7lbs of utter joy

Today I went under the bus and removed the old batteries. Removing the oldest I thought I'd try the second oldest on the charge controller. As I suspected, it was stronger than the oldest. Still not worth messing about with though.

I have to say it was nice being able to lie on clean gravel. It was also far more uncomfortable and knobbly than the soil I was lying on before. I might have to start putting a yoga mat down to lie on. Despite it all being clean, I took my usual precaution of wearing a mask. I don't need a bad stomach from breathing bacteria.

Before starting on battery removal, I did the final painting of my battery holder insert. That went pretty well. I got one side painted and dried then the other side before it began to spot with rain. It didn't get installed this weekend because this weekend I'm still testing my new battery.

As I didn't want to mount the battery straight away, it being such an unknown quantity, I connected it to one of my existing battery connectors on the end of a 20 foot cable. That way, if it catches fire, it's away from the bus. Initial testing went very well.

The first test was the lightbulb closest to the fuse box. That went on without hesitation of flicking the switch this way and that. Clearly the problem I was getting there was related to the lead-acid batteries. Next I flicked the extraction fans on and then off a couple of times with no problem whatsoever. Usually with the lead-acid batteries the system would shut down briefly and then show me an error message. That did not happen. The fans went on straight away. The system did not shut down. Checking voltmeters around the bus, the voltage tallied with what the charge controller was telling me. It thus looks very much as though the problems I have been experiencing were down to some really awful batteries.

Speaking of batteries - there are the culprits. One (on the left) is a Harbor Freight Thunderbolt Solar battery and the other is a Duracell battery. What surprised me was the amount of dust on top of them, given the bus hasn't moved in the past 2 years. I suppose some must have been wind-bourne.

One of the first things to do after installing the new battery and turning on the charge controller was to set the parameters. I had to look that up. I set the battery type to lithium and hope the rest will automatically set itself. Setting to lithium was challenging. The online manual showed 4 or 5 blobs on their image of the controller screen. Enlarging them it was possible to see the rightmost was lithium. Looking on the actual screen I saw the same 4 or 5 blobs. Without pressing my nose against the controller and using a magnifying glass, I could not see what the blobs said. All I could see was black blobs. That tells you everything you could ever wish to know about electronics - not made for ease of use. So, I set the battery type to the rightmost blob. There was no indication I was setting battery type or what I was setting to be honest. I just blindly followed the manual and it seemed to work. I have no idea if I should have set anything else.

I have found solar power and batteries to be a huge disappointment so far. I've kept throwing money in, trying something different to make it work better. My original plan was for no electrical power - just have screens over windows for ventilation to keep it cool. I like my lighting and didn't fancy having to run for batteries every week or so. I do suspect though that putting a big lithium battery wired to lights etc and set to charge off the alternator would have been the best solution. I'm hoping that with a lithium battery or perhaps two, my power problems will be at an end. It would be nice to put my bluetooth module on the charge controller but it was sent with the wrong connector. Having said that, it has 4 wires. Two must be power connectors. That just leaves two to identify - one could be transmit and the other receive. When I have time I'll cut the silly connector on it, off and put spade connectors then put wires on an RJ45 connector and see which the power lines are from the charge controller then connect the power line. After that it's a case of working out what the other lines are. Eventually I should get a solution.

Next weekend when I'm sure the new battery isn't going to catch fire, I'll weld together a flame shield and install that as well as the new battery. While I'm at it, I'll build a battery cradle for another battery. I might as well have two.

10 ways to make yourself more attractive to a school bus driver of the opposite sex

Unless you're a mechanophiliac this won't make you more attractive to anybody. It will, however, earn you brownie points in mechanophiac circles. 

The other day I noticed that after resting, my two 12v U1 batteries were down to 11.6v or 18% according to the charge controller. Thus, I ordered a lithium battery. It came from eBay and was no more expensive than if I'd ordered direct from China via AliExpress. The big difference - it came from California and arrived within a week.

