Tag Archives: Coconut Bliss ice cream (vegan)

2015/12/26 (S) Departure Preparations

In spite of overnight lows in the upper 60s and plenty of humidity we left the windows open, the exhaust fans on, and the air-conditioners off last night and did not get up until 8:30 this morning. I made our pot of morning coffee and Linda eventually warmed up the remaining cinnamon rolls for breakfast. I finished up yesterday’s blog post while she played word games on her iPad. I got a text message from John letting us know that he took Ali to the hospital early this morning but he did not elaborate.

Although we are not leaving until Monday morning, we wanted to start some of our departure preparations today. For me that meant:

dumping the waste tanks;
filling the fresh water tank;
putting away the hoses and water softener;
airing up the tires; and,
doing the laundry, including the bedding.

Linda walked up to get a shower and I started working on these chores in roughly that order I dumped the black tank and then checked the tank level monitor in the house systems panel. The indicator for Tank #2 no longer showed full but still showed 2/3rds. The indicator for Tank #1 did not change, showing 2/3rds before and after. I back flushed the black water tank which helped clean off the floor of the tank but did not do anything for the level sensors. I then dumped the grey water tank. Once it was empty I checked the monitor again and the Tank #1 indicator had dropped from 2/3rds to 1/3rd. All of this seemed to confirm that Tank #2 was plumbed into the toilet and corresponded to the bodily function of the same number. I was reminded that I really should mark the display with ‘B’ and ‘G’.

When Linda returned from her shower I took a load of whites to the laundry room and put them in a washing machine. When I returned to our coach I tapped on the side of the fresh water tank to determine the water level. It was very low, below 1/6th (20 gallons) and perhaps more like 1/8 (15 gallons). At our water usage rate we might have been able to go one more day but there wasn’t any reason to cut it that close. Besides, the lines coming out of the tank are on the side near the bottom but are not at the very bottom so there are a few gallons in there that are not usable. My reason for wanting to know was so I could enter the gallons in my water usage tracking spreadsheet. I also wanted to get the tank filled so I could put the hoses and water softener away.

While the tank was filling I got out the air-compressor, air hose, air chuck, and air pressure gauge and started checking the tires. The tires on the sunny south-facing driver’s side of the bus were a bit higher than I wanted so I adjusted them as follows (in PSI): DST=87.5, DSOD=DSID=97.5, DSS=117.5. The passenger side tires were in the shade so I figured they were not as inflated as the driver side tires and the pressures would not drop as much overnight. I set them as follows (in PSI): PST=86, PSOD=PSID=96. When I checked the PSS tire it was 70 PSI. It was supposed to be 115. Yikes!

This tire has always had a slow leak but it sat most of the summer without losing much air. I checked/adjusted the pressures on November 25 (the day before Thanksgiving) but did not check them again until today. In retrospect that was probably a mistake but it is my second least favorite chore, right behind recharging the water softener. The tire had lost 45 PSI in about 30 days, an average of 1.5 PSI per day. That is not a fast enough leak to pose a problem for driving as long as I check it every day while driving and don’t go more than a few days while parked, but it was troubling nonetheless as it was a change in the behavior of the tire.

The small pancake air compressor we carry has a 150 PSI maximum tank pressure and will provide a regulated output almost that high, but not for very long as it does not have a lot of volume. It’s designed to run low volume air tools, such as nailers and staplers, not high volume air tools, like sanders or impact wrenches. It works fine for topping up a tire but is not designed to inflate a bus tire from 70 to 115 PSI.

It took a lot of cycles to finally get the pressure to 115.5 PSI and before it did the compressor stopped coming on to re-pressurize the tank. It was warm and I thought a thermal overload protector might have opened. Another possibility is that once the tire gets up to about 110 PSI the compressor only supplies a small amount of additional air at 130 to 140 PSI until the tank pressure drops to match what is in the tire. At that point the compressor cannot push more air into the tire but the tank pressure is not low enough to cause the compressor to turn on. At this point I was really regretting that we did not bring the 15 gallon DeWalt air compressor with the 200 PSI tank and 150 PSI regulated output. Yeah, it’s big; but it works.

The front of the car was parked facing the front of the bus so the passenger side tires were in the sun. I adjusted the PSF=33.5 PSI (32 is normal) and the PSR=35.5 PSI (34 is normal). I set the DSF=32.5 and the DSR=34.5. I really need to check all of the tires first thing in the morning while it is cool, and before the sun heats up one side of the vehicles, but I am usually enjoying my morning coffee and not fully dressed. I also do not want to run the air compressor too early in the day, as it is noisy, so I have to write down the pressure adjustment needed for each tire and do it later. All things considered it’s a slightly obnoxious process.

With the waste tanks drained and the water tank filled I tested the water coming out of the softener and it was still indicating 1.5 gpg (25 ppm). I disconnected the water hoses from the coach, the supply faucet, and the water softener but left them connected to both sides of the separate pre-filter. After draining them as best I could I coiled the pre-filter hoses around the filter housing and connected the ends together to prevent leaks and put it on top of a tub in the front bay on the driver’s side. I removed the cover from the filter housing attached to the softener, which does not have a filter element in it, and dumped the water out to get rid of the weight. I then stored the softener in the passenger side of the front bay.

With the fresh water apparatuses taken care of I disconnected the waste hose from the angle adapter, flushed it out, collapsed it, and coiled it in the tub where we store all of the waste tank related accessories. I disconnected the backflush angle adapter, removed the backflush water hose, capped the discharge fitting, and added all of that to the waste accessories tub.

I put the air compressor back in the passenger side of the front bay, coiled up the air hose, and stored it in the driver side tray over the drive tires. Back inside I reattached the air inlet screen for the middle air-conditioner, put the drill and driver buts away with the other tools, and closed up all the bays. Other than rechecking the passenger side front tire all I have left to do to get the bus ready to travel is stow the bag chairs and fold up table, stow the awnings, and disconnect and stow the shorepower cord. After that it’s the usual departure procedure. Once we are out of our site I will back the bus up so as not to block anyone’s driveway and Linda will pull the car around behind it so we can hook it up for towing. We will then exit the resort via the covered bridge to the main gate and out to US-27.

I sat outside for the later part of the afternoon working on this post. Linda was out too for a while, but went in to lie down. She said she felt OK but was very tired. I put the second load of laundry in a washing machine around 2 PM and went back at 3 to transfer it to a dryer. John stopped by on the way back to his rig and said the hospital was probably going to admit Ali but as of when he left she was still in the ER. He took her in this morning because of severe abdominal pain.

