Au Revoir mes amis!

As so many times, schedule dictates productivity. This will likely be the last blog entry for the next few weeks. We, as a family, are off to Quebec City tomorrow. I have a conference and Michelle and the kids are exploring the city. We'll see, I may cut out of class a few minutes early to see some sights as well.

As things go with Fillmore, just when you think you have things licked, you get another challenge. Here is the latest. I have a transmission linkage cable that needs 3" of travel to switch between all the gears. I have a shifter that has 2 3/8" of travel. So If I direct link them I will not be able to get into all the gears.
So I need to crate a uneven lever arm where movement on the shorter arm will cause more travel on the longer arm.

A little bit of Red wine and  a sketch pad, and I almost have it licked......for now.
But there also may be more than one way to skin a cat....hmmmmm....Don't overlook the obvious.

Be creative!

 The other day while I had Randy slaving away in the engine compartment riveting  'till there was no tomorrow, I wasn't just sitting there watching him while drinking coffee. No Sir!, although the thought crossed my mind, I had my own demons to slay that day.
I had previously had a new transmission linkage cable made, and this was it's time to install.
There, easy enough to say, but harder to do.

This is the shifter bar that attaches to the tranny. It was still attached to the old linkage cable which had been severed with an acetylene torch on the donor.

Removing the shifter bar was easy peasy, the little 'nub' as I will affectionately call it was a little more difficult to undo. Well that's not quite fair, "undo" infers that if you  you could "redo". It was more like the little "nub" was unceremoniously sheered off of the old shifter cable with obscene amount of penetrating oil, heat and a pipe wrench. But where is the peace and poetry in that?
Life sometimes isn't all babbling brooks and daisies, reality is bloody knuckles and the occasional 'F' bomb when the kids are out of ear shot.
None the less, I had in mere moments taken a Job which I thought would take 20 min and created a 2 hour puzzle.
My first instinct was..."I'm screwed, where the hell am I going to find a 'nub'?" My second thought was how embarrassed  I would feel walking into a heavy duty parts store and awkwardly try to explain what a 'nub' was. So I did what any man would do.....I got out my drill, bored out the old screw and re tapped the nub!

Unfortunately that was a fail as the kids would call it. Re tapping the hole left me with unusable threads. But it got me to start thinking outside the box. If I can drill and tap the original, then I can drill and tap a new one. I couldn't mill a small shaft from a larger piece, but I did have a bolt that was the perfect size. I welded it on to a piece of 1/2" round

Drilled some holes for the shifter cable and the retention pins(cotter)

Tapped the hole for the cable, and then cut the ends off! This was right after I cut the ends before I had a chance to smooth polish and fine tune it, but I am happy to say she worked like a charm. Unfortunately that was the easy part. I now have to figure out a method to attach the other end to the original shifter in the bus. I could remove the old shifter and put in a new one, but I like the look(and feel) of the old floor shifter and I want to keep it if I can.

As I said this took me longer than expected, so after Randy finished the air chute, he moved on to problem solving for positioning the new accelerator.

More of the same.

 Same ol' same ol'. Usually people say that when they are exclaiming how routine their life is, but in this case I'm happy to make this claim. Mainly because it means Randy and I were working together and once again we got a lot done. Just prior  to Randy's arrival I had to do a little repair....again!
I had mounted the expansion tank....all was well. Until I wanted to change the angulation of the two outlets on the side of the tank. The brass attachments that were on the tank were strait line, and I wanted a 90 deg turn right away. Trouble was in order to remove one of the straight line connections I had to destroy it. Anyway, eventually I got what I needed and put them in place.
With that done I moved on to hooking up the pipes, once again, and securing them to the framework.

 Here's the tank right before I put it back in place for the LAST TIME. Famous last words, I may live to regret that.

 Randy showed up just in time for a little fritata and coffee. With him he brought some junior sized coveralls! Now the team is complete, everyone who has put in some sweat on Fillmore has a set of coveralls!

  


Randy picked up where he left off last time. The 16G steel that he cut out for the chute was ready to be drilled and riveted into place.

 He worked like a dog in there all afternoon, I counted he drilled over a 100 holes in the two sheets, then drilled all the holes again in the frame. From my calculations 204 holes drilled.





 After the day wrapped up I decided I wanted to put in one more line of rivets. While supper was cooking I ran out and drilled the vertical line on each side. My drill count was 28. It was then that I had to tip my hat to the man.I figure I was in the back for about 45 min, tops! I must have sweated over a liter and by the time I was done my left shoulder was killing me!
Never once did he whinge....damn stoic Mennonite!

