getting things lined out.

     One afternoon while I had the kids with me we did a little clean up and started plotting our master plan.

     Yep, our master floor plan.

     We stopped at Lowe's to get a few measurement to help us space things out.  Through some fascinating discussion with to bright and funny kids we made plans for where we will make things fit.  It is a crude outline in masking tape but it will serve well as a starting point.

     I really can't wait to get that old rubber floor out of there and start the conversion.  I'm actually still very undecided on what to do for the floor.  I know I want to lay down some insulation and have seen a number of different ways people have done it and frankly have not been satisfied by any of them completely.  I have noticed that on our road trips the floor actually gets pretty warm.  Heat from the concrete, the engine, the exhaust and other factors all play a part but the floor has been hotter than the ceiling at times.  I would ultimately like to use a bed liner coating to cover it with so that it would be very durable, seamless and totaly easy to wash out.  I plan to have a pet with us eventually too.

     We made plans for the sink to be right over the wheel well on the left with the stove directly across isle on the right.  A pantry and dish cabinet to the right hand side of the stove.  A convertible seating/couch/table/bunks forward of that just past the wheel wells.  The restroom area will be to the rear of the left wheel well and I think I have figured out how to squeeze a shower in behind that and still leave enough room for the garage/tool/storage room in the rear.  I have 3 rows of seating left up front and with this lay out have decided I will remove one more set.  Then when I build the seating area I will build a section that will butt up against the second row and face backwards.  This should give us all the living room we need and plenty of passenger room for trips too.  I will definitely have those bus seats recovered in something nicer as time goes on.

     Thats just the begining of the planning stage really.  Theres still so much to plan and decide on. The window removel and replacements, the rear deck/ramp and the safari rack just to name a few.

     By God's grace it will all come togeather.

Solar Eclipse?

     Well not exactly the kind you would probably be thinking of.  The day after I got the thermostat changed out I wanted to give the bus a run down the highway to see how it would run.  So I drove out to the post office to grab the mail I hadn't picked up in a couple weeks.  It's a good 15 miles and would give me an idea on the way back if there was progress made on the cooling system.

     So what about this eclipse you say, well I'd show you a pic of what happened but the median of the highway wasn't the best place to be taking pictures.  It was now a certain fact I was going to be having a solar power outage.  Due to the results of my failure to remove the solar panel from the roof before heading down the highway.

     I had done this once before regrettably but the panel stayed in place actually pretty good.  I always tried to take it down so that I wouldn't have an incident.  More so that it wouldn't cause anyone else any problems or worse.  The drive way entry to the post office has a good grade to it so the bus tends to rock side to side a fair bit coming out of there and it apparently slid the panel off to the side and when I hit the highway at speed it let go.  I am so thankful that nobody got hurt by it!

     I new right away that it had happened because the roof hatch made an awful sound.  I pulled off at the first exit and looped back to take care of the mess.  I made fast work to pick up the panel from the median where it had slid to a stop.  The glass portion was completely shattered but held together by the layers of plastic and electric elements inside it.  The frame was in 5 pieces and the wiring pulled out.  I piled it all together, crossed the highway, and tossed it on the floor in the bus. Glad that was over I headed back to my side of town.

     I had been looking at other solar panel options but am not yet settled on how I will set it up and don't have the finances for that right now so we will have to rely on the bus power for awhile.

     I'm looking at some flexible roof mounted panels from GLOBAL SOLAR

or from GO POWER.















     Pretty cool stuff.  I will have to talk with these companies later when get ready to power up the system and see what will work best for us.

Tuning in

      I was still at the shop waiting for the tech to change out the thermostat and had just finished the getting the front door to operate again so I immediately turned my attention to the radio project.  I was in need of some wire and connectors so I made quick walk to the parts department since I was so conveniently located and got what I was gonna need.

     The hole in the dash for the radio needed a little refinement so I got that cleaned up first and then focused on securing the deck in the mounting piece.  I was able to use some premarked spots in the mount to drill 4 holes that lined up perfect with the deck and I screwed it together.  With everything now lined up I connected wire to the leads from the radio connection plug so that I could wire the power and ground.  I installed the deck and mount in the dash and went out to the access panel to wire it in.  I started pulling the wire through from the dash to the fuse panel and examined where I was going to mount the ground and again had the thought, WHY?!?!  Why in the world are there so much wiring in here?

     I saw one guys post on the skoolie forum where he pulled all the extra wiring out of his bus project and it was a massive pile of wire.  Thousands of feet of extra wire it seemed.