I was getting ready to go back at 3:45 PM to retrieve the laundry when I got involved in a conversation with our neighbors to the south, Danny and Dorothy. We had previously exchanged salutations and had brief chats but this was our first real conversation. Pam, who is in the rig to our north with her husband Ken, stopped to chat briefly as she headed out for a walk. It was also the first time we have talked. It seems that this often happens. Two years ago it was March before we got to be friends with more than just John and Ali and by the time we left in early April we were being sociable with a dozen people.

At 4:15 PM Linda decided we should go for an easy walk. The sun had just dropped below the trees so the air temperature was pleasant but the humidity had not yet risen. We strolled up to the office and checked for mail. The holiday card from Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline was there but not the Christmas card from Marilyn. We will be gone before the mail arrives on Monday so we will have to ask in the office tomorrow about having stuff forwarded. We also have to let them know we are pulling out early Monday and need to have someone read the meter so we can settle the electric bill.

We had partly cloudy skies for our walk which thinned out as the evening progressed and allowed some radiational cooling. Basically we have been going from 83 degrees and 63% relative humidity during the day to 68 degrees and 83% relative humidity overnight. Comfortable enough in the day but muggy at night.

Back at the rig we sat outside with our iPads until Linda went in at 5:30 to prepare leftovers for dinner and I went inside at 5:45 to eat them. We had crossed paths with John while we were walking and he said there would be a fire in the firepit tonight. At 6:30 Linda filled our flip top insulated coffee mugs with wine and packed them in our carry bag, along with our two plastic wine glasses, and we walked up to the campfire. There were already a half dozen people there and more showed up after us so that we almost filled the available seats.

Big Mike had built the fire and had it going. John was there to tend to things but did not play his guitar and sing. He is still recovering from whatever made him ill overnight Wednesday and with the high heat/humidity, and Ali in the hospital, he probably did not feel much like performing. As much as we enjoy the entertainment we also enjoy the conversation, and there was plenty of that to go around. We ended up talking to Peter and Giselle from Ontario, whom we had not met before. They are not retired yet but are arranging some extended vacation time to try out the RV lifestyle. That is really smart in our opinion if your employment situation permits it.

Peter, John, Linda, and I were the last to leave. At 10 PM I spread out the remaining fire logs and John locked up the shed. He took off on his golf cart to lock up the various buildings in the park and we walked back to our coach. The skies were partly cloudy and there was a large, bright, full moon. The temperature was pleasant and the park was still and quiet save for one person we saw walking their dog off in the distance. This was our last campfire at WCRVR this season unless we return briefly in March on our way north. We missed seeing Ali but even with her absence, and without music, we enjoyed it our evening sitting around the campfire.

Back at our coach we had the last of the apple strudel with Coconut Bliss non-dairy ice cream for dessert. I flipped channels on the TV while Linda read and I played games. We caught the tail end of a vegan cooking show that we had never seen or even heard of and caught the news/weather at 11 PM. We were interested in the storm system moving into the Midwest but otherwise there wasn’t much on that grabbed our interest.

As we were getting ready for bed I put soiled clothes in the hamper and realized that I had not taken the clothes from there yesterday and laundered them with the second/dark load. That meant I would be doing an unexpected load of laundry in the morning. In spite of a forecast of possibly early morning light fog we left the windows open and two of the three exhaust fans running all night. We do better (up to a point) with fresh, moving air, even if it is humid, than we do with the coach closed up and the noise of the air-conditioners. Linda fell asleep quickly but I played games on my iPad and watched Cook’s Country on the PBS Create channel before turning off the lights at 12:30 AM.

2015/12/25 (F) Christmas Day 2015

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We were tired of listening to the air-conditioning last night but it was warm in the bedroom so I turned on the third A-C to cool it down before we went to bed. Before turning in for the night I turned the fan to a slower speed and tried adjusting the thermostat, as it had gotten rather chilly, but must have set it too high. It was a little warmer than we wanted and the unit does not remove moisture unless the compressor is running. When combined with the noise of the fan it just did not make for a good night’s sleep.

Jasper (our male cat) was aware that I was awake at 4:30 AM and came up between our pillows to look out the window and get stroked. I tried to fall back asleep without success and finally got up at 5 AM. I turned on some dim lights and sat in the living room working on yesterday’s blog post for an hour until Linda also got up. She rearranged the kitchen so she could make vegan cinnamon rolls and I brewed a pot of coffee.

The cinnamon rolls took quite a while to make as the dough had to rise, get punched down and rolled out, “buttered” and spread with cinnamon and sugar, rolled up, cut, and allowed to rise a second time, topped with raisins and walnuts, and then baked. After baking they had to cool and then got drizzled with a glaze made from confectioner’s sugar and unsweetened vanilla flavored almond milk. A lot of work, but worth it.

We turned on our Verizon Mi-Fi and used Linda’s iPad to initiate a FaceTime session with our family members who were gathered at Meghan and Chris’ house. Katie was not there yet so this was just a “good morning” call. I brewed a second pot of coffee and we finally had our cinnamon rolls around 10 AM. Brendan initiated a Facetime session with us around 11 AM and we got to see Madeline open some of her presents. She just turned three years old and it was all very exciting for her. The armoire her aunt Meghan built was full of dress up clothes, some new (from us) and some hand-me-down from when Meghan was a little girl. She wanted to try on every costume, of course, so we watched for a while and then wished everyone “Merry Christmas” and signed off.

We had not opened our gifts yet so we did that next. Santa brought us chocolate covered pistachios (vegan, of course) and dark chocolate bars and left them in our stockings, which Linda had hung from the two light fixtures on each end of the sofa after we got to WCRVR. We had a box from Meghan and Chris that contained a pair of nice hiking socks and an insect repellent neck warmer for each of us. The REI box that was left on our entry step-stool Christmas Eve was from Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline. We each got a pair of hiking socks and a Columbia zip front polar fleece vest. Our children have done very well getting us gifts that we can wear, eat, or drink.

I had not planned on working today but the motorcoach had other ideas. I needed to investigate the drip that had developed yesterday from the air intake of the middle air-conditioner. Since I had to get tools out to do that I decided to also fix a couple of other things.

The gasket on the aft vertical edge of the awning style window in the entry door had come out again at the top and was preventing the window from closing properly. It was a simple enough matter to work the channels on either edge back around the metal edges of the window frame with a small flat blade screwdriver but I had to get the three-step folding stool out of the front bay and use it to position myself where I could do the work.

