Nearer to solutions

Today I went shopping - I needed to get another tube of caulk to do the rear roof seam which appears to leak despite not appearing to initially (hence I never bothered sealing it). My first stop was O Reilly's. They had no caulk. I proceeded on to Walmart to do the grocery pickup. That was a complete shambles.

There are 19 pickup bays and the staff seemed to have extreme difficulty in servicing just one bay. I believe I waited 15 minutes before somebody came out to check on me (despite my arrival already having been announced online). It was a full 30 minutes after that that the groceries finally appeared.

My next port of call was Advance Auto and they were out of the caulk I wanted. That was pretty incredible! The only other place was Autozone. In there I did find two tubes of caulk but needed only one. Picking it up, I joined the line and waited. The staff did not seem to bothered about manning the tills or talking to the customers. After probably 20 minutes I gather from the customer in front that their computer system was down. That would have been nice to know! I put the tube of caulk down there and then and walked out. When a company has been shut down by technology problems they need to hang up a sign that says "closed for business". They also need a manual backup method!

Having got the groceries home and unloaded, I looked under the hood of the bus. I'd ascertained using a voltmeter a few minutes earlier that the horn button actually worked. That means I don't have to fight to undo the screws. 

Following the wires into a plastic box, I removed the cover and found a rat nest (minus rats) as well as a bundle of wires. Looking at the wires it seems that rats chewed through one wire and bit on a couple of others. The chewed through wire is the horn wire. The hillbillies that owned the bus before me put their own wire that bypassed the horn switch and the horn circuitry inside the cab. Heaven knows why!

It looks as though I should just join the grey wire that's been chewed off to the grey wire to which the hillbillies that owned the bus before me had twisted a red wire. Those guys hadn't even removed the rat nest!

Curiously there's a mysterious wire with a connector that has been disconnected. Heaven knows what that's for. My next mission under the hood will be to connect the horn wire correctly while leaving the red wire until such a point as I'm sure the horn really works with the steering wheel button. 

Meanwhile I looked at the control console and how the lid won't secure well. It seems very much that it should be possible to install rivnuts and 10-24 machine screws to hold it down properly. While I was at it, I looked at the buzzer and found it had a white wire with black dashes on it. That, according to the circuit diagram led to the back door etc but the wire seemed to go forwards rather than back. That merits further investigation as do the two grey wires that came from the buzzer and also went forward. 

A new Tractor Supply opens locally soon. That will be an easy trip for me to get the aluminium I want for the roof vent - though I have yet to remove the tape to test the roof vent for leaks.