The people that installed the plexiglass windows had used some kind of expanding screw hole fitting which I had to grind down. Thank Heavens for my $15 Harbor Feright angle grinder. That has been a Godsend.
Standard double-glazing weather sealing strips were used to ensure a good seal around the edges. Due to the original strips being so much thicker, two layers of strips were used.
It doesn't sound a lot but there was a lot of work involved and I was busy from breakfast right through until 3pm when I knocked off for the day.
Other achievements for the day - I climbed up on the hood and painted the areas at the top of the bus with a spray can that needed extra paint. There are still areas devoid of grey paint but they're getting fewer and further apart. Silicone caulk was applied to the suspected leak area at the back of the hood.
As I have not driven the bus for 3 weeks, today I started it and went to a store some 7 miles away and picked up a box of donuts. The journey there and back was unremarkable aside from the truly lamentable driving of an individual driving a maroon SUV who decided to overtake when I was indicating to turn left.
Driving my bus since the metal garbagework of a previous owner had been removed is a load quieter. I could actually hear my GPS. I contrast that with what it was like when I picked the bus up from Augusta when my lady had to read the GPS on my phone and we could barely hear each other, shouting at the tops of our voices.
There are two cooling fans for the driver as there is no onboard air conditioning. One was siezed solid and today I detached it with the intention of installing a new fan (which was kindly left loose in the bus by a previous owner). I could not detect current going to the fan and then realised just as I was writing the blog that the red wire is the high-speed power and the orange wire is the low-speed power, not positive and negative because the body is negative. The fan still might not be right because it has a red and a black wire. Only time will tell and I have no time to rush out to work on the bus now.
After I returned to my parking place, I parked in a slightly different spot and was impressed by the hollows in the ground where the wheels had been. 3 weeks had caused the wheels to sink about an inch into the sandy soil.
If anybody remembers, last time I drove the bus, the speedo stopped working. It was working again today. It could be a water leak causing the problem. That was something else I worked on today with my silicone caulk.
The following are a selection of photos from today. Note the gap under my newly installed aluminum window. That's not my inaccurate cutting but rather, Carpenter's ripply metalwork. Carpenter has applied some lamentable workmanship and it's not really surprising that they went bust 6 years after making the bodywork for the bus.
Interestingly I found a plaque stating that the bus is a 59 seater. I thought it was a middle sized bus.
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