One of the end pieces that retains the spring-loaded toilet paper holder has been loose for a while. I thought I needed a small Allen wrench to tighten it but a small flat blade screwdriver turned out to be the correct tool.

With those two tasks taken care of I got my small drill and a #2 square bit and removed the air intake filter for the middle A-C from the underside of the upper cabinet. I also removed the louvered air discharge cover from the front of the cabinet. Not being sure what I was dealing with I emptied the right and middle cabinets so I could remove the floor from the middle section and slide the floor from the right section to the left and remove the right end wall, allowing me access to the evaporator from the side.

My working hypothesis was that the drain from the drip pan was plugged and the pan had overflowed. To test my hypothesis I located the drain line at the front outside corner of the house electrical bay where it goes through the bay floor, and had Linda watch it while I poured water into the drip pan at the front edge by the cooling coils. The water flowed right out of the drain onto the ground so either that was not the problem or pouring the water into the drip pan had cleared the obstruction. I was not able to see into the drip pan so I could not confirm visually what was happening.

I put the louvered air discharge cover back on the cabinet, reassembled the inside of the cabinet, and put the food items back. I left the air intake filter off, however, so that I might see where the drip was coming from if it reoccurred. I arranged paper towels on the desk top under the unit and turned it on. I put the tools away, except for the drill and square bit, and then settled in to work at my computer with all three A-Cs running while Linda went for a walk.

It did not get quite as hot today as originally forecast, reaching 83 degrees instead of 86. The humidity was in the low 60% range, so the conditions were tolerable when the sun was obscured by clouds. Direct sunlight heats the coach up beyond the outside ambient air temperature, however, especially if we get the afternoon sun on the front of the bus. Linda was hot and sweaty by the time she finished her walk.

I worked all afternoon on blog posts. I edited the ones for September 9 through 18 and uploaded the 9th through the 14th before dinner.

For our holiday dinner meal Linda prepared a baked Gardein stuffed mock turkey roll, vegan gravy, baked sweet potatoes, steamed broccoli, Mama Stanberg’s Cranberry Relish, and bread with non-dairy “butter.” We do not feel left out at the holidays, foodwise. With the heat from the convection oven we decided to turn off the A-Cs, open the windows and roof vents, and turn all three exhaust fans on high. We ate at 5 PM. The Friday night campfire did not officially start until 7 PM so I had time to finish uploading the blog posts for September 15 to 18.

A little before 6:30 PM Linda filled our flip top insulated coffee cups with red and white wine and we took them in our carry bag, along with our plastic wine glasses, to the fire pit. John was there and had a nice, small fire going. Jim and Carol showed up and then Tom and Cindy. Tom and Cindy did not stay long and after they left one of John’s neighbors came over. He and his wife lived on a 44 foot fishing trawler that was converted into a full-time residence and plied the waters of the Atlantic, Bahamas, and Caribbean for 10 years. Ali was not feeling well and stayed home. Jim and Carol were from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where they still have a house, and were both retired educators. Jim taught high school biology and Carol was an elementary teacher.

At 10 PM John took his golf cart to make his rounds and lock up. We had a nice small fire going and stuck around to chat with Jim and Carol. John eventually returned and rejoined the conversation. It was almost 11 PM when I spread out the remnants of the fire and we walked back to our rig. We had apple strudel with Coconut Bliss non-dairy ice cream for dessert, watched a couple of travel programs on the Create channel, and finally went to bed at midnight after a long but satisfying Christmas day.

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.

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:

Kitchen;
Built-in sofa portion of the living room;
Front passenger side of living room’
Hallway;
Foot and front side of bed;
Rear side of bed; and
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.

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.

2015/08/24 (M) Skimcoating

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For a change of pace we had granola with vegan yogurt for breakfast. I made seven cups of the Cafe Europe / Columbian decaf blend but Linda only had one mug as she was meeting Diane at Kensington Metropark at 9 AM to walk. After she left I gathered up the laundry, sorted it, and started the first load. I then turned my attention to the bus.

My first task was to cut one of the 8″x8″ sheets of #80 sandpaper in half, put it on the orbital pad sander, and go over all of the Universal Patch and Skimcoat (UPS) that I applied yesterday. The 80 grit worked well and I only needed the one half sheet. I swept the floor clean of loose debris and then assembled my tools and materials to patch a few gouges I missed yesterday and then skimcoat the entire portion of the floor that used to have ceramic tile on it. I mixed 24 ounces (by volume) with 12 ounces of water (by volume), half as much UPS as I did yesterday. I tried to work more quickly and got most of it applied. I cleaned up my tools and let them dry while the compound cured. That also gave me an opportunity to move laundry from the washer to the dryer and start another load in the washing machine.

I had a call from Chuck so I took a break to chat with him. He and Barbara spent the weekend racing at the old Air Force base in Oscoda, Michigan. Their bus and race car both ran well and he turned in some very good times. He had installed a new turbo boost gauge in the bus and based on my experience had selected a 0 to 15, PSI VDO unit. Apparently 15 PSI is not high enough for his engine. I have seen the boost on my gauge, which is a 0 to 30 PSI model, go as high as 17, but not often. For most of our trip to Arizona and back this past winter it did not go over 15 PSI.

The only issue they have with their coach at the moment is their old Amana residential refrigerator. The freezer is apparently not keeping things as cold as it should and the ice maker is not working. They use a lot of ice and generally have the freezer stocked, so those are problems. They bought a bag of ice for the weekend but it appeared to get warm enough to develop surface moisture and then refroze into large chunks, inconvenient at best. I think they have decided to replace it and want to do so before they leave for the winter and while they still have the shop and the forklift.

Chuck is also going to contact the glass installer and see if he would be willing to install bus windshields. Both of his lower windshields need to be replaced as do both of ours. We have five replacements at his shop, two for him and three for me. I also have new gaskets but he needs to get two sets. We discussed late September as the best time for me and he will see if the windshield guy will do all four of them on the same day.

I mixed the remaining USP, about 12 ounces (by volume) with 6 ounces of water (by volume) and finished the skimcoating of the bus floor. I used the last little bit of compound to patch some screw holes and small gouges in the living room floor where carpet had been installed. There may be a few more but instead of opening another bag of UPS I will probably return it and buy a quart of the premixed compound. I then cleaned up my tools again and left them in the sun to dry.

Linda got home about this time. It was just after noon, so we had a light lunch of vegan deli slices with lettuce, onion, and Daiya non-dairy cheese, on thin buns. A pluot provided a nice, sweet finish to lunch.

