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- Jason Kellogg, Country Boy Gas Garage, restored an abandoned 1948 Ford F5 bus that was found in a forest.
- Jason restored the bus after it sat idle for more than 25 years.
- The old church bus was covered with moss, ferns, and was infested by rats.
The transcript of the video is below.
Jason Kellogg Today, I’m going to be talking about the 1948 Ford F5 School Bus that I found abandoned deep in the forest. It had been there over 25 years.
It was a surprise to me how decrepit and creepy it looked. The bus was covered in thick moss and had many ferns growing from it when we discovered it. It even had branches that had fallen down over the years. You couldn’t see it in the forest. It was special, and I knew it had to be saved.
This bus was once a school bus. That is probably my favorite thing about the entire restoration. That was what I discovered with the exterior painting and was able contact the previous church, a 125-year-old Christian church still in operation, which is one of the oldest Christian churches west coast.
When it was time to clean the bus, the first thing that we did was to remove the rats living inside the bus.
Next, I had to clean up their nests and feces. The rat poop and trash were several inches deep.
Then we moved it to the point where we could pressure wash it.
It was framed by a cast iron clawfoot bathtub that had been installed in the back by the previous owner. The bus was damaged by rats over the years. It was so hard to get rid of all that stuff.
I used hammers, pry bars, and some demolition tools to deconstruct the interior. To get the stuff out, I even had to take out my Sawzall and cut through some lumber.
I was able to come up with a solution for sanitation and cleaned the interior thoroughly, sterilizing everything and decontaminating the entire area.
The outside of the bus was covered with moss, ferns, and even small trees when we discovered it. It was easy to wash it and pull that stuff off. The paint underneath looked amazing, and it still held up after all these years.
Once it was washed, me, my daughters and my wife then went out to hand wash everything.
It was easy to get most of it off using the pressure washer and rake. Some spots were very stubborn on the hood. A product company had helped me before SuperClean. It sent me some degreaser along with a bit of that solution. The rest of the staining was then taken off there.
It took a bit of elbow grease, scrubbing and some patience to get it all off.
In fact, the engine bay was a gigantic rat’s den. It reached all the way from the ground to the engine bay, where you couldn’t close the hood anymore.
It was home to rats at the time I found it. I would see them running out as soon as I began cleaning it. Then I had to take out all their nesting materials and sticks. Finally, I got out my generator and shot back. Once inside, I just used the shot back to clean out all the debris and get rid of all the rat nesting material.
The entire process of getting the bus from the forest to the road and driving it again took about a year. I drive the bus now. It’s fun.
As far as interior restoration and maintenance, we have much to do. It’s mostly in good condition, but it had all its seats and other items removed. However, we will continue to work on the interior and make improvements down the line.
It was amazing to discover that the bus used to belong to them, and that they still exist.
He said that they were looking at the videos and that Mary, an elderly woman, was the only one who had seen them. Mary used to ride the bus when she was a child, while her father would drive it. I decided to take the bus back to church on a reunion trip. We traveled 400 miles round trip to reach the old staffer Baptist Church. It was a wonderful reunion. It was an amazing day. Mary told me about her father driving the bus, and Mary agreed to sit next to him. My favorite part was learning about the bus and making this history complete.
