Tag Archives: Villa passenger seat (H3-40)

2015/05/28 (R) Ice Cold Internet

I was up until after 1 AM last night fussing with my computer but the OS was updated and was running better (I think) when I finally went to bed.  I need my beauty rest so I did not get up until 9 AM this morning.  Linda had already made coffee so I checked the temperature of the refrigerator (41.4 degrees F) and then got out the soy creamer.  41 is better than 45 but given where the thermostat was set the temperature in the fresh food compartment should have been 35 degrees or lower.  We had a very late breakfast of homemade granola and small glasses of orange juice to wash down our vitamins.

Because I did not get to upload any blog posts last night I switched up my routine and spent the morning working at my desk.  The weather was very nice so Linda went for a long walk.  My computer was back to normal and I managed to upload nine posts to my blog (May 10 through 18) by 1 PM.

I had an e-mail back from Ken Schramm yesterday letting me know that his “last day at Wayne RESA” gathering would get underway around 3:30 PM at Ashley’s Beer & a Grill at Westland Mall.  Brendan and Shawna’s celebration is from 5 to 8 PM in Ann Arbor so we will be able to attend both events although we might not make it to Ann Arbor until 6 PM.

Today was our friends’ 44th wedding anniversary.  Butch and Fonda were married the same year we were one day before us.  We did not know each other then but are now friends through our mutual passion for converted highway buses.

Brendan called and talked to Linda.  It turns out that tomorrow is grandparents/special friends Shabbat at Madeline’s daycare center and Brendan thought we might want to attend.  It starts at 10:30 AM and includes lunch.  The food at the daycare center is vegetarian but not vegan so we will see how that works out.  Brendan is going to take care of Linda’s plants so we will take these with us and go to his house when we are done at the daycare center.  I will pick up our electric pressure washer while we are there so I can wash the bus on Saturday.  We were going to buy cards today for Ken, Brendan, and Shawna but decided we would do that tomorrow on our way to Ken’s gathering.

Linda made large green salads with chickpeas for lunch.  We both put on a few pounds over the winter and really want/need to take them off.  After lunch I worked in the bus.  I removed the wood trim along the top of the beveled strip mirrors on the wall in hallway.  The strips were glued directly to the wall so I put the trim back on.  If we do not want to see these mirrors we will have to figure out some way to cover them.

There was a triangular horizontal panel between the upper edges of the J-lounge and the dinette with four switches mounted in it.  Two of those switches no longer control anything but the other two still do.  I secured the panel above the passenger side HVAC chase and blocked it in so it could not move.  I dressed all of the loose wires with cable ties and cable clamps and secured them to the floor.  I cut two grates from a piece of expanded metal and secured them over the two holes in the driver side HVAC chase where the sleeper-sofa was installed.  That sealed up the last of the holes that the cats might get into.  If one of them got into the HVAC system we would have disassemble half the bus to get them out.

I removed all of my tools and miscellaneous parts from the bus and set them on steps leading to the house.  I had put one of our folding chairs inside the bus to sit on and moved it to the location of the passenger chair as a safety barrier after I moved the trash can out yesterday.  I folded it up and put it back in the bay where it is stored.  While Linda vacuumed the inside of the coach with our Shop-Vac I put tools and parts in the garage or back into the appropriate tool boxes.  When she was done we got the Shop-Vac out of the bus and put it in the garage.

There is a maple grab handle on the right side of the entrance stairs (as you enter the bus) attached to a piece of maple trim from the back side.  The finish is worn and the handle is loose.  I wanted to tighten it, which required access to the back of the trim board.  Linda recalled that we had Creative Mobile Interiors (CMI) tighten this handle when we first got the coach so we figured there had to be a way to get to the back of the trim board.