We measured for wallpaper the other day so I took the notes and created an Excel spreadsheet to figure out how many rolls of wallpaper to order. While I did that Linda worked on cleaning and reconditioning drawer fronts with Touch of Oranges and Touch of Beeswax. After examining the wallpaper in the bathroom (of the bus) I think we need to replace it too. We took a few minutes to get those measurements and I added them to the spreadsheet.

The wallpaper we have selected is the Lamar (#699-3377R) from the Just Textures collection of Sellars and Josephson. It is an off-white color with a small texture pattern designed for reverse hang, random match installation. It is only sold in 2-roll bolts 27″ wide and 4.5 yards long. We will need more than six rolls to replace all of the wallpaper so we will have to order eight rolls even though we may defer doing part of the hallway and the bathroom for a while. Fortunately it is not too expensive (as wallpapers go) and is scrubable, which was one of our requirements for use in the bus. Linda will return the sample books to Delux Drapery and Shade Company in Ann Arbor on Wednesday morning and place the order.

Linda reheated the leftover fajita veggies from last night and fixed some white rice to go with them. We had fresh strawberries and a little Coconut Bliss non-dairy ice cream for dessert. Coconut Bliss ice creams are not too coconuty, and are appropriately named. They are as good as I remember Hagan-Daas being.

I took a little time to add lines to my floor tile layout drawing showing the location of the underlayment sheets. It looks like I may need at least eight sheets. I have four sheets in the garage and will install those before buying more. I spent the rest of the evening working on the article for Bus Conversion Magazine about Larry and Carol Hall’s GM4106 bus conversion and finished it around 10 PM. I spent another 1.5 hours catching up on e-mail and checking in on the status of Technomadia’s bus renovation project at MasterTech in Elkhart, Indiana. The weather has turned cool and should be perfect for working on the bus tomorrow. We need to have long, productive days, so I had a snack and got to bed at midnight, played a few games, and went to sleep.

2015/08/02 (N) No Swap Sunday

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The forecast for today was for warm, humid weather so we closed up the house and turned on the air-conditioners as soon as we got up. We left around 9 AM for the Howell Farmers Market so I did not make coffee and we did not have breakfast. At the market Linda bought a nice assortment of fresh vegetables. I bought a bag of Kenya AA coffee beans from Teeko’s and some apricot and raspberry Rohlicky from the Czech Bakery. It turns out they are not vegan so I won’t buy them again.

We decided to see if John and Diane were available for dinner. We had no sooner made these arrangements when I got a text message from Chuck indicating that the coast was clear at his shop in Novi and we were good to go on the refrigerator swap. I talked to him shortly thereafter and indicated that we had assumed it would not be today so I had not yet cut the support 2x4s or found the additional help that we would need and, in light of that, had made other plans. That was fine with him and we agreed to aim for next weekend.

Linda surveyed her inventory of ingredients and decided that the warm Farro with dried cranberries and nuts would be a good dish to have Diane help make. Diane retired at the end of the school year in June and had asked Linda if she would show her some of the ingredients and prep/cooking methods she uses. Linda likes working with friends in the kitchen, sharing what she has learned and learning new things herself in the process. Diane is her longest term, non-family friend. As an English teacher she had lessons to prepare and papers to grade almost every evening. As a result John, who has worked most of his adult life as a framing carpenter, took care of preparing their evening meals. Now that Diane is free of her teaching obligations she would like to learn more about cooking.

Linda wanted some non-dairy ice cream for dessert so I was sent to get it. I went to the Home Depot in Brighton first where I bought some thin (1/8th inch thick) rubber sheet material, a small tool pouch, and 2-person forearm lift strap. The rubber material will be for the edges of the plywood in the new built-in sofa, cushioning the seat when it is closed. The tool pouch is for working on the tower (my carpenter’s tool belt is too big) and the lift strap is to help with the refrigerators and anything else heavy we might need to move.

The only place within a seven mile radius of our house that consistently has the non-diary “ice cream” we like is the Kroger on M-59 at Old US-23, so that’s where I headed next. In addition to the Coconut Bliss they had a cashew milk based product so I bought some of each. I bought vanilla and salted caramel in the CB brand and snickerdoodle in the cashew product. By the time I got home I only had a couple of hours left before John and Diane were due to arrive so I worked in my office and uploaded blog posts for June 16 – 20.

John and Diane arrived right on time at 4 PM. I opened our bottle of Viva La Roja from Heart of the Desert Winery in Alamogordo, New Mexico and we settled in to easy conversation. I found this red table wine particularly to my liking; very smooth with a hint of sweetness and no tannin.

Linda and Diane eventually started preparing dinner. John and took that as an opportunity to go look at the bus project. The ladies made a mixed greens salad with dried cranberries and other add-ins and put out a choice of dressings and sliced a loaf of Italian bread that they brought, along with a bottle of Pinot Grigio that we opened to have with the meal. The main dish was Farro with dried cranberries, almonds, onions, garlic, and kale. It was all very tasty and well received.

By the end of the meal it had cooled off enough to sit on the deck comfortably. Linda served the cashew milk snickerdoodle non-dairy ice cream with fresh sliced strawberries and it was very good. I showed them what we had done with antennas on the tower and the cable entrance box and then we went back inside. John still works full-time so they left around 9 PM as it takes at least 30 minutes to get back to their house in Farmington Hills which is about a mile from our old house.

2014/10/23-29 The Bus Work Continues

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2014/10/23 (R) Close Encounter of the 1st Kind

My two main bus projects today were the lighted handle by the entrance door and the Progressive Industries remote display installation. The lighted handle needed new machine screws and some additional gasketing on the upper securement. It turned out that all five of the screws that I removed were stripped to a greater or lesser extent. After trying several different screws I concluded that the threaded holes must be messed up. Butch loaned me a 10-24 tap and I used it to re-tap all five of the mounting holes. I cut two additional pieces of the vinyl shower pan liner and trimmed them to fit just inside the upper securement. That allowed the piece to be reattached to the body using the 10-24 stainless steel screws I bought last night without causing interference with the LED bulb.

