Sloth High Five Skoolie Conversion: Disabling Emergency Egress Switches with video

We had quite a time trying to figure out the emergency egress system in this build. We knew that we wanted to disable the switches or the whole system but we just couldn't figure out how.

We searched online and were coming up empty, so while I had an Auto Electrician Tech out to resolve our no start issue he ran me through how to disable the switches and get us going again.

The idea is fairly simple. The system locks out the ignition and won't allow the bus to start. We found out later that that wasn't the main reason we couldn't get the bus started but only another side effect of what we were trying to do.

I started by removing the emergency window switches. This had one wire that went to the metal switch. When the emergency handle is down the switch is depressed and tells the system everything is good. When it is up the switch is grounded and the bus will not start.

JJ, our Tech told me to cut the wire at the switch and to tape the end to make sure the wire never touched metal again. That was all there was to that.

The roof exits have a micro-switch that activates when the hatch is opened. To disable those I had to take the switch off the roof exit and separate the wires so that they wouldn't come in contact with each other. I wrapped each wire end separately and then wrapped them both together to tuck back behind the interior trim piece that surrounds the hatch.

The rear door had another type of lock and switch. This one was a box. When the door was closed and the handle engaged to lock the door a bar came out and pushed into a pin switch. That pin switch is the cutoff. On top of that there was a barrel bolt lock. It is a secondary lock and signals at the drivers control panel if the bolt has been engaged to lock the door from the inside. This lock will also cause the bus to not start. If it is engaged while the bus is already started the alarm will sound but the engine will remain running.

To disengage these we simply had to disconnect the wires and cap them off so that they wouldn't touch each other or any other metal again.

Now, this isn't true for all bus models and we did this on our 2000 International Blue Bird body. We have a grounded system and this is how we resolved the emergency exit switches. I recommend finding out first what type of system you have and if it something you are unfamiliar with or uncomfortable doing, to find someone that is knowledgeable to walk you through it or have it done professionally.

Good Luck Skoolies
See you on the road.

Sloth High Five

Here is the video link on how we did ours.

Hope you enjoy it.
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