How To Seal Your Skoolie Floor?

If you are at this point I commend you. Skoolie floors are the most disgusting thing to get through to make a fresh start for the bus. 

Depending on your bus you might be finding wood under your rubber floor. In our case in the 2003 Thomas Built Saf-T Liner the rubber was directly adhered to the metal but, either way you’ll still get to the metal and you’ll be checking the condition and making sure it gets sealed up.

So how do you seal the floor of your skoolie? You will need to remove all existing floor remove any rust and glue then apply a rust resistant or proof paint sealer to ensure long life of your floor.

Here are the steps we took to remove our floor:

1. Remove The Existing Floor

Peeling back your floor for the fist time can be nerve racking, this is when you find out exactly what your project is going to be like and you will see if the whole floor is a rust bucket or if you lucked out and there is minimal to no rust at all.

When we removed our floor we used a few different methods: 

We tried pry bars and scrapers and hitting the pry bar with a hammer, this proved to be drawn out and long since like I mentioned early our rubber was glued down directly to the steel floor.

The thing we found that made the job super simple was to use a propane shrink wrap gun and heat up the rubber so the glue became maliable enough to remove the floor.

After the glue was soft we were able to get the pry bar under there and lift thwe floor with ease.

2. Check For Rust

If the rust is minimal and on the surface you can sand it out, if you have rust that has begun to eat into the metal you will use naval jelly to remove the rust to allow a clean surface, if your rust is bad and you have holes you can use all techniques sanding, jelly and fitting new pieces. But in order to move on, you will need to cut out the rust then fit a new metal plate to replace the rusted floor. Then weld the new piece into the old area. 

Once you have the rust under control you can move on to getting rid of the glue.

3. Remove All Debris and Glue

 You need a clean surface in order to prep the space. We used a DeWalt carbon knot cup, you can use any wire brush that can connect to your angle grinder (as we did) we were easily able to add degreaser then scrub off the glue and grit with this tool. 

4. Fill The Holes

There are a few ways to close the seat holes by using: 

• Mig Welder: weld your strokes over the holes where the seats used to be mounted , after you have built it up you can use a sanding disk for your angle grinder and sand it smooth. Repeat this process until all the holes in the floor are gone.
• Pennies: If you don’t have a welder the penny option works as well to. You will take a lot of pennies depending on how many seats you have and use a sealant on the floor. The sealant I recommend is Loctite PL Max Premium. It seals to metals fast and shouldn’t need another application. Check out the price for loctite here.
• Tape (not recommended)

If you have thought about using tape, please don’t waste your time. We used 3m and it pulled up and we need to do it again. 

5. Seal The Floor

Rustoleum paint Professional is a great sealant. We used it and we had our roof off for a good part of the winter and the sealant held up to the elements. It is oil based and a rust protector. 

Note to the applicator:

I would advise to open the windows in the bus, wear a ventilation mask and rubber gloves for protection, use a fan to exhaust the paint fumes out, this can of paint packs a huge punch regarding the air quality, it will be hard to breath. If you apply these methods your project will be a lot more pleasant and safe.

You’ll need 1 ½ gallons for a full sized 38ft bus. We used a long extension roller and a regular paint pan. 

6. Let It Dry

            This is the easy part and you don’t have to watch if you don’t want to. Let          the paint dry for at least 8 hours, however, 24 hours is recommended for full curing of the paint.  

7. DONE      

Once the paint has settled your bus will have a whole new smell to it. You’ll actually feel the change from a stinky old bus to something you can work with.

Don’t be surprised if after the floor is done that the bus feels like a huge transform for you. This will set the tone for the next project you decide to tackle.

Summary

Once you pull the floor back you will be able to figure out exactly what you are dealing with, don’t go prepurchase any items that you don’t know you will need till you get the rubber and or wood removed from the floor. After that you can follow the other steps in this article so that you can move along with your project.

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