Some time ago I bought a remote display kit for our Progressive Industries Energy Management System (EMS). The kit consists of a second display unit and a selector switch unit. I mounted the selector switch in the utility bay in place of the display unit, moved the display unit to the left, and connected it to the switch with the short cable provided in the kit. I routed the long cable from the switch through the bay to the other side by the Aqua-Hot and fed it through a small hole into the electrical bay, which is the next bay going towards the front of the coach. I temporarily mounted the remote display in the house panel. I then repeated the work I had done yesterday to relocate the Magnum inverter/charger remote. This time I used serial cable #1, removed the DB-9 connectors from each end, and connected the wires on each end. The difference from yesterday is that Progressive Industries wires their cables so that pin 1 of the RJ-11 on one end is wired to pin 1 of the RJ-11 on the other end. That meant I had to keep the wire colors the same between the two surface-mount phone jacks, i.e., black-to-black, red-to-red, green-to-green, and yellow-to-yellow, rather than cross wiring them like I did yesterday.

ITR Oasis Combi in Butch & Fonda’s MC-9.

Butch’s major focus today was the ITR Oasis Combi. He and Fonda worked for much of the day running new diesel fuel lines. By late afternoon I was done with my projects and went to work on the fresh water plumbing for the Oasis. Prior to the last couple of weeks I had not worked with PEX tubing and fittings. Butch has a crimper that he showed me how to use. By the time we quit working to have dinner we had the fresh water tank connected to the inlet of the Shur-Flo 4048 pump, the outlet of the pump connected to T-fitting that supplies cold water to the house and to the Oasis Combi inlet, and the outlet of the Combi connected to the line that supplies hot water to the house.

For dinner I fixed a salad, a Thai Kitchen mushroom noodle soup bowl, and a bowl of fresh strawberries for dessert. I took everything in the house and dined with Butch and Fonda. After dinner I went back to the coach to try and straighten things up a bit. I must have opened the cabinet door under the kitchen sink a dozen times to throw away food scraps, product packaging, and paper towels. I had bundled up the various recyclables and opened the cabinet to remove the trash bag when the mouse jumped out and ran under the passenger side couch.

I say THE mouse because I presume it is the mouse that has obviously been in the coach recently based first on getting into my loaf of bread and then finding a nest where none had been previously. It was a cute little dark gray field mouse, not more than two inches long (without its tail), but I am going to have to find a way to catch it and remove it. I will set a live (no kill) trap next week and see if I can find it a nice field to live in somewhere far away from Butch and Fonda’s house and both of our buses.

It was still in the upper 40s and rather pleasant outside so I straightened up the back of my car rather than wait until morning. After retiring to the guest bedroom I organized most of my clothes. I should be packed and on the road about an hour after I get out of bed in the morning.

2014/10/24 (F) Around the World in 80 Days

As much as I have been traveling back and forth between Michigan and Indiana I feel as if I could circumnavigate the world in 80 days but today my “journey of a thousand miles” began with a 260 mile trip home. I was up a little before 8 AM and finished packing all of my stuff in the guest bedroom and loading it into the car. I gathered up some last minute laundry, foodstuffs, and recyclables and put those in the car as well. I sat and chatted with Butch and Fonda until 9:10 AM and then said farewell until Sunday evening. I pulled my car out its normal parking spot at 9:15 AM and headed east on SR-16. I followed my usual route home from there: US-31 north to US-20 east to CR-17 north to I-80/90 (Indiana Tollroad) east to I-69 north to I-96 east to M-59 east to Hacker Road south and then home.

Hand cut gaskets for upper piece of lighted entrance handle on our coach.

Our friend Kate had contacted us yesterday to see if we were available to go to the Meadow Brook Theater to see a live theatrical performance of an adaption of Jules Vern’s Around the World in Eighty Days. Her cousin is working as an intern at the theater this season and was able to get courtesy tickets. Linda was feeling well enough to go so we left early and stopped at a Panera on the way over to the theater where we met up with Kate. The performance was very good and we thoroughly enjoyed it. We wanted to have coffee together afterwards, but by the time we met her cousin and chatted for a while it was late and everything was closed. Besides, we had an hour’s drive to get home and Kate probably had at least 90 minutes.

2014/10/25 (S) Here And There

Linda slept in to rest and try to recover from her cold so I went to the SLAARC Ham Radio Club Breakfast by myself. She was awake by the time I got back and feeling well enough to run errands with me. We stopped at Recycle Livingston and then picked up our new natural gas fireplace logs from Country Squire in Howell. We got the business card of the independent technician who does installations for them and gave them a call to set up an appointment. I left a message and they called us back later. We stopped at our Bank of America branch enroute to Staples in Brighton in search of a larger size of graph paper, but they did not have the size I wanted. I need larger paper to draw accurate designs for the custom desk/pantry and printer stand/table that we want to have made for our converted bus. We fueled up at the Brighton Meijer’s and then bought groceries. We needed a new coffee maker but decided not to purchase one until we had checked online.

Back home we searched for coffee makers in a white finish rather than black/stainless. There were only a few choices and one of them was a Mr. Coffee programmable model that was available at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. As long as we were looking for things online we found a pad of 50 sheets of 17″x22″ graph paper with a 1/4″ grid pattern and added that to our Amazon Prime shopping cart. We also added a Camco RhinoFLEX RV sewer hose kit and various accessories.

Back side of house systems panel. Bus conversions are complex.

Linda had arranged for us to meet John and Diane at Camellia’s in Farmington Hills for dinner at 6 PM. We left the house around 4 PM and stopped at the Brighton Bed, Bath, and Beyond to get the Mr. Coffee coffee maker. We stopped at the Meijer’s in Wixom and picked up the filters and then stopped at J. C. Penney’s at Twelve Oaks Mall for some necessary clothing items. We headed into Farmington Hills but were still early for dinner so we drove through our old neighborhood, which is very close to the restaurant. Our former across-the-street neighbor, Dan, was working on a car in his driveway so we stopped to chat. While we were there the young man who bought our house arrived home on his motorcycle. He never removed his helmet before putting the bike in the garage and shutting the door, so we never actually saw him. Our daughter handled the closing in July 2013 since we were in Wyoming at the time, so we never meet the buyer or his parents. He has apparently been a very quiet neighbor who keeps to himself.

We got to the restaurant shortly after 6 PM and John and Diane were already seated so we did not have to wait for a table. We had the veggie fajitas, our standard choice at this particular Mexican restaurant. While we were dining our friends, Jim and Kristine Gullen, came in and sat in a booth near us. When we were done with dinner John and Diane headed to their house (nearby) and we lingered for a few minutes to chat with Jim and Kristine before joining them. Diane had bought some Coconut Bliss Chocolate with Salted Caramel non-dairy “ice cream.” It was the best vegan ice cream we have had. By 10 PM we were all having trouble staying awake so we said farewell and headed for home and went quickly to bed.

