Part 1 of the end

The back end of the bus that is! Today was a day when not as much was achieved as I would have liked. I'd anticipated completing the back end of the bus but it's going to roll into two days. The heat was horrible! It is exactly why I am painting the bus a lighter color. That grey attracted heat!

The roof is in a sad state. The white Rustoleum elastometric paint is flaking and doing what Rustoleum paint generally does best - coming off as fast as it went on. Given that I prepped the roof - which had already been painted with an industrial grease removing cleaner before application of the paint (which is water based), I'm rather disappointed. They grey paint that I simply slapped on over the original yellow with no preparation seems to be hanging on quite well. 

Long term readers will recall that I was quite upset to see how the red lens on the corner marker had disintegrated. Today I had a good look at it and the bulb is not a BA15 under there. It's probably a 168 bulb. Just a single screw holds the lens on which surprised me. I do have spare lenses for the corner markers. They'll go on tomorrow. I'll also replace the three rear marker lights tomorrow.

Aside from updating the paintwork - which I'll have to touch up with a spray can, I did install the camera mount that I'd welded out of aluminium. That went on relatively easily and is lined up with the hole for the previous camera. In order to facilitate easier installation of the camera, I'll probably pass a line down from inside the bus and pull the camera cable upwards.

As the two plates I'd welded together as the back of my camera mount had not been perfectly flat I decided to put some caulk behind it. That would also seal leaks. So, having decided to do that I found my only available caulk was a white polyurethane caulk that I'd bought in Lowes (hiss, spit). Well, after cutting the end off the applicator, it proved darned hard to squeeze. Ok, the spike was used to poke the caulk. It was still hard to squeeze - so hard in fact that the caulk gun broke under the pressure.

The caulk was necessary so out came the machete. A few chops later and the tube was opened and became an expensive single use tube. Heaven knows how much that stuff cost. Anyway on chopping it open, the reason for the stiffness became apparent - it had been sold already half set in the tube. I did get enough for the task at hand though.

Tomorrow the plan is to install the new camera and put a foil tape lens hood around it to protect it from rain. While working up there, the lenses will be replaced on both the wedge marker lights and the three top markers will be replaced totally.

Coming down, the two reversing lights will be replaced and the turn and brake lenses will be replaced. While still working on the back, the red conspicuity tape will be installed. There is now no more painting to be done on the back. The rest of the paint is the roof, the front and the gutters.

I had hoped to do far more this weekend but what with the incredible heat, work was restricted to short dashes out to do the work and short dashes back into the air conditioning. Still, things were achieved. The back of the bus where I couldn't reach without a stepladder was prepped, primed and painted. The camera was installed. The new light lens was tried in place and found to be what was needed. At the end of tomorrow, the back of the bus will be completed as far as it'd going to go (though one tail light still needs replacing though I don't yet have the parts). There also needs to be a sign (which I might paint) along the lines of "Danger - Keep back 300 feet".