Episode 7 - Disabling the rear
door ignition interlock and
other fixes
School buses come with a number of features designed to keep
their little passengers safe. Some of those features are why we
like them for motor home conversions - like the all metal body
construction that will stay intact in a rollover. Others have no
bearing on the vehicle’s use as a skoolie, like the public address
system and swing-out stop sign. Still others are an annoying
nuisance, like the slide bolt on the rear door that won’t let you
start the bus if it’s slid locked.
I turn my attention to
this feature in this
episode. It’s not a
huge undertaking to
disable the engine
interlock, especially
with the less-than-
thorough approach I use. But done wrong the bus is a 14,000 Lb
door stop.
What’s the thorough way to do it? If you’re comfortable doing
some rewiring under the dash board and in the fuse panel, check
out the detailed instructions posted by c_hasbeen on skoolie.net.
I do a few other fixes
in this episode,
including removing
the rear heater. My
compulsion to label
wires emerges again.
When we moved
into our new home
one of the first
things I did was to
label all the
switches, using clear
labels. I’ll be doing
that on the skoolie,
too.
The label maker I
use is the Brother
PTD600. It has a
colour display and a decent size keyboard. It runs on batteries or
a 110 volt power brick. And with a USB cable you can plug it into
your PC. This lets you use your full-size PC keyboard, and copy-
and-paste content from other sources. Very handy.
Click the image below to see episode 7 on my YouTube channel.
And while you’re there, click the Subscribe button so you don’t
miss subsequent episodes.
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