We removed the cockpit HVAC access panel just below the trim board but it did not appear to provide access to the back of the trim board.  I removed the only two screws I could see (at the right end of the trim) but it still would not come loose.  I figured the trim board had to be screwed on somewhere else and the only possible place was under a piece of inset brass finish trim.  This brass trim is used throughout the bus, including around the edges of the Corian counters, and has an adhesive backing.  I have found screws under it in other places so I pried the end up and peeled it out, revealing three screws.

I thought I was on the verge of success until I removed the three screws but still could not get the trim board loose.  I tried prying it at various points with a screwdriver but it would not budge and we finally came to the unhappy conclusion that it was glued on.  Perhaps it is secured from underneath in some manner that we did not see but I will have to return to this when I have more time.  Linda suggested that we cut the handle off and install a new one that can be screwed on from the front.  She’s a clever girl.  As long as the access panel was off we vacuumed out the cockpit HVAC system and then replaced the panel.

About this time a UPS truck went by headed deeper into our neighborhood.  Since we live on a dead end street I knew the truck would be coming back so I waited for it and flagged down the driver.  I explained to the young man that we had two packages delivered to the wrong house in the same week about a month ago and that I had called the 800 number and talked to customer service but I would appreciate it if he would mention it to his colleagues as we will be ordering a lot of stuff starting in the second week of June.  He was very nice and said he would.

Our last bus task for today was the hard one.  We moved the passenger chair from the garage back to the bus using a hand truck so we did not have to carry it.  It is very heavy but with Linda guiding the top and me supporting the base we got it inside and set in position.  We tilted it fore and aft so I could slide the mounting studs into position and line them up with the holes in the base.  I then bolted it down to the support rails by tightening the four nuts.

This was all trickier than it sounds.  The bolts have square flanges that have to engage in the open slot of the channel to keep them from turning while being tightened or loosened.  But that required me to pull up on the studs as the nuts were not going on that easily.  As when I took the nuts off, I had to wedge one of them up with a screwdriver while I got the nut tight enough that the bolt would not spin.  I reconnected the power to the chair and we checked that all of the adjustments still worked, especially the footrest.

With the installation of the passenger seat we were done working on the bus until after GLAMARAMA and have two seats with seatbelts so we can tow the car rather than drive it separately.  This will be much nicer for us and the cats, although I expect the modified interior will freak them out initially.  We will be gone most of Friday but have Saturday to prepare food, reload the coach for the week, and wash the exterior.  Oh the joys of owning a converted coach.

For dinner Linda served the last of the whole wheat capellini with Portobello mushrooms and asparagus and steamed some broccoli.  A piece of whole wheat bread and a small glass of Leelanau Cellars Winter White wine completed the meal.  We had watermelon for dessert later.

I returned to my office after dinner and updated our Rand-McNally RVND 7710 GPS.  I then continued uploading blog posts.  By the time I quit working around 10 PM I had uploaded nine more posts and was caught up!  I think 18 posts in one day may be my all time record.  I did not get to work on articles for BCM, or copy files between our NAS units, but I was satisfied with what we had accomplished today.

 

2015/05/13 (W) Dental Deconstruction

We were both up at 7:30 AM.  I made tea instead of coffee and we had a light breakfast.  We both had 11 AM appointments with our dental hygienists and left a 9:35 AM to drive to Dearborn.  We had only gone a couple of miles when we realized we did not put the trash can at the curb so we went back and did that.

Traffic was light and we arrived at Gusfa Dental at 10:50 AM.  My hygienist, Michelle, took me in right away.  Linda’s hygienist, Margaret, took her in on time.  We both had good checkups with no new issues found or procedures required.  The tooth that has been bothering me occasionally all winter may be the one on my upper left, second from the back, that had the root canal last fall, followed by a crown.  Dr. Steve did not see any problem on the x-Rays or exam but said that my various complaints could all be associated with a small but persistent infection at the base of the root canal.  I am due for a 6-month follow-up visit with the endodontist anyway, and was putting off scheduling it until I had my regular checkup today.

