Bus Projects | The Phase Place

Not to worry; there is no hole in the atmosphere letting all of the lovely, moderate temperature air leak out of north central Florida. Quite the opposite, the past week has been pleasant enough here with some rain.

I was draining the auxiliary air tank/system today as I have been every day or so since I first drained it some weeks ago and got a lot of water out of it. The procedure I’ve been using is to drain the tank until the auxiliary air compressor turns on (~80 PSI), shut the drain valve, wait for the air compressor to turn off (~104 PSI), and repeat until I get dry air from the drain. This procedure cycles the air compressor more quickly than during “normal” use, but does not exceed a 50% duty cycle. As I was finishing up, the air compressor tried to turn on but could not turn and pump air. I could hear the motor trying to run until the thermal protection device opened. Something mechanical in the unit had seized. (Once a week or so I’ve been starting the main engine and using the very dry air from the main engine system to dry out the auxiliary tank, but that is not good for the big Detroit Diesel engine.)

Great (not). Our coach has a really nice air flush toilet that only uses a half gallon of water per flush as long as it has 50 – 60 PSI of air pressure with adequate volume. No air? No flush. (And no dump valves or other air powered accessories.) Not the end of the world —one of the RV Resort bathrooms is not far from where we are parked—but not convenient either, especially in the middle of the night.

I pulled out the binder with the documentation (such as it is) for our conversion / house systems and found the data sheets for the auxiliary air compressor. The documentation was for a Dayton Speedaire. I took my flashlight and inspection mirror to check the actual air compressor. It was a Gast 34BB-32-W300X. I wrote down the model number and noticed that it had a five-character code under it that matched one of the model numbers on the Dayton Speedaire sheet, 2Z868. Hummm.

I got on the WWW and searched for Dayton Speedaire, but all of the hits led me back to Grainger Industrial Supply. I searched for Gast and found the manufacturer’s website. The exact model number of my unit was not listed, but they had a similar model number (3HBB-10-M300AX) with nearly identical specifications ( 13″ L, 10″ W, 6″ H, twin horizontally opposed oil-less compressor pistons with Teflon rings, 2.4 CFM @ 0 PSI, 100 PSI maximum pressure, 1/3 HP, 120 VAC single phase electric motor, ~70 dB ).

I called Butch (because that’s what I do in these situations) and we talked it through (because that’s what we do in these situations). I learned that Dayton is now a “house brand” for Grainger and that Grainger also carries Gast air compressors. He looked up air compressors in his Grainger catalog, verified that the exact model number I was looking for was not listed, and gave me model numbers of units that were very similar. He also gave me the phone number for the Grainger location in Ocala, Florida.

I also sent an e-mail off to our mobile mechanic, Joe Cannarozzi. He sent me a link to a compressor made by California Air tools. It was available through Home Depot but had to be ordered online and shipped or picked up at a store. It was designed for running small air tolls and came assembled to an aluminum air tank. It was less expensive than the Gast replacement and would have been a nice compressor if I had room for the whole thing, but it was not a drop in replacement for the one that failed. That meant installing it would be a big project; not something I was prepared to take on while parked at the RV Resort. I also did not want to wait for it to be shipped.

I went back to the Gast website to see where else I might be able to get one if Grainger did have what I needed. They had one distributor in Florida, Braas Corp., in Oldsmar, Florida just north of St. Petersburg, Florida.

John Hagan had offered to drive up from Dunnellon to help me with bus projects. I had phoned him every night to push our plans back another day as we waited for warmer, dryer weather conditions. I called him again to let him know about the air compressor, see if he wanted to help with that project, and set it up for Saturday assuming I could get a new compressor on Friday.

Photos for today’s post follow the text in a photo gallery. Maximum dimension is ~300 pixels.

I don’t think I’m obsessive or compulsive, but I can only sit and relax so much before I have to do something. Linda likes to walk, and I like to walk with her, but I am less inclined to do that on my own just for the doing of it. Still, I walked to the local ACE Hardware store today for some parts for a “project” and stopped at the Grocery Depot for some supplies on the way back. It was probably a mile round trip; not enough to really promote cardiovascular fitness, but better than taking the car.

Yesterday I put some water in the garbage disposal opening. (Yes, our bus has a residential garbage disposal.) The disposal has never worked since we bought the bus and it occurred to me that the trap in the drain might not have any water in it, which would permit orders from the gray tank to come up into the house portion of the coach. Not to worry as it turns out; the water did not drain from the In-Sink-Erator. I left it for a few hours and it eventually drained out. Examination with a flashlight revealed that the inside was complete rusted, so badly that I could not even see the two pieces that are free to rotate when the disposal is spinning. I tried scraping the inside, but to free it up, but it was beyond hope.

I also finally understood why the switch which we assumed was for the disposal did not do anything. At some point in the past someone turned it “on” and the breaker on the bottom of the unit immediately tripped and never got reset. There would not have been any purpose in resetting it anyway.The only reasonably solution (from my point of view) was to replace the disposer, even though we did not intend to use it very much. I am not aware of a product that is sold for sealing up the hole where the disposer goes. (I could have plumbed it into the drain for the main sink basin, but given how small that section of the sink is, that would also serve no practical purpose.) I did not remove the old unit, but I had a good look at it as I needed to find one of similar size and shape given the space where it had to fit.

Late morning I was getting ready to head to Lowe’s in Gainesville when John (next door neighbor) invited me to join he and Ali and group of folks from the fire pit to go out to the Blue Highway Pizzeria for dinner, so I deferred my shopping trip until later. (Linda and I had a pizza at the Blue Highway in Micanopy a week or so ago and it was OK. The staff was great and was very helpful in getting us a vegan pizza, but most pizzas just don’t veganize very well. They did say that they would put our non-dairy cheese on a pizza for us if we brought it in a sealed package as it comes from the store. That may be worth a try).

I left early enough to do my shopping at meet up with the group at 3:30 PM. Luck was on my side. Lowe’s had a garbage disposer that looked exactly like the one installed in our coach. It was a Badger Model 1, 1/3 HP. Badger is In-Sink-Erator’s budget grinder line.

Today I opened the unit, read the instructions (yeah, I’m one of those guys), gathered my tools, and went to work. As shown by some of the photos that follow, the discharge port of the old disposer was completely clogged with—well, I’m not sure what—some combination of rust and food scraps. Kind of nasty, although that stuff doesn’t bother me. I removed the unit and discovered that it was a … In-Sink-Erator Badger Model 1. Sometimes you just get lucky. At least it was guaranteed to fit! Everything went back together fairly easily. I added water to check for leaks. Water tight. Plugged it in and voila, we have a functioning garbage disposer. And yes, the switch we thought was for the disposer is in fact for the disposer.

The other project I have been contemplating had to do with toilet paper. Our female cat, Juniper, likes to unroll it, shred it, and eat it. As shown in the pictures the doors on the bathroom sink cabinet are easily reached when “seated.” The right door opens into your right knee, but the left door swings clear. Oh look, I could mount a toilet paper roll holder right there. Open the door to use, close to hide it from the cat.

So, off to the ACE Hardware store in search of an appropriately sized TP holder. They had just what I needed; end mounts in (fake) polished brass, and inexpensive too. I like it when that happens. I assembled the tools I needed for this project but was not able to find my drill bits. Back to ACE Hardware for a drill bit. The project was done quickly as projects go and it works great! We’ve talked about mounting a paper towel holder somewhere in the kitchen. That may be tomorrow’s project.

Here are the photos: