Those damn hillbillies!

Today I looked beside my interior sub panel and discovered I have 9 inches of space between the panel and the woodwork. That gives me ample space to install my main breaker. This means that I now do not need an underbody compartment. The socket box can simply be affixed to the inside of the skirt and a hole made for the plug to pass through.
Had I realised this many moons ago, I could have simply riveted the old hillbilly compartment door over the hole after taking out their nasty compartment. I would have saved several months as I taught myself to weld and built two compartments that I ended up not using. The first compartment (bottom - in grey and brown) was simply way too heavy for my liking. The second compartment (top) is better but is unnecessary extra weight.
In the end, I could have saved all that time and effort by ignoring what the hillbillies had done. Every time I tried to make use of whatever disaster they concocted, I found I wasted time and just had to fix their attempts before doing it my way.

Originally, I'd wanted to have an entirely solar-powered bus. I've since discovered that solar power produces electricity of such an inconsequential amount that it realy is just a stupid dream. In fact, unless it's done on an industrial scale I'd call solar power rather much of a scam. For the price of two solar panels that might or might not make much power I could buy a generator. For the price of the batteries needed to store power I could save a lot of weight and buy several years worth of fuel for the generator. Were I doing the bus again from the beginning, I'd use many of the lessons learned and rather than putting in a 120v system, I'd put a small underbody 4.25lb gas cylinder and no 120v supply. 

Just for laughs, today I bought a solar battery charger from Harbor Freight. I really don't expect much from this but if it recharges my AA NiMh cells then it will work on D cells too. I almost went for the suitcase solar panel on the basis I could probably rig that to charge either the LIon battery packs that'll recharge my tablet and phone or AA/D cells. Now the panel on the side of the box wasn't all that promising, to be honest but I thought I'd give it a shot.
I got it home and found it was somewhat of a challenge rather akin to the act of passing a camel through the proverbial needle to put AA batteries in the holders. Getting them out after might pose a significant challenge! I did not intend it for use with AA batteries but rather for D cells. If it works for AA batteries then it might be worth getting D cells because my LED lantern and my shower unit both use D cells.

12.5 hours for a single D cell looks pretty forbidding. That could mean several days given the fact I'm not likely to have optimal (middle of the Sahara) light. Given the size of the solar panel, I think this is more of a gimmick than something genuine. It's designed to catch the pennies of the curious rather than to provide worthwhile power.

Given that the battery holders are not that great and have a serious problem with gravity, I don't forsee a long life for this unit. Stripping it down to copy it, however, could be interesting. It should be possible to identify all the components in order to build a bigger, better charger that I could use to charge a realistic number of batteries. I have no problem with using NiMh cells as a power source!
As can be seen - this is the underside of the charger. How they expect the flimsy (I had to fix one already) contacts to hold batteries up, inside the unit remains to be seen. I rather expect that the contacts will snap fairly soon.

Meanwhile I relocated my butane torch and my butane refill cylinder. The torch would not take a butane charge. I suspect that the valve might have frozen. Given that I haven't used this in 5 years, it would seem likely. I pulled it out because I thought I might be able to use it to do some light brazing but sadly it appears this is not to be. It's not worth buying another - not at the current price of $18. When it was $10, it was fine. While I was thinking about it, I almost bought another main breaker box out of sheer laziness rather than cut and rivet steel plate over the holes I'd already made in it to situate it underneath the bus. I thought more of my money however.

Diesel is now $1.69 a gallon. I really need to get that 120v system sorted out before the price rises. I can probably put another 30 gallons of diesel in the tank. I need to be able to move the bus before I can do that though and with the main breaker attached by a cable to the bus and dangling on the ground, that's not currently possible unless there was a way to tie the whole affair up so it didn't drag on the ground.

Probably the worst welding in the world!

Yesterday I was reminded of my 2 year anniversary of meeting m'lady. Needless to say I'd had subtle reminders for the past week or two. I'd been finding notes written in Sharpie on my dinnerplate that I'd discover after doing my usual plate-clearing feat. I found notes in my lunch bag, reminding me of it all. So yesterday it was suggested that as it was forecast for 20% rain for Sunday, maybe we should head out on Sunday. That would leave me with all day today to work on the bus.

Well, today I started by cutting the steel for the infilling for the old cable compartment. That was pretty easy and after a little careful grinding, it was just the right size.

The plate, usefully, kept succumbing to gravity so in order to counter the effects of gravity which seems to be somewhat of a problem, I used existing hillbilly holes, some of my defective 10-24 bolts, washers and nuts. That held it all in place quite nicely.

Being mindful of the speed with which I can cut through 15 gauge steel with my 6011 1/16th welding rods, I worked quickly to weld the steel together. Now the steel I am welding in comes from the sole surviving seat back that the hillbillies left in the bus. That has been really useful supply of steel as it has been used for several things. Needless to say, I achieved the feat of cutting holes in the steel without too much problem.
I did get better as I went along though I had to pick up the pace a bit in order to complete the job before I ran out of welding rods. It was touch and go most of the time! I managed to burn quite a few holes and then had to sit there and build up the steel in order to fill the holes.

I don't think my welding will win any awards - aside from the booby prize. Maybe a Rotten Tomatoes award for ugliness. It does work though even though it looks nasty.

The biggest problem I had was that the steel sheet warped and moved a bit. It's nowhere near flush which might or might not be a problem. I might have to trim my compartment in order to fit it around my wonderful workmanship.

As it was getting gloomy - it had been overcast all day and I'd had to try a whole load of different tactics to be able to see what I was doing. My welding helmet is a little too dark to be honest. It's fine in bright sunshine but not in cloudy weather. In the end I found the hand-held eye guard worked best as it allowed me to see the area around the weld while blocking the really bright light.

Having put all my tools away, I wire-brushed the welds on the outside and slapped some primer on everything. Needless to say, as soon as I'd done that, the 20% rain arrived a day early.

With luck the rain won't harm the paint. I need to get underneath to prime the steel on the back. Judging from the smell of burning rubber when I was welding, the back of the bodywork has some rubberised paint on it.

With luck, I might be able to get the compartment installed tomorrow though I'm not counting my chickens. Today's welding took rather longer than I had anticipated to be honest. Had the weather not looked like rain then I would have welded the final strengthening pieces on the compartment. I never thought to check whether my main breaker box will fit nicely beside my distribution panel. If it does, perhaps it might be simpler just to finish infilling the hillbilly compartment and simply putting a socket box there instead. 

