Oh, I give up....

I knew I was in for a rude awakening when this morning I could hear my son Jeff make his way down the stairs. It's bad enough that he was up before me, but when I heard him say in an extremely disgusted voice..." Ahhhhh REALLY???.....COME ON!!" I knew it was not good.
He was right...

Our plan was to get up and take a load of scrap metal from the donor motor home and the old diff to the recycle yard. The plan still came to fruition but the first couple of hours were spent snow blowing the driveway. Then we loaded up what we could. Not all of it was accessible, over the last few months I had strategically blew the snow from clearing the driveway to hide the hillbilly pile of 'crap' in front of the garden. An out of sight out of mind solution to an otherwise persistent eye sore. So we took what we could and moved on. I wish I had brought my camera , there was a moment when the crane had used the big magnet to lift the diff off the trailer and it was gracefully swinging through the air.... ah it was a bittersweet moment.

As Bragg Creek luck would have it, we got 8+" of snow last night, but when we got to the city...nothing!

Thankfully Fillmore is snug as a bug in a rug, just patiently waiting for us to finish up with his hiney.
I feel like this is a bad Carol Burnett skit and I am the old man mechanic, moving in slow motion, being played by the Tim Conway.

The bunny has come and gone

 Well last weekend was action packed to say the least. I managed to putter on the bus on Friday, albeit I didn't get started until noon(ish) and I had to leave on a 'secret mission' about 3:30.
The hush hush was I had to run into town to pick up my anniversary gift for my wife. Easy there boys I didn't say I had to go pick it out, inferring that I forgot and this was a last minute thing, no this was a well thought out, long in the works gift...that just happened to squeak in to town in time for our Anniversary.
The rest of the weekend was R&R, visiting and family time. I had the great fortune of having one of my life long friends (Steve) come through town with his son (so regally named Blake as well). They joined us for dinner and good times before continuing westward the next day. They were here long enough to get a tour of the bus, have a few chuckles at my expense and then head home. Never long enough but always good!

 As riveted you are with my personal life I am sure, on to 'da bus'. The engine cradle template was finished and taken to the fabrication shop in Cochrane. In the meantime I decided to continue work on the boxes for the water tanks. Ron and Jeff started the cutting, I finished up and then started to put it all together. (yes Trev, that is Hula Daddy)

Simple....yet still gratifying.

Can you see the difference?

 Sometimes Michelle accuses me of being way to picky. Sometimes the little things bug me. I know it can sometimes be a bottleneck for progress. On the other hand it makes the end result better when my demand for things to be "just so" dictates the rate of play. I know my patients like the demand of high standards.

 As such, the alignment of the engine tranny combo was...close. But if I had me way I would jiggle the engine a little more. Problem was the hydraulic pump was in the way. So last week I called John, my mechanic, over to give me an opinion. The decision in the end was to loose the hydraulic pump, go to an electric fan for the rad. This way I can shimmy the engine a bit more, it gets rid of some extra weight, as well as a whack of hoses, a hydraulic reservoir, etc etc. I also elected to remove the air conditioning compressor that is on the upper right on the picture above. Although I will likely have AC in the unit, it will likely be a roof unit so the compressor is redundant.

 So once Ron and I removed the chaff, we needed to then relate the position of the engine mounts to the cradle. EGB in Cochrane is going to make me a new cradle, so all I need to do is show them where everything needs to be!

 Just a relationship weld. This is NOT meant to bear any weight....so don't worry all you engineers.

 The forward engine mounts.

 And Ron got the pleasure to attach the connector arms from the leaf springs to the rebuilt shock absorbers that Randy installed.

After a good day outside....it was time to make dinner. Jeff was on onion duty....I applaud his problem solving skills of onion chopping!!

Whoops! Missed a step.

 Although there are time that I feel I am boring anyone reading this thing to death with my incessant reporting of the smallest occurrence, there are time that I forget that you are not actually here. As a result sometimes I skip some things that happen. Sometimes by choice and sometimes by mistake.

In my last post I made an off the cuff reference to "chaining the diff to the frame", which I did do but I never did explain that to anyone. Someone...not sure who it was really, they didn't leave a name...asked "what the ...??". So it became apparent...I missed reporting a step... Mia copa

So when it came time to finalize the engine position I needed to have the weight of the engine on the frame. Because it affects the relative position of the diff to the frame and therefor the tranny.Here it is all strapped up.

So I simple hung the engine in a sling really...easy-peasy. But you can't move the engine block with any success let alone precision with it supported in a sling. So I had to figure a way to hold the diff in a "loaded" position to the frame.

