Sunday, April 17, 2016

Feeling like death warmed up!

Today, in a radical departure from the norm, this blog entry is being entered via my smartphone with the task being made easier by a bluetooth keyboard. Now the reason for this is simple - after my Macbook started playing the fool, I switched to using an RCA tablet. Three months after I bought it, the USB charger decided to give out, leaving me pretty much with an RCA branded frisbee. As it appears RCA will simply toss the tablet and give me a "reconditioned" tablet that might or might not last 3 more months and wants me to pay to ship their $50 trash back to them, I'm questioning the worth of throwing more money at RCA. Thus I can either do my blog entries as emailed entries from m'lady's computer (running the heinous Windows 8) or do the via my phone. I choose the latter.

As you might have guessed from the title, I really am feeling quite unwell. This sad state of affairs has been rumbling on for over a week and all I have to say about that is it had better bloody well stop. Despite feeling unwell, wobbly and nauseaus, I did actually work on the bus today. Well, after taking m'lady grocery shopping during which I saw how Walmart's "cleaners" simply sweep trash under the displays rather than actually cleaning. On the other hand, Walmart never has had a high bar!
I wonder whether I picked up a bug last time I was in Walmart. The hygeine there is sufficiently lacking for me to wonder whether Walmart deserved a Z for food hygeine.

So, the upshot is that I only did some of the things I had intended. I climbed up on the hood of the bus, struggling to stand upright and fighting nausea. Realising that falling off the hood would not be advisable, I did my best to stay perched up there. After drilling about 50 holes I screwed in my replacements for the front flashers, slipping copious quantities of silicone goop behind as a sealant.

The screws used are not intended as final fixtures. The final fixtures will be rivets. This is just a temporary measure until such a time as I can test the lights to make sure I have not buggered up any wiring with my drill.
While I worked on the flasher panel I took a look inside the compartment behind and noticed that the rivets used were standard pop rivets rather than waterproof rivets. I had wondered about that. Clearly the individual that had written online in some forum I used to glance at had been writing nonsense. His claim was roof rivets had to be special waterproof rivets. No they don't and I saw the proof! Interestingly, the rivets used all had very long shanks. Carpenter obviously found a standard rivet was the best option.

So, the front flashers are now dealt with. Next I want to replace the bolts with rivets after checking the electrics all still function. I will probably do the same to the back flashers and possibly install my extractor fan at the same time.  

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