     I will get this mess cleaned up eventually but for now I just need to get power to the radio.  I used a ground that was being used by a few other lines and ran my power over above the chaos and down to the fuse block.  Made my connections and tucked the mess back in for another day.

     Now that I had power to the radio I started installing the speakers in the box. as soon as the first speaker was mounted I ran the wire and connected it to the radio.

Oh, heck yeah man, we got sound!!!

     With the local country station tuned in I continued getting the rest of the speakers mounted and hooked up.  The service tech had showed up just about the time I started on the second speaker so I kept it turned down while he worked. I finished up and then cleaned up the tools and parts I had all over the bus.

     I stepped out to see how the tech was doing and he was just finishing up.  In a few minutes I would get to hit the road and turn it up!  Once I was clear to go I hit the road.

     Just like a teen I connected my mobile device scrolled to my favorite playlist and let the music fly. with just the deck power it has a fair bit of volume and the 8" speakers had a really good balance of bass. I'm quite pleased. The kids will love it and the next few road trips will be full of good sounds.

 

It's getting hot.

     There's nothing like some good old fashioned summer heat!

     Frankly the heat here in Texas is not quite my idea of fun particularity after the wettest spring season the state has seen in a long time.  Suffice it to say I'm not a big fan of the humidity down here. The last few years Texas has been in a drought so it hasn't been so bad for me but this ol' mountain boy can feel it this year.

     The upside has been full lakes, with a little flooding, to play in.  The downside of the heat besides that its uncomfortable is that it's not playing nice with the bus.  When I drove the bus home from Missouri I noticed that when running it full open at 65 and climbing hills it would heat up a bit and since then it has been consistently show more symptoms.  Now that the summer heat is running 100 degrees its more prevalent.

     I have read as much as I can on overheating issues with the DT466 engine and talked with a number of service people and others along with using my knowledge to try and isolate the issue.  The general consensuses was to start with the clutch fan.  It was leaking a little fluid at the seal and never engaged at any temp.  Replaced it with a nice new $400 unit.  Ouch!  Unfortunately that has not resolved the issue. The new fan clutch does kick on but its very sporadic.  It seems that the air getting to the sensor coil on the front of the clutch is not consistent with the engine temp.  In fact when the bus gets to 210 degrees the fan won't come on unless I slow down below 35 mph then it will kick right in.  As soon as I get over 35 mph it goes off.

    I started temp testing the radiator, I have previously checked to see if it was dirty and clogged up on the outside preventing airflow, and the radiator temps were mid 180's on top and about 167-172 at the bottom about a 10 to 15 degree temp drop.  However I noticed that there was a cool spot that seemed to be about 145 degrees.  I figured that I'd better run it down and have the radiator guys check it out.

     I set up an appointment with Miller Radiator, the local radiator shop that a few people had mentioned.  I arrived early at 7:30 am to meet their top radiator tech.  He however had not arrived  as of 10:30 am and they were not sure when he would be in.  Someone else ran a pressure test and said it appeared good.  They suggested I look into the thermostat.  At this point I figured I'd run down to Southwest International and see what they would say.

     I  met with Bobby at Southwest International and gave him a quick rundown of the issues.  Based on that information he agreed that the next step was the thermostat.  I spent the rest of the day down at the shop while they got things arranged to have a tech replace the thermostat for me.  Something that I would normally do myself however I don't currently have anywhere I can drain out the coolant and do the work.  I didn't mind waiting as I had a vital door repair to work on and I had the radio project to keep me busy.

     While I waited for a service tech to become available I started looking in to that dang door. I couldn't imagine what caused it to go wacko like that all of a sudden.  So I started by testing all the air solenoids that operated the air cylinder and the all seemed to be in order.  Then I checked to make sure that the cylinder itself was operating properly when pressurized from each end.  That all looks good.  Which left two possibilities the air regulator and the electrical to run the solenoids.  I could already tell that the regulator has the signs of leaking and its possible that if it went bad that the higher pressure could cause the cylinder to stay in the extended position keeping the doors open.  The problem is that I don't really have a way to test the out put pressure to tell if its working or not.  So the electrical system would have to come first.  I tested the wiring coming to the solenoids and it wasn't making sense, I had the same voltages weather the switch was on or off, so I was assuming the issue was at the switch.  After I unscrewed the dash panel and puled it I had a good look at the back of the switch.  It all seemed to be in order with wires secured in each terminal.  I did a quick scan of the other wiring in the dash section and again thought to myself why is there so much wiring in here it seems half of it isn't even connected.  While I was scanning I saw a little wire that looked bright and fresh like it had just been disconnected and it didn't have the dusty aged look about it.  I examined further at the back of my door switch.  I pulled a little on each connection and looked closely to see if it possibly had pulled loose from on of the ports.  The very last port at the top of the switch had a bright clean spot where it obviously had another wire siting next to the wire still in the port and the terminal wasn't completely tight.  I secured the loose wire and made sure all the terminals were tight and check the door operation.  It was fixed.  Yahoo.  Thankfully no expense required and now I could move on to the radio.