Meanwhile, my screw eyes arrived today. Too late to do anything with them today though. I now have everything I need to be able to complete the shower curtain fittings. Well, perhaps almost everything - I might need some S hooks.

Conceptualising

I had opportunity to continue thinking today. Normally, I just don't get a chance to do my own thinking so I have to buy pre-prepared thoughts from Walmart in the thought aisle. Usually I prefer the Indian spicy throughts with a side of Nancy's Nook. Anyway, I left Walmart with a couple of bottles of ideas in an unmarked brown paper bag.

Today I looked at different ideas for cooking, power and ventillation on the bus. That was prompted by the fact I am about to close-up a large aperture under the bus and that as it is, two compartments could replace the existing one compartment.

One idea I had was to put a gas bottle compartment for cooking and water heating. Lowes has some 4.25lb propane cylinders that are 9 inches tall by 12 inches wide. That sounded pretty interesting. Obviously it would have to be well ventillated so some kind of mesh would make the floor and sides. I have some mesh too though it's very rusty. New mesh is cheap enough. In the end though, I decided against this route as I don't really see the need for extra gas power.
For electricity I was thinking I might use those external cell-phone batteries and charge them from a folding solar panel rested against the windshield from the inside. Now that would charge my phone, tablet and mifi pad but not my camera batteries. Well, that's what I thought until I saw this website http://www.voltaicsystems.com. Actually, having discovered that site, many of my power problems are solved. Basically, I realised the only things I really need power for are my cellphone, mifi pad and tablet. Lighting is taken care of with an LED lantern powered by D cells. My toothbrush and hair clipper both run off AA batteries. My shower head runs off D cells too and in the event the batteries are dead, a manual option can be employed for all but lighting.

For ventillation I had the idea of using a fan to pump air from the ceiling in the bedroom out through a hole in the floor created by the hillbillies. That would be complicated. Better to close-up that ridiculous hole and make a roof vent instead. Now I looked for roof vents and found some interesting ones on the Amazon British website. They were horribly expensive though and only worked for single-skinned vehicles. Going further and back to the electric fan option, there are some solar fans. Perhaps mounted on the outside of the bus with suitable ducting and filters, they might be the solution. They'd need an on-off switch but would be a zero power option. They're also dirt cheap.
So, I don't need an underbody compartment for batteries or gas cylinders. This means I can just weld a plain sheet of steel over most of the exisiting hole. Had I realised earlier that I could have put the master breaker inside the bus, I could have just had steel conduit taking the cable to the power socket and done away totally with the underbody breaker box. Of course, one lives and learns. I didn't know anything about most of the things I have done before I started work. I am not a handyman. I am an office worker. I am prepared to persist and am not afraid to try new things.

Thinking ahead about water, I did see somebody else's conversion in which they had a handpump to pump water from a 5 gallon bucket under their sink. I deliberately have not installed a handbasin in my bathroom or kitchen. In the kitchen, it seems so pointless because everybody washes their dishes in a plastic bowl as it retains heat better than a metal sink. As for water disposal, I can simply chuck it down the shower drain. In the bathroom, the handbasin can be replaced by a bowl and a jug of water. Again the water can be chucked down the shower drain. I have thought about using a footpump to pump water out of an underbody tank. Now the downside of an underbody tank is that they freeze. I'm not worried about that with the waste tanks because 90% of the time, the drain cock will be open and it'll be draining to the ground. The waste tanks are just there for times when an open drain isn't desirable. The upside of an underbody tank is it can hold more. The upside of 5 gallon jerrycans of water mean it's unlikely to freeze as they can be stored inside.

Going back to ventillation, solar powered ventillation over the cooking area and the bedroom look very possible. The downside is they only work during the day and they will look a little odd from the outside. 

In terms of electrical supply, I have already experimented with a $5 USB charger and found it lacking. The other day I ordered a much larger capacity USB charger from eBay for about $9. If that works well then I have my power solution. I didn't realise I was so close to being completed!

In other news my rivnuts for the shower curtain supports arrived. I forgot to pay for my screw eyes so they will be a few days late as it was a few days before I remembered to pay for them.

New ideas keep hitting me!

Two members of the genus Sasquatch strolled past as, wrapped up against the arctic cold, I stepped into the freezing outside world. The aim today was to work on the breaker box compartment with a sub aim of marking the steel to cut to infill the rest of the hillbilly hole.

Last night, as I dreamed of things to be, things that might be and things that couldn't possibly ever be, I had an idea. Why not add brackets to the back of the box in order that extra securing points may be employed. Thus, the first order of the day was to locate some suitable steel, which I derusted manually, welded into place and sprayed with rust killing spray.
While I was at it, I re-welded the seam that was a bit loose that I'd welded yesterday. Yesterday I tried using my welder at the lower amperage setting since I was using thin rods and having a problem of burning through steel. That kinda-sorta worked. 40A was too low to be really useful. 70A is a bit high because extreme care needed to be taken that the rods didn't burn a hole in the steel.

Hunting around, I found my white paint. I set to and gave the assembley a white topcoat, hoping that it really won't matter much that some of the undercoat got burned off by the welding process. As rain is forecast for tomorrow, I placed an upturned planter over the assembly.
Then, looking at the sheet steel I placed behind the hillbilly aperture, I realised that it would probably support the edge of the compartment. I also realised that by being very careful I could probably stitch weld the steel into the hole after it's cut to size.
At least I found a use for the duct tape I had in the bus. It was well on the way to not being at all sticky! The steel for this operation was donated by a seat back from the bus that the hillbillies had not removed. Those with longer memories will recall that I removed it and the handrail that was attached to it in around April.

I sprayed around the perimeter of the aperture with orange paint in order to make an outline for cutting. Then, mindful of the fact rain was forecast and this is probably not galvanized steel, I sprayed inside with white paint.
The loose breaker box and cable are resting on top of an upturned trash recepticle underneath the bus. I must admit they look a load better since they were taken out of the nasty environment of rotting wood. Speaking of rotting wood, I did find some light surface rust where the wood had been in contact with bodywork steel. I treated it with anti-rust spray.