2014/10/26 (N) Pack and Go

We both slept in this morning, the combined effect of being tired (both of us), sick (Linda), and having taken Tylenol PM last night (both of us, again). In spite of her cold, Linda wanted to cook something for me before I took off again for Indiana, so she made her wonderful vegan blueberry pancakes for breakfast. We used the new coffee maker and, as expected, the coffee tasted the same as with the old one.

After breakfast we sorted and folded laundry (we have such exciting lives) and I selected and packed the items I needed for the week ahead. I had not copied photos from my laptop to the network drives since October 10th so I took care of that. I also made more careful measurements of the dimensions of our color laser printer to use in refining the design of the printer cabinet for the bus. Likewise, I took measurements of our Dewalt air compressor as I plan to build a wooden divider for the back of the Honda Element that will secure it on the floor and create space next to it and above it for storing other things. Obviously the two rear seats will be removed when this insert is in use.

Junction boxes for the ME-ARC remote (bottom) and the PI-EMS-50 (top)in the house systems panel.

By 2 PM I was ready to load the car so Linda helped me with that task. I pulled out of the driveway at 2:16 PM and followed my usual route to Indiana: Hacker Road north to M-59 west to I-96 west to Lansing Road south to I-69 south to I-80/90 (Indiana Tollroad) to CR-17 south to US-20 west to US-31 south. I exited US-31 at IN-25 (Rochester), topped off my fuel tank and then picked up fresh greens and fruit at the Kroger. I headed south on IN-25 to Fulton where I took Aitken Road east to Meridian then headed south to SR-16 and finally headed east to Twelve Mile.

Butch and Fonda had their family holiday gathering today. They had 27 family members in attendance during the day and for dinner but by the time I arrived (7:45 PM) everyone had left except Brittiny and Rock, and they departed while I was unpacking food and storing it in the coach. I moved all of my clothes and technology into the guest bedroom, like I always do, and then visited with Butch and Fonda for a while before retiring to my room for the evening. If the weather forecast holds true we have two unseasonably nice days in store on Monday and Tuesday and the rest of the week doesn’t look too bad either. We have a lot to do and could use some favorable weather.

2014/10/27 (M) Heat and Light

We had an unseasonably nice day for working outside. It was already in the upper 40s when we got up and made it in to the 70s under partly cloudy skies with breezes from the southwest. I was up before 8 AM and had my usual granola, orange juice, and coffee for breakfast and then got to work.

Butch worked most of the day on assembling the two fan-coil heat exchanger units that will get plumbed into their ITR Oasis Combi diesel-fired hydronic furnace to provide heat to the house portion of their converted bus. While he worked on that I worked on replacing our patio light. The ballast on the old one was no longer working and the way the unit was designed it could not be replaced. Butch happened to have an identical unit, so I used it as the replacement.

Old patio light fixture after being removed from the side of the coach. Not pretty.

The old unit was not removed from the coach when it was painted. This was a nice idea at the time as it provided a paint seal on the top and both sides where the unit met the side wall of the bus. Unfortunately, removing the unit required me to cut the paint seal with a very sharp knife. The unit was secured with two screws, but it was stuck to the side of the coach with a generous amount of automotive putty. Most of it came off with the fixture, but not all, so after I cut the two wires and removed the fixture I had to carefully scrape the rest of it off using the thin end of a wood shim.

I checked the voltage at the two wires coming out of the wall and I definitely had 13 VDC controlled by the same switch that turns the lighted entrance handle on and off. I prepared the back of the new fixture using new automotive putty to create a seal all the way around the back at the outside edges. I also placed a ring of putty around each of the screw holes in the back and the access hole for the wires. I attached shielded spade lug disconnects to all four wires, held the fixture in place, and connected them. I pressed the fixture into position, lined up the screw holes, and secured it. I put the two F8T5 florescent tubes back in, snapped the cover back in place, and made sure the on/off pushbutton switch on the bottom was in the on position. I then applied a bead of NAPA RTV Black Silicon Rubber sealant along the top seam and the two sides. (Sorry Michele, but I had to make sure it was not going to leak.)

The switch that controls this light is one of three in a 3-gang box next to the passenger seat and is the one closest to the entrance door. I had removed the cover plates last week so today I took another look and it appeared that the other two switches did not have any wires connected to them. I removed them and that was indeed the case. I think tomorrow I will re-wire this so the first switch controls only the lighted entrance handle and the second switch controls only the patio light. If I cannot figure out something to control with the third switch I will probably leave it out and get a new cover plate that has two switch openings and a blank, assuming I can find one.

With the patio light project done Fonda helped me remove the fan belt and the two A-C compressor drive belts from the engine in our bus. We put the two compressor drive belts (NAPA CG-96) back on but reversed their position. The inside one seemed loose compared to the outside one last week and we wanted to see if switching them would fix that problem. We then installed the new fan belt that I ordered/received last week.

I started the main engine and let it run for a while on high idle with the air-conditioning turned on to put some load on it. The CG-96 that was now on the outside of the pulley still appeared to be looser than the other one, so I think I will order a replacement set. The new fan belt ran very smoothly. I turned the A-C off, dropped the idle down, and shut off the engine. I started to close the rear access hatch but found that it was stiff and made a sound like an elephant trumpeting. I sprayed some WD-40 on all the hinges and on the piston rods for the air springs. I then put a small amount of NAPA Syl-Glide on the piston rods, worked them up and down a few times, and wiped off any excess. The hatch now opens and closes smoothly and quietly with less effort.

Butch pressure washing the radiators for his fan coil heat exchangers. MC-9 (L) and H3-40 (R).

While I was lubricating the hatch Butch was using a pressure washer to clean the radiators (heat exchangers) for their fan-coil units. As long as he had it out, he sprayed around all of our front windshield seals while I looked for leaks inside. We found three for sure. One was in the upper inside corner of the lower driver-side windshield between the center pillar and the seal. The second one was in the lower outside corner of the upper driver-side windshield between the seal and the glass. We were not able to identify the point(s) of entry for the third one but it appeared to be somewhere above the upper windshields near the center pillar, a least that was where the water was coming in on the inside. I cannot see the underside of the front cowling in that area and there are lots of places water could come in: five front marker lights, two upper windshield mounts, and perhaps a dozen screws on top of the front roof holding various things down.

Leaks are annoying and potentially destructive so I am still pondering what I want to do. We have new windshield seals but have had trouble finding someone locally to install them. For one thing, the bus really needs to be inside for that work and most glass shops, including ones that work on “semi tractors,” do not have overhead doors high enough for the bus. I may make judicious use of the NAPA RTV Silicone Rubber sealant or I may just use black tape as a temporary fix.

