Wow! I achieved stuff today.

The week was blooming exhausting at work. That left me feeling absolutely shattered. It wasn't until 3pm before I finally felt able to do something. Not feeling like much I adjusted the driver's eye shade, putting in some split washers in order to maintain tension, thus allowing me to adjust it while driving.

Under the bus today - yes I went under the bus - I attached two more chains to support one barrel. I didn't have enough turnbuckles to do both barrels and to be honest, by the time I'd put 4 of my new mounts under the bus and attached chain couplers and turnbuckles after cutting the chain to the right length. Putting the new chain hangers up wasn't too bad. There were a couple of mishaps. The first was when my Walmart "Tough" screwdriver made a loud cracking noise before quitting on me. The second was when a wrench came flying off a bolt and hit me in the mouth. No obvious damage but a tooth did get bumped.

Having spent most of my time under the bus, by the light from the yard light, I took my old main breaker box and made a new hole for the power input. I'll close the old power input hole another time. That breaker box has been retasked several times. This time it will go beside my distribution panel and for now will carry a 20A fuse to protect my 20A cable when plugged into a 20A or 30A socket.

In an email to my dad, I mentioned the plans I have for the bus. After adding extra hangers and chains to the other barrel, I'll make use of my excess hangers to attach a battery compartment for my ventilation battery. I might add an extra solar panel to charge a bigger battery that will power my door lock and provide accessory power to charge my phone etc while parked. I'll also add some kind of water input for externally supplied water and consider adding some kind of gas cooktop, powered by a gas bottle placed on the ground. Of course, with a gas cooktop I'll have to install some kind of powered vent over the cooktop. There's the reversing horn. There is one installed but the wiring is broken and hanging loose and draped over the brake line. Not good! I'll have to test the horn and rewire it via a switch on the console.

A few days ago, the mechanic suggested I jacked the front of the bus up to check the state of the kingpins. That's a good idea but honestly, it's time to take the bus in for a good clean and lube abyway and they can check if for kingpins as well.

If you remember, I criticized the construction of Carpenters own wiper pivot which seems to be over engineered. They had a fondness for poor quality welding. Bizarrely they even welded the arm to the pivot but welded it crookedly.

The old wiper arm was connected to the old pivot by a sort of crown wheel. After struggling to remove it from the remains of the shaft, I finally managed today, using a hammer. The thing was just wedged onto the pivot shaft. I'm just hoping that the new pivot I ordered will work. I ordered the longest I could find after working out that the original shaft had probably been 3 inches.

I'm much happier now that I have put my new barrel hangers in place. I have two barrel hanging systems. If one system turns out not to be so great, the other will save the day. The mechanics will probably guffaw because my system is good enough to hold at least 650lbs while the maximum barrel weight is 134lbs. I must say I'm looking forward to completing my bus conversion.