Garden City Powder-coating in Toowoomba did a great job with the mirrors, now I’ve just got to put then back together.
All the part are back, back in Black.
I don’t need to put the spotlight bracket back on as someone has stolen them, so will have to buy some more later on. I had left them under the front of the coach, as they needed to be sprayed as they are a little rusty.
Now can I put them back together
With two box’s full of parts and two washers to make to fit between the main mounting bracket and the mirror arm. Then I will have to fit the lights inside the mirror housings and run the power cable for the 24v.
Making new parts for the mirror support.The bit that bolts on to the coach.The new part fit’s.Wiring in the lights to heat the mirrors to de-fog them.Feeding the wires in.
Now to finish putting them together and feed the wire through as I go.
Arm bracket going on.Just need to fit the mirrors.
I’ll be wrapping the mirrors in cling-wrap, then run a bead of silicon around the housing. This is so I can remove the mirror if the globes ever blow.
Cling-wrap the mirror.making a gasket for the mirror.Now let it dry before removing it.Gasket in place.
So all I’ve got to do is put the mirrors back in and run a bead of silicon around before putting the face plate on.
Drivers side all most done.Both side mirrors finished.Drivers side looking good.Now that’s makes a big difference.
Don’t know who drilled the holes for the brackets but one mirror I can only get three bolt in, that’s after drilling out the hole bigger. This will have to do for now as later on I’ll have to pull the mirrors off again to paint the front of the coach some day.
Like many other wire’s, the mirror de-fog wires had been cut. when someone fitted the spotlight brackets. I only found this out when trying to get the mirror de-fogger to go.
Side mirrors have had the wire’s cut for the de-mister’s on both side’s.Now I now why the wires were cut, no holes in the spot light bracket
To start with I didn’t think this little job was going to that much of a problem, once again I was wrong. So now that I’ve started this job we may as well fix it for good. The first job is to pull every thing apart so that I can get all the bit’s powder coated.
Drivers side mirror off, now to finish pulling it apart.Will have to strip it all apart to re wire it.Mirror out, but this one was glued in & I cracked it getting it out.
The cut wires at one stage went to two lights in the mirrors to heat the glass up to de-fog them. I thought there was going to be a heating element in there, but two 24v light globes would work just as well.
Lots of parts for just mirrors.But something just will not come apart. Bugger!!!And another one that will not move.Even spilt some blood on this job.
I don’t think anything had been touched for years, so bolt and grub screw are seized up. Now I will have to drill every one out, then try some easy out’s.
Drilling the bolt out so I can use a easy out bit.
Well so much for the easy outs, they didn’t work. The next plan is to drill them right out and use some recoils and new bolts. This job just keeps getting bigger.
May as well recoil the lot of them.Just have to tap them to size now.Still more to go.Every thread must be done as they are all stuffed.
I’ve even had to recoil the bracket point on the coach as they had rusted and they were stuffed to. Well at least when I get to the stage of painting the coach I’ll be able to get them off again.
the coach looks a bit weird with out the mirrors on.
All the part are off to the powder coat shop for a good sand blasting, then a coat of satin black. Also I’ve been of to O’Brians Glass to get new mirrors cut too, so now it’s a waiting game.
We have a two and a half month house sit in Laidley heights looking after a little fur ball called Timmy, as well as the house. The weather is a bit hotter down the range than up in Toowoomba, but we will be back up there before it get’s hot again.
New spot to park the coachOn the side of a hill.
I had some fun trying to level the coach up this time, had to jack the front drivers side up a lot and still couldn’t get it perfect. So it’s as good as I could get it.
Jacked to the max at the front to get the blocks under to level her up.Only need to put blocks on one side.The back tag axle wheel off the ground, that’s a first for me.
So now the next stage of the coach can begin, first of will be clearing out the front of the coach through to the bathroom. Which will give me some where to work and make a mess as I finish of the bathroom. After that it will be into ripping up the old floor on the front half of the coach and replacing it.
We didn’t have much room getting in the driveway.Over looking Laidley Heights..
Just one of those days, Charmaine had gone to work and I was packing up the coach to move to a new house sit in Laidley Heights. While going down the road driving, I decided ro stop on the side of the road to check everything was ok inside and out. After checking things I jumped back into the driver’s seat turned the key and nothing happened apart from some clicking. So there I was on the side of the road…. the only good thing was I parked under a nice big tree, so I had some shade.
I gave Charmaine a call and when she had finished work she came back so at least I could jump-start the coach. That didn’t work either and we were going to have to spend some money and get some help. A $110 and a 1hr later help arrived, we hooked up two 12v batteries to make 24v and even that didn’t work until he put power straight to the starter motor bypassing the solenoid the Detroit started like nothing happened.
That was not the only problem
So back on the road again, I had tested the engine brakes on the flat but now it was down the Toowoomba range to give them the real test. Charmaine went on ahead down the range in front of me, as I put it in second gear and switch on the engine breaks and down the hill I went no problem. Finally something worked right, I made it down the range in one pice.
