Ready to roll!

Today I went to Day Star Truck and Trailer Repair in Lexington SC. I can honestly say I like this company. I went there and everybody was very helpful, friendly and polite. It is clearly a company run by devout Christians. When I got there they were short staffed and couldn’t do the service that I wanted. The oil and transmission fluid definitely need changing but will probably be OK for my forthcoming trip since they were OK for my trip to and fro from Day Star. That’s 13 miles in each direction. What they did do though was fix the hanging brake. I’d been driving along and not been getting great speed and been having sluggish acceleration. When I arrived, the back tyre was hot, the axel hub was hot too and there was smoke coming from the brakes.

It was costly but then it’s a big vehicle. The mechanic had to have help with my front door lock and a few operational features I’ve installed but only because he wasn’t used to them. I was mildly amused because he was looking for my air gauge until I told him hydraulic brakes. Then when it came time to turn the engine off, he wasn’t used to mechanical fuel cut off. It was mildly amusing to see somebody not being familiar with such an ancient machine when I get to drive ancient machines at work.

I had been going to go for a 3-day break on Edisto Island but that got cancelled by the organizer on Thursday. I was supposed to be there today in the evening and was staying until Sunday night. In the end a few of us that were going to Edisto agreen to go to a national park. I booked for Saturday and Sunday as it wasn’t possible to book for Friday when I booked (on Friday). I’d wanted to see what the truck people said. I’m pretty sure they’d have mentioned anything suspect when they were under the bus, working on the brakes.

I took some fresh photos of the inside. While I was driving (and I did go on some bumpy roads) there were a few things that fell down inside. Those were boxes piled too high and my swivel chair zoomed about. I’ll have to find some way of anchoring it in place during travel. The boxes don’t worry me as I have to go through those boxes anyway as I’m pretty sure most are full of absolute garbage. 

Here’s a nice photo of my batwing doors. Originally the plan was to have batwing doors but I just didn’t feel like going to all the effort of making them. It would have been fun but would have been an awful lot of quite challenging work when I wanted the bus done as soon as possible.

The microwave and fridge stayed in place perfectly. I’m quite impressed with how my building has stood up to bumpy roads etc. I do drive gently however. I’m also very aware that as my bus engine is a slow-revving engine I’m not likely to get any great acceleration out of it.

This is the bathroom. Just about everything one would find in a bathroom is stowed in the sink. I could have worked harder on cleaning but this is a quick camping trip that I’ve not had much time to prepare for to be honest. It was on before I completed the bus. Then it was off and now it’s back on again.

And here - you can see a freshly made bed. No pillow but I tend not to use pillows too much anyway. I always end up below the pillow when I wake up.

You’ve seen plenty pictures of the bus but this is the finalized picture of the one side and back right now. This doesn’t mean something won’t change but it’s pretty well perfect right now.

That’s the other side. They’re pretty much the same except there’s a couple of doors difference. I’m happy with what I see.

In keeping with my sick and twisted sense of humor (I watched too much Playschool when I was small), I have retained the sign I put in, months if not years ago. “Fort Leavenworth, Death Row Express”. Somebody said because I’d chosen to paint the bus grey rather than another color that it looked like a prison bus.

It was pretty hot inside the bus today but the ventilation is off an I have not opened the window to insert the window screen. When I was driving, I had the two internal driver fans going so it wasn’t that bad. I didn’t open the window which I should have. The window, to be honest, needs a squirt of WD40 anyway. Driving wasn’t too bad. It handled well and I was confident driving it. That confidence comes from driving a schoolbus every day.

Operationally I did find the hydraulic brakes aren’t as good as the air brakes at work. They’re certainly not as sensitive. I also find the too high brake pedal to be a severe inconvenience. I’m going to have to have a chat with the International dealer to see what solution they have.