The next step will be to mount the breaker compartment in place and secure it from the front and the back. I had planned to drill holes in the tops of the sides but there isn't room to get the drill inside the box to be able to drill vertical holes. That's as of right now. In the future I might find a smaller electric drill and be able to do it.

If I put the steel infilling behind the bodywork panelling then I could weld it to the edge of the flange on the compartment and it would act as a support. I could rivet the steel over the front of the aperture too. That would solve the problem and old vehicles do have patches riveted over them. This bus is a splendid example, what with all the patches I've rivetted over hillbilly foolishness. I could butt-weld the whole patch into the aperture with the aperture (albeit with a cutout for the breaker compartment).

As far as locating the inlet box, that could be placed under the compartment or to the side. At the side, it could point downwards or go out through the side of the bus. The advantage for going out through the side is ease of access. The downside is it looks like a power socket. On the other hand, from 20 feet not many people would really notice anyway - particularly with a grey vehicle.

The paint is definitely peeling in places. I did read that somebody prepped their bus by wiping down the paintwork with paint thinner. That sounds promising and I might try that where the paint peels off. In fact that sounds easier than brushing down to bare metal, priming and painting. I can try it and if it doesn't work, I can try something else. It's not as though it has to be instantly perfect. It has to be comfortably livable inside - which it will be when the shower curtains are in place and it's all cleaned up.

12v electricity is a long-term project that will be installed at some future point. After infilling the hole in the side and installing the breaker compartment I might move on to installing the waste water barrels. I have considered various options and come to the conclusion that nylon cargo straps are the way to go. There seem to be three ways of securing barrels. I have seen some ideas that use plywood cradles but that just seems nuts having seen the way plywood under the bus just rots. 

The three ways are to use chains anchored to the skeleton and wrapped around the barrels, to use nylon cargo straps and to use plumbing strap. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Cargo straps are pretty universal, easy to install and easy to obtain. Chains are equally easy to obtain but harder to tighten and install. Plumbers strap probably needs a special tool to apply that I don't have. 

Discounting plumbing strap, I'm left with chains or cargo straps. Chains are excellent and very strong but only as strong as the weakest link. As the tanks will be pretty close to the back wheels (unless I can situate them further forward) then there is a possibility that the chain could drop down and get wrapped around the wheel with catastrophic consequences. Nylon straps would just snap at 300lbs pressure. They'd also be kinder to the plastic barrels. Thus, catastrophic failure is not as likely. Some question how well the straps will last but protected from UV and kept dry (the only wet will be road spray) there is no reason why they should not last a good long time. Doubling them up would add extra security. The attachment points for the straps could easily be steel plate with a hole drilled in it that's simply riveted to the body skeleton.

Tomorrow, if it's raining as promised, it's unlikely I'll be able to do much outside the bus. As far as I know, the rivnuts and screw eyes I ordered on Friday won't be here tomorrow. Those will complete the shower curtain attachments. Another thing that could be done is to work out some way of raising the 3 gallon cooler that forms the basis of my shower in order to increase the efficiency of the impeller pump.

Fighting real nastiness

Today started with my cutting and welding into place, the sides of the new breaker box compartment. My first side was cut too short but I welded it in place anyway. Then I realised that was actually fortuitous. Being 1/2 an inch too short meant that instantly I had a solution to my drainage problem. Welding was problematic but the first side went on well enough. The second side isn't as secure as it really needs to be but as it's just a side that protects against spray rather than being a side that performed a structural function, it's not worth seating over.
Really and truly, I got a bit fed up of welding today. I spent an inordinate amount of time welding before I found dropping the power of the welder down to 40A meant I was less likely to burn through the metal. I might return to welding tomorrow. It's probably going to annoy me that it's not done as well as possible!

After completing the compartment the next order of the day was to paint it and stand back to admire my handiwork. Having suitably admired my handiwork and run around in circles in the yard yelling "Yay. I am the champion", it was on with the next task. The dreaded hillbilly cable compartment.
As can be seen, the wood looks a little suspect. The cable of my electrical system has acquired a nasty lot of white mold on the outside. Needless to say the whole compartment smelled badly.

Removing the compartment was a huge battle. Just about every bolt was badly rusted. All the screw heads stripped trying to turn them so in the end they all had to be removed using my angle grinder. Having done that, it was already dusk but here's a photo of the now empty compartment.
The wood that made up the old compartment was in truly amazing shape. I'm totally baffled as to why it hadn't just fallen out on the road a long time ago. I have a hard time believing that compartment could ever have held anything heavier than a fart!
The wood is not fit for anything other than a bonfire. I didn't go underneath the bus to see if the bad wood had caused rust - that's a job for tomorrow. I did however try the new compartment in place and it fits in very sweetly. The power inlet will hang down a little below the bottom of the skirt but not hugely. It'll make easier access. I did think about using a proper TT-30 inlet but for some unknown reason, TT-30 inlets are either unavailable or horribly expensive. I'm sticking with my NEMA 6-30 twist-lock inlet instead. I could probably go down to a 20A inlet but to be honest, I think if I am plugged in, 30A will give me more and better options. I don't need huge amounts of power but I can see that a microwave could well use up 10A leaving very little room for anything else.

I spent a while worrying about putting on the new door and putting the infilling up on the side, where the old door went before deciding it wasn't worth worrying about. I'll face that when it's time. For now the task is to install the new breaker compartment. The door can wait! Tomorrow there might be a holdup as I have to put more undercoat on some of the compartment and topcoat on the whole compartment. Ideally I'd paint it white but as I only have black topcoat, it'll have to be black. While the undercoat is drying, I can tape a sheet of steel behind the aperture the hillbillies cut, spray around the edges with orange paint and when that's dry, pull it out and trim the steel with my angle grinder. From there I can tape it into place and weld it in. That welding might well take all day or even several days.

The new monstrosity emerges

Just when you thought it was safe to let the women and children out on their own, my monstrosity emerged from the capable hands of my Harbor Freight 70A welder. Starting was much delayed due to my looking for a way to hold the pieces in place. I considered riveting but couldn't find my rivets. Then I tried to bolt the pieces together but the 1/8th drill bits all seemed pretty blunt. In the end I retrieved a tiny G-clamp from something I'd put together several years ago that utilised a G-clamp. That did the trick! It held the pieces together while I welded them.

