottom of each page to see them all in order.

Part of the income that enables us to do what we are doing comes from our previous hobby - riding motorcycles.  A friend of ours made us aware of the legend of the gremlin bell.  We found it very hard to find bells for our motorcycles, and so decided to make it our mission to provide inexpensive and beautiful gremlin bells for everyone's ride.  That's how www.gremlinbells.com was started.  If you know someone that rides a motorcycle and does not have a bell, stop in and take a look at what we have in stock - we regularly ship the bells as gifts to places all over the world.

What's new?

8/10/2007	I was contacted by the new owner of Metamorphobus.  Apparently it's getting a WVO conversion done on it.  You can follow the progress on the bus at http://cellmotion.blogspot.com/
1/1/2007	Well, we're at it again...  A little less conspicuous, but just as adventurous.  We're not going the bus route this time, but instead have opted to go with an older 5th wheel that will blend in a bit better wherever we may go.  Thank you for all of the great emails and support over the past few years while we regrouped.  Now were ready to do it all again.  I've started a blog on another website about our new adventure.  Click here to read "The Daily Pill" on my Virtual Placebo website.
10/9/2004	Thanks to quite a number of people that emailed me with information about writing and publishing a book, I am well on my way to creating something that I think will answer a lot of questions and get to the heart of the question of why everyone isn't "going mobile".  It's been a long hard road getting here, but then again, is writing about the easy road very interesting? Want to read a bit of what I have to say about converting a bus and what it means to be free?  click here to read what I have to say...
7/20/2004	The bus sold on eBay after re-listing it 2 times.  Things have settled back to "normal" again and we're looking forward to the next project.  This will probably be my last post for a long time.  I hope that you enjoy the web site.  I will continue to leave it up and running for as long as is economically feasible. If you know anything about publishing, I would appreciate some advise/help.  I want to write a book about our adventure.  There's a lot that I left off the website that I would like to put into print.  Unfortunately, I don't know the first thing about how to go about getting a book published so I can sell it...
6/14/2004	We've had a lot of fun with this project, but it's time for us to return back to work and "normal" life.  We're planning on doing this again some day - with a big twist.  For now, we need to spend some time saving up... I think I'm going to write about the whole experience.  There's a whole other side to the story that we just didn't get into on the web site because we wanted to keep it upbeat and focused on the bus and things somewhat related to it.  Unfortunately, today's society does not allow you any real freedom as we have found out.  You still have to play all of the same games...
5/2/2004	The wind has kept us from painting the bus...  I spent some time today installing a solar panel on our friend Robbyn's Casita.  I'm getting pretty good at it now and it was kind of fun to put in a smaller system.
4/21/2004	We started prepping the bus for a new coat of paint.  Sheesh this thing is big...  It's going to take a lot longer than I thought to get it all painted.
3/31/2004	We're finally back on line and able to update the web site again.  It's going to be a long process, so hang in there and we'll try to get some new updates posted!
3/4/2004	We're getting geared up for the big move to Arizona!  Lots of changes in the look of the bus lately...
2/23/2004	I'm finally back on line (for the moment anyway).  I hate Microsoft...  for $200.00 I bought the Upgrade for XP Home Edition to make it XP Professional.  I needed to develop some of my web sites off line (using IIS and ASP).  After upgrading and correcting a bunch of problems with the upgrade's detection of all of my laptop's hardware, I connected to the internet to download the latest patches and updates from Microsoft.  5 minutes after I started downloading the patches, my laptop shuts down due to an RPC failure.  I can't keep the laptop running for more than about 5 minutes while connected to the internet and find out that I have collected about 5 different viruses (several trojans).  My virus software only detected 1 of them and the rest I was able to discover by following some great troubleshooting advise I found on the web.  Anyway, to make a long story short, it turns out that the upgrade software wiped out all of the security patches that I had applied to my laptop since the last time it crashed (because of Microsoft's Updates) and I had to re-build it...  I've now spent over 30 hours re-building and updating trying to get my laptop back to where it was before the whole ordeal.  I really do hate Microsoft's poor software design and lack of forethought...  I am planning to build a Linux device ASAP to store my important information on.  My Windows device will only be for games and things I am not yet be able to access on a Linux machine.
2/2/2004	We're back in Eugene Oregon.  What a great trip to Quartzsite!

Bus information

• 1974 40 foot GMC 5307 with Air Conditioning
• It has a V8 Detroit Diesel engine and a 3 speed Allison automatic transmission
• It is geared for highway driving (will go 70+ with very little effort)
• Apparently the bus worked at some point in the San Francisco Bay area.  We found an ID card for the "Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District" with the address of San Francisco, California on it and the scrolling destination sign had all sorts of bay area destinations on it.  
• The most recent transit company that owned our bus was Kitsap Transit in Washington.  The coach was used for a regular rural route
• I bought the bus from a private owner up in Washington.  He had purchased 3 of them from the Kitsap Transit district.  All of them the same model, but both the other's had a second side door.  The other two owners have contacted me and let me know that they bought the other buses and are following our adventure.  We'll try to keep in touch and see what happens to their busses as well...