Floors

Fun Fact: Rubber floors in old school buses smell like stinky school children. Especially in the sun (the floors, not the children, although one can assume children left in the sun also smell less than fresh)

We went into this knowing Betty was no spring chicken. And she was an east coast girl, so that means snow and ice and salt. Add that all together and we knew rust would be part of the equation. We went back and forth on pulling the flooring out of the bus. Pros? It would allow us to assess and treat rust and start the build up from scratch. Also, see above in reference to stanky kids. Cons? It is a true pain in the arse. Also, current floor gives some strength to the floor of the bus. But not much.

We decided to pull the floor.

Some of the rubber mat pulled up pretty easily. Other sections left us with the belief that the builders of these buses are paid both in amount of screws/rivets used and gallons of adhesive. After hours of work, the floor of the bus is pretty much down to the sheet metal.

Our 10 year old has discovered the joy of demo. She loved using the pry bar to pull up the flooring and managed to not knock a sibling out cold. Wining!

On to rust treatment.