Today started out complicated but settled in as it progressed.  Linda had to babysit today as we were still out of town on Monday and our daughter took Monday instead.  Normally Linda would just get up and drive to Ann Arbor, but our son borrowed her car just before we left for Tennessee and still had it.  She could have taken my car had I not needed it.  But I did, so I got up early and drove her to Ann Arbor.  But first I started a load of laundry.  (Even retired people sometimes have to multitask in order to get everything done that needs doing.)

An early morning trip is always an excuse to stop at Panera, especially as we so rarely do this anymore.  Bagels and coffee in hand we were back on the road.  I’m not driving all the way to Ann Arbor and not see my grand-daughter, so stayed for a while and watched her play.  She is a very active 10-month old and was either looking at her book collection or crawling around the living/dining rooms the whole time.

I eventually headed back to the house, put the laundry in the dryer, cleaned the cats’ litter tray (but forgot to feed them), gathered up the various things I needed to take with me, loaded them in the car, and reconnected it go the bus.  The laundry wasn’t dry yet, so I spent some time repositioning the stakes that we placed last evening to mark the outline of the bus barn and driveway.  It took longer than I expected, but that’s almost always the case, so I am used to it, and OK with it.  I hung up the dried clothes and prepared to drive the bus some 40+ miles WNW to Williamston, Michigan.

The reason for the trip to Williamston was that our mobile mechanic, Joe Cannarozzi, was already there working on another customer’s coach.  The customer had a 2-bay bus garage with heat; no small thing given that overnight lows were forecast to hit freezing or below.  Joe had all of his tools unpacked there, and was staying in the customer’s coach, so it was a much better place for him (and me) to work than our driveway.

Joe was wrapping up a conversation with John, one of the seven (7) partners in the partnership that owns the coach, so I unhooked the car while they talked.  I got to meet John and see the coach, a Prevost XL-45 LeMIrage “entertainer” conversion.  It was a nice conversion and they have had Joe do a fair amount of work on it.  John had never seen a motorhome bus conversion, so I gave him a brief tour of ours.  I also showed him the generator bay as they are also facing a soundproofing redo.  As a token of appreciation for letting Joe work on our bus in their garage, I gave John copies of the February and May 2013 issues of Bus Conversions Magazine and the summer issue of The Gypsy Journal.

Joe and John concluded their business and I 3-point turned the bus and pulled it into the left bay of the garage.  I then pulled my car into the other bay.  We unloaded tools and parts, raised the bus high enough to get the stands under it, and set it down on them.  Joe needed food so we went to get lunch at a nearby Italian restaurant.  Joe had a full meal while I had a salad of dark greens (mostly spinach) with sun-dried tomatoes and olives and a homemade Italian dressing.  It was quite good.

Linda called to let me know that two boxes had arrived from Prevost as promised.  I asked her to drive them out to where we were, which she did.  Joe then put me to work removing the “beauty rings” and lug nut bling from the wheels, after which he started removing the outside dual tires/wheels and the tag axle tires/wheels so he could install the Centramatic dynamic wheel balances.

While Joe muscled the tires around I dug out my metric hex wrench set and tightened the outside rear view mirrors.  (Prevost Car, Inc. is located in Saint Claire, Quebec, Canada and their coaches are an interesting mix of U.S. and metric parts.)  The passenger-side mirror, in particular, had been just loose enough for a long time that it vibrated while driving (slightly irritating) and wouldn’t hold its position (very irritating), dropping down beyond the limits of its remote adjustability to the point where I couldn’t use it to see down that side of the coach (dangerous).  Like many “little things”, however, I kept forgetting to fix it once we got home as we are very busy immediately after returning from a trip.

I opened the garage door to call Linda and check on her progress only to discover that it was raining lightly and watched the rain turn to snow right before my eyes.  When I arrived there was a little bit of graupel falling.  Welcome to Michigan in October.

Linda arrived with the parts, visited for a few minutes, and headed back to work on thank you cards for our open house guests.  Joe removed the driver-side outside drive tire, examined the oil leak evidence, and said he thought I only had a gasket leak.  He pulled the axle flange and we discovered that it didn’t have an axle flange gasket.  The last time someone worked on it (before we owned it) they used “form-a-seal”, a thick liquid that you squirt out of a tube like caulk or toothpaste, and it was obvious that there were areas where no effective seal existed.  Joe said that this is a “common” practice, but his preference was to use the appropriate gasket, several of which I now have in stock.

We cleaned off the remnants of the old form-a-seal and then Joe reassembled the hub, installed the wheel balancer, and reinstalled the outer dual tire.  I cleaned the oil from the inside of the beauty ring, as we did not want the old oil residue making us think we still had a leak, and then Joe reinstalled that as well.  We were short one washer, it was late, and Joe was tired, so we called it a day.  I packed up and left, taking one of the washers with me so I could buy more of the correct size.

I stopped at the Home Depot in Brighton, found the split-ring lock washers I needed, and finally got home around 8:30 PM.  Linda had picked up an Amy’s Roasted Vegetable pizza.  It is absolutely the best vegan pizza I have ever had.  It was real treat and a good end to a good day.