So, as I referred to in my previous post, I chained it....too simple really. So when I released the engine from the sling back onto the support dollies. The diff was restricted to remain (almost exactly) in the same position as where it will be when the engine is in final mount.

Saturday  was a father son day, we made trip to the 'Sled Parlor'... basically a wrecker yard for snowmobiles and ATV's. This was the first step for the snowenator. Jeff's dream project of a winter go cart. A real cool place. Picture a huge farm Quonset, with a trap like roof that lets in sunlight, full of old ATVs and sleds, and it's pick your part type of place.....pretty cool!

We have a winner!!

 On my last post I showed you a picture of some odd looking wood pieces sitting on my kitchen counter....right next to a steaming hot cup of delicious joe........wait I must go brew a new pot....

OK where was I?....Right!...wood things... I asked people to try to guess what they were. I had a few respondents. One of whom is likely one of my most faithful ( and perhaps biased) blog follower, my Dad. He said quite modestly " I have no idea, unless they are jigs!" I responded "Close, think of them as aides" but as I thought about it more (and then looked up the actual definition of a 'jig')

 jig |jig|
noun
1 a lively dance with leaping movements.
• a piece of music for such a dance, typically in compound time.
2 a device that holds a piece of work and guides the tools operating on it.
3 Fishing a type of artificial bait that is jerked up and down through the water.

 Yes sir, then you are correct Dad! You win a trip in Fillmore.....please stand by for proposed travel dates..actually you may want to sit, this still may take a while. I guess that means, according to the definition....That I'm the tool....hey WAIT A MINUTE!!

 The pieces are in fact jigs that attached on to the diff and the tranny to help me guide them into their final position. They each equal half of the length of the drive shaft so when put together they align the anterior-posterior relationship. Lining them up so the dowel looks continuous gives us the lateral alignment

And the side view gives us the inferior-superior relation. You will notice in this shot the tranny is about a 1/2" higher than the diff. This is because, although I did chain the diff to the frame in the "loaded" position, there was a 1/2" of lift of the frame when I took the weight of the engine off the frame. The difference here will allow the frame to settle into the proper position when all is said and done.

Ahh the right tool for the right job...

 There is nothing better than having the right tool for the right job....well that's not 100% true the only thing better than that is buying a new tool that is the right tool for the right job. I popped into Peavy mart and behold...look at what was on sale!

  I have had 'moisture issues' in my  lines.
Easy there fellas...I'm getting older but I'm not there yet! The problem is the compressed air line that is plumbed into the garage . The workshop,being under the garage, has cement walls,cement ceiling, cement floor....truth be known I affectionately refer to the shop as 'the bunker'. The problem is there is very few ways to get anything....like compressed air out of the shop. There is a fresh air intake, so when I wanted air in the garage above, I simply ran a line through the fresh air intake out side then through the garage wall and presto!-Done!
Except, warm air runs through cold line= condensation. And that is NOT good for the air tools.

 So I terminated the line outside and found an access hole from when they put in the security system through the wall between the furnace room and the shop. (Why I didn't see that the first time I'll never know but now we have an easy access from shop to the furnace room, then the furnace room to the garage.The access to the garage is from the secondary panel we put in the garage for the 220V service. So a new line from inside to inside. A little soldering...

 And boom! I'm back in business

 Now, what the heck are these?? can you guess?

Aloha

Well we are back from Hawaii and we had a great time. We went with some good friends from Winnipeg, so the kids always had each other for company....and so did the adults really!
 I was excited to get home and get my hands dirty again. First order of business was to pick up my new drive shaft......and no matter what you think size matters.....always has...always will. But unlike the fear of every adolescent male, I was happy with this one. Small is good.

 I borrowed my friend Brads trailer and made my way into the city. It was a mixed bag today....some super manly bus stuff, including a brain storm session with the guys at EGB who are going to help me with the motor mounts....and picking up dancing tights and earrings for Anna.....a little less manly but no less important.

 For those who have seen this rad before....you are right it doesn't look very different...but when I took it in to get cleaned up. They did a test and it was a bigger sieve than Curtis Joesph when he played for the Flames. So it was re cored.

No fuss...no bus

Just to drop you all a line and let you know that all is well, but we are not in Kansas anymore ToTo....
Yes we are on holidays in Hawaii for a little hang time. Unfortunately we leave tomorrow, but I'm sure that when we get home all the snow will be gone and we'll be well into spring.......(Ha!!)