The text on the back is clearly Chenglish rather than English and doesn't really merit a photo. While using eBay though I ordered at the same time two convex mirrors to replace the rather worn-out Busboy mirrors at the front of the bus. 

After a few days a big box arrived. Inside was just one mirror, not the two I paid for. Contacting the seller they promised to send the other one then to send a tracking number. Two weeks later nothing had arrived so I gave them a negative review and filed a dispute, giving them the opportunity to send the other mirror. Instead I had a full refund. Thus I now have one mirror which isn't that helpful. On the other hand since it's not really convex enough for my needs, perhaps this was a good thing.

I'd ordered a pair of brake lines from Carolina International. They puzzled for a while over why the recommended lines for my bus were not the usual lines but ordered the one I needed and had the other in stock. A few days later they called and the lines had arrived so I drove across town and picked them up. Not too bad at $68 apiece.

As can be seen from the photo above (which my new AT&T phone couldn't seem to get in focus), the old brake line had blown apart at one of the joins. Oddly enough there are two nuts in the picture - a small 3/8 nut and a larger one. The reason the pipe to the right is thoroughly broken is because the 3/8 nut is severely undersized. That meant that the wrench wouldn't grip it and the corners which were rounded already gave way, leading to the other wrench twisting the pipe until it broke.

That's the broken pipe. That'll have to be replaced before I can connect the loose end of the new pipe. The top end needs to be tightened properly but there's a problem there. When I try to tighten it, it turns the tube which means the tube gets out of line. That is not very helpful.

I mentioned needing to replace the other line but didn't say why. One look at that picture for anybody that knows brakes will tell the story. The pipe leading from the brake booster has been jerry rigged. I do have the correct tube according to the International dealer. I can't fathom how it goes on because it seems a bit on the long side. As I don't know how it should look, I've left it alone for right now.

Meanwhile as it wasn't raining, I made a little insert to go into my battery hangers. It's just angle bracket cut and welded but it should slip nicely into the existing battery hanger and will hold my new lithium battery. Then it's just a simple matter of clamping it down. Before I do that though, I'll probably make a little roof for the battery hanger so that in the event of the battery catching fire, the roof will prevent the flames hitting the underside of the bus floor directly.

It looks like the brake lines might take a week or two to sort out. The battery installation might get done sooner. It will need a protective plate to be made to go over the battery holder though. That shouldn't be too hard. I have some 1/16th steel plate I can bolt to the frame. It's narrow so I might end up having to weld two pieces side-by side.
 

An investigation into the brake line

Having already tried to separate the flexible hose from the rigid hose below, finding it not easy and breaking the rigid hose in the process, today brought a fresh look at the thing. At the top where a rigid hose comes out of the brake booster there is a clear nut. Down below on section of rigid hose after the flexible hose there is another nut securing it to a rectangular box.

Given that $68 would seem to be very expensive for a piece of plastic hose tubing just 12 inches long and given how the junction between rigid and flexible hose seems not easy to separate I'm leaning toward thinking that the entire hose is made of three factory fused sections - solid-flexible-solid. That would make much more sense. 

Looking at the other hose - the one that goes to the rear brakes, there seems to be a section that is patched together with Lowes plumbing fittings and some very non-standard rubber brake hose. I'm betting it was those hillbillies that put that together. I ordered the new connection on Friday and it should be at the nearby International store on Monday. I'll likely pick it up a couple of days later. Then and only then will I know whether my theory is 100% correct. If it is, I'll order a line for the patched side.

Here's a video of the lines showing clearly the broken connector. I'd sprayed everything with PB Blaster ready for disassembly next weekend.  It can take 24 hours to penetrate.

When I pick up the brake line, if it's as I suspect, I'll order the other brake line. I'll also pick up some brake fluid. I'm pretty sure it's not the same brake fluid that cars use. 

