Two jobs nearer to completion

Yesterday I had no energy whatsoever. I looked at the bus and looked at some jobs but it was too much effort to even start anything. Today I had plenty energy and would have done a lot more than I ended up doing. What stopped me was the rain. It was forecast for 3pm and dangit if it didn’t start pouring down by 3:45pm.

Originally I’d wanted to do paintwork but the pollen situation has been appalling. All my nice dry paintwork is covered in a thick layer of yellow pollen. My white car has big drifts of pollen on the windscreen wipers. 

In the end though I felt motivated enough to do a lot of work I decided to start with brake lines. That meant I had to move a pickup truck out of the way. Well, I pulled that forward three feet and turned the engine off then found I hadn’t pulled forward enough. Rather than restarting the engine, I simply pushed it and it was very light and easy to push on level ground. 

So, up went the hood and I took a look at what needed to be done then had a change of heart and decided to work on the battery compartment. Thus I pulled out the battery tray insert and I’d made it oversized so I had to trim it slightly with the angle grinder. While I was at it, I drilled holes in the battery retaining strap that I welded together some while ago and fitted the new retaining hardware to it. That’ll all be ready for use once I’ve made the new flame shield. Because of the way the battery holder has been made, the flame shield is much more complex than the one over the other battery.  There’s a lot of cutting and welding that needs to be done.

Having done that, I rearranged the brake lines a little so I now don’t need an extension on the line for the front brakes. The line for the back brakes I made but I’m not happy with as it does not go through all the securing points that it should. It will work but I will have to return to both of the lines from the chassis to the blended lines. 

Once the brake lines were in, the brakes could be made to work although I still want to replace the whole run from the front to the back wheels. Those lines are as old as the bus and in dire need of replacement. I want to see if what I’ve done holds up to testing though or whether there’s something vital I’ve overlooked.

Into  the master cylinder went a quart of DOT3 but that’s where work stopped. The sky began to look terrible so I never got the change to try my Harbor Freight brake fluid sucking tool.

No pictures today, I’m afraid. Not because I didn’t take any - I took quite a few. The problem is that my laptop running Linux Mint Cinnamon went bananas after a genuine Linux Mint update. It now works in command line only. I tried to download a new version of Linux for it and put that onto a USB memory stick but my Raspberry Pi refused steadfastly to perform. That too needs a new installation of Linux. Thus I’m currently reduced to typing blog entries on my iPad. Blogger, being a Google thing does not play well with my iPad. Accessing via Chrome on the iPad, I get no scroll bar and have no idea what I’m typing once everything goes off the bottom of the window. Putting pictures in with Chrome is possible but once I get to the bottom of the screen, everything flicks up and down constantly, making the whole experience rather vomit-inducing. Via Safari, I can see what I’m typing and the text does not flick up and down but I cannot include photos.

Currently my only other option is to use my phone as a blogging medium. That’s Android and the screen is painfully small. Interestingly, iOS, Android, OSX and Linux are all exactly the same operating system but with different tweaks. I have tried to download to a memory stick with my phone but of course the Android software to write to USB just does not work. It’s all really rather frustrating with everything conspiring to block me from blogging etc. Perhaps it’s the world telling me to complete the bus and to blog about it later?

And, of course as soon as I finished the last paragraph, the text started jumping up and down like an excited toddler. On that point, I’ll let you read what’s been written and I’ll put photos in the next entry - even if I have to buy another damn laptop in order to fix the stuff that’s gone wrong with the previous one!

A rainy day

Today started cold and rainy. Not a day for doing much with paintwork, that’s for sure. Thus I ended up swapping out two lighting units.

The lighting unit as supplied had the cable going out through the back of the unit. This one, I rerouted the cable through a new hole at the top of the unit. It looks pretty good.

Turned on, the light looks good and produces a reasonable amount of light though even my modifications to the light - frosting spray and painting the reflector white haven’t improved things that much.

The most successful light was at the back in the store room. I’d previously had trouble reading the display on the timer and on my charge controller and had to use a flashlight. Because I sprayed the inside of the lens with a diffusing spray, the light is much softer than the previous bare bulb. It’s thus possible to see far better. In addition, the light itself is far brighter. That will make retrieving stuff from the store room much easier.

There is one light remaining to replace. That will have to wait until next time. I have tested the light and seen where it will work best. In order to install it, I want to replace the switch for the voltmeter with a button. That button I will take from the other USB power unit on the other side of the bus which has two voltmeters.

The new light is the same as the one in the bedroom - I decided to go for angled lights that shade the eyes from direct light - this will make reading that much easier. I’m all for making life easier. 

The USB charging panel to the left of the first of today’s lights is where I’ll be removing the red pushbutton and switching out the dead left side voltmeter. I’d had that wired in with the switch for the power sockets and it just burned out. Clearly it was not designed to be constantly on.

To the right of the USB panel, on the beam above is the new voltmeter. I actually have two spare voltmeters - both red. I believe the one on the previous box is blue and I was planning to replace it with red. That would make far more sense to me as red does not destroy night vision.

There have been a couple of ideas regarding the button and the two voltmeters - one gives me battery voltage and the other gives me solar voltage. I had thought of putting a relay in that is powered from the battery and which then gives me both voltages. Then I realised that was way too complicated and simple DPST or DPDT switch would be more than adequate.

