Category Archives: PBS

2015/09/08 (T) Polyurethane

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I was awakened at 6:30 AM by heavy rain.  I was not sleeping comfortably and had to get up anyway, so I put on my lightweight robe and slippers and took my iPad to the living room.  Naturally the cats wanted to be fed so I took care of that and then settled in to put the finishing touches on yesterday’s blog post.  The rain lasted for about 20 minutes.  I e-mailed the post to myself at 7:15.  Linda got up at 7:30 AM so I made coffee but we deferred breakfast until later.

I was thinking about the house battery voltage issues Butch was having and the role of the Vanner battery equalizer in his (and our) house battery system.  I did another Google search on “battery equalizer …”, and selected “batter equalizer circuit” from the list.  One of the listings was for the original patent application by James D. Sullivan as assigned to Vanner, Inc. ( http://www.google.com/patents/US4479083 ).  (I found it interesting that Google has a special directory for patents.)  As I expected, it is a DC-to-DC converter and in its most common configuration it is designed to take charge from the upper portion of a series battery pack and supply it to the lower part of such a pack or to any loads connected across just the lower bank.

One of its features is that it looks at the voltage across the entire battery pack and uses a voltage divider network (two resistors in series) to generate a reference voltage that is compared to the voltage across the lower bank.  Differences as small as 0.01 volts result in the transfer of charge from the upper to the lower bank when the lower bank has the lower voltage.  As implemented for use with buses and other vehicles that have 24/12 dual voltage DC electrical systems the divider network consists of two equal resistors and the reference voltage is 1/2 the overall battery pack voltage.  The design can “balance” other configurations, in which the “upper” and “lower” banks do not have the same voltage, by changing the divider resistors to have the correct ratio.  I will call Butch again this evening to report what I found and see how things stand with them in general.

When we had consumed a sufficient amount of coffee to be alert enough to work intelligently and safely we went to the garage to finish assembling the left plenum/support box for the built-in sofa.  I forced mating pieces into alignment while Linda drove in the screws.  These parts dry fit perfectly so this should not have been a problem.  I blame the slight misalignment on the corner clamps that I used.  I was reminded, once again, that cheap tools are almost never a bargain.

We had breakfast at 8:30 AM; homemade granola with leftover mixed berries.  We also spilt a banana that was getting past ripe.  As we were finishing our meal I got a call from Steven Weber at Martin Spring with another question on the Webasto system in the Prevost Bus Conversion he is servicing.  He had isolated a cracked fuel pipe and needed to order a replacement.  I suggested Sure Marine Service but also mentioned Lloyd DeGerald and Darin Hathaway.

Linda needed to spend some time at her desk preparing for a 1 PM meeting with the I.T. department at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor so I took a shower and got dressed to work.  I gathered up the laundry, started a load, and then spent some time in the garage sanding pieces of the built-in sofa while Linda showered and got dressed for her meeting.  She planned to leave at 11:45 AM.  I left at 11:30 and went to Lowe’s to buy tack cloth.

Tack cloth is like sticky cheesecloth and is probably called that because it is “tacky” to the touch.  It is used to remove sawdust, drywall dust, and other little tiny particles from surfaces such as sanded wood just prior to the application of finishes.  While I was there I looked at inline water separators and inline oilers for use with air compressors supplying air to pneumatic tools.  I also looked at copper fittings to see if they had 90 degree elbows that I could use to modify the Aqua-Hot coolant lines that feed the two front fan-coil hear-exchangers.

Linda left before I got home.  I moved the laundry to the dryer and went back to the garage to work.  I was contemplating what I wanted to do next when Keith pulled up in his truck and trailer.  I chose to skip having the lawn mowed this week which will help Keith get the rest of his clients taken care of in his shortened 4-day workweek.  The grass has grown since last Monday but not that much and is still short and brown in places.  With rain in the forecast today, tomorrow, and Thursday giving it another week should be good for it.  I showed him the floor in the bus before he left.

I returned to the bus project and realized that I needed to stain the underside of the built-in sofa shelf as part of it might be visible through the notch in the vertical front panel at the floor.  As long as I was staining that I also stained the tops of the plenum/support boxes so they would blend with the two stationary pieces at either end of the seat.

With the staining done I came inside to make a few phone calls.  The first one was to Josh Leach at Coach Supply Direct to check on the details of the Corian countertop for the custom desk.  Josh said the Corian normally comes bonded to plywood which protects it from cracking in shipment.  I want to go ahead and cut the 3/4″ plywood top that will join the two pedestals together.  I also wanted to know if his Corian vendor could come out on the afternoon of the 14th to measure and possibly install the countertop by the end of the week.  His vendor turns out to be an Amish craftsman who does not “come out and measure” or “come back and install.”  Josh said he would check with the vendor to see if he would use my plywood base and also see if he had the Sandstone product in stock.

My next call was to Pat Lintner to check on dinner plans for the upcoming GLCC Surplus and Salvage rally.  I need to coordinate with Crimp Supply to have them provide catalogs for the attendees and perhaps speak to the group before dinner.  I got his answering machine and left a message.

My third call was to Jim Miteff (N8KUE) returning his call/message from earlier.  We had a long chat about RVing and Prevost bus conversions.  It’s a big topic and I sometimes forget that I have spent the last 10 years learning about it.  When I think back to the beginning of this adventure, however, I recall how exciting yet overwhelming it was initially.  I see Jim in the same place, but he is a very quick study and professional researcher so he will get past the overwhelming part fairly quickly.

While I was talking to Jim I heard a loud bang and then another one.  They sounded like it had come from within the house.  After the second one I got up to investigate.  As I peeked out the front door a Consumer’s Energy truck was backing out of the driveway.  I flagged the driver down and asked what was up.  He said they had detected a leak and that he had just fixed it.  I presumed it was at our meter but he wasn’t any more specific than that.  I thought it was odd that he did not knock on the door first to let me know he was on site, but I guess they have the right to service their infrastructure.  I have smelled gas on that side of the house occasionally ever since they installed it but dismissed it as a “purge valve” doing its thing.  We had the same issue at the old house and they kept telling me it was a “vent” mechanism on the meter.  I never belief that, but whatever.

I wrapped up my call with Jim, put in another load of laundry, and returned to the garage to apply polyurethane to as much of the built-in sofa pieces as I could.  Each piece has to be done in two steps and requires two coats, so that’s four applications that will have to spread out over a couple of days.

There wasn’t much else I could do, and I did not feel like working at my desk, so I hung up the dry laundry and then worked on my iPad in the living room.  Linda had made an appointment with Renee to have her hair cut at 4:30 PM.  She stopped at Meijer’s on the way home and finally arrived at 5:45 PM.  I went back to the garage at 6 PM and applied another coat of polyurethane.

Linda bought an Amy’s Roasted Vegetable pizza for dinner and made a nice salad to go with it.  I had some more of the Leelanau Cellars Apricot wine and we had the last two vegan cupcakes for dessert.  I tried calling Butch twice but his phone was either off or out of range.  I called Pat Lintner again and this time he was home.  Saturday dinner will be at a restaurant so that will not be a good time for Crimp Supply to talk to the rally attendees and pass out catalogs.  I will call them tomorrow and see what I can arrange.

I headed back to the garage yet again, applied polyurethane to all the surfaces that had not yet been coated, put the brush in the soapy water, sealed up the can, and closed up the garage.  I think I have just enough polyurethane left to put one more coat on the top surface of the shelf.  I plan to do that in the morning before I start anything else.

On the drive home Linda heard a weather forecast that thunderstorms were headed our way this evening with up to 1″ of rain, strong wind, and possibly small hail.  Linda headed off to bed at 8 PM to watch NCIS and I caught the last half of the show.  I turned the channel to Create on Detroit PBS and watched A Chef’s Life, a series about a wife and husband who run the Chef & The Farmer restaurant in eastern North Carolina, and then turned the TV off.

I checked the weather with my iPad and it appeared that system had fallen apart although there was still a reduced chance of scattered thunderstorms at 11 PM and again from 2 to 4 AM.  I turned the light out at 10:30 PM.

