Tag Archives: Rupes (Cyclo 5 buffer)

2015/06/09 (T) Cyclo 5

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I was up at 7 AM, fed the cats, and made coffee, which has become Linda’s wake up alarm.  Phil Jarrell showed up at 8 AM.  He set up his laser level and checked elevations for a gravel driveway that would connect our concrete driveway around to our third culvert.  Some of this driveway may eventually provide access to a barn, but it will also provide a second pad that is level and big enough to support a 45 foot bus conversion.

Phil moved the laser level to a different spot and checked the elevations of various points at the west end of the property relative to the culvert that runs under the road to the little triangle of our yard in the southwest corner.  Although it did not appear so to me, all of the property to the west and north is higher than the bottom of the culvert.  That means Phil should be able to construct a French drain that will help dry this area out and hopefully save the trees that are there.  He will also use the top soil he pulls out of the driveway to fill in the various low spots.

Phil was done and on his way by 9:30 AM.  I forgot to mention the hole for the ham radio tower base so I e-mailed him about that additional work.  While it will almost certainly be less expensive to have him dig the hole while he is already here working on other things it is a project that requires my involvement, parts that I do not yet have, and coordination with a concrete company who can pump or cart the concrete from the truck to the hole.

The old driver's chair in our bus is a Villa captain's chair.

The old driver’s chair in our bus is a Villa captain’s chair.

We had breakfast after which I sorted the laundry.  The warm white load was small so I stripped the bed in the bus and added those sheets to the load.  We cleaned off the twin mattress in the small bedroom with most of the stuff going down to my office.  The stuff on the double bed in the middle bedroom then went to the small bedroom, allowing us to strip the double bed so I could launder the sheets and pillow cases.

Based on the e-mail I got yesterday from Cory at Rupes/Cyclo I figured out that I wanted the Cyclo 5-Pro Mark II Dual Head Orbital Polisher with the ProGuard backing plates.  I also determined which foam pads and chemicals I wanted and placed the order directly with Rupes/Cyclo online.  I also updated our PayPal account and used it for this transaction.

 

I went to my office and spent several hours doing a second floor plan drawing for the bus, this one showing the tiles installed as diamonds rather than squares.  Over the course of the afternoon Linda heated up some Amy’s chili for lunch and I got two more loads of laundry done.

Late afternoon brought a call on our landline that turned out to be a recorded message claiming to be from the IRS and stating that this was their final attempt to reach us before filing a lawsuit.  Yeah, right.  The IRS does not make such calls, of course, nor do they send such e-mails.  They like paper trails and contact people by registered mail or show up unannounced at the door.  And they don’t sue people, they just seize assets.  A Google search quickly revealed that this was an IRS Impersonation Scam that has been around for a while but gets resurrected from time to time.

The swivel/slide 6-way power base under the driver's chair in our bus. We will reuse this if we get a Flexsteel replacement chair but not if we get an ISRI.

The swivel/slide 6-way power base under the driver’s chair in our bus. We will reuse this if we get a Flexsteel replacement chair but not if we get an ISRI.

We were annoyed enough by this particular scam that I filed a complaint with the U. S. Treasury Department and the Federal Trade Commission.  While I was on the FTC website I opted us out of receiving “Firm Offers” for insurance and pre-approved credit cards.  I also verified that our landline and cell phones (2) are on the Federal Do Not Call list, although it has not eliminated telemarketing calls. The fact that we are on the DNC list, however, allows us to file complaints with the FTC when we get such calls.

For dinner Linda made a nice salad with poppy seed dressing and heated up a couple of teriyaki noodle bowls.  It was yummy and a small glass of Moscato was very agreeable as well.  After dinner I was revisiting the EZ Connector website when a TXT message came through with a picture of his Chuck’s new VDO 0–15 PSI turbo boost gauge.  I was thinking about calling Chuck anyway so I rang him up and we had a long chat.

 

2015/06/08 (M) Home for a While

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It rained until well after midnight last night.  The rain was not steady but more in the form of heavy downpours associated with thunderstorms.  The gutter along the rear of our house was not able to handle the volume of water and it was spilling over onto our deck making a sound that we are not used to.  I noted that I should check the gutters for clogs at the downspouts today.  My phone chirped, which meant I had an e-mail, and I presumed it was from our whole house generator.  When I got up this morning the clocks on the microwave and range were flashing “2:06”, so my first thought was that we must have taken a power hit then, but the messages on my phone indicated that utility power had been lost and restored around 3:45 AM; at least that was the date/time stamp on the e-mails.  I got up just before 6 AM and finally figured out that the clocks probably reset to 00:00 when the power blipped (3:45 AM + 2:06 elapsed time = 5:51 AM).

