An interesting problem working with the front brake line.

The other day I went underneath the front of the bus and loosened the front brake line. That is a very long, very complex line covered with armor. Having several bends, it goes from one side of the chassis to the other, fastened to the radiator/intercooler rail. Having had a good look at it a few days before, it looked like it just dropped down and pulled forward. Sadly, that was not the case. It seems to have been installed when the bus was just a chassis and that to remove it involves pulling the radiator and intercooler. Well that's a big nope! 

The lines run inside of the C section chassis members but in one place on each side the chassis had been boxed - there are opposing C sections attached to the chassis so the only way to pull the brake lines is forward. To remove and replace will involve cutting the existing brake line into three pieces. That is an awkward maneuver that cannot be achieved with a tube cutter because of the armor. The angle grinder is too big and the hacksaw is also too big. Thus I concluded I needed an air-cut-off tool.

Going online to order the tool, the immediate thought since it was daylight was - a quick run to Walmart. One showed up on their website and the store I'd set as my local store was indeed not 10 miles away. The price was a bit high at $20 whereas Harbor Freight had one for $10. I duly ordered and paid online for the cutter and was astounded to discover that it had been ordered from a store 20 miles away. Needless to say, if I was going any further than 10 miles, I might as well go 30 and visit Harbor Freight, giving up on daylight for the day.

The journey to Harbor Freight was made. The cut-off drill was located, the cut-off-drill disks located, some disks for my angle-grinder were located. The only thing missing was the disk for my 6" Harbor Freight chop saw. I bought that many moons ago and have never found blades for it.

From there, as I would need to join brake lines and wasn't sure how many flare nuts I had, it made sense to find some flare nuts. That took me to the next stop, Napa. That was a disappointment. The fellow pulled out a bunch of 3/16 flare nuts, looked up on the computer and told me my brake lines were 3/16th. Somebody clearly needs to update Napa's computer system. Then they denied knowledge of 1/4inch flare nuts. 

Moving on from Napa, the next call was O'Reilly's. That was much more welcoming. The salesman took me behind the counter and showed me a set of plastic drawers to find my flare nuts. Though looking without my glasses was definitely a fuzzy experience though not of the warm and fuzzy kind, it was possible to see there was just an empty drawer where there should have been 1/4 inch flare nuts.

Moving on, the next stop was Autozone. There, amazingly, I did find flare nuts. I already knew I had couplings. It was on! Sadly, not so fast... With half a dozen flare nuts in my sweaty little palm I got home to pitch blackness. The sun had escaped!

In the mail, however, was a set of BA15s to G4 adaptors. The plan is to replace my current lighting fixtures. I have G4 fixtures throughout but as they're too close to the woodwork for a halogen lamp I shall have to remodel. The aim is to replace the lighting fixtures with BA15s which are the same as my turn signal bulb mounts. That gives the opportunity to share bulbs that can also work in the bus in the same manner that the house fuse box uses the same kind of fuses the bus uses. The BA15s are still in the post however. Those should arrive next week. Meanwhile the E26 sockets ordered from China are still somewhere in China though the E26 to G4 adaptors are on my desk.

A few days ago, thinking of the lighting issue and wanting to use halogen bulbs, I'd thought a candle lantern would be ideal because I already have one and use it for a tea-light candle. Thus I had a good browse around Hobby Lobby and came up with precisely nothing. They ranged from about $4 to an astounding $30 - even more astounding considering how badly made they were. Clearly the produce of some Chinese forced labor prison camp!

Having drawn a blank on lanterns I did some thinking. Taking the plastic garden lantern cover off one of my LED lights and replacing it with a much more powerful but directional LED light I noticed the light was not phenomenal. Pulling out a sheet of paper I placed that over the bulb as a reflector to angle the light back into the room rather than straight up to the ceiling. The difference was stunning!

Following on the reflector line of thought, it's probably going to be cheaper than buying lanterns and easier than making them if I put two white reflectors. One to reflect light into the room and one to shield me from the direct light of the bulb but to concentrate that light on the secondary reflector. That would allow me to use both halogen and to avoid buying lanterns.

Today, being the 13th got off to an odd start. I woke feeling a bit off color and that only got worse the more interaction with people and animals that I had. In the end I went outside but didn't want to do brakes because those have to be right that probably wouldn't have happened today.

As it was a straightforward task, I pulled out some predrilled, soft steel strip and commenced to make brackets for the new crossview mirrors. The old crossview mirrors though bigger had been used to death. The reflective backing was gone in many places and as they were BusBoy mirrors and not Eclipse they showed the ground only but not the entire front of the bus - which is my preference.

The brackets were relatively easy to make. it was just a vase of bending the steel around a socket of the same diameter as the mirror tubing on the bus. The fun bit came when it was time to paint the brackets. 

Some time ago I'd found both my cans of Rustoleum rust reforming primer were refusing to spray paint. Rustoleum offered a refund and suggested that the problem could be clogged nozzles. Well, I tried a nozzle off an old paint can and it quickly clogged, proving that the problem was inside the can. The paint must have large lumps in it. This is something Rustoleum admits can happen but denies ever happening with their paint.

Having removed the two cross-view mirrors, the bus looks a bit weird. Some nincompoops remove the cross-view mirrors thinking it clever to do so. The actual fact is those mirrors are more used in regular driving than one would imagine. Even articulated trucks are now beginning to add front cross view mirrors.

As the tubing under the mirrors was open and I had some Bondo to hand, I donned rubber gloves and mixed hardener into the Bondo, kneeding by hand. Then I pressed the mixture thickly into both mirror stems in the hope it will stick and seal the hole. If need be I could always fill those holes using my welder.

After working slowly but diligently, both mirrors were eventually installed. They're 8 inch diameter as opposed to the 14 inches width of the BusBoy mirrors but that's not a problem. I should not be having to scrutinize these mirrors for stray children. 

Looking at the mirror, it's clearly quite small but the image is very clear indeed. I had to buy several mirrors like this on eBay before I found a pair that was just right. The other two that weren't right ended up on the back steps of a mobile home so that it's possible to see whether the dogs are at the door.

Though I did not get anything done with the brakes this weekend, perhaps I will next weekend. I just need a good session under the hood to get the front brake lines finished. The back brake lines - aside from one curve should be straight all the way to the differential. That should be lightning fast. Well, perhaps not quite lightening fast because the brake line under the front gave me another as yet unmentioned issue. Try as I might I could not get one bracket loose that held the line. I had to squirt it with PB Blaster and wait an hour. Then it came free easily.

When a garage says they need to keep your car another day, they just found a nut they couldn't shift and had to spray it with PB Blaster and wait a few hours for the stuff to do its work. That's an aside though - the picture is of the roof. There was grey paint on top of the yellow paint then white paint on top of the grey paint. Finally I put elastometric paint on top of the whole lot. The elastometric paint was Rustoleum and doesn't seem to have been worth a hoot. It seems to be pulling the Rustoleum white paint off though not the Rustoleum grey paint. Wonder what's up with that?