Ahh the sweet smell of steel

Stronger than sight, more visceral than sound, smell stands out as one of the strongest of our senses when it comes to evoking a memory. 
Who can deny the feeling you get when you smell a pie or fresh bread baking in the oven?
Or the smell of your first girlfriends perfume?
Well add the pungent smell of freshly cut iron with a cutting disk......ahhhhhh now we're talkin'.

Saturday brought Randy out to Fillmore again. Dawning his brand spankin' new Flxible coveralls he was set to get dirty. First order of business was to reinstall the Rad. With the two of us that happened pretty quick.















Next on the agenda was cutting and welding angle braces for the ram air chute frame.

While Randy was busy at that I started to figure out a new mounting bracket for the expansion tank. The cardboard is the angle formed with the skin.

Once Randy had finished cutting the brackets, I started to weld them into place.  The next job of cutting the 16G steel sheets for the ram chute was Randy's next task.

By the end of the day,
Rad in?-check
Angle braces cut&and welded?-check
Expansion Tank welded and mounted?-check
Air chute steel cut?-check
Not a bad day at all I might say!!

Oh where do we begin?

It's a little brisk in the mornings, but it warms up nicely as the morning develops. I'm not out at the bus at the crack of 7am, I tend to have coffee, do a blog, get me stuff ready and then venture out into the morning. Today was no different, but today I am expecting company, Randy is coming out. It's been a while since he's laid hands on bus, so I'm glad he's coming.
 The big question of the day is what will we do......

 Wiring....there is always work on the wiring. I have made the new fuse box, the kids decided it should be a colour that "pops", and I let them pick the colour, and it 'POPS'

 I got my hands on new 4" flex pipe for the exhaust....that could go in....

 The expansion tank for the Rad needs to be installed....

 The 16 Gauge sheet metal is ready for cutting to continue on the air chute

And let us not forget the Rad....(sans leaks)...

Pass the salt and pepper please.....

 Yup a picture is worth a thousand words, and this one says it all. It takes a brave man to venture into uncharted territory, but venturing into uncharted waters without doing your homework is plain dumb. I prefer to think of it as ballsy, but that's just dressing it up.
What the heck am I talking about? Well there is no doubt that my welding skills have significantly improved since I started this project. But experience plays a huge role and my experience is still a little on  the thin side.
 The other day I was dropping Jeffrey's buddy off at his place, after our outing at the skate park. His Dad, Charles we'll call him (names have been altered to protect the innocent), asked me how "the bus" is coming along. I told him about the latest escapade of cutting and turning the inlet neck on the rad and welding it back on. Being a machinist his eyes widened a little and he said..."Wow! good on you! Pressure test and all is well?" he asked.
 "Uhhhhmmmm,.....ya!....yes it did!"(Ahhh Crap, g%#@#$$%)

Experience would have told me that I should check the welds under pressure.

 So, I removed the vent cock from the top of the rad and placed a pressure reader with a quick connect for the compressed air.

 Taking a page from the Red Green book, I capped of the ends to the rad with good ol' duct tape.

 After I blew the duct tape off with a loud "BOOM" while putting in the air, I decided to use some rubber sheeting backed with nylon tow strap under a heavy duty clamp. Here is the test.

And here is me disconnecting all the pipes and removing the rad so I can take it in to the professionals I should have taken it to in the first place.

Experience would have told me I'm not ready for that kind of welding yet.

Pass the salt and pepper please

Ways to enjoy the ride

After the grind rail fabrication, and the subsequent hours of practice on the road, we hit the trail up to the skate park for the boys to try out their new talents. Problem was, I don't skate board and I'm too old (according to the teenagers) to play in the park on my bike. So what is a Dad to do while the kids are busy playing away?

Figure out the wiring for the fuse box, that's what!

While the boys did their thing I sipped Starbucks on a lawn chair and traced wires! Different strokes for different folks!

When we got back home I fabricated some pipe clamp stands to hold the flexible rad piping stable  , and then put everything in place.

As you can see the piping is direct, unobtrusive and effective......all is good....right?

Detour!

 Ahhh Saturday, a day of lazy leisure. It's hard for me to choose between Friday an Saturday in terms of my fav day of the week. I suppose it depends on the criteria that you evaluate, but Saturdays are pretty hard to beat. I decided to shut off my alarm clock and let the chips fall where they may. I guess I was more tired than I thought as I didn't get my lazy butt out of bed until 8:45. I wasted half the best part of the day as my Dad would say.