The next thing to go wrong was the inline diesel filter under the bus started to block about 10 klms from a our next house sit, so I had to pull over, stop to clean the inline filter and the main filters too. On the side of the road for the second time in one day with no way to start the coach by myself, so another call to Charmaine to come to the rescue again. This time Charmaine was inside the coach to turn the key while I did the 24v power bypass to the starter motor and back on the road again.
Now to fix the starter motor
It turns out the contacts in the solenoid is stuffed, so another thing to fix. Good thing about big motors there’s lots of room around them to work.
Easy access to the starter motor.
Just have to remove the end plate to the solenoid.All fixed just forgot to take pic of it apart. oops…Just the wires to go and it will be as good as new.
I forgot to take photo’s again, I just had to clean up the contacts for the 24v solenoid till I can find some new one. This job was a lot easer than working on a car. Well the starter motor doing it’s thing again and turning over the Detroit 6V92TA, got to love that sound.
With all the obsolete wires and fuses the old fuse board is looking a bit crapy. I needed to upgrade to new fuses as well as fix some of the wiring. I had already had the new fuse blocks in storage somewhere under the bus so it was time to dig them out.
The old fuse board.Lots of wires to play with.Don’t think we need them all.
Out with the old & in with the new
When I was fixing the engine brakes, I thought it was mechanical to start with, but after some tested it turned out to be electrical. I had to trace the wiring from the back of the bus to the front which took days, as the fuze board was a mess. In the end it ended up being a 24v relay in the spot that needed to be a 12v relay, the only one in a 24v system.
So now to fix the board, after finding the new fuze box’s under the coach in the bins and labelling then. It was time to remove all the old fuze holders one at a time, then wiring in the new ones so I didn’t lose track of were the wire’s went.
New fuse box’s tagged ready to go in.The start of sorting out the wires.What a mess this is.
You can see why I am not cutting all the wires at once and only cutting one at a time, then fitting then to the new fuze box’s. Other wise I wouldn’t know which wire went where.
Top row in place after a lot of soldering.Now the bottom row.It never ends.Even have some spare’s for latter if I need them.Job done and it even work’s.
There are still some fuze’s that will be not needed latter on, but for now I still need them. When we fit the sola power system in there will be 10 of these fuze’s that wont be needed, but till then we do.
After a quick fix when driving from Alice springs to the QLD coast in 2016, the bottom door bracket has snapped for the second time. The make shift bracket had done a good job as I had to make it out of what I could find in the bus on the side of the road. This bracket gave up the ghost while staying in Toowoomba, So time to make a new one that should last till we fit a new door in the next year or so.
Bugger the temp one broke.This was the bracket I had made up on the side of the road.Not muck room to work with.The new one will have to look something like this one, but straight.
New bracket time
So of to the shop to get some plate metal or something the can be modified to do the job. I found a bracket that can be cut to size, so back to the bus to make it up.
marking out the new bracket.Some holes will help.Reenforcing plate.
This time I’ll also make an extra plate to stop the flexing, as this why the old one broke.
Just need to bend it into shape.This should work till we replace the door.All good so far.Shouldn’t break now from flexing.All fixed till We replace the door.
Well another job done and so much more to do. The good thing was we are camping and not on the road, so had more time to fix this time. This build is taking longer than we would like, but living in a bus that your turning into a motorhome makes life more interesting at the least.
The fiberglass panels needed to be finish off by putting aluminium around them. So off to the shops again, I think I should have shares in Bunnings. I though this was going to be an easy job of just cutting the aluminium to length and gluing then pop rivet into place.
Prep time
To start with I had to remove the old pop rivets that held the old air-con fiberglass top in place. This was a job in itself as it was glued well in place, then clean out all the dust that had built up over 30 years.
Slow job cutting the old glue to lift the fiberglass out.
I’m glad I started this job early in the fixing as I found another place where water could get in that was hidden. This should be the last of them as there is no more places left to fix.
Found another leak.This back part took one day to free up, not happy.
I even had the reciprocal saw going to cut out the old glue and on this part, but the saw died with only 300mm to go. They knew how to glue things back then, too well. The only good news was there was more room under the coach now the saw was in the bin.
Aluminium flat bar time
Well now it’s out with the measuring tape and start cutting things to length, or just make it up as I go along. I made up a templet so they would all end up in a straight line, well that is the plan.
50 X 3mm aluminium flat going into place.
Working off one ladder is not the best idea, but that is all we have. So now the sequence was marking out the holes for the pop rivets, then pre-drill 3mm holes. I had to hold the aluminium in place with tape, and drill into the coach, then drill them out to 5mm C/S pop rivets to fit. Next was to take the aluminium down, counter sink the holes for the pop rivets, put Sikaflex on the back, to fit it into place. I had to put two pop rivet in at arm’s length, climb the ladder holding the aluminium by the pop rivets. This was difficult! Even allocating the pop rivets into their holes to fit the rest of the pop rivets in place was a feat! I had to buy a pneumatic pop rivet gun which made my life much easier 🙂 happy days.
