Keep your cool man!

It's a tough racket coming out of grade 12. By the time you are done exams, all the university students have swarmed in and have grabbed a lot of the service industry jobs in the area. Unfortunate for Anna, but kinds nice for me! She's had some spare time on her hands and more than willing to help me out in the shop! On the docket these days is the medicine cabinet. Anna and I built a series of  6" deep drawers that fit under the sink in the bathroom.

Drawer fronts have still yet to be fabricated but they are perfect! In my humble opinion of course...
It's been a busy summer but we managed to squeeze in some family time camping in Fillmore. We went to a provincial Park called 'Little Bow' a great little lake in SE Alberta. Along the way we went through Vulcan

who could resist stopping to take pictures with the Enterprise! and the obligatory wall of fame. Jeff was less than enthused , as you can tell by his rendition of spock

Camping was awesome. Awesome because it was at a lake, awesome because it was in Fillmore, awesome because we were all together in a cell service deadspot! No snap, no instagram, no email, no facebook! Just us, a campfire....and a project...

One of the design, drawbacks that I have with Fillmore is Air conditioning while parked. On the road we have the system that is driven by the compressor and evaporator running of the engine. But once parked that system is a no go. I refused to have a root top system, and I ran out of underfloor space for a undermount system. So, to be honest I don't have a solution yet. BUT! a friend of mine had an old roof top air conditioner that he was going to simply throw away, but it was still working!

So Anna and I devised a plan to put some simple mods on the existing A/C unit and pipe it into the bus. It worked well....for the most part. Some how the condenser gets too cold and freezes up the heat exchanger not allowing any more air flow. If we let it sit and melt.....it works again...thankfully we didn't spend a lot of time inside the bus!

A good portion of our days were on the water!!

Of course, like always on every trip Fillmore throws us a curve ball. We are about 25 KMS from home when I begin to notice that the engine running temp starts to climb. It rises about 10-15 degrees and then holds. So I push through and get home. When I shut down, Two things happen.
1. I take a look at the Radiator fan and notice some blade carnage
2. He refuses to start.....UUUUUUGGGH!

Milestone Moment

 The expression is "time flies when you're having fun".......Well OMG I must be having a blast, because I blinked and my little girl is all grown up.

 On Friday June 29,  my little girl took some big steps across the stage of life and graduated from high school. Surrounded by family and friends she gracefully navigated through a day of laughter and tears.

The day started early, and Fillmore was a part of the fun. Although not complete (I doubt it ever will be) I was moved and touched when Anna approached me a few months back and asked if I would be willing to act as "the limo" for Anna and her buds for the day. I didn't have to ponder the question for too long...of course!

It seemed like only yesterday that Anna was helping me gut out the interior,

Time flew by and Fillmore was a part of her transition from Middle school to high school...

 And now, Fillmore had the honor of being part of the next chapter.

 The day was great, the kids were fantastic, and Fillmore didn't leave anyone behind!

 But he did leave me in the cold. On the grad night, as the kids were in the grad after party. I was parked off in the distance awaiting the time to pick up my brood of teenage craziness. As I sat in the evening trying to catch a few Zzz, I tried to turn on the furnace. It would fire up, heat up, and then give me error codes that the overheat temp sensor was kicking on and shutting it down!

 So thankfully I had reinforcements. With the help of Ron we pulled the furnace, cleaned it out and then ran it through a bench test.

 OK the bench test was really an under the bus test but at least I could look and see what was happening. It seemed that everything would work as it should but the main blower fan just wouldn't kick in, so the unit eventually would overheat.

 Fully disconnecting the unit from the bus I was able to get a close look at the control board on the blower assembly. Sure enough there was water damage. I know exactly when it was from too.

Last summer we went camping on September long weekend. It was the first time I had tried the hot water component of the Dual Top. There were issues (didn't have the proper pressure regulator)and there was leakage. That caused damage to the board.

 Although it looks like I have to replace the blower assembly(parts on order), Ron and I made sure that a proper bench pressure test was performed to evaluate the integrity of the water connections.