 

2015/09/04 (F) 100 Pounds

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We set our alarm for 6 AM, got up, had granola for breakfast, and then went to The Home Depot to rent a 100 pound floor roller.  The roller consists of three steel rollers, each about 4″ wide and 6″ in diameter, on a common axle.  A three foot long handle attaches to the axle between the middle and outside rollers.  A pair of small wheels attach to the crossbar at the base of the handle for transport and can be swung up out of the way or removed.  We rolled the roller out to our car and loaded it into the back.  We then went back inside and purchased up a hard edge grout float, a small offset float, sponges, a bucket, and a bottle of Armstrong Once and Done floor cleaning concentrate.

Bruce rolls the floor tiles in the kitchen with the 100 lb. roller.

Bruce rolls the floor tiles in the kitchen with the 100 lb. roller.

Once we got home we got right to work on the bus.  We had a few pieces of vinyl tile that still needed to be cut and installed at the front of the bus and that took us over an hour.  Once that was done it was time to glue the tiles down.  I got the Armstrong S-288 adhesive and the trowel.  We read the directions on the adhesive bucket and finally figured out that I should probably not spread more adhesive than could apply in about 20 minutes as the product is time sensitive.  The adhesive would then have to set until it was tacky but did not transfer to my finger when touched, which would be 10 to 30 minutes, but we would need to have the tiles set within an hour of when I started spreading the adhesive.  The tiles then needed to be rolled with the 100 pound roller.

We started in the center of the coach and installed the tiles as follows:  1) Remove selected tiles; 2) Spread adhesive; 3) Clean up tools while adhesive cured; 4) Lay tiles carefully back in place; and 5) Roll the freshly set tiles.  It sounds easy and straightforward enough, but each step had its own issues.

For Step 1) we had to agree on how to remove and stack the tiles so they were in the correct order for installation and to remove them so as not to disturb the surrounding tiles.  At Step 2) I had to be careful not get adhesive on anything except the area of the floor I was working on.  I also had to make sure the working area was completely covered but also completely troweled off correctly.  In Step 3) the tools needed to be cleaned before the adhesive set so we could use warm soapy water to clean them.  Once set, the adhesive would have to be cleaned off with mineral spirits.  Step 4) was the most critical.  The tiles get installed once the adhesive has set to the touch, i.e. still pliable but no transfer when touched.  The adhesive effectively acts like a contact cement–it is not possible to slide a tile once it is down–so getting each tile correctly positioned on the first try was critical.  Step 5) was the easiest, once we got the 100 pound floor roller out of the car and into the bus.  The tiles needed to be rolled as soon as they were installed, which was easy except for the limited confines of the bus interior.

We ended up doing this six times in the following order:

  1. Kitchen;
  2. Built-in sofa portion of the living room;
  3. Front passenger side of living room’
  4. Hallway;
  5. Foot and front side of bed;
  6. Rear side of bed; and
  7. Bathroom.

This corresponded roughly to the order in which we had done the dry fit and it was critical that the central tiles get installed in exactly the right locations.  We used plastic spacers at all tile intersections and between tile edges where needed.  (The spacers were 2-sided.  One side was an X for use where four tile corners meet.  The other side had three tabs in line for use between the edges of two adjacent tiles.)  These spacers were removed when we pulled the tiles out and replaced when we installed them.  We also divided the job up to keep the number of tiles being set to a small enough number that we could meet the time requirements of the adhesive and to make sure we did not get trapped in the back of the coach.  We finally installed the last piece (for now) at 9 PM.  We had short breaks for lunch and dinner but each cycle of this process took about 90 minutes.

Bruce spreads Armstrong vinyl floor adhesive in the hallway.

Bruce spreads Armstrong vinyl floor adhesive in the hallway.

My knees were sore by the time we quit.  They have never done well with kneeling due to the boney lumps that resulted from Osgood-Slaughter’s disease in my late pre-teens.  Occasionally kneeling down on one of the spacers, which had pointy centers on one side, did not help.  I probably got down and up at least 100 times throughout the day, maybe more, which was hard enough all by itself.  Although I am in better health and physical shape than I was in my 30’s and 40’s at 63 I am certainly not in the prime of my youth.  At one time Linda and I had a hundred pounds or more to lose between us.  Time, use, and the abuse of being overweight have inevitably taken their toll on our joints.  At the end of the day I was left thinking that flooring work is a young person’s game.  Whether hardwood, carpet, tile, or even continuous sheet vinyl, much of the work is done on your hands and knees, or bent over, and it is tough work.

