Joy Of Spring

Joy Of Spring

A Spring morning
A warm Breeze
doves cooing softly
Pollen dusted trees

 David Whalen

Who is David Whalen...who knows but that is the beauty of the Internet publisher! I was doing some reading and, you know how it goes, one minute your looking at wiring diagrams for externally regulated alternators, then a few short moves of the mouse and your reading poetry of spring time!....come on grease monkey wanna-bees  have an artistic side too you know!

 There have been a lot of things that have brought a smile to our face these days. Some of them are simple, like green grass and the smell of the wet woods around home. Some of them are a little more selfish, like doing a test fit of the drivers seat in Fillmore! Jeffey really thought this was cool. He was so happy I didn't have the heart to tell him that driving Fillmore wasn't right around the corner quite yet.

I know it looks out of place against the current background, but if you turn your head to the right, close your left eye and squint....you can start to envision the interior.

John from Red Dragon Hydraulics phoned me up and had good news and bad news about the hydraulic selector valve for the hydraulic fan. The bad news used words like," it's seized" and "discontinued" and "obsolete". The good news was "I can get you a modern version...by tomorrow"

Another series of smiles came yesterday. Randy returned from his annual golf trek with the Macdonald brothers and came out to work on Fillmore. While Randy problem solved a few problems in the back I worked away on the hide and tide of the drivers area. You can see I took the floor boards out again to allow myself better access to the wire looms coming into the dash area. The dash is far from done but again, it gives us a glimpse of the future of Fillmore.
To end the work Day Randy and I were treated to a command performance by Michelle. Now just because she commanded us to sit and listen doesn't mean that it was against our will. Quite the opposite really, it was something I looked forward to all day long. In preparation for her Grade 10 voice exam she performed a portion of her repertoire. I got to tell you a sound so full and powerful is mind boggling coming out of a body so petite. As I sat and sipped coffee and listened to her weave her musical magic, I fell in love all over again....

Boxes

I saw a comedian once talking about the difference between man and women. Specifically how, or better yet WHY, women seem to worry about seemingly obscure details, and men don't seem to notice a problem.
Women vs Men's Brains

I don't know how many times I've come home to tell Michelle some news, thinking that I have my finger on the pulse of what's going on. Only to find out that there are a million other details which I have overlooked but are important on some other level that affects everything else, including peace in the middle east and why my mother doesn't like Michelle's meatloaf.

You see life is simpler when it's all in little boxes. It's neat, tidy, and doesn't create havoc with the chi of other "things". Everything fits the way it should, life is going as planned.

As soon as you take things out of their box, you realize that all is not perfect any more. You let things touch!
It's not the end of the world but your fantasy of this job taking only a few minutes flies right out the window.

Like the new brake pedal and valve assembly. A lovely Bendix A6 dual port very straight forward valve with treadle and mounting plate. Should just take the old plate off and mount the new one in it's place right?

WRONG!

Of course the plate is different, over the last 60 years technology has changed, advanced, progressed. Even if the basic concept is the same....well they have to change something...why not the mounting plate....I mean why should THAT be standard?
Sorry, got caught in a little rant there,my bad....anyway I new I had to create a new floor mounting plate to bolt the treadle mounting plate to. First order of business was to trace my basic shape, so back to the basics when life was simpler. Pull out the crayons and go back to kindergarten!....ahhh kindergarten, All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten.

Why I don't create a welding bench I'll never know. Perhaps it's my way of punishing myself for some past digressions, a penance of sorts, or maybe I just really enjoy kneeling on a concrete floor hunched over welding...who knows. I'll leave that question for the shrinks in the crowd. While I was at it I filled in a couple of places where "extra" holes were drilled into the floor board. Next order of business was to cut space for the valve to pass through and the bolt holes!

Looking pretty sharp!

The loose ends

 The boys worked like dogs all week long. Circuits and wires coming out the yin yang. But as the week progressed the jobs morphed from creating, to refining, to final touches.

 Here is Chris in his usual state of a wiring trance. If you looked down the side of the bus and saw this you would assume he is talking to someone. In truth he is talking, but like a possessed person he seems to be mumbling in tongues...and there is no one there...it's kind of spooky really. But he seems to get along well with his imaginary electrical friend and, who am I to criticize creativity? We all have our own muse....usually it's just that they are figurative.

 So while to boys worked away at completing the wiring, I did smaller stuff like fill the coolant and hydraulic system. It was a tight fit for the hydraulics but 1 gallon at a time (that's = 3.78541178 liters for the rest of us)
 

 Finally the time had come, there were a few hiccups along the way. Air in the fuel line, insufficient gauge of wire to the starter. In the end however the purr was worth the wait.

