The shakedown!

A first run or a shakedown run is so called because you watch for things that fall off as the vehicle shakes. Today, what with fuel prices beginning to rise, I took the bus out to put some more fuel in the tank. I put about 20 gallons of diesel in and that almost filled the tank. Today was the first run the bus has had since probably January of last year. It showed - accelleration and gear changing was sluggish but improved as time went by. It clearly needs a 1000 mile run to get it back into running order.

The gaugues all looked healthy even though the hillbillies buggered around with the rev counter wiring so they could fit a reversing horn (badly). Often the rev counter and occasionally the speedometer don't work because of their bad wiring work. That's all on the list of things to get my mechanic to fix.

A few things fell down when I was driving - mostly things that had been poorly situated such as boxes placed on top of the bed and big boxes piled on top of small boxes in the closet area. My lamp standard toppled too. I'm not in the slightest worried about any of those things. Of more concern were by S hooks. A lot of my S hooks vibrated loose and fell off the screw eyes. Some have fallen into crevices and will be hard to locate. My closet chain was one such casualty of the S hooks. Clearly I need to replace all my S hooks with carabiner clips instead. That's well worth knowing.

On a more serious note, the allegedly flexible CB aerial snagged a low-hanging twig as I was driving off the property and snapped off just above the base. Clearly it wasn't as flexible as claimed. Obviously I need some kind of whip aerial.

Today I put up the shower curtains and found I need to get a 3rd curtain in order to surround the shower fully.  As with the S hooks elsewhere, the S hooks in the bathroom were problematic. I think I'm going to have to buy a lot of small caribiner clips. Evil Bay is probably my best bet there. Failing that, for the closet chain and the shower curtains I suppose I could get stainless steel split rings. That would definitely work but might not be strong enough for clothing.

Otherwise, I spent my time cleaning the inside of the bus and putting things in boxes ready for a series of photos to send to the DMV in the retitling process. The electrics work and aren't a problem unless the power supply has a higher amperage than my cable in which case it's remotely possible to burn out the cable.

These are exterior images.





Thinking about the top flashers, I might just remove them and replace them with aluminum plate riveted in place with silicone sealant. I don't strictly need extra lighting. Rewiring them would represent an interesting issue too. As I go along with this project I become more enamored of simplicity. It might be worth replacing the arrow indicators with the amber covers that have been used on the upper flashers.

The cockpit of the bus looks pretty nice. I do need to revive the original drivers fan though.
 

Moving back, the first compartment is the galley. As my microwave committed suicide, I have no microwave to display so I put a simple set up of a kettle with my $18 gas cooker and some tea bags.
 
 
Going further back, there is the bathroom with no handbasin but a jug and bowl. It's very reminiscent of the 18th century but works pretty well.
 
 
I couldn't step back far enough without falling out of the bus to photograph the shower. My jacket is indeed hnging from one of my S hooks but was heavy enough that the S hook didn't bounce out of place. Moving back is the bedroom with the bedroom table shown in the image. Look very carefully and you can see my camera that - it's a 3 megapixel Canon S1 IS from 2001. Oddly enough my phone takes far better photos so that camera is never used.
  

As can be seen, the bedroom is a bit of a dumping ground for clothes and general junk. I'll have to sift through and get rid of the stuff I don't actually need. For some strange reason I have a box filled with several years of rent receipts and another couple of boxes full of receipts and tax records for a business that I had many years ago that proved tp be a financial nightmare.

Beyond the white door is a simple closet area in which I have a pile of empty plastic totes.

Driving the bus was quite interesting. As I said, it hasn't been driven since January so it's not yet in its prime. The 10 miles or so I put on it today was nothing. I almost took it to a further filling station because the local one was advertised at $1.95 though was actually $1.89. The further filling station was $1.69. I'd probably have used a gallon to get there and a gallon back. 25 gallons would havebeen $5 cheaper but I'd have used half of it on the run so though I was $2 poorer for using the local filling station, I felt safer using the bus on a shorter run given the amount of time it has been standing idle.

On an earlier trip today (in my car), I picked up some supplies to complete the shower curtain (which was achieved) and some supplies to help me finish the plumbing. The most important thing, the heavy chain, I completely omitted to buy! Having said that, I can always use nylon cargo strap either initially or permanently.

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.

Tractor Supply

Today dawned with a visit to Tractor Supply. I'd seen a hand pump available for $40 on their website. It wasn't in the store but I did see a 12v diaphragm pump for $49 that claimed a gallon a minute delivery. That's now on my "interesting" list. It's not yet on my want to buy list. I'm not really that sure I want a diaphragm pump or even an electric pump. There is that manual pump but it's large and its heavy. We're I to use that pump then I'd probably need to replace the bathroom countertop with a section of my plywood and I'd probably want to replace the handbasin. To be brutally honest, I'm not keen on the handbasin I have. I'd much rather get an enameled bowl and put a hand pump to pump water into it and put a drain in the bottom. The only problem would be how to secure the basin to the countertop.