I took a long, hot shower and then Linda took her shower while I checked e-mail.  We had some Coconut Bliss ice cream with fresh strawberries and then turned in.  We watched an episode of Joseph Rosendo’s Travelscope, set the alarm for 7 AM, and went to sleep.

 

2015/08/23 The West Side

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Today was not an ordinary day for us in the sense of our usual routines of chores and projects.  We were up at 7:45 AM, got dressed up more than usual, and had our usual granola breakfast but I did not make coffee.  We left at 8:45 AM and drove to our daughter’s house near Dexter.  We arrived at 9:30 and Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline pulled in right behind us.  We visited for about 20 minutes which gave Madeline time to get into the flow of being at Aunt Meghan and Uncle Chris’s house.  She was sitting on the couch with Meghan watching an animated video on Shawna’s iPad when we left.

We rode with Brendan and Shawna in their Subaru Outback.  Our destination was the Waldorf Pub Ballroom in Hastings, Michigan.  The reason for our trip was a Celebration of Life for Shawna’s father, Michael (Mick) James Lee, who passed away a little over a week ago from a non-cancerous but malignant brain tumor.

The quickest route to Hastings from Dexter is south to I-94 and then west to M-37, which runs northwest up to Hastings.  We stopped at the Panera in Jackson where Linda and I both got coffee and I got an “everything” bagel to go.  We arrived at the Waldorf at noon.

The gathering did not start until 2 PM but Shawna had agreed to come early to help with setup.  That left us with some time so we went for a walk up and down the main street before returning to the ballroom.  Shawna’s sister, Tracy, brother Rob, their mom, Carol, and Mick’s wife, Carol were there and we had a chance to visit briefly with them before everyone else started showing up.  I did not try to do a head count but there were at least 100 people there, and possibly 150.  Mick was a teamster and a lot of his social life involved his fellow truck drivers and was centered on their union local.  I think a lot of them were there.

Tracy had assembled a slide show with 180 images and put together a mix of Mick and Carol’s favorite tunes.  At 2 PM she read an honest, heartfelt, and warm remembrance of Mick.  Mick’s lifelong friend gave a similar reflection, followed by Mary Kay, the sister of Mick’s wife Carol.  A nice buffet was set out that included fresh fruit, vegetables, and small slices of toasted bread, so we had plenty to eat.  There was a full bar available but hot coffee (regular and decaf) and cold lemonade met our needs.

Heavy rains moved in just after 2 PM but moved through before we left at 4:30.  We went back down M-37 to I-94 and headed east.  Shawna and Linda were following our progress using the GPS feature of their phones.  There was an accident at the interchange with US-127 so Brendan exited at Airport Road and Linda navigated him through Jackson and back on to I-94 at Copper Road.  Shawna noticed a rainbow ahead of us and then Linda spotted a second, fainter one, with a larger diameter than the first.  We were able to see at least the main one, and usually both of them, all the way to the Dexter Road exit and part of the way to Dexter.  It was quite a sight.

We got back to Meghan and Chris’s house around 6:30 PM.  Madeline had a great day with her buddy Aunt Meghan but was keeping watch for our return and was excited to see her mom and dad and her Grandma Linda and Grandpa Bruce.  We left at 6:50 and on the way home decided to go the Los Tres Amigos restaurant on Grand River Avenue just east of Latson Road, arriving at 7:30 PM.  We had the vegetarian fajitas, and they were OK, but dining out allowed us to eat a little sooner without Linda having to cook.

After dinner we drove to the Shell station in Brighton and topped off the tank in Linda’s Honda Civic so she would not have to stop in the morning on her way to walk with Diane.  At home we watched an episode of Sherlock on PBS and then an episode of Rick Steve’s Europe.

 

2015/08/20 (R) On The Level

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We awoke around 7 AM and noticed that it had rained overnight.  We had Linda’s homemade granola with fresh blueberries for breakfast, followed by a pot of coffee brewed from the Cafe Europe / Columbian Decaf blend I got from Teeko’s on Tuesday.  As we do most mornings we enjoyed our coffee while using our iPads to check in on the world (Linda) and write about our day yesterday (me).

While Linda went for a walk I checked e-mail and responded to several from Gary Hatt at Bus Conversion Magazine.  I then unloaded all of the boards, slides, battery terminal covers, and the pneumatic disc sander and discs from the car.  I set up our 15 gallon portable air compressor by the entrance door of the bus, got the long air hose out of its storage bay, and connected the air sander.

