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"

Old man winter is here!

 We knew it wouldn't last forever, the days were getting shorter, the air was a little crisper.Hell even the meteorologists were right in their forecasts. But when you wake up one morning to find it's puked snow overnight....it's always a little shock to the system.

 Not to mention that working on Fillmore takes longer, now I need to run a heater and snow blow a path t the bus shelter...

 So the issue at hand is the drive shaft. When I first mounted the engine I made sure that things were lined up as best we could. But with the shake down after all the extra weight of fluids and such was added, plus perhaps the engine settling in to where it wanted to sit vs. where I wrestled it into place.
The overhead shot shows how the tranny is too far to the drivers side. Although we experienced no vibration, I don't like the position. Second (which you can't see from this photo) is that the output shaft sits a inch or two below the differential.

I took everything off to see what things looked like inside, clean it up and then moved on to the next problem.

If I am going to reposition the engine I will have to work on new mounts. Luckily I have some tranny mounts for the 5.9 which I think I can modify to the application.

At this point I enlisted the help of Jeff, one of us under the bus and one in the engine compartment. At this point we are happy with the angle of the drive shaft both in the horizontal angle and the vertical angle as well.

Making stuff up

 Sometimes on a 1949 bus you need to be a little more creative when sourcing parts. When I say creative I mean physically creative rather than mentally.

 The drivers and passenger door vertically hinged windows have some particular hardware that holds them in place. My problem is that some of my hardware is missing and or broken. At first I thought I would weld the broken piece. Until I realized it was brass....

 So I decided it was time to fabricate. This is the piece from the top of the window.

This is the one from the bottom. 3/16" holes counter sunk to allow the retention screw to be flush

The center holes are 3/8" NF thread.

After it was all said and done, a rust paint coating!!

Attention to detail or playing ostritch?

The last few opportunities I have had to work on Fillmore, I have been putting things back together in preparation of the forthcoming trip into Calgary for the OOPSI (Out Of Province Safety Inspection)
Things like the original rear running lights and turn signal, I had them re-chromed and then found a replacement lens. It needed some mods to fit but nothing a bench top sander and patience couldn't handle

                                            Frankly I think the pots look better from the inside that they do from the outside!

 After months...OK years of being refurbished and waiting for install, I finally got around to putting the air vents back in.










 Although I still want to remove the inside turn knob and re chrome it....or buff it up at least.....put it on the list.

As I finish these jobs, all of which need to be done and important in their own right, I wonder if I am avoiding the 'elephant in the room'. The drive shaft. I have a sinking feeling that I am not going to like the solution. I'm not sure I have enough room for the shaft to move freely up and down without bottoming out.........uhhhhhhggh.

Heaven and Hell

Not wanting to sound too melodramatic but, our trip to Guatemala this fall had elements of both. It was only 1 week, 4 working days! That's really not a lot, but this time it felt like 4 weeks. Some of that has to do with the 11 hour work days, some of that has to do with the need outweighing the ability to provide and the mental toll that takes, and some of it had to do with a virus that danced around the group. In the end the trip was a success, and once again I am glad that I went, and so grateful for the opportunity to have Michelle at my side...but this was the first trip that I was really,really glad to get home.

Upon my return there were a few things that had come back from getting refurbished, has an angelic look to it doesn't it...?

I also finally received the wiper motor switch. It really doesn't seem to be that hard to find a switch that runs to coast to park motors and the washer pump, but apparently in Calgary either no one has one or I was asking all the wrong people. In the end the good ol' Internet provided, and when I came back to work there it was sitting on my desk!

The other little bit of heaven is a simple and selfish pleasure. Every air brake system will loose pressure over time. The requirement is that it doesn't loose it at an accelerated rate. So you can imagine my self indulgent smile when after sitting idle for 10 days, my primary air tank was still holding 50psi!

The final bit of hell was when I shimmied under the engine to have a look at the drive shaft. Remember my last run when I said I heard a vibration when I hit the bump?
Well sure enough the drive shaft is too long and on compression it bottoms out. This in turn compressed and/or tore the out put shaft seal on the transmission, and thus it's bleeding....

Guatemala...Pollo bus

I got my $1.35 fitting that was holding me back and completed the install. With the hydraulic pump in place it was time to road test the new cooling system. So I backed Fillmore out and loaded up the crew. Anna, Jeff and his buddy Pete, and Grandma and Grandpa Keeler who are in town to look after the rug rats as we head south to do dentistry in Guatemala

I've been working on this thing for so long it's hard for me to remember that a lot of my family has never actually been for a ride in Fillmore.

Here's Verna going for her maiden voyage!

So we kept driving and driving waiting for the temp to rise and kick on the fans.....but it never did. The temp rose to what I thought was the tripping temp, but nothing. It rose 15 degrees past the perceived tripping point...nothing. It became obvious that something wasn't working correctly, now we were a ways from home, temp is up and a tightness gripped my chest. Fortunately Chris put in a manual override switch for the fans, so I switched that on and immediately started to watch the temp drop. I will have to check out the sensor switch and see where the fail comes from.
On the way back to the house we got going a little faster than we had on the way out, not a huge issue, except the same bump(dip) in the road became much more of a road obstacle. When we hit said obstacle at a higher speed, it bounced us around that little bit more. This time there was a heavy vibration from the back end. Immediately I knew what it was.... the drive shaft is to long and bottoming out on the bumps.
The bad news is that I didn't have time to dwell, I fly to Guatemala in less than 10 hours. So we parked Fillmore and save it for when I get home.........tightness starting to return