Miss May, 2005
Our Odyssey: 1985 Neoplan Spaceliner
(Article submitted to Bus Conversions Magazine for May, 2005 issue)
When my wife, Louise Hornor, and I decided to take some time off to tour the country, a bus conversion was a natural fit. As avid motorcyclists we originally planned to spend several years touring the country on large motorcycles. But spending months on the road with just the bikes meant either lots of tent camping or lots of motels, and kenneling our three pets. We realized a different plan was in order. I had developed an interest in bus conversions after reading a magazine article about them as a young boy, and I thought it might be possible to convert a bus to include storage for a pair of motorcycles. I also had some experience living full time aboard a 32' factory-built motorhome, which convinced me that a bus would have ample room for two adults and three pets to live comfortably, even with room set aside for the motorcycles.
In 2000 we set about looking at various coach models, searching for one with bays tall enough for motorcycles, or at least easily modified for that purpose. Since we lived in California, we wanted a model no longer than 40', the legal limit at that time. After considering Van Hool, Prevost, and various other shells with tall bays, we settled on the Neoplan Spaceliner as the ideal coach for us. The bays are very tall – 43” in the center, and 45” on both sides – plenty of room for the bikes. This coach has the added advantage that the driver seat and all controls are located underneath the main level. As a seated tour bus, the passengers would sit a level above the driver, and both driver and passenger levels have their own windshields. In a conversion, this leaves the full 39½-foot length of the coach available for living quarters, and, with no steering wheel or driver seat in the way, the large upper windshield affords a great view and becomes a focal point for the living room.
Spaceliners are very rare in the US, and we looked at every one that came up for sale anywhere in the country. After rejecting several coaches, one finally spoke to us as being just the right coach for the project. This particular coach, a 1985 model manufactured in Pilsting, Germany, was already a fully converted motor home. We thought it would require only some minor modifications and a cosmetic facelift to suit our needs. Boy, were we wrong.
We named the bus Odyssey, and took it on a few “get acquainted” excursions. The more time we spent with the coach, the more problems arose with the house equipment, the furnishings, and some of the running gear. It was during one of the weeklong voyages to and from Neoplan's service facility in Honeybrook, Pennsylvania that we finally determined that the only sure way to fix everything and have the coach that we really wanted was to strip everything out and start over again from scratch, salvaging whatever equipment we could in the process.
We made a list of everything we wanted to do to the coach, and set about tying to find a shop that had the space, facilities, and talent to do what we wanted and implement our unusual designs directly. Living in an urban downtown at the time, we had neither the space, the time, nor the metalworking skills to undertake most of the work ourselves. While attending the MAK bus conversion rally in Costa Mesa, California in 2002, we met Bob Lewis from Infinity Coach of Sumner, Washington. Bob looked over our coach and read through our list of modifications, and gave us a time-and-materials rate to do the work. We agreed to bring the coach to his shop, and, if everyone felt good about the project, move forward with it. In October of 2002, we dropped Odyssey off at Infinity Coach, waved good-bye, and boarded an Amtrak train back to California.
Over the next two years, I developed detailed scale drawings of floor plans, wiring and plumbing diagrams and other detailed instructions. I emailed them to the Infinity team almost weekly. In turn, Infinity emailed photos of work in progress and made requests for drawings or specifications. In this way, we were able to manage the project from 800 miles away, while minimizing on-site visits. We visited the shop every couple months for the first year, then monthly later on, until, in the last months of the project, we were spending most of our time at the shop.
During this time, Louise got busy picking furniture and selecting finish materials for the project. I did a lot of material procurement, finding the best deals on inverters, switches, air conditioners, and anything else I could track down, and forwarding the material to Infinity for installation. In preparation to becoming full-timers, we also spent a good deal of time getting rid of furniture, books, clothing, and other stuff.
Once we started working with Infinity, the project went very smoothly almost from start to finish. The only major setbacks we experienced were that the coach needed significantly more bodywork than we originally thought, and the cabinetmaker working on all the cabinetry and interior partitions passed away in the middle of the project. The resulting immediate closure of that business delayed our project by nearly six months, as we spent weeks finding a replacement craftsman, re-doing plans, waiting for the new cabinetmaker to be available to start the work, and re-doing work that could not be completed as originally intended. Because the interior partitions and cabinetry were incomplete, the Infinity team was unable to continue with critical systems installation until the new cabinetmaker was on board and up to speed. They have since hired this individual directly, and now have an in-house cabinetry capability.