When Linda got back from her walk we unloaded the pull-out pantry from the car and stored it on top of some of the bookcases in the library.  We had a light lunch after which Linda settled in to work at her desk and I busied myself with sanding the floor in the bus with the air sander.

Floor prep tools: 4” belt sander, hammer and chisel, 4” rotary pneumatic body sander.

Floor prep tools: 4” belt sander, hammer and chisel, 4” rotary pneumatic body sander.

I was eager (anxious) to get the initial sanding done so I could apply the floor leveling compound.  Like drywall compound it will be a multi-day process.  I needed to fill any deep gouges and voids, let the compound dry, and then lightly sand it with an orbital pad sander and finer grit sandpaper to make sure it is smooth.  I then needed to fill the shallow grooves that exist between the ridges of thinset and mastic that I could not sand off completely.  Once that dried I would again sand it off lightly and then apply a final, very thin, skim coat to the entire area, feathering it into the areas where tile was never installed.  Finally I would go over the entire area gently with the pad sander one last time to make sure the surface is as smooth and flat as possible before installing the 1/4″ underlayment.  The tile will be installed directly on the underlayment.

I considered using self-leveling instead of troweled-on floor leveling compounded but decided against it.  Self-leveling is thin, like water, and flows.  As such it seeks its on level and forms a smooth flat surface that is “level” as determined by gravity.  Although it offers the possibility of a single step process with no sanding, it also offers the potential to go wrong and not be repairable.  The bus subfloor would have to be dead level side-to-side and front-to-rear.  There would also have to be a border to contain the liquid and there could not be any holes or cracks that it could leak through.  In particular it seemed I’ll-suited for feathering into the adjacent areas of the subfloor that were never tiled.  And so I decided to fill in and “level” the floor the slower and more labor intensive, but more controlled, way.

For dinner we had the other half of the gluten free pizza Linda made on Tuesday.  We had peaches, strawberries, bananas, and an orange melon that were all ripe so she made a fruit salad.  We finished the bottle of Cupcake Black Forest Decadent Red Wine.

We decided to turn in early and watch a little TV.  Part 2 of The Mystery of Matter: The Search for the Elements was on PBS at 8 PM.  We saw Part 3 last night and did not realize until 7:45 PM that Part 1 was on this evening at 7 PM, so we still have not seen it.

 

2015/08/08 (S) A New Bus Fridge (Finally)

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We overslept and did not get up until 7:15 AM.  The weather has been very pleasant all this past week but we awoke to light rain.  We left for our SLAARC breakfast at 7:25 AM and took a different route than usual to see how it would be for the bus.  I headed north on Hacker to M-59, east to US-23, and south to I-96 east.  The ramp from US-23 south to I-96 east is a left exit, left entrance, with a very short merge lane in the middle of a major construction project.  I decided that was not our best option for the bus.

We arrived at breakfast at 8 AM to find a dozen people already there but at least 10 more showed up after us.  We enjoyed the conversation, as we usually do, but did not linger and were on our way back home by 9:15 AM.  As soon as we arrived we changed into our work clothes and got busy with the final preparations to move the bus to Chuck’s bus garage in Novi.

I pulled the bus out at 10:30 AM and Linda followed in the Element, which had all of the pieces we had removed from the old refrigerator along with tools, blankets, and some 2x4s.  The bus roof was brushed by a few small, low branches getting from our house to N. Hacker Road, reminding me that I need to covertly trim trees and bushes along our street.  I say covertly because they are not on our property.  The last time I took the bus out we went south on Hacker to Grand River Avenue.  This would have been our preferred route today except that the trees are not trimmed up in a few places and one of them, just before Bendix Drive, clunked the stuff on our roof pretty hard last time.  I did not care to repeat that so I went north as we had this morning in the car.

At M-59 I headed west to Latson Road, a trip of some four to five miles in the wrong direction.  The reason is that Latson Road going south has a relatively new, and easy to navigate, intersection with I-96.  From there we had an easy run to the Beck Road exit, a short jog south to Grand River Avenue, an easy left turn, and the final mile to Chuck’s shop where we arrived at 11 AM.

