Too much pollen

Looking under the bus today, I saw the pollen lying in a thick, yellow carpet under the bus. That ruled out immediately doing the back brakes or the battery compartment. By the time I stood up from kneeling to look, my eyes were streaming and I was coughing badly. Not a good place to be for a week or two.

The alternatives to working under the bus are the roof vent, the rest of the painting and the upper reversing camera. All of those require a stepladder as does working on the passenger side wiper mount. That left just one job - the final interior light upgrade.

Interestingly, today was time for an experiment. Downloading a lux/candela meter onto my cellphone I gauges different bulbs in the "reading" light in the bedroom. With no light on, the meter registered almost zero lux. With the small 1.5W bulb from Walmart it registered 100 lux. The bigger Walmart 2.5W bulb registered 150 lux. The LED turn signal bulbs from eBay that are clearly dimmer than those from Autozone (not tested) registered 125 lux. An LED spot bulb that I'd got from Lowes registered about 6,000 lux. That was very interesting.

So, looking at the light control console for the desk side of the kitchen, the console stood out further than the beam in which it was mounted. Thus it was necessary to make the beam a shade thicker in order that the light stands out far enough that the console will not cause a shadow on the desk.

As the base of the light is about 3.5 inches I cut a 3.5 inch disk from some 3/4 inch plywood that I had lying around. Having cut that I drilled holes for the wires and painted it. 

After putting the wires through it was a case of simply soldering the wires to the new lamp. Needless to say, I drilled a couple of securing holes. Once I get some screws for that I'll be able to screw it to the wall and then do the wiring magic to the control console. 

The switches on the console are currently all flip lever switches. I've ordered some push button switches to replace them. That way I have a low-profile switch setup that won't throw a shadow on the desk.

Speaking of ordering things, the exterior clearance lights ordered still have not arrived. When they do I shall be able to replace the non-functioning clearance lights. Normally I'd just replace the bulb but being as old as these are, it's probably best to replace the entire unit. While I'm up there I shall look at the two front corner markers to see if I really need to replace them with the replacements I bought or whether just a replacement lens would work. The same for those at the back but again those are jobs for the stepladder. 

The lights order seems to have been held up in a post office in Missouri for the past week. I suspect my other orders from China might be equally slow in arriving. Aside from the stuff listed yesterday, the only other things remaining to do are:

1. Fix the horn
2. New tyres all around.
3. Fix a little bit of internal wiring

While this hasn't been mentioned or photographed, I did put the wooden baffle back on the inside of where I replaced the driver's side rear wall window with steel sheet. It still needs to be screwed down but it's in place, awaiting screws. And that's as far as I got. Still exhausted from the Covid shot and it's getting pretty hot now so that is probably contributing. I notice the bus is noticeably cooler with the white paint done as far as it is.