Our latest project is the conversion of a German made Neoplan Cityliner from a seated tour bus to a motorhome.

The Neoplan N116/3 was manufactured in Stuttgart Germany, is 40' long and 8' wide and stands 11'6". As a touring bus it is equipped with a bathroom and seating for 53 passengers as well as a coffee bar and a hotdog cooker - only the Germans would build in a hotdog cooker! The bathroom will not suit the needs of a motorhome and is being modified, the seats are being removed and when finished it will have a bedroom in the rear with a queen size bed, a small office, two bunk beds, a full size shower, dinette, kitchen and a living room fitted with a sofabed and two chairs. >FLOORPLAN

This drawing is the concept for the rear bedroom as seen from the doorway looking toward the rear of the bus

The diesel engine was originally designed to burn vegetable oil, I will not go into the\is in detail as the modern Diesel is a completely different animal and mention this only as an interesting footnote.

Diesel engine manuals have a section of fuels which can be burned in an emergency, these include heating oil, vegetable oil, karosene, solvents, etc. The fact is Diesels will burn just about and oil, some less efficiently than others and some if used for an extended period will damage the engine. Here we are dealing with the combustion of waste vegetable oil (WVO) which is what is in the barrels behind any restaurant which frys food. Typically this is a very high grade oil which has been contaminated by cooked foods to the point where it will begin to impart flavors to the food cooked in it, it is then disposed of and usually reprocessed and used in the manufacture of soaps, cosmetics and animal feed.

The simple science is as follows: Diesel fuel has a viscosity of 10-15 centistrokes, you really don't need to know what a centistroke is, just that it is how viscosity is measured. WVO when heated to 80C has a viscosity of about 9 centistrokes and can then be burned just as efficiently as Diesel fuel with little or no determent to performance and none to engine longevity.

The stock 144 gallon fuel tank will be modified by welding a 1/2" deep sealed pan to the bottom of the fuel tank, engine coolant will pass through this pan and heat the fuel tank itself to the same temperature as the coolant which is 80C. The WVO will then travel through lines, bundled with coolant fed lines, from the tank to the solenoid valve and into the injection pump. Fortunately Neoplan busses are fitted from the factory with 1" copper coolant lines supplying the internal hydromic heating system, these lines run along the roof of the cargo bays, just above the fuel tank, from the front of the bus to the rear. In addition Neoplan Busses are fitted with a diesel fired hot water heater to heat the interior and preheat the motor in cold weather. The WVO lines will be bundled along this existing coolant line and enclosed in standard pipe insulation. An additional 50 f\gallon fuel tank will be installed for the diesel fuel.

Utilizing this system, the engine will only run on Diesel fuel during start up and shut down, perhaps 10 minutes each time the vehicle is driven, the remainder of the time it will be running on WVO...which is free.

WVO supply: Typically WVO is stored in barrels behind restaurants and they contract a company to dispose of this oil for them and pay for this service. I have contacted several businesses in my area and all have been very interested and have without fail given me permission to collect as much of the oil as I like. As an experiment I plotted a trip from Seattle to LA and using a road guide located restaurants along the route. I called these businesses and told them of my hypothetical travel plans and my need for waste oil, all offered as much as I could take away.

Once a source is located the bus will be pulled up as close as possible to the storage tanks, a line will be run from the tank to the bus and a pump will suck the oil into a heated storage tank, another pump will force the heated oil through a series of filters ending with a .5 micron filter and then into the main tank. This process will function at about 3 gallons per minute. Pumping and filtering 50 gallons of WVO should take less than 20 minutes.

07-21-04
Seats and overhead compartments removed and sold, floor stripped and prepared for bamboo and carpet flooring

The original interior before stripping - Seats and video system were sold to a bus line, overhead compartments, lights, flooring and wall coverings have been stripped.

The interior stripped, note the sloping floor section in the center isle and the rigid insulation in the wall panels. The sloping section has now been leveled, all surface rust ground out and sealed and a layer of silver Mylar film glued over the walls as a vapor barrier.

The rear section of the bus will become the master cabin, the vent at the top is the main air conditioning outlet which will no longer be used.

Here the rear can be seen after stripping. The vents have been boxed in 1/2" plywood in preparation for the application of birch veneer. The birch wall panels are set in place for test fitting.

Inspiration for the interior is being taken from the interior of the "Wally Power 118" a 118 foot power boat built by the Italian firm Wally, world renowned for their sailboats.