There were setbacks along the route such as letting the welding rod linger too long and burn a hole in the steel I was welding. That delayed things as I had to make concentric circles, waving the welding rod around the hole like Harry Potter's wand while I built up the steel surrounding the hole until the hole was filled.
It's not quite rectangular but I'm not bothered - the simple act of riveting it underneath the bus will pull it straight. Once it's riveted into place I might weld it as well. I'm not sure about that yet though.

I have't painted where I welded yet as I need to put sides on the compartment and the simple act of welding burns the paint off. Watching the paint in flames was quite entertaining! The original plan was for solid sides on the compartment. The power socket could go underneath the compartment. That would simplify things considerably. The cable needn't go through any complicated routes.
Looking around, I found some steel mesh. It looks ideal to use as sides. That would have the advantage of allowing air to evaporate any water that seeped in through the compartment door. The whole point of the compartment is twofold - firstly to top squirrels from eating the electrical cables and secondly to provide somewhere to mount the electrical inlet. It would be nice to keep spiders out but they get in anyway.

Checking the bodywork steel, it seems to be the same thickness as the vast majority of the lightweight sheet steel that I already have. It should not thus be a problem to fill the cavity left in the bodywork by the hillbillies. Certainly moving the welding rod as swiftly as Harry Potter's wand means I should be able to weld thin steel. My welding has definitely come a long way since I attempted to weld two steel conduits together and burned right through them.

Tomorrow's plan is to continue with construction of the compartment and possibly to demolish the old wooden compartment as well as removing the aluminum compartment door. Like as not, there'll be some hidden nastiness there that'll need to be dealt with. I might even need to move the bus closer to the power supply in order to do more welding.

I can kinda sorta see why people sniff at the cheap Harbor Freight welder. It is pretty slow to weld with. On the other hand, I'm not in any particular rush. If I can get the breaker box compartment completed by the time I return to work on Tuesday then I shall be elated.

Meandering toward perfection

Not feeling much like doing anything today I started by gathering up most of the garbage in the bus and by putting it all out in a big cardboard box. Then I gathered all my tools up and put them in the tool box. Now I might be able to find things. I put together a box of consumables such as paints, sealants, glues and lubricants and a box of electrical stuff.

Next I ventured outsde and derusted then primed a piece of angle iron that I found yesterday in the bushes. That will make excellent angles on the new breaker box compartment. I didn't do any welding - pretty much because I didn't really feel like doing any.
After that, I took an old enameled steel table top that I'd found in a junk pile and cut the steel for the sides of the compartment. They're roughly cut and will have the final cuts next time around.
Thinking about filling the hole in the side of the bus left by the hillbillies, I remembered the remains of the seat back that I used parts for filling in where a window was missing. It should be the same thickness as the bodywork steel. In any case, it's about the same size and will need minimal trimming to get it to fit.

After this, things remaining to do...
1. fit the 120v inlet socket.
2. Install two or perhaps all 3 of my 15 gallon drums as waste water tanks.
3. Fit drawer separators so things can be stored in the drawers easily and so china doesn't get chipped in transit.
4. Install a 12v battery system powered by a 30W solar panel.  That could use a NIMH battery setup. In fact I prefer NIMH to both lithium and lead acid.
5. Tow hook and tow wiring.
6. Rewire the schoolbus flashers to be brake lights and indicators.
7. Install a front door unlocking system.
8. Weld some steel over the lower window of the back door as a security measure.
10. Install a shower curtain.

That's about it. After removing the I beam underneath the bus, I eliminated my step which made getting in and out more challenging. To aid me, I spent $12 on a set of folding steps from Walmart. They work though I have to put my knee on the floor of the bus and hoist myself up. 

In terms of registering the bus as a motorhome, I might as well complete the forms and get that underway.

More welding excitement

Reading about welding last night, I found the difference between 6011 and 6013 rods is that 6011 is a penetrating steel that will flow into crevices and 6013 is a rod that will just lie on the surface. As it happens, I'm out of 6013 rods so I went to work on welding two of the pieces of roller shutter assembley together. While doing so, I noted that the 1/16 rod was much easer to work with than the 3/32. I think 3/32 might be a bit much for my welder. It took quite a while to weld the two pieces of steel together which was fine. I must say though that the bitter cold outside was more challenging than the welding.

The biggest problems when welding today were that the two pieces of steel moved slightly in relation to each other. That meant that it was slightly skewed. No matter - it should work just fine as it is. In fact, if there's anything I've built that's geometrically perfect, I'd probably faint! The other problem was that one of the pieces of steel warped while I was welding it.
The warping wasn't expected. The movement of the parts was something I hoped wouldn't happen. I'd wondered whether I should drill and rivet the two pieces together first but decided to wedge it with a brick. Clearly I rocked the whole lot at some point and movement occured.

The next stage was to trim the excess steel off and straighten the bent steel. The angle grinder made quick work of trimming off most of the excess.  Straightening the warped steel was straightforward too - I just pulled out Mohammed's screwdriver and whacked it back into shape.
Having done that, I'd had enough of the bone-chilling wind howling around me and the daylight - such as it was - which wasn't that good due to low hanging and ominous clouds began to fade. Apparently sleet is forecast. I hurriedly sanded where the paint had come off the steel due to welding, brushed the slag off the welds and slapped rust-killing primer on the metalwork. Interestingly, I'd sprayed some clean steel with Rustoleum zinc paint a week ago and it's now rusty. Typical bloody Rustoleum. I really wish I could find paint locally that's not utter garbage. I did idly try some paint with a rather suspicious name of "Miracle" a few days ago. The only miracle was that it was cheaper than Rustoleum. Let's just say it achieved a surface peel in 5 days as opposed to several months for Rustoleum.

Inside the bus I put up the two blackout blinds in the bedroom. One went on crookedly but it works. The other went on quite well and looks pretty good. It's more a privacy thing than anything else.
Following that I put the final white blind up and then on a window that it wasn't possible to put a blind on, I cut a shower curtain and stuck that up with self-adhesive velcro. I'll have to see how all this self-adhesive stuff lasts. I suspect not very long but only time will tell.
Tomorrow I want to try to complete my breaker box compartment and to replace the old cable compartment totally. Before that though, I need to experiment welding thin steel. I really hate that thehillbillies put in that dreadful cable compartment. In fact, I don't think anything they did with the bus was worthwhile. I'm wondering if they simply gave up and sold it when they discovered how half-assed their workmanship had been. 