Chuck had already pulled his bus out of the building and parked it out of the way but there were several trucks and a dumpster trailer blocking access to his door.  They belonged to a motley crew that the owner of the building in front of Chuck’s shop had hired to clean up some of the mess left behind by the sunroom company that just moved out of the building.  He had me pull up to the right and position myself to back up and then negotiated with the workers to move their vehicles.  I pulled up the tag axles and waited.  The workers were not happy about it but they did it.

To get our bus into Chuck’s shop nose first he had me back parallel to the building and then bring it around to the passenger side into a space adjacent to the front building until I was perpendicular to his door.  I was then able to pull straight in but I did not pull in all the way.  Chuck had me stop with the fixed window frame opposite his forklift which he had already positioned for use.  The on again, off again light rain was not a factor as the window frame we needed to open was well inside his shop.

Linda and I unloaded all of the stuff from the car and brought it inside the shop.  We realized that we forgot to bring the camera so Linda tried to capture the progress of the work with her cell phone camera.  I have put those images in a separate gallery post for this date.

Randy, the owner of the Printology business in the suite adjacent to Chuck’s, came over to see what we were up to and stuck around to help.  With me working from an 8 foot step ladder outside the bus, while Chuck and Linda worked inside, we opened the window frame about 24 inches and propped it with a piece of 2×4.  I then carefully lifted the window higher while Linda sighted along the bottom of the upper cabinet.  When I had the frame high enough to be clear of the cabinet Chuck measured the length of 2×4 we would need to prop it open.

It looked like 52 inches would do the trick.  I had a 56″ piece of 2×4 so I cut it down to 52″ with my 7-1/4″ Rockwell circular saw.  I used the first piece to mark a second piece on an 8 foot 2×4 and cut that.  Linda took both pieces inside the bus where she handled one and Chuck handled the other.  As I lifted the bottom edge of the window from outside the bus the window hinge (at the top) made some unpleasant (and a bit unnerving) sounds but I got it high enough that they could put the two braces in place and the frame did not come unhinged.  We had just finished this task when John Rauch and his son, John, arrived at noon to help move the refrigerators.

The old refrigerator was lying face down in the bus.  The two Johns lifted it as a test and determined that they would not have any difficulty moving it.  Linda fetched one of the blankets and dropped it over the sill of the open window to protect it and the side of the coach.  Chuck had placed the long forks on his forklift about two feet apart and slid a narrow pallet over them.  He raised the forks and brought the forklift forward towards the bus.  We got him to position the top of the pallet even with the top of the sill and about 3″ away from the side of the coach.

John and John are very strong and were able to lift the old refrigerator case and pass it through the window onto the pallet.  With a person on ladders on either side of the pallet we slid the refrigerator all the way out.  Chuck then tilted the forks slightly, slowly backed away, and lowered it down.  John and John got the old refrigerator off the pallet, carried it out of the way, and stood it upright on its base.  They then lifted the new refrigerator onto its back, picked it up, and placed it on the pallet.  They went back inside the bus while Chuck brought the forklift up to the coach and raised the forks until the pallet was at window sill level.  John and John slid it into the bus, stood it up, and rolled it into the alcove.  I then secured it in place with a piece of 1×3 wood screwed to the floor across the front to keep it from rolling out while driving.  There is approximately three inches of space above the fridge but it cannot tilt out very far before the upper back edge catches the ceiling of the alcove.

John, John, and Chuck raised the window frame slightly to remove the 2x4s and close the frame when the top hinge started coming apart.  Linda yelled for me and I scrambled over to get another pair of hands on the frame.  With me and Chuck holding the outside (free) edge and the two Johns holding the hinge edge I was able to see where the hinge was out and direct folks as to what to do.  It took several tries and a few minutes (that seemed like hours) but we got the hinge re-engaged and then closed the window frame.  We took a few minutes to rest and chat and Chuck showed John (the father) his race car.   The heavy lifting was all done so John, John, and Randy took off, but before they did Linda gave John (the son) a gift for their new baby girl, Lucy Violet.

