Con"GRAD"ulations!!!

Another day, another milestone. I cant say how proud we are of our kids and all that they do. The work ethic they display, the benchmark they set for themselves, it truly astounds me.

Yesterday marked another achievement milestone for Anna. She graduated with her BN in nursing from Mount Royal University, and even before the grad took place she buckled down, hit the books, and wrote her licensing exam. Moving her from a BN to an RN.

Its been a tough road. A real slog mentally and emotionally, but you did it and we are so proud of you for what you have achieved. I cannot wait to see what you do next....personally I am campaigning for a job in Hawaii where you own a big house on the ocean......but thats just me.....

 

We love you Anna Bannaner!

A bad break up

Trying to be helpful by removing the starter was a good thing. But my efforts to do some of the grunt work to speed things up may have slowed things down. But ultimately it helped us to realize the extent of the damage. It wasn't simply a 'crack in the housing but rather the starter ripped a chunk right out. 

The top bolt was the only thing holding the starter in place.

I am no expert but, after showing the pics and video to Chris Kruse from Krusers mobile in Montana

He confirmed my suspicions and said "start looking!!"

A little bit of time on the weekend in the mornings with a fresh cup of coffee and the Cummins web site I narrowed down what I need. First thing Tuesday morning found that I could get a new one from the manufacturer......for a pretty penny. I am currently searching for a quality used one. 

In the meantime, I conscripted Jeff into helping me drop the transmission out of the bus in preparation of removing the flywheel housing. Easy in concept but there always seems to be little snags along the way.

Not totally visible in this picture but once I had the flex plate off , the damage to the housing is even more extensive than the "chunk" missing. There are radiating cracks towards the center and the periphery of the housing. Now just support the engine, removing the engine mount bolts, then 12 simple bolts to come out and it should just pop off! Right?

Wrong!......where is my bolt extractor kit??

Systems check.....ignition.....Houston we have a problem.

 I am the guy who always tries to see the silver lining in a grey cloud. So although the newest 'fillmore event' dropped me momentarily into a place somewhere between despair and outrage......I took a few moments to breathe and allow my blood pressure to stabilize, and then I started formulating a plan.

But lets start by finishing, meaning, the last post I talked about trying to seal the wire loom coming into the living area in Fillmore. The flange was made and installed, then the loom was wrapped and sealed.

Hopefully this will keep us dry inside when its wet outside!

Now that this was complete, I went through a systems check, fluid levels, battery health, etc etc. Check, check, check! It was time to fire him up for the summer season. I turn the key, he turns over and with some mild protest he starts to come to life. But as many of you know the first go around on a cold start often sputters out and we try again. So I did. I , once again, turn the key....and nothing. Crickets!

I can hear the fuel shut off solenoid opening up but nothing from the starter.

I went through my check list, battery, starter relay, power to the starter solenoid. Everything seemed fine. But still no starter reaction. I though of the old school 'wrap the starter with a hammer/screwdriver handle' Sometimes the pinion gets stuck on the flywheel and wont retract.

So I crawled underneath to give it just a little tappity tap tap..............oh shit!

I am sure that the pinion is stuck, but that's the least of my worries. There is a crack in the flywheel housing! I talked to David at STR and showed him some pics. His mechanic figured he could weld the crack. I was happy tp hear that, and to have a plan. In preparation of getting this done I needed to do two things, first move Fillmore by hand so that he could be towed. So with the use of a sturdy tree, lots of long tow straps and a hand winch, I did a super slow-mo three point turn to get the bus into tow ready position.

With that being done, the second thing on the list  was to give the mechanic as much room as need be. So I removed the panels from the engine tower to get better access.

The front panel isn't designed to come off but rather swing up and out of the way. Subsequent engine room modifications (mounting of the inverter) prevented this from happening anymore so I opted to remove and modify while I was at it.

A split mid way on the front panel will allow it to be swung up in stages and allow better (less head crashing incidents)

My next step(no pics) was to remove the exhaust, it just gives more breathing room under there.