It was 12:30 PM by the time we left the dental office and we were both hungry.  We wanted something other than fast food but considered going to Neehee’s Indian diner on Ford Road.  We decided not to go there as it was not very good the last time we went and they had changed the menu, eliminating some of our favorite dishes.  It is also several miles west of I-275 and that stretch of Ford Road is always congested and annoying to drive.  We stopped at the Macaroni Grill at 7 Mile Road and Haggerty Road instead.  We have always found the Macaroni Grill restaurants to be acceptable Italian food in a slightly quaint setting.  Today was no different.  Linda had rigatoni with arrabbiata sauce (spicy tomato), garlic, mushrooms, and spinach.  I had capellini with garlic olive oil and the same add-ins.  We had our fill of fresh baked bread to go with the pasta and were very full by the time we finished lunch.  We used to eat like this a lot more often which is part of the reason we both had a weight problem.

We thought about stopping at Brighton Ford to pick up some literature on the F-150 but decide to drive to Lowe’s at I-96 and Latson Road instead to look at refrigerators.  The smallest one they had on display was 14.3 cubic feet which gave us a chance to see the approximate size of the 13.5 cubic foot Fisher & Paykel.  The F&P is narrower and slightly taller than the one’s at the store, but has a bottom freezer drawer and fits our available space much better.  Lowe’s can order the F&P and it will take two weeks to get.  If I decide to do the fridge swap at Butch and Fonda’s place in Indiana we will have to pick up the F&P in Kokomo as that is the nearest Lowe’s.

Driver side sleeper sofa in our H3-40 with motorized drawer removed.

Driver side sleeper sofa in our H3-40 with motorized drawer removed.

When we got home I changed into my work clothes and worked in the bus.  After emptying the drawer under the jack-knife sofa and removing the APC UPS from under the foot rest area I removed the drawer, footrest cover, and front end panel.  I then removed the two HVAC duct transition boxes and then the two drawer slides.  With all of that out of the way I was finally able to remove the four 1/2″ lag screws from the four corners that secured the sofa to the floor.

Driver side sleeper-sofa with forward end panel and HVAC adapter box removed.

Driver side sleeper-sofa with forward end panel and HVAC adapter box removed.

Getting all of the furniture out will be much easier if we remove the front passenger seat so I worked on that next.  I had never looked carefully at how it was installed until now.  The chair has a 12″ wide x 15″ deep base plate that is bolted to the floor.  The bolts stick up from below and the nuts go over them.  I could not see the studs but I could feel the ends and eventually realized that Royale coach had installed the carpet OVER the base plate.  To remove the seat I would have to remove the carpet or at least cut it and fold it back.  The carpet had to come out eventually anyway and be replaced with vinyl tile so I removed it.  It was more work than it sounds, and took quite a while, as there was not a lot of room to work under, behind, or to the left of the seat, but I got that piece of carpet out.

Villa passenger seat in our H3-40 showing inside edge of mounting plate and studs with nus.  (Front of coach to the left).

Villa passenger seat in our H3-40 showing inside edge of mounting plate and studs with nus. (Front of coach to the left).

Removing the seat will now be a simple matter of loosening four nuts and lifting it off the studs, except for the fact that it is heavy.  The studs are presumably the threaded ends of T-bolts with the “heads” in two channels, front and rear, that are installed across the floor.  There is an opening at one end of each channel that allows the T-bolts to be inserted/removed.  My presumption is that all of this is Prevost factory designed and built, not something Royale Coach did, but the driver’s seat does not appear to be installed the same way, so maybe not.

Power base for Villa passenger chair in our H3-40.  This thing is complicated!

Power base for Villa passenger chair in our H3-40. This thing is complicated!

I finished working in the bus around 7 PM, put my tools away, and closed up the coach.  As a consequence of our big lunch we were not hungry and skipped dinner.  I called Butch to discuss the project and get some advice.  I then called Chuck and brought him up-to-date.  We finished the evening by watching Season 2, Episode 3 of Sherlock on DVD.