Linda and I put all the shelves and bins in the new refrigerator and then reattached the two doors.  That was a bit of extra work as it came with the hinges on the right side but we needed the door to open on the right side.  With the doors on we took a moment to consider our choice of size and color (black) and felt we had made the right decision.  We started to reassemble the old refrigerator but we were all hungry and decided to go to lunch first.  I started the bus and pulled it all the way into the shop so we could close up.  Chuck then drove us down the street to Panera for lunch.  We took our time and had a nice meal and a nice chat.

Back at the shop we decided to switch the buses around so Chuck would be free to leave.  He wanted a picture of the two buses together so I backed ours out of his shop, swung around to the passenger side, got parallel to his bus, and then backed up so the nose of our bus was about 10 feet behind the nose of his.  He and Linda then both took photos with their cell phones.  When the photo shoot was done I pulled forward to the left and then backed in parallel to the building about four feet from the curb.  That gave Chuck plenty of room to pull up next to me on my passenger side and then back around next to the front building and get lined up to pull straight into his bay just as I had done earlier.

Back in the shop Linda wiped out the inside of the old refrigerator and then we reattached the two doors.  As she cleaned each rack, shelf, and bin I placed it back into the refrigerator.  When it was fully reassembled we plugged it in.  It came on, ran for about 60 seconds and then shut off.  It obviously was not cold yet, and might have been cause for alarm if I had not dealt with this “problem” before.

I knew from prior experience that the defrost timer had probably disconnected the compressor and connected the evaporator defroster.  Chuck pulled out three of his lawn chairs and we sat around waiting for the refrigerator to restart.  The only thing missing was three cold beers.  We knew the unit still had power as the lights were working.  There was an outside chance that the overload protector (fuse?) might have blown, but I did not consider that to be likely.  Our patience was rewarded about 25 minutes later when the compressor came back on.  While we were waiting we gathered up our tools and various materials and loaded everything back into the Honda Element.

Chuck had a message from his wife, Barbara, with her ETA so we decided to settle back into the lawn chairs and kibbutz until Barb arrived.  She showed up a little while later and Chuck got out a fourth chair and we sat in the shop listening to the sound of the functioning refrigerator and debriefing the events of the day.  As a result of the window frame hinge coming loose I am now of the opinion that I did not need to remove the two stop blocks.  I suspect they are there to “stop” the hinge from coming apart and I should not have removed them.  Chuck is also thinking about replacing the refrigerator in their bus and is going to check with Prevost regarding these blocks.  As much as anything I was annoyed with myself for the amount of time I wasted removing these blocks but what is done is done and I now need to reinstall the one block that came off undamaged and get a replacement for the other one, even though I can only attach it with one machine screw.  Butch thinks he can make one for me, otherwise I will have to get one from Prevost.

Our local electrical utility, DTE Energy, will pick up used appliances.  In the case of a refrigerator it has to be plugged in and running, which I presume means it is functioning and cooling the interior.  If so, they will take it away and send us a check for $50.  From our end that’s a good deal as we don’t have to pay someone to haul it away.  Because of the R-12 Freon there are very few places that will deal with it.  My guess is that DTE has a sub-contractor who will recover, clean, and recycle the R-12, which is no longer being made and has become very expensive.  They may also recycle the copper tubing and electrical wire, and possibly the metal case and other materials.  Even with the labor to do this work the unit must be worth more than $50 to them.

We all needed to get some dinner so we wrapped up our visit and started up our bus.  I pulled out onto westbound Grand River Avenue followed by Linda in the car.  At Beck Road we turned north and then got on I-96 westbound.  The bus was at 3/8ths of a tank of fuel so I decided to stay on I-96 and go to the Mobil truck stop at M-52, a run of about 30 miles that would allow the engine and transmission to come up to normal operating temperature.  Linda exited at Latson Road and stopped at Meijer’s to do some grocery shopping.

The Mobil truck stop is run down with a very poor, pot-holed apron and parking area, but there are usually several tractor-trailers fueling here when we pull in as it is one of only two places that a semi can refuel between Detroit and Lansing.  There weren’t any trucks getting fuel when I pulled in but it was 7:30 PM on a Saturday evening and there were a half dozen tractor-trailers settled in the parking area for the night.  I poured two bottles of Stanadyne diesel fuel additive into the fuel tank followed by two ounces of Racor Biocide.  I then added 125 gallons of diesel fuel to the tank, which took about 11 minutes.  By the time I paid for the fuel and was ready to pull out it was 8 PM.