The final step was to remove the starter, this will allow the welder yielding mechanic to get in there and fix things up....or will it? (insert ominous music) 

Pulling on a thread...

31 years ago seems like only yesterday in some respects but when I look at the photo of Michelle and I on our anniversary I see how time has passed! Happy Anniversary my love....here's to another 31!!

One of the 'I'll get to it' jobs is a design flaw of mine when running the main wire looms from the engine room into the living area of the bus. As we all know from running cable wires in from a satellite dish or phone lines coming into the house, the wire must approach the point of entry from below. 

In my defense, I didn't have many options. When running the wires from the engine room they had to be held up and off the rear diff. But that then meant that the wires were entering the point of entry from above. THUS every time we travelled in the rain, we had a water leak in the back. So its time to put my thinking cap on and devise a system to prevent or at the very least, minimize moisture.

Like many things with Fillmore, there are a number of steps you need to take backwards to move forward....a little controlled dismantling before you can build something new.

So removed the drive shaft and jacked fillmore's rear end  up so as the diff will hang down allowing myself more room to maneuver. then I created a mounting plate(top piece of the wood press seen below) at the point of entry to give me a consistent surface to work from.

Then to my wifes delight I started baking PVC pipe in the oven. When you heat the pipe to 280-300F it moves into a thermoplastic state. Im not organized enough for a one off, so after the second or third round of baking in the oven, Michelle had enough and I was banished to heating in the BBQ. Not as even and precise but it worked.

So, for those of you who have already see the problem, you know your plastics. For those who don't (and I didn't) not all pipe is created equal. PVC is not ABS. both are thermoplastic, both can be bonded to.....with like plastic. But if you try to bond PVC pipe(white) to ABS pipe(black). You not only mess everything up but the glue never dries. Usually you have one shot to put the pieces together and then you are married to it. I knew I had messed up when I was able to move the pieces after a few minutes. 

So, some more baking, some more gluing,

 ...and then finally, a proper mounting flange.

Now here is where I found a thread. 

Most of the cabling that come out of the living area all travels in the same direction. All but one cable. After some wrestling I decided the best way to handle it was to re route it. All I would have to do is disconnect it from the coach batteries. To do that all I had to do was remove a third of the cabinets in the back.

After that, just uncover the battery box and disconnect the wire in question.....OMG,Omg,omg!

I just pulled that thread and the sleeve of the sweater just fell off!

I may have neglected the topic of 'off season' battery maintenance. Although by the time I took this pic I had disconnected some of the wires and done some clean up but this is still horrendous. 

One by one I disconnected the batteries, removing them as I went along, cleaned up the wiring.

The batteries themselves got cleaned up and inspected. Most of the cells were low and I was concerned there had been overheating while charging as the battery temp monitor from the inverter was damaged and likely wasn't regulating max charge temps.

Update: I took the batteries in for testing......bad news is they are all toast. Damage to the cells. So THAT was an expensive mistake. The good news is I got new batteries.

After some custom cable making, 

I have a new battery bank ready to go!

Things you don't want to see

 Youre parents being intimate, your brother naked, a good steak burn.....all things that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. So society does what it can to limit you from seeing stuff that is preventable.

 

    For some time I have been 'contemplating' our options for window coverings in the bus. Everything from rollershades to aluminum louvers.

The roller shade although simple and the most economical......really ended up being unsightly and unreliable.

The short term fix, although effective....was a pain....unsightly.....and messy.

I included this pic because it made me chuckle. I finally found hardware from a display system from Nova Display Systems. After buying a small prototype I brought Michelle out to the bus to get her opinion. She was having trouble visualizing what the curtains would look like, or specifically how they would 'hang'. So I grabbed material that was close at hand and some clamps and 'viola'!!

-she wasn't as impressed, nor did she appreciate the humor.

I installed all the curtain rods.....with only minor modifications(something I don't often say when working on Fillmore) now we just have to decide on color, cut, and material for the curtains!