I sat in the living room writing with my iPad and playing games until a little after 7 AM and then made coffee, which got Linda out of bed.  We had planned to empty out more of the bus today but the weather was gloomy and we were tired from the rally so we had a long, leisurely morning before busying ourselves with inside chores.  Linda worked at her desk and I wasn’t in the humor to work downstairs in my office so I set my computer up on the dining room table.  Other than an occasional trip to the bus or the garage I mostly sat in front of my computer and talked on the phone all day.

Linda called Alchin’s, our regular trash collection company, to see if they would pick up the old RV furniture.  They do not have a special truck they can send and could not take the steel furniture even if they could get it into their garbage truck.  Linda suggested we find a company like “Got Junk” and searched online for one in the area.  We decided to call “Chuck It Junk Removal” as they are located relatively close to our house.  Keith, from Kish Lawn Care, showed up around 11 AM to cut the grass and Brad, from Chuck It Junk Removal, showed up around 12:45 PM to look at the furniture and flooring we pulled out of the bus and give us a quote on the cost to haul it away.  As Keith was finishing mowing the grass dark clouds were rolling in from the west and not long after he left we had more rain, although nothing like last night.

My dentist thinks my current intermittent teeth issues are the result of clenching my teeth at night so I made an appointment to get fitted for a mouth guard to wear while sleeping.  I also got hold of Phil Jarrell and he decided that tomorrow morning at 8 AM would be a good time for him to stop by and take some elevation readings for the driveway extension and a French drain for the far west end of the property.  Besides the obvious economy of having him do both jobs while he is on site, we need a place to put the topsoil he will dig out for the driveway and we need topsoil to fill in low spots on the west end of the yard.

I managed to finally get some orders placed today.  The big one was for a SureCall Fusion5s multi-band cell phone booster (transceiver) system from Cellular Solutions in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan.  The other was for a window seal from Prevost.  This is not the seal that holds the glass in the frame but rather a large rubber part that seals the space between the window frame and the structure of the coach.  We may need to unlatch the large fixed window on the passenger side and use it to get the old refrigerator out and the new one in.  This window frame has not been opened since we bought the bus and may not have been opened for many years before that, possibly not ever since the bus was built.  I want the new seal on hand in case the current one gets damaged trying to open the window frame.

Besides these two purchases I talked to someone at A-1 Upholstery and described our home made sofa plans.  She suggested that we would need ~9 yards of 54″ wide material for the sofa seats and back cushions.  I sent an e-mail to Josh at Coach Supply Direct reminding him of some things we had discussed at the rally last week and Rick Short at Isringhausen with questions about their 6800 series bus driver seats.  I also finally got to talk to Mike at Suburban Seating in New Jersey.  As I suspected we cannot buy the seat directly from ISRI, but I may be able to order it through Suburban Seating and pick it up from ISRI USA in Galesburg, Michigan.  That would be much nicer than having it shipped to our house on a truck from New Jersey.

I called Rupes/Cyclo to try to get answers to a few questions about the Cyclo 5-Pro Mark II Dual Head Orbital Polisher and its various pads but could not figure out how to talk to a real person.  I submitted the online Contact Form with my questions and got a speedy reply from Cory as a result of which I now know what to order.  All I have to do is figure out how many of each thing I need.  The Cyclo 5 is available on Amazon Prime, by itself, but it did not appear to be the Mark II model.  Some of the major distributors claim to give you a set of “free” ProGuard Orbital Backing Plates, but the Rupes/Cyclo website clearly states that the polisher is not sold without one of the three head options.  I prefer not to patronize businesses that misrepresent their offerings and will probably order the polisher, pads, and chemicals directly from Cyclo even if I am paying MSRP.

I got a call from Gary Hatt at Bus Conversion Magazine.  I had not looked at or replied to e-mails in over a week and he wanted to make sure everything was OK.  While we were talking we got a call from Curtis Coleman of RVillage so Linda took that initially until my other call was concluded.  I had e-mailed Curtis earlier in the day and he was responding to that communique.

Somewhere in the middle of all that we had chickpea salad on a bed of greens for lunch.  Linda then went for a walk, met Chris (K8VJ) at Lowe’s to pick up some SLAARC mail, and roasted vegetables for our dinner when she got home.  I sent Chuck Spera a short e-mail inquiring about how to open the latches on our emergency escape window and then called it a night.