Sunday, April 3, 2016

How dangerous is it working under a bus?

Well, today I went under my bus and worked on installing my second waste barrel. This one is for the handbasin. I've installed it rather further forward than one would immediately think it should be for a very good reason. I want the clean water barrel directly underneath the handbasin so that I can pump water straight up. Underneath the toilet is where I might eventually put a black tank so the grey tank has to go forward.

Today I went to Lowes (hiss, spit), to buy some stop nuts for my cable clamps. Oddly, I bought sufficient for one barrel but not for the other (which needs stop nuts badly). I guess my counting was off. 

Looking around, I thought about the plumbing and wondered whether I could simply go with flexible pex tubing. I could put a 3/4 to pex connector on both barrels. Having got this far though I'm not about to start re-plumbing the system though. I could definitely use pex from the bottom connection though. 

So, basically, that's all I did today. I did find Tractor Supply's chain connectors didn't have a standard opening. One connector was too narrow and couldn't be used. The other problem was one I had encountered last time. The chain connector U bolts are not at a standard distance. I made a new template and it worked for 3 of the U bolts but not for all of them. There was a variance of about 1/8 inch between the bolts which made standardisation somewaht hard.

In terms of the U bolts on the other side of the bus, rather than putting stop nuts, I wonder whether perhaps welding the nuts to the bolts might not be more secure. The same could be done to the bolts just done with stop nuts. It would add that extra security. I certainly don't want barrels coming loose and falling under the wheels when I'm driving. In terms of removing them if necessary, I can always use an angle grinder. That's easy enough!

So, the upshot of my week off is two barrels installed under the bus and the handbasing not only reinstalled but clamped down. I lost a lot of time due to rain. In fact there was a trashcan standing beside the bus and in the two wet days, it accumulated at least 3 inches of rain.

I still have to do the plumbing, ventillation and to replace the lower back window with steel. It'd be nice to have the front door unlocking system set up too. At least there's progress! While I was under the bus, I looked at the hillbilly wiring. I'm wondering whether soldering the connections rather than leaving the crimp connections might solve many of the problems. Indeed, I might even try to rewire the reversing horn.

Thinking about the top flashers, having got the barrels in place, I might attend to those too. For the moment I want to get all the stuff under the bus completed because I really hate working under it. That includes the wiring and possibly installing a second reversing camera cable, just in case I want to install a new camera.

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