Today got off to a slow start for two reasons. First my stomach decided I should spend most of the time very close to the bathroom. I must have picked up some crappy bug or other which, given my job working with minors, is not unexpected.
After the hole drilling got off to a rocky start last time, I pulled out a 10 year old Harbor Freight drill press that had never been out of its box. There was a little rust but I got it all together fairly swiftly. Needless to say it had no vise so that was the end of my plan to use that today. If I could have got to the local hardware store to get a vise then I would have but my stomach kept me close to the bathroom all morning and the middle of the day. By the time I dared risk going out, the local hardware store would have been closed for an hour or so. While a trip to Lowes (hiss. spit) or Harbor Freight was not inconceivable, it was impractical. Thus I stuck with drilling pilot holes then enlarging them. That worked a lot better.
When I went into the bus I smelt a strong smell of solvent. I couldn't identify it so after a good hunt around and still being mystified as I had not smelt it earlier, I cleaned up a bit, disposing of a large quantity of cardboard boxes. That cardboard stuff really builds up quickly. While I was at it, I got shot of the foam board I'd bought to make shapes representing my solar panels. I seem to have done OK by simply measuring and estimating.
The anti-fungal elastometric paint I put on the roof seems to be covered in black mold and is cracking in places. The plain white paint I put on years ago never had that issue. I'll have to get back up there and wash the whole roof then scrub where the paint is cracking before reapplying my elastometric paint. There are quite a few places where my grey paint applied in December 2014 is beginning to flake too. That will have to be gently sanded or sand blasted then repainted.
A few days ago I bought more 8-32 bolts but an inch long. That will do well at securing my front access panel. I'll give the rear access panel the same treatment. My 10-24 steel rivnuts arrived from wherever a few days ago. Those will be used to secure the MPPT charge controller.
So after I'd drilled all the holes to mount the solar panels and drilled holes in the solar panel frames, it was time to rivet them. That's where a problem arose. My short handled Harbor Freight riveter had a rivet mandrel stuck in the jaws. That led to my having to disassemble the whole riveter during which a spring I didn't know existed shot over my shoulder and hit the bus ceiling. Fortunately it was pretty easy to locate. It turned out that the operating part of the riveter comprised two jaws, a spring, a funky bit and a tube with a narrow end. After a few false starts I got it all back together whereupon the riveter seemed to work perfectly.
When I say it seemed to work perfectly I had another jam. It was then I realised I had not replaced the chromed nozzle at the end of the riveter. Looking around I couldn't find it either. Finally after moving a pair of wirecutters I found I'd put them on top of the nozzle. So, having had to disassemble the thing again, I finally got it back together and started work. It worked pretty well most of the time. There were a few mandrels that broke off half way rather than coming all the way out. I'll have to cut them off with an angle grinder. I'm not sure whether it's the riveter because it doesn't happen all the time or the rivets from Lowes (hiss, spit).
The combined weight of the panels and the aluminium angle is appreciable. I'm happy to use aluminium rivets to rivet the panels to the angle but I might well use steel rivets to fasten the angle to the bus. In fact I have some wide head steel rivets that I bought several years ago that would be perfect for the task. I'll have to find them.
Jobs still waiting to be done...
Fixing the broken wire in the conduit
Installing the MPPT charge controller
Installing the three solar panels (and completing putting them together).
The mount for the right hand wiper pivor needs to be re-engineered.
The roof vent needs to be switched
The roof paint needs attention
Some of the body paint needs attention
The panel on the back door that I welded needs to come off and be rewelded.
There need to be panels over the other 3 windows at the back.
The rear view camera needs to be switched out and the high-level rear-view camera needs to be replaced and given a protective hood.
One of both of the batteries needs replacement.
The old charge controller from the back needs to be re-employed as the front charge controller in combination with extra wiring to keep the driving batteries topped up.
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