     The tech got to me about 3 pm and got right to changing out the thermostat. Once he had it  replaced I chatted quick with the tech about if the issues did not resolve and he mentioned that the system looked good and that he would look at the radiator itself and the possibility of too much airflow over the clutch fan.  I packed up and headed out a couple hundred dollars lighter.

No more silence

     For over a month I have been riding around in the bus getting used to its many idiosyncrasies however one afternoon with my kids on board and bickering with each other I had come to a conclusion.  There was one project I had planed for later that I would have to due a little something about now.

     The end of Radio Silence!

     I found it interesting when I bought the bus that it didn't have a AM/FM radio in it at all.  I can remember riding the school bus as a kid and always having the drivers favorite station on.  My Amtran however is not so equipped and wasn't really laid out for one it seems.  It has a slot for an intercom which is great for yelling out my fast food order but that's it.

     I have some idea of what I want to have for the audio system setup when the conversion is complete but I'm hoping to utilize the intercom speakers running down the head molding of the bus and just add a deck and a sub to fill in the bass for now.

 
     I run around to a few audio stores and evaluated what I would need to get set up for now and be able to work with it in the future. I got a good deal at DFW Audio on a Sony deck, a pair of 8" Infinity 3 way speakers and a ported dual 8" box.

     Now to get some tunes!

     I quickly removed the intercom system to see if I would be able to use that location as it would be the most user friendly but decided that I will save that space to mount a CB radio in the future.  I then decided that there was a good space that would work out and keep the radio accessible but not in the way just to the left at the end of the console where they have the Webasto heater module mounted.  I have planed on removing the Webasto system so that area should be good.  

     The first thing I've needed to do is make a new hole.  Like any good minded and mechanical guy would do I grabbed my interchangeable blade folding Milwaukee hand saw and just cut in.  Literally.  I estimated how much space I would need around the top and left side of the radio and cut into that corner as a starting point. Then I used a straight edge to line out the left side and the top and started cutting it out.  I opened the radio box and started looking at the mounting setup when I abruptly noticed that it did not come with a deck mounting cartridge frame like every other deck I've installed in my other cars in the past. Um Crap. Well it was starting to get late and I had to get to work so it would have to wait till tomorrow.  

    The next day I made a trip to the audio store to explain my new problem and they kindly explained that that's the new normal and that the decks have the holes preset in them to mount into the newer model cars.  I would need an install kit to mount the way I wanted to and that it would be awhile to get one ordered for my deck.  Then he offered up, if you want to try to modify one from Kenwood for that Sony I have one you can have. With out hesitation I said yes. Surely I could make it work somehow.  I headed back to get to started.

     Armed with a new mounting piece I made some sizing measurements and finished cutting the hole for the mounting piece.  I  also made sure there was good clearance behind the deck for the electrical to be run.  I was going to need to get some wire and connectors to get the power hooked up so I made the trip to my storage unit.  I dug around for and found my collection of connectors and wire of which didn't have the sizes I would need for this project.  Again with it getting late and having to get headed to work I would have to wait for another day to finish this project. 

     I put up my tools and started the bus to head back to town and I had a new problem.

     The front air door would not close.  It was open with air pressure and the control switch wasn't in the open position.  I tried to evaluate what it might be but that wasn't changing anything and I had to get going to be on time for work.  I disabled the air door system with the manual override switch and closed the door and headed out.  As soon as I hit the road and turned to the left the doors swung wide open.  I should have figured.  I pulled over and found a couple bungee cords to use to hold it closed on the inside.  Not but a minute later as I just got to speed the doors were being pulled open and flapping in and out a few inches .  I again puled over found another heavy duty bungee and hooked it tight.  As I pulled back on the road that HD bungee came unhooked and bounced right past me.  I hooked it back up to the door and to a different mounting location.  I made it to work with this arrangement with the doors flexing in and out a bit as I traveled down the road as if the bus was breathing through a set of gills.  This would be fun since I had an appointment with  the radiator shop the next morning.