Bus Update March 6

We had a party at Jerry’s this week. Jerry, Dom, John, Jim Rice and Barb showed up. Ray & Conner, friends of Jerry’s, were there too. Ray has volunteered to lead the paint and body work on the bus. Hooray. He brought a sandblaster to investigate the large linear cracks. Good news, they appear to be just bondo; bad news, since the bus shell is so flexible, the cracks may reappear. The driver’s door is off & went home with Ray.
All the batteries went in and are connected up to each other, but not to the front. That will happen after we get the controller installed.

The master brake cylinder and the right rear slave cylinder are installed and holding vacuum. The new slave cylinder didn’t fit, so Jerry & Ray took the old and new apart and fixed the old one.

There is now a tub in the garage for MakeICT stuff. John brought a spare laptop and we have nitrile gloves and a few face masks.

We discussed having a body work day some time other than Thursday night when we can put in more time in the daylight. We’ll have to see how things go.

The Bus, the Bus -2/14/14

The bus motor controller has arrived!!! Dom posted a picture last night on Facebook. Check it out. Oh, the brake cylinder came too.

Jeremiah, Dom and Barb went out last night to see it all and be amazed. We were beginning to think that the controller was a fictional creature. It was that hard to get.

We decided that we are not ready to install it so the evening was spent cleaning the battery boxes. Dom & Barbara wirebrushed their little hearts out. Jeremiah kept handing us lights and tools when he wasn’t cleaning the attachment bolts. He will try to get the boxes spray painted this weekend. Installing the batteries will be next.

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NOTE:
We are going to weekly Bus Thursdays starting February 20th.

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Our short term goal is to get the brakes working and then get the motor running.

If you are ready to do heavy lifting (batteries) or want to help Barb with interior removal, come next Thursday, 2-20-2014.

We are moving now!!!

Bus Update 1/16/2014

The next Bus Thursday will be Thursday February 6, 2014; 6 pm at Jeremiah’s.

Jeremiah, Dom and Barbara met to look over the bus.  We took a look at the connector that John asked about.  There is one installed and one extra.  We suspect the extra one is not functioning.  The picture with all the wires shows the installed one on the left with the other just sitting on the floor to the right.  The second picture is the one John found online.

Jeremiah and Dom checked the brakes for leaks.  It appears that the RH rear brake slave cylinder may be bad.  Dom was going to look for a replacement using the P/N out of the bus catalog.  The only catalog we could get from the OEM was for the next model, not ours.  We are using it for guidance.

Barbara did some sanding on one of the long straight cracks on the LH rear panel.  It looked like it might be just a paint crack considering the thickness of the paint.  However, it does appear to go through the body.  I couldn’t feel the crack on the interior of the panel, so maybe it is double skinned.  We can look when we take out lights, etc. for cleaning.  Jeremiah told me it went all the way through, but I didn’t believe him!

The plan for the next meeting is to clean up the battery boxes.  That means wire brushes, sandpaper, Rustoleum and elbow grease.

The controller saga continues.  It is very difficult to get one.  Several companies list them, but no one has our exact model.  Our best bet so far is Global Industrial Products out of Illinois.  Their engineer thinks we can use another model controller;  one that is in stock.  This would be a Curtis 1244-6561, 500 Amp rather than our 1244-6461, 400 Amp.  John is working on getting him more information.  They want to be sure that this replacement will work.