A small advance.

Continuing on the brake saga I have learned a lot. To sum it up... Brakes need to be double-flared, not single flared. Finding the double-flare tool in Harbor Freight is impossible even though the website claims it's in stock. OEM flexible hoses are terribly expensive. The back of brake flares can be lubricated with grease. I'm using brake caliper grease.

I called Carolina International and was told there are 5 additional hoses in the brake system. One for each wheel and one from the main brake supply line to the arch over the differential. The two from the master cylinder were $68 each. The other 5 hoses come in for a grand total of $350 approximately. That's about $500 of brake hoses all told. While I *could* have gone cheaper and got very different hoses and so on, I want to get back to manufacturer spec. That way I know I have the best for the bus. To my mind there are two things one should never ever compromise on. The first is brakes and the second is tyres. Those are what will save your ass every time.

The Harbor Freight tool kinda-sorta worked but needed 6mm regular bolts rather than the weird crank things that were supplied. Even then it still didn't work all that well.

I managed to get some very nice looking single flares from the Harbor Freight thing but as I discovered I needed double flares I had to get a double-flare tool so I went to Autozone. Well, Autozone will not feature in supplying any more parts or tools. Having created a nice-looking flare, I noticed the flare was cock-eyed. 

Looking at the Autozone tool it's possible to see exactly why the thing was cock-eyed - the tool looks like it has been made by a meth head. It's nowhere near square. That put the kaibosh on doing anything with brakes this weekend. Having said that, I need brake armor and none of the local chains seem to sell it so I had to go to eBay. All told, replacing all the brake lines plus tools will probably end up costing me somewhere in the region of $600. Had I paid somebody to do this I'd be paying $100 per hour so it'd probably be an extra 5 hours pay at least.

This weekend, the back door got my attention. While I like having a window, the window was way oversized for what I need. It was a pretty big security risk so today was the day it got skinned over. Back in the summer I bought some sheet steel. That was all undersized so I had to pony up and buy the right sizes. Today the last of the last set of 4 sheets got used. 

Last week I painted the sheet after drilling holes in it. There it is, placed standing on the door handle surround and the hinge. Checking, I found it was half an inch too tall for the space provided. Thus I trimmed the area that would foul the hinge and handle surround then mounted the plate in place using a big magnet attached to the door to stop it sliding down. With that in place I drilled a couple of locating holes and after putting silicone seal all the way around, pressed the plate down over the seal, slipped two screws in the two locating holes and then went for my air riveter.

Using a combination of my air drill and my electric drill, I drilled all the needed holes then riveted the panel in place over the window. Just because I know you're curious, there were 86 rivets involved. The mandrels all landed on the ground pretty close to where I was working.

That's how it looked all riveted down and painted. The thing dangling from the door handle is my Harbor Freight magnetic picker-upper. That was useful for picking up all the rivet mandrels and pieces of rivet mandrel. Only one it refused to pick up and I'd imagine somehow that was anti-magnetic.

This panel I did not remove the glass first. There was no actual need since nothing will be on the inside liable to swing against the glass. Checking the edges of the doors there was a small light leak by the upper hinge. I can put some extra sealant on the door frame there. Otherwise it looked like nothing has warped so there should be no water ingress. I'll have to check after a rainstorm on that though.

After disappointments and problems, it's nice to have accomplished something. Speaking of problems - I bought shorter 5/16x24 bolts to attach my new circular convex mirrors. They're still a shade on the long side so I'll see if I can get shorter or I'll trim them. With the back window out of the way, that's one less big-sounding project to do. Projects like this take plenty time because there's so much involved.

The next projects at the back of the bus - fill the screw heads with Bondo and replace both of the malfunctioning upper camera and the broken lower camera. The upper camera has water issues fogging the image. The lower camera had a sheet of steel dropped on it inadvertently. Those can now be replaced since there's no heavy construction happening at the back. While I'm at it, I'll install a solar power inlet at the roofline just in case I want to install the flexible solar panel. In fact I might install that anyway since I have all the supplies to do so.

The roof vent has been waiting for ages and I'm pretty sure it's leaking, causing rust and destroying things. I've been tied up doing other stuff and haven't been keen on climbing on the roof anyway. The brake components should be available in a week or two so that's another big project. That might take several weekends to be honest but once it's done I shall feel happier. Tyres will be a big expense and they're due sometime too.

At some point I do need to reprogram the charge controller to make better use of the battery and complete the flame shield for the other battery holder - which will be more complex due to the way I've built the battery holder. Eventually the aim is to install a second battery.

The winscreen wiper pivot I installed is very slightly crooked so I'll have to look at that again. That's a job for the future. It's an important job too. The roof needs a good scrub and the elastomatric paint needs to be beefed up as it's coming off in too many places. 

There is other stuff needing to be done like the crossview mirrors and the rear clearance lights. I'm getting there though.