Meanwhile, I checked the battery level on the bus. Earlier today the charge controller had turned the power off despite it being reasonably bright yesterday and today. After most of the day had gone, I disconnected the battery and let the system sit for a couple of hours. Returning to the bus I reconnected the battery briefly and found the resting voltage was 11.7v and the charge controller reckoned the battery was at 28%. 

Looking at the battery photos, the Duracell was made in May 2018 which would make sense because the photo was August of 2018. The Harbor Freight battery was dated July 2017 and the first picture of it was December 2017. It would seem therefore that both batteries are between 2 and 3 years old and probably just about ripe to shuffle off this mortal coil.

I have been dissatisfied with the performance of these lead-acid batteries from almost the beginning. Thus as it is now time to buy a new battery, I bought on eBay a lithium battery. I'll have to test it for a few weeks first then build a new battery hanger for it. It cost $149 plus tax and shipping but then on the other hand, the Harbor Freight battery without a coupon would be $72 and the Duracell would be $100. The lithium battery was really not that much more. 

In terms of power output, a single battery wasn't sufficient to power my 4amps of extraction fans without the voltage dropping dramatically. Two batteries was far better but even so the voltage dropped steeply. This leads me to believe I was exceeding the rate of discharge for my $170 of lead-acid deep cycle batteries. The new lithium battery should deliver according to the specifications sheet, 30A. There is no way with everything switched on that I could possibly reach even 10A of discharge so I should be quite safe there.

The charge controller throws a wobbly when I try to draw more than a couple of amps from it. I wonder whether that has to do more with the awful lead-acid batteries? Fortunately my controller will handle lithium batteries. Thus I'll try it with my new setup before I use the power supply legs to power a relay. It might be that it'll just behave itself when I'm using stronger power supply. I'll have to wait and see. The new battery should arrive in about ten days. 

Yesterday I had a go at spraying the bus with Mold Armor. I'd bought some to get mold off something and had sprayed my car in a test area and found it exceedingly effective. I'd emptied the container doing that and then had to buy more. Well, I finished the car then started on the bus.

It's rather hard to see from the two photos but the dirty bus above became the clean bus below. A lot of black mold was killed off. Some green mold was removed too. Pictures from the other side would have been more spectacular but I was more interested in cleaning the bus than documenting it.

It is noticeable that the window tint film has faded dramatically since it was first applied. I'm sad about that but it's probably still quite effective when the blinds are up. The blinds are white. I'd have loved black blinds but nobody seems to make them or at least make them and make them affordable. Perhaps I should buy a roll of black vinyl and make my own?

How to bust a brake line!

Since posting last around a month ago, I was urged again to move the bus. That ended up with my shelving important bus projects like replacing the roof vent, washing the algae off it, changing out the very bad deep-cycle batteries for a smaller, better lithium battery, repairing my two backup cameras, putting a flexible solar panel on the roof and installing my steel sheet over the remaining back door window.

Well, to move the bus, as the area where I wanted to park was strewn with nails, I decided it was a better option to lay a proper parking area. Cue something called crusher run. This is crushed construction debris - bricks, concrete etc from demolition projects. The first lot I ordered was 10 tons and that took about a week to lay. While I could have paid a couple of hundred dollars and had it laid, I had the summer off, a wheelbarrow, a shovel and a rake. 

So the wheelbarrow might have had something of a drinking problem but it served me well. Every shovel full of that first ten tons went into the wheelbarrow, got transported, dumped and raked. Barrowload after barrowload was moved until nothing was left of the pile.

Needless to say, 10 tons wasn't enough. I'd been told 3 would be sufficient by some uninformed calculator on a website. Thinking another 10 might do it - and another $400 - I upped the stakes to 15 tons then changed my mind and ordered 20, paying $600. Well, there you have it - it worked out that delivery was around $250 and the rest was the price of the grit. For the $1,000 it ended up costing, I could have had an extra 5 tons had I ordered it all at once. Next time, if there is a next time, I will just order 50 tons and be done with it!