When we were done checking the windshields I used the pressure washer to clean off the coach as best I could. The last time it was cleaned was right before we left Williston Crossings RV Resort in early April and it had accumulated a few miles, bugs, and dirt in that time.

Because the weather was so nice Butch decided to replace a short section of badly deteriorated coolant hose on their engine rather than risk having it fail on the road. He shut some valves to isolate the engine from the coolant lines that provide heat to the coach and drained quite a few gallons out of the engine (almost three 5-gallon buckets). The old hose turned out to be extraordinarily difficult to remove. The new piece was no easier to get in and required modification of two parts. This was definitely not a job you want to do on the side of the road in any kind of weather.

While Butch and Fonda worked on the coolant hose I tinkered in the dashboard area of my bus. First I replaced a couple more bulbs in illuminated switches. I then pulled the CB radio out of the dash to see how the coaxial cable (transmission line) was marked. That allowed me to identify the other end in the old ceiling-mounted TV cabinet behind the driver’s seat. I also looked around in that cabinet for the other end of the coaxial cable that was once connected to the antenna for in-dash AM/FM radio/cassette/CD player. I did not see anything that looked right, so I pulled the radio out of the dash (actually the whole panel along with four switches) to get the identifying marks off of it. Even with that information I was not able to locate the other end of the cable.

Working on the bus and living in the bus are often not compatible.

By that point it was 6 PM and we had weather approaching from the southwest. Clouds had moved in, greatly reducing our natural light, and gave the first indications of the rain that was forecast for the evening hours. I will look again for the radio antenna cable tomorrow as I have a TuneTrapper antenna that I want to install on the underside of the front roof via the old TV cabinet and I need to plug it into the cable that goes to the radio.

I had a small glass of Moscato while I prepared my dinner. I fixed a salad of power greens with peanuts, dried cranberries, and fresh diced onions and finished a bottle of Ken’s Sweet Vidalia Onion dressing. I grabbed a can of Amy’s “No Chicken Noodle” soup, some crackers, my jar of peanut butter, and some ICE brand water and went inside to eat with Butch and Fonda. I returned to the coach after dinner, cleaned up my dishes from the day, and bagged up my recyclables. We bought a small container on Saturday that is intended for storing pet food but it has a gasketed lid with a snap latch that I thought would make a nice mouse-proof kitchen trash can. (I figure the mouse will leave if it cannot get any food.) Alas, the container does not fit in the base cabinet under the kitchen sink so it will likely end up being used for its intended purpose after all.

2014/10/28 (T) Under the Bus

In corporate life “getting thrown under the bus” is not a good thing, but if you are the owner/builder/maintainer of a converted highway coach, getting under the bus will eventually be a necessity. Today was finally my day, but not until mid-afternoon.

The forecast for today was for rain in the morning tapering off to zero by noon and then turning sunny; and that is exactly the day we had. Knowing that the morning would be wet, I took a couple of Tylenol PM last night and slept in a bit later than normal. After my usual breakfast of granola, orange juice, and coffee, with some spicy V8 thrown in for good measure, I set to work on the interior of the old TV cabinet located above and behind the driver’s seat.

Yesterday I pulled the CB radio and the AM/FM radio out of the dashboard and identified how the coaxial antenna cable for each one was marked. I located the cable for the CB in the TV cabinet but was not able to find the one for the AM/FM radio. I got my twin tube florescent worklight and rigged up a couple of zip ties with mounting tabs to hang it from. I looked again this morning but still could not locate the AM/FM radio antenna cable. Rather than waste time not finding it I decided to organize the inside of the cabinet which has had an outlet strip, an OTA TV antenna controller, the Wi-Fi Ranger POE adapter, DC power supplies, and a mess of cable that has been lying around in it for a couple of years now.

Using the tab mount zip ties I coiled each cable and secured it to one of the two side walls. The OTA TV antenna cable (signal and control) was very long, so I wound it around a 5-gallon plastic bucket to make a nice round, large coil. The outlet strip had mounting slots on the back, so I mounted it to the wall on the lower half of the back of the cabinet. The upper half of the back is open to the area above the driver and entrance stairs and under the front cap of the roof.

Late in the morning I took a break from the TV cabinet work and helped Butch cut access panels out of a 1/8″ aluminum sheet that will cover the inside of their entrance door. We tried using a sabre saw but the only blade we had was not sharp enough or was the wrong type. We used his Ryobi cordless reciprocating saw with a metal cutting blade and it made much quicker, and surprisingly clean, cuts. I then used Butch’s angle grinder to round the corners of the sheet and remove burrs from all of the cut edges.

I stopped for lunch around 2 PM and enjoyed a hummus and onion sandwich. By the time I was done the day was as warm and sunny as it was going to get so I decided to scoot under the bus and measure the ride height linkages. This was the first time I have been under the bus. Please note that the bus was supported on four stands that Butch made for me out of 1/2″ steel plate and 4″ square steel tube with 1/2″ thick walls. In other words, the bus was not supported by the tires and air springs so the bus would not move if there was a failure in one of those components.

H3-40 front axle ride height valve and linkage.

The linkage in the front was easy as I could slide under the bus just in front of the driver side steer tire and then sit up between the front tires with lots of room to work. The linkage is directly above the center of the front axle and connects the axle to a lever arm on an air valve that determines the amount of air that goes into the front airbags (when in drive mode), and thus sets the suspension at “ride height.” Butch wanted me to remove the linkage but I chose not to. As it turned out I should have and will probably slide back under the front tomorrow and remove it.

The rear linkages were much more difficult. First of all, there are two on them, one for each end of the drive axle. They are located just inside the body panel directly in front of the outside dual drive tire and are covered by a protective shield. The shields are bolted on at four points, none of which are easy to reach and one of which ultimately required me to get under the rear end of the bus. Access is much tighter here because of: 1) The dual drive tires on each end of the drive axle; 2) The drive axle carrier, and; 3) The exhaust pipe for the Aqua-Hot which runs under the bus from the passenger side to the driver side where it ends up next to the exhaust pipe from the generator. I was able to scoot under the bus from the passenger side just in front of the drive tires, but just barely, and once I was under far enough to sit up there was much less room to work compared to the front. Because of the difficulty of getting to the linkages to make an accurate measurement of the center-to-center distance between the mounting bolts I went ahead and unbolted them and removed them.