Meanwhile the paint on the aluminum sheet is now fully dry but as per normal - all of the paint will take up to a month to harden fully. I will start working on the gutters next weekend. By then maybe the new lights will have arrived. I was going to go with more of the 3 inch clearance lights on the corners but I didn’t order enough. Having to order more I just went ahead and ordered two of the triangular amber lights. I’d already taken delivery of two triangular LED lights. I will try to make use of those. If they’re wrong then they’re high enough it would have to be one nosey inspector to get up there to look for the numbers on them. If they got up there and found them wrong then I’d go with that and take their recommendations.

Next weekend I’d like to try replacing the vent over the driver’s compartment. In theory I should be able to get up there with the stepladder.

Finally, I’m writing this entry on my iPad and Chrome really doesn’t seem to like my iPad as the display flicks up and down constantly. Thus, it’s very hard to see exactly what I’m typing. Even on Safari I get the same problem so perhaps it’s a blogger problem. Maybe Google just doesn’t like iPads? 

Lighting changes

Over the past few weeks I've been reading up on marker lights. It seems there are multiple standards which makes the whole thing pretty confusing. The basic seems to be that vehicles over 80 inches wide (my bus) need to have a standard of P3 or PC2. It further seems that currently P2 and PC lighting is generally acceptable. Looking at my existing marker lights it seems that mine are all marked P3 - save for the utility trailer light I put as a quick replacement for a dead light unit.

Looking at the corner lights there's no specific legislation that says they have to be triangular. Indeed looking at school busses on the roads, the lights used for the corners vary tremendously. The legislation is still for P3 or PC2 but that they be on the widest point as close to the top as possible. 

On several schoolbusses the corner marker lights have been the standard side marker light. Some have been on the side rather than the front but all mark the corners. I did get a pair of red LED corner marker lights but given that LED lighting always seems to fail, I'm not going to implement them. Instead, these lights will be replaced by the long side marker lights at an angle to match the curve of the roof. I can just rivet sheet metal over the existing aperture.

Trying to get side lights, I started by ordering LED (on the left) when I thought LED might be a cool thing to put on. That was, until I realised LEDs do one thing well and that is to fail. This, combined with the fact they're tiny and also P2 not P3. P3 lights have to shine through 45 continuous degrees. P2 lights do not.

The schoolbus standard lights are still available but have to be ordered from a schoolbus lights supplier. Not very convenient on the road. The old-style lights just needed the bulb to be changed occasionally. The newer style clips into a base and is hermetically sealed. Presumably that leads to greater reliability though increases the amount of waste as the plastic assembly goes in the trash not just a dead bulb. It does however leave it open to replaced the lights with LED if desired.

The tractor-trailer standard light is a shade longer than the old schoolbus light which means that likely I'll have to put new aluminium channel around them. That, however, is no biggie. Aluminium channel is cheap and cut to 5 inches then riveted to the body with a hole for the cable and some sealant under it, should be fine. The clip-on, clip-off feature of the lights is greatly advantageous as they're much easier to change. The downside is they're easy to pinch.

In the bedroom I installed a new lighting unit. This replaces my earlier DIY lighting units. I wanted to switch from LED to halogen lighting and this unit will take halogen. I just find LED lighting tends to fail so often that it's more of a joke than a real source of light. It's not just the 12v stuff but the 120v light bulbs just don't last. The LED flashlights and lanterns last about one set of batteries maybe two before they bite the dust. LED is just not worth the time or money. Given that my electricity comes from solar, nobody can argue that I'm creating greenhouse gasses. Indeed, incandescent lamps are just plaster, glass and tungsten - all very easy to recycle and all very environmentally friendly. LED lights are full of nasty toxins and will not break down. There's no known recycling method either.

Meanwhile four other things are going on. First the bus is currently being repainted. That's taking a while as I'm brushing it all down with a wire brush then wiping down with mineral spirits then priming the repaining. I'm not worried about getting all the paint off. If they paint is still hanging on after a light wire brushing then it's good. Where it's loose is where I'm concentrating my focus on bringing it down to metal and priming.

The hood was quite a surprise. It turned out to be fibreglass. That explains the lack of rust around the radiator grill. I did the same and brushed the loose paint off then repainted.

The second thing is some sheet metal has been ordered. That has not yet arrived as the metal cutter at the shop was out of action. I ordered 5052 and 6061 aluminium sheet. Both will be used but they will be tested to see which is better for the back side windows. I just didn't feel like lifting 60lbs of steel sheet. I can deal with 20lbs of aluminium sheet much more easily and at the end of the day, all it does is cover windows and prevent people from breaking in. I'll have to order some aluminium strip to go over the windows that are in use and it'll all have to be painted and installed.

The third thing is brake lines. They're on pause right now because I simply got fed up of working on them. I'll get back to them though.

The final thing is the battery. That still needs to be installed under the bus. I have the bits. I just need to get down there, fiddle about a bit and put it in place.

My plan of getting the bus mobile for Easter might or might not come to fruition. Today was a lost day - I had the day off due to forecast tornadoes so I did a light unit. I have two others that I can install. There's a 3rd unit that I'm going to have to consider because it won't go where I'd like it to go. That might involve some carpentry. I did think of getting a different light unit but at the point I'm tired of buying different things because the one I bought wasn't right.

Once the painting is completed, I'll probably slap lacquer on the bus and then when that is dry, put a lot of reflective tape. That stuff really works! I was driving early one morning and a schoolbus passed across a junction in front of me. That had the tape around all the windows and along the body. I could really see the outline of a bus!

Eventually I'll replace the roof vent and the upper rear camera. The rear camera will be a challenge as I want to include a power socket so that if I want to, I can later add a flexible solar panel to the roof. That's a plan that has all the parts available but not the inclination. I suppose the final touch will be to fix the right side wiper mount which is way crooked.