My technique was simple - dump barrowloads of grit then rake the grit together ignoring vegetation. Once the grit was raked, I walked all over it, flattening it with my feet and then waited for rain. Since there wasn't a handy Medicine Man around willing to do a rain dance I had to wait for the downpours from the outer layers of hurricanes to tamp the grit down.

The rains came and did their job well. Thus it was time, after spending time tidying my workshop area away and moving my welding bench to a new location, to move the bus. I wondered how easily it would start given that it hadn't been started in months. Connecting the battery, the bus started instantly. All the gauges looked good so I started working the brake as I was pretty sure the pins had corroded from being left with the parking brake on for 2 years.

I worked the parking brake a couple of times then pumped the foot brake a couple of times then pressed it hard whereupon there was a loud pop noise that I heard over the engine. Then I heard the hydromax constantly whirring. That wasn't good. Checking underneath I could see some glistening leaves. That wasn't good either. Clearly there was a leak!

Before I started the bus I checked all the fluids - power steering fluid, radiator fluid, transmission fluid and engine oil. I did look at the brake fluid box and thought I saw a line so I classed that as being good. As I wasn't hitting the road I didn't check the tyres or the lights.

So, I drove the bus 30 feet into its new parking area. The footbrake was very soft indeed. It didn't go all the way to the floor but it was soft. The bus stopped on command without my needing to pull the handbrake. Having stopped, I turned the engine off and disconnected the battery. Then I looked under the hood.

That's the key to the braking system. That's a Bosch Hydromax electric brake booster. That takes my foot pressure and amplifies it, sending pressure to front and rear brakes. It seems that the front brakes are controlled from the rear tube and the back brakes from the front tube. Somewhere on the front tube will be the antilock braking system that stops the brakes from locking and thus allows me to keep steering in hard braking event.

The problem turned out to be the back brake line. Notice how the front one is sparkly and new but the back one is crusty and old? When I broke down the last time I drove the bus, the mechanics must have changed the one brake line and not deemed the other one bad enough to switch out. Well, it has failed now and I'm going to have to knuckle down and do this myself as I'm miles away from any mechanics. This will be a good lesson in bus maintenance and should shed some of the mystery from hydraulic brakes. I will probably have to get underneath and work out where the pistons that get rusted solid are. I'm sure one or more are rusty again. I'm glad this happened in the yard. On the road would have been bad news indeed. I'll have to learn how to bleed brakes too.

While I was working on the parking area, I had sufficient left over grit to do a couple of other things. One was a patio area and another was a trash can corral. The neighborhood dogs have been knocking trash cans over and shredding the bags. Thus I built a corral using something called garden lumber. That's pretty close to being 2x4 but is far cheaper. Two layers of 36 inch rabbit wire around the corral, stitched together with a strand of galvanized wire to make a 6 foot fence worked wonderfully. 

Talking of 2 x 4, since Covid hit, Lowes (hiss, spit) has really jacked up the price of their 2x4. It used to be $3.98 for an 8 foot length. It is now outrageous...

It is now $7.57 for an 8 foot length of treated 2x4. That is highway robbery when Home Depot according to their website charge just $4.10 for the same wood. 

One of the tests for a hydraulic brake according to the CDL manual is to press it hard and to keep pressing it for 60 seconds in order to see if there is any movement. If there is or if it becomes soft (as mine did) then there's a problem as we already know there is.

The inside of the engine compartment was hosed fairly well with brake fluid. As it was dripping down rapidly to the ground I didn't worry too much about cleanup. I'll take a look in a few days to see if any paintwork needs retouching but as it just seemed to hose the firewall, shock absorber and spring, there should be no problem. The leaves where I saw the drips were wet with brake fluid when I checked after I'd parked the bus. I could not have checked before moving it due to the engine hanging quite low.

Looking online for the needed hose, I saw many hoses for an International 3800 but not that particular hose. I'll have to ask one of the school bus mechanics for ideas or perhaps the International dealer or W.W.Williams (the people that worked on my bus last). Fixing the brake is now a top priority.