Another little hic-up was the hydraulic fan. Well specifically the solenoid valve on the fan motor. The wires were to old and brittle and broke right at the valve housing.

So now I'm on the search for a new valve!

The day was inevitable, but it was sad to see the boys leave. The house will be quieter, Fillmore will be lonelier and the owner of Loco Lou's will have to get her blood pressure checked because the arguments she had about anything and everything with Bryce may have sent her over the edge, but the boys must return to their families. Once again I am indebted to them...

There is nothing that makes your day like a chthonic monster!

In Greek mythology this protectress was a Gorgon, a chthonic monster. Gazing directly upon her would turn the onlookers to stone.

Medusa?

Chris and Bryce worked away all week last week, making sense of Fillmore's neural pathways. Hooking up the fans, solenoids, overrides, relays,fuses,bypasses, sludge pumpers, spiral retarders, and of course the ever elusive dingle hopper mounting bracket.
Seriously there were times that the conversation made my head spin.I've said this before, when working on a task on Fillmore you really have to focus on that one task. Looking at the electrical wiring for example, when you are not the one in the thick of it and simply round the bend and take a look at Medusa's crown of snakes wiggling out of the dash, it's enough to stop you cold and turn your mind to stone.
But we had the dragon slayers on hand, Chris and Bryce were able to compartmentalize and win the battle, one wire loom at a time.

I lost track of how many wire looms we ran from from to back, but thankfully we have a chase to run the cables!

A Medusa up front and her sister in the back. This my friends is ordered chaos. At first blush it looks confusing but in reality it is really quite ordered and neat.....awaiting split loom of course.

The front of the breaker box shows us the fuses, relays, and breaker bars.

Cave Dwellers

 Cave drawings, Egyptian hieroglyphics, ancient scrolls. They all tell a story, a story of the events of a time or the struggles in a society or group, or the dreams and aspirations of a lofty idealist. (It comes via idea from the Greek idein (ἰδεῖν), meaning "to see"...thanks be to Vecelli.
The man cave of Fillmore, and I call it a 'man' cave not because women are not welcomed openly but rather because experience has shown that most members of the xx gender don't like the smell of oil grease and grime and thus don't venture to far past the threshold willingly.

 Yet I digress...as I was saying, the Man Cave of Fillmore has it's own set of cave drawings.



Some are humorous. (because they have an element of truth-cue the banjo music)











Some are informative, warning explorers of this strange location of the possible dangers that lay within...

Some are educational...













Some are philosophical...

And others simply are sarcastic!

Doing a little archaeological dig I was mentally documenting the different circuits that have been set up by the electrical system mastermind from the Montana tribe. It was the VCR which originally caught my attention. I thought...." Aside from my mother,who uses a VCR anymore?". And then I saw it.Deep withing the elecrical bowels of the fuse panel.A circuit labeled for a reel to reel player!

Good one!....funny!.....would be even funnier if I had one to install in Fillmore.

They're heeeeeerrreee....

 I have to say, I am so grateful for Chris and Bryce coming all the way up here from Montana to help with Fillmore. Yes, yes, I know I am paying them but quite frankly they put in huge long days and eat live and sleep Fillmore. On top of that how easy would it be to simply say " no, not my problem" but they don't. They drive 5+ hours, across the border, leaving their loved ones behind (thank you Kim!).
 And what do I give to them in return?...sure there is the bed to sleep in, the food and beer in the fridge....but I bring a Canadian Winter.....or is that a Canadian spring?....right! One and the same.

 Thankfully I had Randy pick up a very large tarp for the shelter on Wed. night. The rough part was putting it up on the shelter by myself....in the dark. Jeff was helping but eventually Michelle called him off. Some people think kids shouldn't be outside helping their dear old Dad well after 9pm on a school night with no apparent end in sight! "Hmmphf!"

 Well, as Bring Crosby said, "The weather outside is frightful , but the wiring in the engine compartment is soooo delightful".......OK maybe it's closer to what Bill would have said rather than Bing.
While the snow fell and the conditions were poor. We all stayed snug as a bug in a rug inside. Chris worked on the fuse panel, Bryce was replacing the piggyback brake cans....apparently a corroded diaphragm is a no no....I think that would be a safe concern for any type hmmm??


Now Bryce is a big man, and seems to be the kind of guy that is you really ticked him off he might just 'pop' your head like the little domes in the bubble wrap....and of course I would never say this to him but......