The big thing is that after I have put the shower curtains up, everything else I do will simply be upgrades. I'll have to order some more 8-24 rivnuts and some 8-24 screw eyes. I did think about self-adhesive stuff but I'm pretty sure all this self-adhesive stuff will fail in the summer heat. I will probably replace the blinds with roller blinds and the shower curtain over the one window with a section cut from a roller blind that's screwed to the framework. I"ll have to wait and see though. 

Even the cable compartment will be an upgrade. The existing compartment is rotted. The new compartment will not rot. Underneath the new compartment I can install the holder for the new power inlet. I bought that the other day. Despite the fact the bottom inch will be visible, it shouldn't be that noticeable. I really didn't want anything hanging below the skirt but I don't think anybody will really notice one or two small things.

Rolling around in the dirt like a hippo

I intended to do lots of things today but ended up doing just two. The first was to finish priming the two pieces of steel from the roller shutter assembly. After that, while the paint was drying I decided to remove the I-beam that the hillbillies had welded underneath the bus.
I'm still mentally designing the breaker compartment so going slow with it is fine. Aside from that, the existing hillbilly compartment does actually work though it is in terrible condition.

Thinking the beam would be heavy, I piled up some concrete squares underneath the end protruding from the end of the bus. It was then that I realised piling up the slabs further under the bus would be distinctly challenging with lots of trips underneath. I took a short cut and started the bus engine for the first time in a couple of months and moved the bus backwards about 6 feet. Then I piled up the next lot of slabs underneath the end again. 

There was more welding than I had anticipated on the rear bumper so I ended up with some interesting cuts. Having freed the back end, I moved under the bus and worked on the front of the girder. In all I went through 3 cutting disks and it took most of the day. 
Having removed the girder, with much rolling around under the bus, I carried it to the scrap steel pile. I have no idea how much scrap steel I have removed from the bus but I have removed a tremendous amount. I'd say probably close to two tons.

Visible in the photograph above is the reversing horn. Judging from the dangling wire that has been wound carelessly through holes in the chassis, this must have been the work of the hillbillies. It is something I will attend to in due course.
Doesn't the back of the bus look so much better without that girder sticking out? Getting in and out would be almost impossible now had I not foreseen this eventuality and purchased some folding steps in Walmart the other day. As it turns out they're a little low. I might have to get a bigger set of steps. 

After cutting the steel I reckoned the girder I had just removed would weigh something in the region of 50-70 pounds. It was definitely heavy and I certainly didn't enjoy carrying it!
These are the two blinds I installed yesterday. Worryingly, there's a dark spot on the top right of the right curtain. I don't know whether there was a grease spot or whether there is a slight leak. I will have to watch carefully to see what happens next.
In conversation today, my attention was drawn to a threaded hole in the caps of the drums I bought. It seems that they have a 3/4 inch thread. That makes life a load easer. I can see drums appearing under the bus fairly soon.

Removing the weight that I did makes a big difference. I feel happier and I'm sure the bus will drive more sweetly without that hideous thing lumped onto the back.

Ideally, I'd have loved to have had the bus before the hillbillies got hold of it. I'd have done it so much faster and better without having to fix or work around their disasters. It's almost as though a group of guys got together while blind drunk and decided to do the worst construction they possibly could. Their planning and execution was very poor.

I'm looking forward to heading to Canada at some point this autumn. My university Buddy, Eric,  might or might not make it there this autumn due to an operation he has just had. Only time will tell. Still, it'd be nice to do.

How much work was done today?

Well, it doesn't sound like a lot but decisions were made which makes for big advances. Physical progress was limited to derusting and painting two pieces of steel from the ends of the roller shutter assembly I dismantled a while ago.
The ends had been held on by two very rusty bolts. When I took the main steel from it, I didn't undo the bolts - I just cut the top of the steel fairly close to the ends and let the ends drop off. Today I had to remove the bolts. Rather than fight with them, I simply cut them off with the angle grinder. Then I derusted the ends with the rust/paint stripping brush in the pistol drill and painted them with Rustoleum primer for rusty metal. One side got painted anyway. The other side needs painting now.

That all followed on from an investigation I carried out earlier into the prospect of putting a small compartment to replace the rather large hillbilly compartment. I'll probably have to get some 1/32 welding rods as my 1/16 might be too thick to weld bodywork steel. I'll try with my 1/16th first though. There is some air conditioner ducting lying around and if I can successfully weld that then I can successfully weld the bus steel.

The plan is to put a much smaller door on the bus for the compartment. As far as electrical power goes with a small battery, I'm not sure that I really want to weld a compartment there. Instead I'm thining I might just put a couple of straps and strap a steel ammunition box underneath containing my previously mentioned solution of using AA batteries, battery trays and a charge regulator. Basically, I'm going lightweight with pretty much everything.

While I was looking around underneath the bus, I found the reversing horn and was intending to test it but never actually got that far. I did notice that there was a sign on the chassis that said "Do not weld to nor drill into the flanges". The body is held on with steel clamps. I looked at the I girder the hillbillies had put on. That was welded via a spacer to the flange on the bottom of a chassis cross member. That was really close to a very readable sign that tells people not to do that! Let's just say that nothing the hillbillies did surprises me! That girder must be removed for two reasons.

Firstly the girder is unlikely to make a good trailer hitch since it is tack welded to the rear bumper and to the chassis cross member which makes it rather unlikely to be all that strong. Secondly, in the event of a rear collision, the chassis cross member could get bent. That would be a horribly difficult and expensive fix.

I put up self-adhesive blinds in the bathroom over two windows. That was quite easy. I stopped off at Walmart later and picked up three more in order to finish putting blinds on all the windows. The bathroom door window didn't have enough room to put a blind so I decided to get some opaque shower curtain material and attach it with velcro. It was then that I realised I could do exactly the same thing with the shower curtain over the shower.

I considered looking at replacement plates and dishes but didn't because I'm not quite ready to go there yet. At the moment I'm finishing getting the inside 100% habitable and getting the breaker box compartment completed. I'll do a lot of welding for that and am hoping my exisiting long steel rivets will work to attach the new compartment. The compartment will be a welded unit, riveted into position. I figure it would be better for rivets to be sheared in a collision from the side than for steel supports to be bent. 

While I was out, I picked up a small set of steps. Those will be handy if not esential now that I have to remove the I girder. My way of ingress has to date been via the back door. The girder was in the right place to use as a step. Without that girder, steps will be needed and Walmart had just what I needed at a price I was prepared to pay.