 Well I traded kids yesterday, Anna went to a girlfriends for a sleep over and Jeff brought one of his buddies here for one. The good news for me is that the boys love to be outside....as do I. The bad news, well is not bad at all, frankly it's great and right up my alley.
I was just nicely getting started on Fillmore, when the oh so tell tale sing song chime of Jeff's voice rang out "Daaaaaa-aaaad?" (Detour)
 Every time I hear it I start to chuckle which puzzles him. I know from the pitch and rhythm  what he is really calling about regardless of the 5 min of pre-sell that comes as well.
 These are the times that memories are made from, so I happily dropped my date with Fillmore and came to the call for action.
 " Dad I was wondering if you could help us build a grind rail??"
I knew I was in trouble as soon as I didn't know what the hell a grind rail was. But ever the optimist I said"Sure!......what's a grind rail?"

 We sat down and had a coffee/juice break and made a crude but communicative blue print. Then some cutting, and welding....

 More cutting....

 All the while the guys I am helping are doing their part....from a distance.

But in the end, we had a nice grind rail that the boys were happily....uhhh...grinding on?!
Then off to the skate park to try out their newly aquired confidence on the big ones.
Ahh, life is good.

Oh God here I go again...

 My problem is, I'm never satisfied. Don't get me wrong, I didn't say or mean to infer that I'm not happy. It's just this thing inside me that says.....OK that was good, but I can make it better.
It drives Michelle absolutely bonkers! It took me more years than I care to admit to clue into the major faux pas I committed on a regular and recurring basis, when I would sit down to a meal(that Michelle prepared) and proceed to somehow make a sandwich out of it.
 For a smart guy, I can be pretty dumb.

 Today I haven't decided if I was smart or dumb. In the last post you saw the modified rad pipes, those were the pipes for the return coolant coming back from the rad. I was quite happy with the outcome....sort of. It was good, but... I should just clean up those pipes before I install them!

 Here are the pipes, all stripped down and surface etched for the POR-15.

 While I wait for the paint to dry, I decided not to sit and watch the paint dry, while soaking up the 31C temps with a cold beer in my hand. No I decided to work on the upper rad pipes. Here I used some of the piping and elbows that I had from before, and a few new ones too. Once again I pretty much had it beat, aside from the last strait piece it was done. Granted it was (foreshadowing) a convoluted path to go from the engine to the rad.
Lets see, from the engine 90deg elbow out, then a 90 deg elbow up, then 90 deg elbow towards the rad, then finally another 90 deg elbow into the rad. By my meager math that is sending the coolant through 4 elbow while going to the rad, and thus 360deg! That's creating plenty of resistance for the water pump. It also takes up a whack of space.
But it's done, right?.....I mean unless I could tweak it juuuuuuuust a little!

 What I really need to be able to do is simply rotate the input flange  clockwise 90 deg.

So I cut off the flange.

 Then cut a 5.5x5.5" hole,

 Rotate the plate and weld the flange back on!

I still have the 90 deg coming out of the engine, but then its a gentle rise and run into the rad!

FAIL!

 Sorry, just trying to be hip like the young kids. Truth is it's exactly what Jeff said when he looked at what happened. Now that the Rad is in place and all is well, it's time to hook up the plumbing, every guy over 40 should make sure his plumbing is working properly.....wait wrong topic...
(seriously go for your annual check up last thing you want is a wonky prostate)
 OK, OK....I'm down off the soap box, forgive me.
 Alright, as I was saying...plumbing...so I have to re-plumb the rad, some of the piping from the donor vehicle just doesn't work. So I decided to bend some pipe! Easy peasy..........

 Jeff and I prepped the pipe, set up the pipe bender with a 3" die, and....

 FAIL!! That's not bent pipe that's a kinked pipe. Ahhhh Crimminy!

 So, I decided to go with plan B....problem is there was not a concrete "Plan B"....Plan B is really a officious way of saying "Oh crap now what?...Oh well we'll just fly by the seat of our pants now"
And so we did. This is the coolant pipe that leaves the engine block. The basic shape is good but it needs to be 8.5" longer at the short end.

 A quick visit to a pipe supplier.....well that's a lie...I went to Canadian Tire...hey they had what I need and it's 3 min from my office!(notice my super high tech work piece position-er )

 A few cuts and some creative welds....Viola!

I then got a bit confident and started hacking up the donor vehicle rad pipes, next thing you know I'm 1 step closer to getting my plumbing hooked up!