Another thought I had - which would simplify plumbing tremendously would be to have no handbasin in the bathroom but have a manual pump poised over the shower base that I could use to fill a plastic bowl with water. Hot water could be provided by boiling cold water in a kettle and mixing it with cold or by having a warm water tank under the bus heated by solar power.

After returning from Tractor Supply etc, the rain was coming down hard. Thus, it was time to paint inside the bus. The bedroom table, toilet and kitchenette countertop all had their final coats of paint. The dinette countertop needs to be cleared then painted. The saloon doors need some touch up and the galley floor needs white paint. Other than that its window tint and the closet chain that need doing plus of course the shower base mount.

I'm very much in favour of having as much of the bus as non electrically dependent as possible. I want to remain 100% gas free too.

Although my last batch of privacy film arrived today, I started painting instead of installing privacy film. There just wasn't enough light to do anything else - even with my 550 lumen led lantern. I have no idea whether I'll have the inside ready by Sunday night. With the idea of doing away with the handbasin, a redesign of the bathroom vanity countertop might be in order.

I have to consider my options. Whether this will be a boondocking bus or not. Eric's suggestion of using the alternator to charge batteries makes sense in the short term.

After a while, the paint had mostly dried so I set to and cut one of my new rolls of window tint into 26x12 inch pieces. This time, the supplier had not supplied a blade nor a spatula. I used a razor blade to cut the film and achieved the same effect. Six pieces was all one roll would provide so I'll have to start another roll for the seventh. By the time I've finished, 20 panes will be tinted and 4 will have been tinted twice due to my cockups!

Interestingly, in my conversation yesterday with Eric, I mentioned my carpentry and how I was sure Jesus would weep if he saw it. Eric made pretty much the same comment about his own carpentry. From what I've seen, his carpentry is good. Perhaps we are our own worst critics?

So, I tinted three window panes today. That leaves four remaining to tint. Just for fun, I've a photo of light behind my tint. It doesn't add privacy at night but certainly does during the day!

And of course a truly gratuitous photo from the inside, of my almost completed tinting. I definitely need to get something better than a razor blade to finish trimming the excess tint off!

Tomorrow will be more of the same - tinting, painting and possibly installing the shower base mount. Who knows - I might even get to the closet rail!

Thinking further on the plumbing, if a hot tank is installed then I'm not sure whether a diaphragm pump could handle the heat. I know a manual pump could but would absorb much of that heat. I think I'm just going to have to try things. If they work, fine. If not, try something different.

I can see exactly why people use gas. It has many advantages related to its small size and high calorific value. It has too many potentially deadly disadvantages though. The same goes for gasoline generators.

Bus power!

Today I had a wander through hardware stores. I was particularly interested in solar power options and alternatives. It was fascinating! I went particularly to Harbor Freight with the intention of buying a suitcase solar panel. The visit didn't start out too well because they had a big sale sign outside yet inside the prices were the same as normal. Fake sales signs

The suitcase solar panel was $80 but to make it work, it needed a charge controllers that was $25 for the cheapest and $80 for the next. The suitcase panel would provide 13w in theory. There was a 3 foot panel that was $70 and claimed 15w. Things were beginning to look costly in Harbor Freight!

In normal electrical theory, watts are the product of volts and amps. Harbor Freight seems to have a different theory as the products never worked out on any of their boxes, leaving me in a quandary as to whether the bits would all work together since either the volts and amps were off or the watts calculation was wrong.

I added the costs... $80 for a cheap panel that's not quite what I want plus the next model up of charge controller which was $80. Then add a decent inverter at $200 then add a 35ah battery at $60 or a 105ah battery from elsewhere at $80. That started at $460. I can see exactly why people use gas for cooking and water heating!

At $460, a simple Harbor Freight generator at $120 that produces 800w looks much more useful. Set that going while cooking or heating water. While solar is cheaper longer term, at $3.50 a gallon and at a reported 7 hours per gallon, that could power my 700w microwave of my kettle or a phone charger quite satisfactorily. If it was run for as much as half a gallon a day ($1.75) then I could use it for 194 days before I'd even equal the cost of installing a 13 - 15 watt solar system. The solar system would produce an optimum 8 watts over 12 hours or 72watt hours while the generator could produce ten times as much in a twelfth of the time! Solar doesn't look so rosy now!

In general, I'm tending to think of running with a generator only initially then adding batteries, inverters and charge controllers later, followed by a gradual introduction of solar panels. All food for thought.