Since we started with a clean sheet of paper, we were able to design the coach to meet some very specific needs, especially as full-timers. Since our favorite places to stay are remote stretches of national forest lands, we designed Odyssey to be self-sufficient for up to two weeks of boondocking. Eight size 8D AGM batteries, arranged in a 24-volt configuration, allow us to go two to three days between charges. A Xantrex-Trace SW4024 inverter can charge the batteries in about four or five hours, and provides for most of our 120-volt needs full time. The coach's massive 270-amp, 24-volt alternator easily takes care of charging the batteries when we are moving, and we can even run two of our four air conditioners (three roof airs and one under-dash compressor in the cockpit) through the inverter when driving. A 17 kW generator, one of the few items we salvaged from the original conversion, supplements power when parked.
The electrical system is probably the most complicated part of the coach design, and I spent many hours working on the electrical plans, trying to engineer a system that would allow us to live comfortably “off grid” for weeks at a stretch. I even designed and built my own Automatic Transfer Switch, and designed my own custom electrical panels with integrated energy management features.
Odyssey carries 135 gallons of fresh water, which we use for washing only. A separate 45-gallon drinking water tank provides our potable water through small taps at the kitchen and bathroom sinks, and supplies a U-Line icemaker. This two-tank system allows us to fill the larger tank from non-potable sources. We also carry a small electric pump to fill from streams if needed. 135-gallon gray water and 65-gallon black water tanks complete the water system. To conserve fresh water while boondocking, pushbuttons at the shower and both sinks allow water drawn from the hot water supply to be recirculated to the fresh tank while cooler water is flushed out of the lines.
Our main living room is a space we call the Penthouse. It is the area at the very front of the coach, with views out the large upper windshield. It is raised about eight inches above the rest of the floorplan to provide headroom for the driver area downstairs. The penthouse has two Flexsteel swivel armchairs, as well as a small forward-facing loveseat. This allows us to take in the views from the front glass, seated a full six feet above ground level. Alternatively we can swivel around to have a conversation or play games when we entertain guests. We spend most of our relaxing time in the Flexsteel chairs, and even take our meals there. We use lap trays and do not have a dining table.
Aft of the penthouse is our guest room/media room. It has a side-facing sleeper sofa that opens to a full-size bed. The sofa faces a 30” LCD screen concealed behind tambour doors in the cabinet under the curbside windows. This cabinet also houses the stereo system, the custom-engineered electrical distribution panel and energy management system, and a small wine rack.
Next aft is the galley, equipped with a high-efficiency 24-volt, 7.5 cubic foot refrigerator/freezer (compressor type), two-burner LP cooktop, Advantium-120 oven, round stainless steel sink, and a portable electric induction cooktop. The remote monitoring panel for the Trace inverter is on the kitchen wall, allowing us to check our power status before using the kitchen appliances.
Lighting is 24-volt halogen. White LED step-lights are strategically located along toe-kicks throughout the coach for low-level night lighting. All the cabinetry is natural maple with Shaker style doors. We chose Granite Lite natural granite product by FlexStone for all the countertops in the kitchen and bathroom, and to top the living room cabinetry and nightstands. This makes all the surfaces easy to clean and helps give the coach a simple, unified look. In addition, we chose to use the same light color scheme of pale green, gray, and off-white fabrics throughout the coach to make 320 square feet feel as large as possible. This has the added advantage of hiding the fur from our off-white dog and gray cat!
The penthouse, media room and galley all have curved windows that extend from a height of 36” all the way to the roof. We chose not to block any of the glass with overhead cupboards in the living room and penthouse, and this lends a very open feeling to the entire living area. The window blinds are off-white cellular shades from Home Depot, which are very good insulators and are easy to replace should they get damaged.
Aft of the galley is the bathroom, with a 36” neo-angle shower, and 42” vanity cabinet with vitreous china sink, also all from Home Depot. A full-height closet holds our winter coats and laundry baskets, and is sized to accommodate a washer-dryer in the future. We chose to put an Acu-Gage water tank monitoring panel next to the bathroom sink, since this is where we usually are thinking about water issues. The toilet is in a separate compartment, whose door also swings 90° to close off the entire bath area from the front of the coach, if desired. The closet door likewise swings 90° to close off the bedroom. In order to latch each door against two jambs, we used magnetic catches. Most of the time, these two doors are latched so that there is an open pass-through between the kitchen and bedroom.