Tomorrow the plan is to work toward constructing and installing the breaker box compartment. I will also press on with putting up the last of the blinds and consider putting up the shower curtain too. If there's time - which there could well be since I have to apply layers of paint then I'll probably have a go at removing the I girder. That's attached so poorly to the back bumper that cutting that weld should be very easy. The other end, I'll just cut the spacer as close to the top of the spacer as possible.

Once the breaker compartment is installed, the rest of the old cable compartment will be closed up. Following that, I'll have to install the new power connector. I bought a socket box and some extenders for it. That way I can install the new power connector. I had thought of making my own socket box but don't really have a suitable steel box and am not that confident about my welding ability.

Actually, having all the stuff as light as possible has two benefits - firstly it puts less stress on the skeleton and secondly, if it broke loose and fell off then it's less likely to be such a disaster when I'm driving. There is a third benefit that it makes the bus lighter and thus less thirsty on diesel.

Out of curiosity I have been playing with old vegetable oil. For most of the last six months I've been pouring old used vegetable oil into a 5 gallon bucket. Looking at it the other day, it all seems to have solidified. Clearly not quite what it's cracked up to be and not quite suitable for use in a diesel engine. Still, I'll find a use for it even if it's just painting on exposed steel to prevent rust.

It's colder than a witches tit today!

It has been below freezing for several days in a row. It's highly likely that I won't be doing any welding tomorrow. Today was just plain miserable most of the day. It was made even more miserable by a stomach thing that fortunately cleared up by 4pm.

Thus, at 4pm I headed out to Walmart, being slightly surprised that my car battery actually started the car. It didn't want to but it did start. So, while the mechanics at Walmart changed my battery (which was free), I went shoppng and got 4 more blinds and 4 mounts for my blinds. The cheapest blind at walmart was $3.95 but these were $4.95 roller blinds. For the other windows - in the shower - I suppose I could use the $3.95 blinds but I haven't given that much thought. I'm thinking more in terms of how to attach shower curtains to the ceiling.

Looking around Walmart, I saw some very interesting things but my mission today was explicit - blinds and battery. If I don't stick to my list then it's likely that I'll spend too much. Income is not unlimited and the last paycheck I was given has to have special consideration as it was printed incorrectly. Apparently it'll be OK with the issuing bank because they know of the error. My bank might be another matter entirely though!

Of interest were another D cell lantern for $20 - mine works very well though with just one, lighting is limited to a small area. For the potential battery I looked at the EverStart Lawn and Garden battery for $20. It was interesting but did not state its capacity at all. Given that all I would need to power would be fans and phone/tablet chargers I really don't need much power. I could probably get away with a 20ah standard battery and use only 2-3 ah out of it. Indeed, I could probably - if the USB connectors would handle voltages that low - use a 6v battery. That could even be a DIY battery made of NiMh AA cells. Now that would be definitely worthwhile. I have a pile of NiMh AA cells that I don't use.

As it's perishing cold right now, I was looking at alternate heat sources for my bus and chanced upon a Coleman gas heater. The one of immediate interest seems hard to obtain. It's called the Coleman SportCat but nobody seems to stock it. It takes a different size of gas cartridge and offers 14 hours of continuous heat per cartridge. That's definitely doable.

I'm not too keen on having multiple standards of gas cartridge or indeed multiple standards of anything but sometimes it is necessitated by cost and availability. Apollo 13 discovered to their cost why different standards are a very bad idea when their spaceship had a mishap. It turned out that the lunar lander air filters had a different fitting from the command module filters. Thus they had to rig up a solution in order to make the wrong filters work in the command module just to survive.

Clearly I need to add some more fire extinguishers but that was always the plan anyway. I did wonder whether I should build a bay under the bus to hold a couple of 20lb gas cylinders. Plumbing for gas needn't be expensive or hard and is very possible. The gas cooktop could be installed above where the fridge or cooler will be situated. Indeed, I looked at coolers today and saw one that would do that was $22.

In mind today were the schoolbus flashers. The plan is eventally to intergrate them into the turn signal and braking light systems. The existing reversing horn needs to be tested and connected to a switch on the control console. That way I can switch it on when reversing and off when not which would also give the option of having it sound when necessary and not when it's not or not when it's dark and would unnecessarily cause noise. There's a lot of systems work that could be done.

The aim right now is to get the blinds and shower curtains up. That will get the bus pretty much ready inside. I would like to have the battery/cable compartment refitted but this is not essential right now. I think with the blinds and curtains in place, I will be able to reregister the bus as a motorhome. I will want to put a couple of extractor fans - one over the cooking area and one in the bedroom but those can wait a little while.

If it's a nice day tomorrow (which it should be) the plan is to install the blinds and possibly get started on replacing the battery/cable compartment. The compartment will take a while. I need to experiment welding very thin sheet steel because the aperture under the bus created by the hillbillies is way too big for the new breaker box compartment. The new battery compartment will be quite small as it doesn't now have to carry a battery big enough to power the cooking systems.

It's always a toss-up which way to head with design and one person's error could be another person's salvation. I don't like gas - never have and probably never will. On the other hand the cost of a battery setup capable of powering a microwave would need a battery capacity costing $500 while my electrical system will cost maybe $50. A small battery such as the one planned could be charged from a smaller solar panel. Indeed, solar in this instance would work. This is even cheaper than the generator system I had planned earlier.

The only issue I am likely to have with tomorrow's welding is that the bus is probably beyond the reach of just a single one of my two 20A cables. One cable has Nema 5-20 connectors at each end but the other has a Nema 6-30 on one end which won't connect to anything other than the planned connector on the bus. The solution there will be to start the bus engine for the first time in 3 months or so!

I can honestly say that I am looking very much forward to getting the bus completed and ready for action. I want to see if I can get it ready and reregistered in time for the Battle of Aiken so I can take it for the whole Battle of Aiken weekend.

Now I'm really getting there.

It might not look exciting but it is a significant step forward. The plumbing descends from my shower via a U bend to a bucket placed underneath the bus. It might not be very high tech but it does mean I can now claim my bus has adequate plumbing. The pipes are held in place by clips attached to the brackets I welded the other day. The aim is to install the barrels I bought the other day but this is dependent upon finding the right plumbing adaptor. Now that could be very hard to find so for the moment I'm sticking with a bucket. 