The linkages consist of a length of metal rod approximately 1/4” in diameter with a rubber bushing on each end that looks a bit like and eye-bolt. The rubber bushings slip over the ends of the metal rods and are secured with band clamps. They appear surprisingly fragile given the critical nature of their function, and Butch has already had one that was only a couple of year’s old break on their coach. He ordered metal versions in both left-hand and right-hand threads and is going to assemble replacements using threaded rod and stop nuts. With a left-hand threaded bushing on one end and a right-hand threaded bushing on the other end we will be able to turn the threaded rod one way to increase the distance between the two mounting bolts and the other way to shorten it, affecting both ends equally in the process. The stop nuts will lock the bushings relative to the threaded rod so they do not move in operation. All-in-all this will be a neat little project.

In spite of the lovely weather Butch needed to get to the NAPA store in Logansport before they closed at 5:30 PM. At 4:30 PM I wrapped up my work with the linkages, put all of my tools away, washed up, and grabbed my wallet, cell phone, and shopping list. We got to the NAPA store a little after 5 PM and took care of our business there. We then headed to the O’Reilly’s Auto Parts store for a few other things. I called Linda and chatted briefly with her and was relieved to hear that she sounded, and was feeling, considerably better. Butch called Jaral Beatty to see if he had finished cutting the oak valences for the front of their bus. He had, so we swung by Jaral’s shop to pick them up.

Front flat-panel TV/monitor with cabinet door closed. Look ma, no wires!

While we were at Jaral’s he ripped a nice piece of 3/4″ thick oak for me to just under 3″ wide. The piece was about 4′ long and he did not charge me for it. I plan to attach this piece of wood to the center windshield pillar and use it as a mounting plate for a compass, flat panel monitor, PressurePro TPMS receiver, and the mirror that is currently mounted at the intersection of the four windshields. I have to do this, of course, in such a way that it does not obscure my vision while driving. From Jaral’s shop we went to Home Depot where I bought a thin (1″ thick), 13″ long, under-cabinet, single-tube florescent, AC powered light fixture. I also got a blade for my Porter-Cable oscillating saw.

When we got back to Twelve Mile a little after 7 PM Fonda started preparing their dinner and I did the same. I had a nice salad of power greens with onions, dried cranberries, and roasted peanuts topped with a sweet and sour dressing. I also had a bowl of Thai Kitchen spring onion soup, some canned pears, and half a piece of pita pocket bread. After dinner I washed my recyclable containers and went back to the coach for a while where I cleaned and dried a few utensils. I then mounted the new light fixture in the TV cabinet. As I expected, it provides very nice illumination for the entire inside of the cabinet.

Depending how the day goes tomorrow I plan to continue working in the front TV cabinet. I would like to mount the TuneTrapper AM/FM antenna and get it connected to the AM/FM radio. Butch’s brother, Tom, is coming over sometime during the day to winterize his motorhome. Butch called and asked him to bring the faceplate from an old Kenwood radio that he had that was very similar to the one in our dashboard. The backlight illumination bulb is burned out on ours. I also need to create an access slot in the door for cables to pass between the back of the flat panel TV (which is mounted to the outside of the door) and the inside of the cabinet. To create this access slot I will have to drill holes centered along a line and then use Butch’s root-zip tool to connect the holes into a slot. The bushings for the ride height linkages are supposed to be in tomorrow, so we will be making a morning trip towards Kokomo to pick them up. Butch is also trying to tap into the engine coolant loop that provides OTR heat for their bus as part of the Oasis Combi installation, so it is likely to be a very full day.

2014/10/29 (W) Outside In

My main project today was once again the front TV cabinet only this time the focus was on cutting a horizontal opening in the door behind the flat panel TV that is mounted on the outside of the door. The approach I used was to drill two 1″ holes, one at either end of a horizontal line, and then use a roto-zip tool as a mini-router to connect the tops of the holes together and the bottoms of the holes together, creating a horizontal slot with rounded ends. The slot is below the horizontal center line of the TV set and offset to the left (as viewed from the front of the TV) to line up with the area on the back of the set where the power, video, and data cables exit downward. The position of the slot allows them to gently bend and pass from the outside of the cabinet to the inside of the cabinet where they get connected. This also allows the cabinet door to be closed and latched with none of the cables visible. It sounds simple but it took me a good part of the day to get it done. We have a second flat panel TV in the bedroom mounted on a similar door that covers another old TV cabinet. Cutting a similar slot in that door is on my task list for tomorrow.

Front TV cabinet; making use of the space where the 10″ CRT was mounted.

When I wasn’t working on the TV cabinet I spent a few minutes learning how to use an air-powered cutoff tool and giving Butch a break by using it to help cut off a piece of the center tunnel sidewall in their passenger side front bay. Butch is removing this panel in order to gain access to the engine coolant lines that provide heat for the bus when it is underway. He needs to tie a stacked-plate heat exchanger into these lines as part of the ITR Oasis Combi hydronic heating system installation.

Butch spent most of his day working on their Suburban installing a Ready-Brake auxiliary braking system and extra rear lights for towing. I checked in with him from time to time, but he was either in the middle of one-person tasks or had Fonda helping him. Late in the afternoon we rolled his Ryobi belt sander out of the warehouse and used it to sand his two valence boards and my piece of oak that we picked up yesterday from Jarel. We had to change the sanding belt and it took us a few tries to get it right, but it did a nice job on the boards once we had a good piece of sandpaper on it.

By the time we finished it was twilight and very cool. Tom and Tracy showed up about then to winterize their motorhome. There was a locked cover over the fresh water fill connector and none of Tom’s keys would open it. I got a long flat-blade screwdriver and was able to slip it up under the cover and pop the lock. I left the winterizing to Butch and Tom and retreated to my coach to putter and contemplate (and eat) at a lovely 67 degrees F. The Aqua-Hot has been working very reliably, cycling on and off automatically in response to the space and water heating demands of the coach.

Tom brought an old Kenwood car stereo that he got from Butch a while back. Although similar in appearance to our Kenwood dashboard radio, it was not similar enough. The electrical connector on the back of the removable faceplate was in a different location than ours. I had a Singapore Noodles dish in the coach and then made a salad to take into the house and dine with Butch and Fonda. It was after 9 PM by the time we were done eating and I turned in for the night shortly thereafter.

The Phase Place

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Tag Archives: Coconut Bliss ice cream (vegan)

2015/12/26 (S) Departure Preparations

2015/12/25 (F) Christmas Day 2015

2015/09/04 (F) 100 Pounds

2015/08/24 (M) Skimcoating

2015/08/02 (N) No Swap Sunday

2014/10/23-29 The Bus Work Continues