One of the very biggest challenges we faced with the project was that, try as we might, we just could not find a place to locate the toilet where it could be directly over the black tank. All of the bay space suitable for tanks was in the front half of the coach, and the bathroom needed to be in the back half of the coach. We finally solved this problem by choosing a Microphor Microflush air-operated toilet, which sends the waste to the tank via a 1-½” waste pipe using compressed air. At two gallons of air and half a gallon of water per flush, this uses more energy and water than we would like, but it was certainly better than having the toilet in the living room!
At the very rear of the coach is the bedroom. The queen-size platform bed is placed sideways to allow easy access to full-width wardrobe across the back wall. There is more storage and engine access underneath the bed, and two nightstands, one of which is also a file cabinet. All the controls for the Webasto hydronic heating system are located next to Louise's side of the bed and are easily reached from under the covers on cold mornings.
Headliner throughout the upper level is off-white marine vinyl. Wall coverings throughout the coach are Sunbrella fabric. All the vinyl and Sunbrella, as well as the cockpit carpet and headliner were installed by Airport Valley Vinyl of Seatac, WA, who also re-covered the dashboard in gray marine vinyl. We also had a professional install all the interior finish flooring. The bedroom, media room and penthouse are carpeted in a flecked pattern that hides dirt. The kitchen and bathroom floors are vinyl that looks like natural stone tiles. The cockpit and stairs are covered with porcelain tile that mimics natural dark gray slate. This was the idea of Bob from Infinity, and we are really happy with it. The tile is impervious to water and mud, non-slippery when wet, easy to clean, and makes a really nice first impression. Because surfaces are rarely perfectly flat or square in a bus, the tiling job took three days and we were very glad we hired a 30-year veteran tile installer.
Moving downstairs, the driver cockpit extends the width of the coach ahead of the front wheels. A 6-step staircase leads down from the penthouse to the cockpit and main air-operated entry door at the far right side of the coach. Above the front wheels are the house batteries and inverter. Behind the front wheels is the garage, a large full-width bay extending five feet aft. The bay doors on both sides have been modified to swing down to the ground to become loading ramps, and this is where we keep our two Suzki SV650 motorcycles, as well as two bicycles and all our motorcycle and bicycle gear such as helmets and saddlebags.
Aft of the garage is the wet bay containing all the water tanks, filters, fill hoses, dump valves, and a 24 volt macerator pump. Also in this bay is the U-Line icemaker, a pull-out LP barbecue, and the YachTub inflatable hot tub and its associated pumps, filters, and hydronic heat exchanger. Behind this bay are the 350-gallon diesel tank and two 11-pound LP cylinders, which supply only the cooktop and the barbecue. Above the two rear axles are shallow storage bays. One is our special cat-litter-box compartment, which the cats access via an access hatch under the bathroom vanity, but which we empty from outside the coach. At the very rear, shoehorned alongside the Detroit 8V92TA engine, are the 17kW Marathon/Kubota generator set, two 8D coach batteries, and a 45,000 BTU/hr Webasto diesel-fired hydronic heater.
Completing the picture is the 8' by 8' aluminum deck atop the front end of the coach. The deck has fold-up handrails, chairs and umbrella and is the perfect place to watch a sunset, or maybe a motorcycle race. To get to the deck, we use a folding ladder from Camping World to climb through a marine-type acrylic hatch located in the ceiling of the penthouse. A pair of 20' Girard electric lateral-arm awnings provides much-needed shade to the massive glass line on the forward half of the coach.
As long as we had to strip the entire coach down to bare metal, removing and restoring the fiberglass caps in the process, we took the opportunity to change all the exterior lighting to LED items. Most of these are 24-volt models, but the upper side markers are 12-volt units doubled up. We also glassed in an R&M Fiberglass rear camera pod for a color backup camera that mates to an LCD screen in the cockpit. We then added high-level tail/brake lights and turn signals along with a center-mounted stop lamp, which really make Odyssey's intentions visible from the rear.
Since we are both retired engineers, our coach is perhaps a bit over-designed. We've lived in it full-time now for five months, and we are completely happy with it. In that period we've traversed 31 states covering nearly 15,000 miles, including most of the eastern seaboard south of NJ, all of the gulf coast, and the length of the Mexican border. About the only down side is that we cannot be stealthy anywhere we go. Whether it's the Neoplan's unusual low-driver appearance, or the Mike Wilson/John Stahr (Willy's Custom Concepts) ghost flame paint job, every time we park, people come out of the woodwork to talk to us. Often that's a good thing, but then there was the drunken college party attendee who pounded on the coach at 3am screaming, “Take me with you…”
You can read much more about Odyssey, find out more about us, or follow along on our adventures by clicking on our web site,