As you can see, the pipe comes down, ending in a cap that protrudes slightly below the skirt. This is not intended to remain so but is rather useful for locating where to place the bucket. One thing I will add is a hook to hang the bucket from so that it won't blow away. In summer, evaporation should see the level of the effluent reduce through evaporation.

When I went shopping the other day, I bought a little gas cooker and some cooking items. These will make a huge difference as the gas will take care of the biggest power drain in any home. Cooking uses absolutely the most power. I have not tried a raw food diet but I gather raw food involves no cooking. It does require refrigeration though which is a constant power drain.

It really is a nifty little gas cooker. The kettle is nifty too. I don't as yet have an extraction vent above the cooker. This, by the way, is the bathroom vanity and not where the cooker will be situated. I was thinking of having it situated there when I'm gas cooking and just leave the microwave where it's currently situated. Thinking about it, and in view of my adventures with the roller blind, it might well be better just to swop the microwave and gas cooker around as required. That way I could put just one vent.

The cooker had all kinds of wacky reviews, mostly centered around being unable to find gas cylinders and the price of the gas cylinders. They were right next to the cooker, in Walmart and were $2.40. The small print says 8.8oz of gas and the cooker says that a single cylinder can last up to 1 hour, 15 minutes. I presume that's on low. Given that most meals take 15 minutes or frequently less to make, that doesn't seem to be much of a probem to me. In any case, this bus is intended for electrical plugin operation, not off-grid though I'm making sure it can be used off-grid.

Going back to an old problem - the china I had was all 9 or 10 inch round plates. I found that they are now 88 cents each in Walmart. My solution to the china not fitting my drawer was to give my existing china to m'lady who sadly did not want the matching mugs that I'd struggled to obtain. In Walmart are some 8 inch square plates. I might get a couple of those and a couple of square dishes too. That way I have something that won't roll in the drawer.

Today I turned my mind to the blinds. I bought a single blind the other day. It was way too wide and I'd reckoned I might be able to cut it down with my angle grinder. Thus it was - I cut it down and it actually worked. The edge on the cut side is a little ragged but that really doesn't matter. I'd like it to be smooth but I'm not prepared to pay massive amounts of money to buy a smooth blind of the right size. It's way overlong but that shouldn't be a problem. I did think about mounting it but the light had already gone by the time I considered that. Funny how that always seems to happen when I get to the interesting bits.

If you notice, at the top of the picture are two of the wobbling flower solar decorations. I won't be carving those up as they were gifts but having seen inside one, the wobble is caused by a magnetic coil that's charged by the small solar cell built into the base. I looked at the coil and am wondering whether one taken from such a decoration could be the solution to my front door unlocking problem.
Areas of the paint had peeled on the outside of the bus. That has been referred to before. Today I pulled out a pistol drill with a paint removing brush. I brushed areas where the paint was flaking and found the flaking to be of a local nature. I suspect I'll have to spot brush the whole bus wherever the paint is flaking and reapply the paint. Eventually it'll all stick. I found some cheaper spray paint in the dollar store but it seems to be slightly lighter in color which might not be a problem after a couple of weeks weathering.

Today's big fail was Rustoleum self-etching paint. I tried it and it sprayed well for a second or two then started spraying lumpy paint. Then the nozzle suddenly frothed and it stopped spraying. No matter what I did, nothing helped the situation. I had a can of Rustoleum rust killer that did this a while ago. I'm not that keen on Rustoleum - its just not good paint. It's cheap and that's its only virtue.

I looked again at the hillbilly cable compartment. The cable comes down on the left, very close to the front of the compartment. As I'm not needing to carry a big battery now, I looked at the compartment and looked at my massive construction and decided I could get away with a much smaller compartment. I will have to build a new, smaller compartment. 

Looking at the body ribs, I'd been worried about putting rivets in case of water ingress. Looking at the construction, they're not sealed at the ends anyway. The only question is how thick they are. I'm going to assume they're 15 gauge like the rest of the body. I can probably weld that quite satisfactorily. I think building the new compartment which will be purely a breaker box compartment with a plugin either underneath or on the side, I won't build it completely then try to weld it on. I'll build it in pieces, welding each piece into place. It won't have any great weight to carry which is a huge bonus.

Thinking about batteries again, the only thing I really need batteries for is to charge my cellphone, tablet and or a mifi pad. That could be achieved by simply charging cellphone charging batteries from a small solar panel. Those are cheap enough and put in a tin box insulated against fire, I could charge a couple.

I can't really see needing to charge much else. Charging my camera could be interesting. It's probably time to change camera systems. I suspect my 10 year old monster is not as good as a secondhand 5 year old marvel of technology. The thing holding me up there is that it's paid for and would barely fetch a single peanut on the secondhand market. My income wouldn't result in donation being a worthwhile tax deduction either. In fact last year I got back more in tax refund than I paid in tax!

The huge hole in the side of the bus will have to be filled. I'll have to see what I can do about that. I want to do something better than just rivetting a patch over the side but I suspect that's going to be the most expeditious solution.

The big news though is that today I consider it worth sending off to get my bus registered as a motorhome. I hate to think how much money I have spent on things I didn't end up using in my conversion process. Still, that's probably the same for everybody. Not everybody gets it right first time, particularly when there's nobody else in one's immediate and trusted circle doing the same thing.

I need to finish doing the blinds, to put something over the bathroom windows to maintain privacy and to put up a shower curtain. As far as the blinds are concerned, I can either put pairs of trimmed blinds over the windows or put cloth curtains with velcro attachments.

Looking at the paintwork today, the pain was peeling in the middle of the logo that said 3800 DT466. The first logo just came off very easily using just finger pressure. The second - on the other side needed a screwdriver and broke as it came off. They're off now. I might give the same treatment to the International logo on the front. I cleaned up where the logos had been and sprayed grey paint after filling the attachment holes with rivets. I don't know about my readers but I just don't like carrying other peoples' advertising. It's like shirts - if a shirt has a logo on it advertising some company or other then that shirt had better be free if I have to wear it for work or if it's outside of work then some company had better be paying me to wear it.

The Final Solution or when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping!