A lot of counter sunk pop rivet.It’s even straight!More pop rivets….Just the top to go on this side.One more side to go.The back end.Parked in a new spot for the other side.
The troopy came in handy with the side awning up to work under for the drilling and cutting the aluminium flat bar.
No leak on this side so shouldn’t be as painful as the other side.
So now it’s time to repeat the same process on the driver’s side, I even have some shade from a tree too this time. Life is great some times.
Thank goodness that I’ve been able to park the coach undercover for this job as there has been raining on and off. The Showgrounds have let us use one of the sheds for three weeks, thank you.
Nice to be under cover.
Now the fun begins
After trying to get the decking up and failing to do so, as I’d done a too good of a job gluing it down. Great! I had to come up with another solution.
Going over the top of the deck and sealing it instead, this way I can lay down some tiles to finish it off.
Now where is the leak???
Time to seal it up
For some reason the Sikaflex didn’t stick between the decking boards. So after scraping it all out I troweled in some bitumen putty to take its place. The next step was three coats of bitumen paint to go over the decking boards. After the bitumen paint had dried the next day I got the fire hose out and flooded the area for one hour with no water leaking any more.
Now the tile underlay goes down, after cutting it to size. A box of nails later it’s all in place ready for the wet area under tile waterproofing.
The deck painted with bitumen waterproofing paint.Tile underlay going down.Floor nailed down.Now time to start more waterproofing.
Next will be cutting the reinforcing bandage with bond-breaker for the edges. This will stop any damage to the waterproofing membrane if there is any movement.
Reinforcing bandage just to make it boom proof.Now to start wet area tile waterproofing.
The under-tile waterproof membrane just paint on nice and easy thank goodness, so after going over the bandage and nail first. Then it was time for the first coat of three.
Joints and nail areas done.Three coats should do I think.
Next blog will be about the tile set out and the gluing of them in place, with all the other fiddle bits to finish it off.
The engine’s brakes had not been working properly since I bought the bus and I didn’t have to use them anyway as it was so flat in South Australia and the Northern Territory. This is going to be a job the will take some time as I will have to trace the wiring loom from one end of the coach to the other. The main problem is info, I’ve have most of the manuals that I need to be able to fix most things but finding out the colour codes for the wires is not so easy as nothing matches what is on the drawings that I have. I have searched the internet for more wiring diagram but to no avail and I can’t seem to find anything that looks even remotely the same.
So with a multimeter in hand, I thought the best place was to start with power to the switch, then start tracing the wires from there. Well the good thing is I’ve got 24v at the switch, the bad news is now people have been here before me modifying the wiring loom.
The main board outside, below the driver’s seat.
Looks nice and tidy in here, but somewhere in there may be the problem of the J brakes.
Mmmmm some one has been here before me, lot’s of cut wires.
Doesn’t look so nice now as there are lots of wires that have been cut or have never been used. The fuse holders that have been burnt out (3 of them) after being moved, as well as modifications over the years to fix or been up graded.
This job just got bigger
So now its time to trace all the wires not being used and tagging both ends of them, this will help find where they go. After making a 9v system to clip onto the wires its just a matter of finding the other ends of the loom.
Now the fun begins, just have to find out where they are going.And theres more.Sub board down the back of the coach in the battery bay.I think this is going to take sometime.Somewhere in here is the wires for the J breaks that are not working.Look more wires behind the dash. Ahhhhhh!Some switches work and some will not be needed any more.I think I’ve got a headache now.Joy Joy Joy more wires.
The J breaks will have to wait
I’ve just been told that I can move into the equestrian shed so the wiring will have to wait for now, as the main problem is the roof leak under the top decking. This started after we move up to Toowoomba, it may be a small pop rivet as it’s not a big leak more like some capillary action going on.
It was one of the jobs that was started down at Leigh Creek, but I ran out of time before heading up north to Yulara. The old running lights did make it to QLD with a quick fix up here and there. We are waiting to move under cover in to the big equestrian indoor arena at the Toowoomba Showgrounds to start fixing the roof leak found on a good down pour while up here.
We have been in the Toowoomba area now for four weeks and I must say it’s quite a nice place. Apart from having to move out of the Showgrounds for one week as the place was booked out. We decided to stayed on a farm for that week at a farmstay called The Chookhouse. It was great, the owners were very nice, it was the first time for them having a 12m motorhome parked there.
The Chookhouse stay
LED light time
The old running light had seen better days and as the front of the coach had already been fix in S.A , we now thought it was a good time to finish them.
Out with the old running lights.
The former owner had already fitted new LED indicators/reflectors which made the old running lights at the side of the bus look even older.
Just a little bit stuffed, how where they even working?New wires solidered and insulated.I’ll have to patch up the holes later before the paint job.Nice new LED’sMore soldered and insulation under the coach.Top ones need fixing too.Think they will see us now.
That will do for now
Until the inside is finished, the outside will have to stay looking like someone does not love it. I’m really looking forward to the outside being all painted, it’s going to make such a big difference, that will have to wait for another day.
