Get ready for a new year!

 Wow it's had to believe a year has gone by, a lot has happened since this time last year. Good, bad and some ugly. But today we are going to celebrate the ringing of the new year with family and friends who are like family. Tonight I will raise my glass to wishing everyone a happy and healthy new year!!

 But before I raise my glass I will twist a wrench! The last time I posted anything bus, we had just finished fabricating the rear engine mount after the 're-shifting' of the engine. Now that it is in place

It was time to re configure the tranny mounts. The shift of the engine back 5/8" will still allow me to use the existing tranny mounts. The issue is how to accurately mark the new mounting position.

 In comes the furniture felt on a 10 foot pole!

 OK it wasn't 10 feet but using some old paint in the workshop, something thick and contrasting,
 

 You can see it worked like a damn!

Next step was to remove the mounts and drill the new holes. As you can see, the old hole would have to be plugged. Being that I upgraded the tranny bolts to some new grade 8 bolts, I had no use for the old ones...until this!

 

Some welding, some grinding, and then some paint to finish it off.

Now the hard part, re install and see if my measurements were true

Merry Ho-Ho!!

I've had a full week off, and life is good. Time with the kids, time with my love, time with the in laws. I truly am a lucky man to have so many good things in my life.

The kids had been asking(pleading) for years for a trampoline.....we finally broke down and did it. They were estatic, the only bad part was it was-23C the day we promised to set it up.

For myself I asked for homemade gifts, my daughter gave me what I want for this world. Peace love and understanding, in the form of a smiley face pillow!

My son, a man after my own heart, made a creation from....yes Duct tape! AWESOME!!

After 2 days of work, the trampoline was up. Kids were happy, so now Grandpa and I got to do a little work on Fillmore!

Age of enlightenment.

 Today marks the first day of my holidays this year. When the alarm went off this morning(because although it's a holiday I can't stand the thought of sleeping it away) I was laying there cherishing the world around me. My big soft pillow, the down comforter, the cool air and warm bed, my wife's soft breath on my chest as she snuggled in for a few more minutes of sleep.......oh ya and the fact that the world didn't end today.

 Those are the things that make me happy.

 There are others that make me sad. Like my decision to get a tattoo to celebrate the change of era according to the Mayan calendar, moving to the age of enlightenment.

 Just kidding, but I do feel sorry for that dude...

 The other night I was doing a little revamping of the rear wheel wells....that's a longer story I will delve into later

 In the meantime, I finished the rear engine mounts. I decided that when  the engine was repositioned I wanted to place it on a sturdier plate. So I welded the mount to the plate and bolted the plate to the cradle.

 Jeff and I worked together to get the welding done in the garage, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Jeff has a good eye...actually he has two....I have one. (sorry bad ocular humor)

Here we are repositioned, welded, sandblasted,painted, drilled and bolted.

Better Double up

When I was 13 or 14 I worked for my Uncle in Northern Manitoba at his grocery store. I had , what I considered to be the premo job, of stocking shelves and bagging groceries. One of the lessons I took from those days is when in doubt, double up. Different to the Vegas double down....but I won't digress.
So, as I was released from the shackles of my surgery restrictions, my loving family thought it was only fitting that I make good and sure I am WELL protected!

Over kill?......arguable, but better safe than sorry!

To Re Cap this past weekend, Jeff and I did a little squeezing of the engine and tranny. The ill fated cart made it's way out to the shelter

Jeff and I jacked and shimmied, wiggled and persuaded, until I was happy with the position and angulation of the tranny.

I was about to put everything back together, when I spent a good half hour flip flopping on the issue of squeezing another 5/8" out of the engine. As you can see in the end I decided to do it. Every inch, or fraction there of counts!

Impending release

I know this has been all my fault, a series of bad decisions have led me to the eye predicament that I find myself in. The eye is improving after the surgery, but can take up to 6 weeks for the vision to "clear". Today at 3:00 pm marks the 2 week imposed restriction of activities. Thank fully these will be lifted just in time for my Christmas holidays. I don't plan to work on the bus 24/7 as I do plan to ski and hike a bit, but I do hope to get some work done. Especially as I will have some extra hands around for the holidays.
I did manage to put Jeff to work this weekend and we managed to reposition the engine, moving it back a grand total of 5/8". The drive shaft will once again have to be altered, I plan to take that into Pat's Driveline today at lunch.

Aye aye Captain!

I thought I would give you a heads up of the forth coming dry spell wrt Fillmore shenanigans. I just had some corrective surgery done on my left eye two days ago and now am under some pretty tight activity restrictions for the next two weeks. I will see if there is anything that I can achieve by acting like a foreman and calling in the kids and maybe Michelle to do the crawling under and heavy lifting. Failing that I am afraid that I cannot do much.
I thought I would give you some pleasant pictures of eyes.....but truth be told, Monday I looked more like this actually...

A new day, a fresh start.

Last session with Fillmore was a test of character. It seemed everything I touched went sideways. I didn't blog about the last straw for the last during that session. When trying to install the mounting hardware for the passenger window I sheered off a brand new stainless steel metal screw RIGHT in the spot where I had just finished drilling out the old rusty one that had broken off originally. At that point I was about to snap.....Jeff in his infinite youthful wisdom piped up and said, "you know Dad when I get stuck at school sometimes I just walk away and come back and try again"....so  did.
Good advise my son.....goooooooood advice.