I called Linda to let her know I was on my way and then reset the trip odometer.  I drove east on I-96 for 10 miles to the M-59 / Burkhardt Road exit and got on M-59, which only goes east from there.  Eleven miles later I made the turn south onto N. Hacker Road and completed the drive to our house.  Linda heard me idling in the street, where I stopped to lift the tag axles before making the tight right turn into our pull-through driveway, and came out to help get me parked.  Once I was positioned correctly I put the tag axle back down, let the engine low idle for a minute to let the turbo spin down and let the heads cool off and the temperature to equalize, switched the Level Low system out of drive mode, and shut off the engine.  I shut off the air supply to the engine accessories, shut off the chassis batteries, connected the shore power cord, locked everything up, and went in for the evening.

It had been a long day and we were glad to have it behind us.  I had been anticipating the refrigerator exchange, with some dread, for well over a month.  The concern was that we would not be able to move the units out/in through the window frame, requiring us to remove and replace the lower passenger-side windshield, or that something would go wrong, like the hinge, and turn out to be an expensive and difficult problem to fix.  With each passing day it was also becoming a bottleneck in our remodeling project, at least psychologically if not physically.  But it was finally done and ended well.  We will plug in the new refrigerator tomorrow to make sure it works.  We tested it in Chuck’s shop when it was delivered so we expect it to work now.  There is a lot of work to do but now we can get on with it and I expect it to go well.

In spite of being tired we stayed up and watched the PBS broadcast of the Simon and Garfunkel reunion concert they did live in New York City’s Central Park 10 years after they split up as a duo.  Their music remains among my most favorite from my youth and it has lost nothing with the passing of many years.

 

2015/07/27 (M) Finish Drawings

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I got up at 7:25 AM and fed the cats.  There was a very large tom turkey feeding in the back yard by the basement walkout and just far enough out from the house that I could see him from the dining room doorwall where we keep the cats’ food dishes.  He walked up the west slope and then cautiously headed for our lower deck.  I kept an unseen eye on him from the kitchen corner window as he headed east towards the main deck.  I thought he might have spotted Linda’s tomato and herb planters but he kept on going.  Perhaps he caught sight of Jasper, or me, or his own reflection but something spooked him and he trotted to the east end of the deck.  He had Jasper’s full, undivided attention by this point and just walked around until he decided to walk down the stairs into the east yard and around the east end of the house.  I lost sight of him after that but we have seen turkeys feeding on that end of the house before and they have ready access to dense, protective cover from there.  I suspect this is the same lone tom that we have seen feeding in Cory’s yard across the street.

I sat and played games for a while and then started working on this post at 8:15 AM.  At 8:30 I caught a glimpse of a deer crossing the road into our yard by the main driveway but could not get up to get a better view as Juniper had settled in in my lap.  Linda got up around that same time having finally gotten a good night’s sleep.  I got dressed and made coffee.  We finally had breakfast at 10 AM.

My initial focus for today was to finish the drawings for the pull-out pantry, design/draw the cover for the front half of the passenger side HVAC duct and wiring chase, and design/draw the small cover that will connect the chase cover to the left side of the left desk pedestal base and hide the heater hoses.  I took occasional breaks to chat with friends on the South Lyon 2m repeater and finished my drawings at 4:30 PM.

Linda located a FedEx Office location in Brighton so I drove there instead of to the one in Novi to make copies and buy a mailing tube.  The copies did not come out as well as at the other office so I rolled up the originals and put them in the tube.  I checked to see what it would cost to have FedEx deliver the tube.  Their cheapest method was going to cost $28 and take three days to get there so I went across the street to the post office and mailed them to Jarel in Logansport, Indiana it for $2.94.  It will be there by Thursday and may get there by Wednesday.

When I got home I e-mailed Jarel to let him know the drawings were on the way.  Linda then reheated various leftovers for dinner.  I had started the day with an ambitious list of things I wanted to accomplish but by the time we were done with dinner I decided I had accomplished enough for the day and took an uncharacteristic nap.  I had just woken up when Butch called and we chatted about buses for a bit.  We turned in earlier than usual and watched Antiques Roadshow and the concluding episode of Ken Burn’s “The Dust Bowl” on the Detroit PBS station.