Today was a mission day for m'lady but since I was out (even though I had to go on a second trip). I had ideas about attaching the would be water tanks under the bus body and plumbing them in but decided against chains as they would put too much stress on small areas of a thin-walled plastic drum. I looked at nylon straps but didn't get them immediately which as it turned out was rather a good thing. Looking at plumbing fittings, I couldn't find anything in Lowes (hiss, spit) that remotely fitted. There were adaptors that were alleged to fit but which didn't really. They were an incredibly sloppy fit which was no good whatsoever. I did manage to get an section that will join my long pipe after I cut it and which will serve to lengthen it. Cutting accurately will be somewhat irksome, of course.

My next stop was Walmart where I spent the majority of my time. There I picked up a roller blind that looked interesting. I'll have to see if I can cut it down with my angle grinder. It only needs to be 26 inches wide. It's currently 37 inches which is too narrow for two windows and too wide for a single window. I'll also shorten it since it'll be way too long. If the experiment is a success then I can work on putting two together for the other windows. That could be an interesting experiment.

While in Walmart I picked up a bowl and a jug which should be excellent for the bathroom/kitchen. Waste water can simply be dumped into a bucket underneath the bathroom vanity. In a similar vein, since I cannot currently find an adaptor to feed the waste water tanks from my waste pipe that actually fits anything, for the moment the plumbing will revert to my original idea which was to have the pipe going down to the bottom of the bus skirt with a stopper that can be removed prior to use.

Thinking about the electrical system, I noticed something very interesting. It was a rechargeable USB cellphone charger. Connected via a charge controller to a solar panel that could totally eliminate any need for a house battery for the bus. That makes me think more about redoing the battery compartment I've been building to make it smaller and lighter. As it is, it won't accommodate a full-sized battery thus it's way over built. Instead, I could do something a lot lighter and less complicated, replace the huge door the hillbillies put in with a smaller door and simply rivet aluminum sheet over the rest of the aperture. Basically, make it into purely a breaker box compartment. I might also include in that bay, a space to charge USB batteries. I don't want anything that flammible inside the bus despite having now got a gas cooker. At least a gas cooker I can attend while it's working but a solar charged battery I cannot.

Another thing I did was to get some truly independent kitchenware. There was a gas cooker with auto ignition for $18 that contained a small gas cylinder. That was well worthwhile. It was a single burner but it'll do to demonstrate independent cooking ability.

The refrigeration will be non existent other than a cooler. I grew up without a fridge, freezer, car, telephone or television. I'm well used to what many would be considered privation. There will be no television, of course. I do have a small pocket radio, my tablet and my phone (which can act as a wifi hotspot). I'm thinking a lot can be achieved with small solar panels.

Today or rather last night, it rained heavily. Walking inside the bus today I noticed or rather didn't notice any moisture. That means that my seam sealing was a success. I just hope the rest of my work will be as successful.

I had a look to see if I could find a 12v fan. That could be combined with a solar panel to keep the body cool during summer, extracting the hot air and blowing it out under the bus.

Returning to the underbody compartment, I've considered a smaller, lighter compartment many times before. Certainly a smaller, lighter compartment would be that much easier to attach with that much less risk attached if it fell off. Definitely food for thought. By using the compartment as it is does rather trap me into the hillbillies bad ideas. 

One thought is how to charge camera batteries. I've had the same camera for ten years so all the chargers etc are off the market by now. As it has a unique lithium battery, it's hard to find the correct charger. I'm wondering whether it would even be possible to find a charger that would work off solar these days. Phone batteries would be easy to charge off solar. Interesting thing to think about. Of course, I could consider donating my old camera and buying a newer (secondhand) model.

The plan for tomorrow is to complete the plumbing and to look severely at the hillbilly cable compartment. I had a nasty thought that the compartment I've built might be too long to fit the space. I'm coming more to the conclusion that less is more.

That was bloody exhausting.

After today's exertions, I am absolutely exhausted. Heaven knows why but I find welding very tiring. I suppose that could be because it wasn't particularly warm today but it was very dry. I didn't complete everything I would have liked to have done but I got closer to completing a lot of things.

The first task was to climb up on the bus roof to reseal one of the seams. That took a complete cylinder of silicone sealant. Ideally I'd have used something other than silicone but since I've used silicone everywhere else and it seems to be working, I've stuck with silicone. This motorhome will only ever be a 20 year old vehicle. It will never get younger so imperfections aren't that important.

After that, I thought about my plumbing. I decided that for the moment I'll plumb for a bucket under the bus. It should be straightforward to add underbody tanks. The plumbing didn't go quite as planned as it was the last thing done today. Needless to say, I cut the tubing too short after having previously cut it too long. It's currently an inch too short after being an inch too long. Having said that, this is what it looks like.

The long horizontal is an inch too short. It would be usable with a small block placed between it and the attaching point. The jubilee clip I bought to attach it turned out to be way too small. I'll have to buy a couple of bigger clips. Now the attachment point was the first thing I made this morning. Basically, it's two steel brackets welded together. 

Welding was where I made great progress today. I started using 6011 rods rather than 6013 and started getting an arc every time rather than having to fight to get an arc. Most things needed a second pass to get the weld to look good but I burned through fewer sticks and had better welds. I ended up making four tube mounts. Two are to hold the downpipe and two more to hold horizontal pipes when I get the tanks installed.

This was part way through my welding progress. Welding small stuff was way easier than I thought it would be. It was important to keep moving the rod though as I did burn the edge of one of the brackets away a little in one place. 

This is how the mounts looked when completed. After welding them and clearing the slag off the welds, I sprayed them with cold zinc plating. Now that's quite expensive but if it stops rust then it's worthwhile. One is already installed but the second isn't yet as the battery in the electric drill expired before I finished drilling the second hole.

Another task completed was to weld the two parts of the roller shutter top that I'd previously cut into two pieces. I welded with 6011 rods both at the top and the bottom of the join. I did several runs with the welding rods in order to make the welds look good. In between runs, I wire brushed the slag off the welds.

After brushing the slag off, I sprayed with my zinc spray. I would have liked to have cut the construction to fit the battery/cable box but I didn't have time. After I'd worked on the plumbing, it was just too dark. The sun had escaped from me again. I'm just hoping it appears again tomorrow!

I have concerns over whether my underbody work will be too much for the skeleton. I might complete what I'm building for the underneath and then ask my mechanic for advice and maybe get him to weld the underbody stuff. I really don't want stuff dropping off as I'm driving!