It's depressing!

Today I had a good look at the door and the whole door back panel is warped. I'm not surprised it doesn't fit perfectly any more. I'm pretty sure the double-glazing foam tape I put in will stop water ingress though I'll have to investigate other solutions. I'm kicking myself for not taking the cheap-ass approach to making the door secure which is simply to paint over the glass on the outside and rivet a steel panel on the inside. The current steel panel inside is just screwed into place. That would have saved all the complications. As this is a Carpenter it's unlikely I'll ever find another door.

I looked at the broken camera. It's the camera bracket that has broken. The camera still works just fine. Fortunately I have a replacement which I have just installed. The whole problem was caused when I started to cut the steel to go over the back window. I dropped it while trying it in place and that broke the camera mount. See how everything goes back to that bloody window?

As something had dropped onto the camera I looked into putting a protective bracket over it. Well, that went together nicely.

Trying it over the old camera with the broken bracket, it worked fine. It wouldn't fit over the new camera and bracket because I changed the screws to self-drilling screws. I also noticed that since the bottom of the bodywork above the bumper has been pulled outwards at some point, the protective bracket would not have fitted properly anyway.

I'm quite depressed by the way that a simple idea like making the back door more secure has caused damage that I can't repair to the back door. There's nothing I can do to unwarp it. I had a good look today and I used an iron bar to try to adjust it - all to no avail. I guess it will have to remain as it is.

So many things have gone belly up lately that I'm wondering if it's the universe trying to tell me I need to stop working on the bus. To be honest I think it's probably pretty well completed. There are outstanding projects and I'm wondering whether I should proceed with them.

Changing the roof vent in an attempt to stop the leak.
Putting in a battery holder for a 3rd battery
Putting an extra fuse box inside the console to handle all the console additions I've installed.

There are a ton more ideas I've had and things I've wanted to change or achieve.

I do need to repair the vandalized solar panel. It was a Harbor Freight 15W panel. I liked it because it was black and looked just like a destination sign. I had doubts about the cheap-looking plastic it was housed in and those doubts were confirmed when it was vandalised. Whether it'll be possible to repair it is unknown. I have some pretty good sized mounting holes to plug if it's not.

Looking around at replacement solar panels it seems that there's just nothing available of a similar size and capability. There are bigger capacity panels but not the same size. I do note that solar capacity seems to have increased dramatically in the last few years while panel sizes have shrunk. That lends a lot of credence to an opinion I read a few years ago that one should only buy the bare minimum of solar panels because down the line a year or two they'll be better and cheaper.

I want to touch up the roof paint and some of the interior paint. I did look into switching out the power inlet to a 20A inlet but the problems involved with doing that are plentiful. I'd have to make a shim to hold the new socket as it's way smaller than my Nema 6-30 socket. Thus it wouldn't fit in the existing fixtures.

Looking around the bus, it's hugely cluttered. It's probably well past time I started clearing up inside, putting the tools and supplies in a shed and then saw what needed doing or not. I've been working on this bus since January 2015 so it's time to start using it. There are things that are a little primitive but they all work. I have solar power. I have running water. I have a bed, a shower, cooking facilities etc. The extraction fans work - just not brilliantly unless I power them direct from solar panels.

There are a few upgrades to make things easier to use that I'd still like to do but everything works as it is. Heck, I even managed to get the front and read digital camera recorders to work. At the moment I have a security camera running 24x7 in the front of the bus. That is very simple. I connected a long USB cable to one of my USB outlets and put an old car dashcam on a wooden block in the front window.