Is it just me or is the jolly green giant sleeping under the bus?

 So while the boys worked away on the electrical, I got to....wait for it.....wait!....

POR-15.............'nuf said'.

Clean Slate

Its the same every year. I don't think it matters where you live or who you are, but when spring hits you feel like you need to clean house, get rid of the winter cobwebs and crap that has accumulated. The other motivation was that the Montana boys are coming. Yup, Chris and bad boy Bryce are on route to get Fillmore road worthy!

So I cleaned up the inside so we are no longer tripping over ourselves

Then, I spent a few hours painting with POR-15. Once all the pedals and electrical gets in there I wont be able to do it with so much freedom of wire movement

Cleaned and painted the floor panels at the drivers seat, and the two doors at the front.

In my haste I broke the cardinal rule. Always paint with gloves on. I did and didn't break that rule. I was wearing gloves, and they were rubber, but only on the palms. I didn't even think about the fabric soaking through. Damn this stuff takes forever to come off, and I have to work tomorrow!!

Chump to Champ

There are certain times of the year that I love being outside. Well truth be known I love being outside all the time but some animals are more equal than others. The days I love the most tend to be when the sun is bright and warm and the air is cool and crisp. Saturday was one of those days, we had been away on a family ski holiday. After 5 days of skiing in Revelstoke and Golden BC, we decided to come home and get some down time. And by down time I mean we got down to some Fillmore time. With Ron at my side we set off on a little journey.

Ron started off with some spring clean up, dismantling the old/new engine lift which became obsolete when I changed engines.

I worked on installing the slam latches for the rear engine door.

A bit of a challenge when there are no square surfaces to mount to. I started by fabricating a mounting bracket for the slam latch.While I was working on that, I threw Ron under the bus. Now that sounds bad I know, and yes I have done it to Randy numerous times. But I do it because I know if I get under the bus on my back in the gravel. I start to day dream and then...well I fall asleep.
So I save the job for someone with perhaps a little more focus.


Ron's job was to cut and grommet holes for the coolant lines up to the front. "Pretty straight forward!" I told him, "just drill the pilot hole then use the metal hole saw to cut out a 1 1/8" hole for the grommet." Hell I even gave him the hole saw.
Ron executed the job flawlessly, the only issue was I gave him the wrong home saw. I said a 1 1/8" hole, but I should have said a 1 3/8" hole.
After Ron struggled with the first grommet he gently informed me that I may want to measure twice and cut once (paraphrased. Actually artistic licence I really don't think he said much more than "are you sure this is the right hole size?"). Bottom line was we had an issue and I was the chump.
I envisioned me under the bus for the next week manually grinding each and every hole to the proper size and then fitting the grommets.....lots of work....lots of noise....lots of frustration.
Ron (the Champ) on the other hand looked at it from a different angle.
Why done we use the first bit as our pilot and simply drill again?



I'll be dammed if it didn't work like a charm. The only down side was that we had to sacrifice the
1 1/8" bit and the 1 3/8" bit. A small price to pay for the continuation of progress.

























I did manage to get the slam latches mounted and at least one of the catches on the frame.
Progress was made.......progress was made.

Handlin' the heat

I love sharing Fillmore. I have such a great time working on Fillmore that I love to share the time with anyone who will dare to take a chance and do something they perhaps haven't done before. Now I have to be careful , I obviously love the help too. I can't just take the moral high road and say I'm loving it solely because of what it means to the other person. I, like other type 'A', goal driven, details oriented quasi perfectionists need all the help I can get and it's a great feeling to get "stuff" done!

Harold came back from a few days in the mountains with his family. The night he got back he snuck out to the engine room to take some measurements and create a plan for a template. That way first thing in the morning he was hitting the ground running.

I was on everything air. As luck would have it my retractable air hose bit the biscuit. So I had to remove that to repair, and then get under Fillmore to install the last of the rear brake components.

Harold continued to toil away to the last possible second before they accompanied us to our kids talent show. A lot of parental hooting and hollering was done. I've got a couple of talented kids. Despite the challenges they were dealt genetically...they turned out OK!!

After the school show I ended up back at home accompanied by Michelle's Dad Ron. So naturally we donned our coveralls and got in a wee bit more work. We installed the heat shield after I finished putting on the the firesleeve.

Then Ron did some last alterations to the drivers side side air chute panel to allow for the coolant shut off valves.

The last step didn't get entirely done, but we got a good start on the hinged panel on the chute front!