Being  Dentist, my happy place is order and neatness....puzzling if you look into my garage or workshop since the Fillmore saga started. So I 'set the stage', I gave myself a work space that was as inviting and relaxed as possible. Notice the carpet insulating me from the dust and sub zero temperature of the gravel.

Next, I'm a firm believer in the right tool for the right job.....but sometimes they don't make that tool.
But I did!!

A lot of fuss for squeezing the bolts together probably a grand total of 3mm, but like my Dad used to say..."Out a little, out a lot!"

A birds eye view of a flat surface hugging a round bar

Seemed so easy it makes you wonder what the problem was?.......maybe it wasn't Fillmore being stubborn.....hmmmmm....

A pictures worth a thousand words....?

 How many times in our society have we heard that saying. It really rings true, sometimes those thousand conjured words are free flowing and open to the viewers interpretation of the scene captured. Other times the picture leaves you with little.
 Take this photo for example, at first blush you would likely say that this is simply a rear axle of a larger than normal vehicle. The trained eye might pick up that there is no bottom retention plate on the U bolts, the artistic soul might even surmise that the photo has an element or feeling of "unfinished business", but frankly that is about it.

 What the photo fails to communicate to the viewer that wasn't there, is the pain (knuckles on the spring edges) and anguish, the frustration and despair, the eventual colorful vocal expression and venting of the pent up agitation, and finally the quiet and reluctant acceptance of failure or perhaps better put: setback.

 Sometimes the simplest things can cause the most frustration, partially because they didn't work. Mostly however because you were absent minded enough not to always look at the global picture and for see that every action affects the big picture. Allow me to explain, by moving the top mounting block for the axle, of course I would have to move the lower block as well: this I knew. What you cannot see from our thousand word picture is the retention bolt for the springs which runs right through the center of the bundle. By moving the lower plate, the position of the exposed bolt and nut will move on the lower plate. Simple, but I overlooked it, so after spending A LOT of time wrestling this all back together I realized that and that I would need to take everything apart and drill new holes.

 Done.... but I am too frustrated to start again, so I moved on.

 Again a picture that looks innocent and simple enough. The drivers window. Mounted on the newly fabricated brackets. All is well...except the trim I ordered to finish the metal edge on the body is too thick, and the passenger side is a whole other kettle of fish. Lets just say when that side failed it was time to pack up and call it a day. Fillmore was being stubborn today.

Know when to say when...."bummer dude!"

Frosty Fillmore

There are some times as a parent when you really make you look in the mirror and be honest with yourself and to your kids. There is no manual about how to raise children, you simply take what you were taught, tweak things your own way and then try to do the best you can to impart some sort of global wisdom in small snippets. Hopefully these little morsels are profound enough to make an impression on a hungry young mind that there is some recognition and retention. Occasionally the same lesson that you served up comes right back at you like a late night snack from a questionable roadside tacoria.
 Often we try to talk to the kids about a number of things that they will face through out their school years, one of which is peer pressure. Knowing how to be your own person, stand up for what is right and follow your internal moral compass. Imparting on them how important it is not to bend to the whims and demands of your peers.

 So it was with a chuckle and a smile on my face that I was forced to eat a little crow the other night. I came home from work and did the usual, eat dinner, facilitate homework time, then get Anna to dance. At this point Jeff and I found ourselves with a few hours to do some sort of activity. Being the eager son Jeff happily dawned on his coveralls and we headed out to the bus shelter.Our goal?...to shift the rear axle position. It is definitely winter here and so we had heaters going all over the place.

 Jeff and I jacked up Fillmore, blocked it up so the tension was off the leaf springs. Then jack up the axle and remove the mounting blocks.

 Jeff then did some clean up getting them ready to re drill the pilot hole in the bottom so we could steal another 1.75" for drive shaft length.

After we had the holes drilled we started to put it all back together. As you can see it was a meager movement, but every fraction of an inch counts.

Even though we had heaters blasting away, laying on the cold gravel, and handling the icy metal of the axle components we were really cold. At one point Jeff responding to my murmuring about the cold asked me why we didn't wait for a warmer day?
My response was truthful and unfiltered, I said quite simply that I hadn't been working on Fillmore for a while and wanted to get things moving again, plus I had been getting some ribbing from my buddies that I hadn't had any activity on the blog as of late, and as such I felt I needed to get some things done.
A short pause from Jeff, before he gently said
 ( with a twinkle in his eye)   " You really shouldn't do whatever someone tells you to do....would you jump off a bridge if they told you too?"

We chuckled and snorted, thankfully the message was received.... and then I received it again. That was good humble pie.

Compression Depression

The "vibration" that I heard before my trip to Guatemala was two fold. The angles between the tranny and diff were excessive, but also the failure to take into account the extent of movement of the axle in a forward backward direction upon compression of the leaf springs. I decided now was the time to get a feel for the extent of movement. So at rest, measurements were taken of the rear hanger from a constant on the frame to the leaf spring.

Then  a measurement from the tranny 

to the  flat edge of the pinion yoke

Then with the drive shaft unbolted I jacked up the rear of the bus until the rear wheels came right off the ground. The rear hanger moved a fair bit- over 4"









But the movement of the rear differential away from the tranny was only 1"