Now the curtains are to block people from seeing into the bus and seeing things that you dont want to see.....think of me in my undies.....

The other thing you really dont want to see is this. The buses water heater/furnace, a Webasto Dual Top 

After a trip last summer I kept getting fault codes that didnt make sense. Things would start up but then shut down saying it lost connection with the fuel pump. After trying to reset the unit and various other repair techniques....which include sitting inside the bus drinking a very nice single malt scotch while asking the bus questions as if I really believed it would tell me what the issue was. 

After pulling everything apart, checking sensors and wiring integrity, I was stumped. Until I looked at the motherboard.......water damage! A design flaw in the unit if you asked me having the electronics below the water supply inlet and hot water outlet......but no one asked me....I guess I was busy during the  R&D portion of product development.

After ordering a new blower motor (with motherboard)I decided that I was going to build a bench stand so I could properly bench test this unit to ensure there are no leaks. Truth be told the source of the leak was my fault but why do we need to point fingers? Cant we just learn from our mistakes and move on??

After a lot of finicky adjustments which involved putting things together only to take them apart again....numerous times....it came to life. It sounds really loud in the video but once mounted undercarriage it actually is very manageable.

On the Road again....

....Just cant wait to get back on the road again....... Ahh Willie had it right. After a couple of weeks of waiting for parts to come in and then the machine shop work their magic, I finally had the new drive shaft in hand. So after The Band Peak played at Bragg Creek Days, I hopped on a flight to Regina, cabbed it to the mechanic shop and installed the drive shaft.

Surprisingly things went exactly as planned and within a half hour I was on the road.

It was a hot and smoky drive but it was uneventful and rewarding to be mobile again

When I got home, after the quick 12 hour day, I celebrated with a cold beer and washing the bug carnage off the front of Fillmore.

Whilst I was playing with my vehicle Jeff finished his truck!

The swing gate is fantastic, well thought out and well constructed!

Only to be rivaled by the front end! This makes things look really clean and sharp.

 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Finally the world is starting to return to what we deem as somewhat normal, we have been 'allowed' to finally go see family in Manitoba. So it was time to blow the dust off of Fillmore and get him ready for the road.

The process was pretty smooth really, throw in a bunch of food(more than we need) throw in clothes(more than we need) throw in many little luxuries(more than we need) and we are ready to roll.

We opted to leave Wednesday night after Anna got off work, so by midnight we were on the road....in what felt like a monsoon. But after a long night of driving it was time to fuel up and pass the drivers seat to Jeff, who got his air brake endorsement this spring. I was quite happy to lay in the back and let the rumble of the cummins lull me to sleep. Until I heard the boom!

After we pulled over and I shimmied under to have a peak, it was obvious we weren't going anywhere. The  short shaft of the drive train puts lots of stress on the u joints, and after going over a bit of a bump(or a series of them over the last 9 years).....the mounting plate on the transmission side of the u-joint failed. We were lucky. Although the slip yoke came flying off and punched a hole in the engine room floor, that's all the damage that was done. With air lines, coolant lines, fuel lines etc all running in the near vicinity a small hole in the floor is a good (lucky) result. 

We pulled together as a team, Jeff looked into a rental Van while Michelle looked into a rental RV. Anna and I looked up mechanic shops and called AMA. 

Within an hour and a half the rental car company came to pick us up road side and the tow truck came to take the bus to the shop.

After doing the paperwork and then grabbing our "stuff "(or what we could fit into the rental) we were back on the road. A few hours behind schedule but we would be in Deloraine by supper time

While there was nothing to do for the bus, we enjoyed the hot days of summer on the course 

And on the water. Uncle Shawn brought boats and fishing gear, he was super patient in teaching the fundamentals to Anna so she could float and fly fish in the warm waters of Manitoba.

Hours seemed to slip away, we just relaxed and watched the sunset! Leaving the problems of tomorrow for tomorrow!