Tag Archives: HVAC duct / wiring chase cover (H3-40)

2015/11/16 (M) Tiling the Cockpit, #3

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Linda planned to go to the bakery today but decided yesterday to stay home and help me instead.  Based on the 10-day forecast this looks like our last decent weather day to work on the bus and we wanted/needed to make the most of it.

We had breakfast at 8 AM (granola with blueberries and a banana) and had a cup of Stash China Black tea.  I had a text message from Kristine Gullen regarding getting together with her and Jim on Saturday and replied in the affirmative.  We finished our tea by 8:30 and got to work.

I really wanted to finish tiling the cockpit of the bus, or at least as much of it as we could.  That meant cutting and fitting tiles for the stair treads and risers and the two side walls of the entry steps, gluing them in place, and then grouting all of them.  We needed to mount the table if possible and I also needed to build a new step for the platform.  That was a lot to get done in one day and even before we started I doubted that we would get it all done.

When we opened the bus we were surprised to find that the tiles on the walls of the platform had slipped all the way down to the floor tiles.  Obviously I should not have removed the spacers right after installing the tiles and should have to left them in place for any horizontal grout spaces on vertical surfaces.  Oh well, not much to do about it now.

Keith called to see if he should come and mulch the leaves one last time.  The weather the last few days had been very nice, unseasonably warm and dry.  Today was also a beautiful day but the forecast going forward was for much cooler and wetter conditions, so this was an ideal day for our last lawn mowing of the 2015 season.

We measured and cut the tiles for the face of the platform and out to the door.  At that point I evaluated what I needed to do to complete the job.  Basically, I needed to cut all of the tiles for the entry steps and walls and then install them from the bottom up.  Every piece of tile was going to be smaller than a full 16″x 16″ tile and custom cut so even though the square footage was not that much there would be more pieces than usual and it was obviously going to take quite a bit of time to get all of the pieces ready to install.  I thought we could be ready for adhesive in two hours but Linda figured it would be at least three.  It also meant working with the door open which would make it difficult to keep the interior as warm as we needed.

Phil showed up with his excavator and a dozen bales of straw.  I knew the excavator was for a different job as he did not have anything left to do at our place that required it.  He was here to finish covering the topsoil and grass seed with the straw.  We took a break to go talk to him and confirmed that he was done with the driveway and French drain projects except for the straw.  He staged the bales where he needed them but said he had to leave to dig a perk test hole at 1:30 PM and would be back mid-afternoon to finish spreading the straw around.

Linda suggested that we go ahead a grout all of the tile we had already installed.  I was more emotionally invested in completing the tile work than Linda but had to agree that this was the prudent thing to do.  Until the tile was grouted we could not reinstall the accelerator, the steering column shroud, the seat bases, and the seats, so grouting the tile was clearly a critical path item and that is what we did.  It was after noon by the time we finished so we took a break for lunch.  Phil had taken off by this time to go dig the test pit.

Lunch was grilled vegan Italian sausage on a bun with mustard and relish and black grapes on the side.  Keith finished up mowing the yard while we were enjoying a cup of Rooibos tea.  We paid him and chatted about next year.  I gave him our approximate timeframe for returning home from Florida and asked him to go ahead and start mowing next spring whether or not we were here.  We have had Keith take care of our lawn since we bought our house in the country and he has been very good about doing that when we are away and allowing us to catch up with him when we get back.

By the time we got back to work on the bus it was after 1 PM and I had to concede that we were done working on the tile until next spring except for cleaning them, which had to wait until tomorrow as the grout has to cure for 24 hours before final cleaning.  With that decision made we considered what else needed to be done and in what order.

The first order of business was painting the two front seat bases black.  We spread out painter’s plastic on the driveway and taped it down.  We set the bases there and then masked off the top portion with the swivel bearings and mounting bolt.  We wire brushed the bases to remove rust and then went over them with a sanding sponge.  I used a cleaner/degreaser and water to clean them and then gave them a coat of black rubberized undercoating paint.

The next order of business was getting all of the tools and materials that we no longer needed out of the bus to give us room to work on other things.  On Saturday I re-installed the bump out on the walnut cover for the passenger side HVAC duct.  The duct needed to have two 4″ holes drilled in it to match the holes in the metal duct, so that was the next task.  I measured very carefully and transferred the measurements to the face of the cover with equal care.  Even so, I was off slightly and had to use the sheet metal nibbler to enlarge the bottom of each hole.  At least I had a relatively straightforward way to fix this problem; I am not always so lucky.

With the holes enlarged we put the cover in place.  The 4″ round plastic registers fit through the wood into the duct but not all the way due to two tabs.  I trimmed the tabs off using the Porter-Cable oscillating saw and trimmed a little bit off of one of the outer mounting flanges to make it fit flush.  I drilled holes through the two mounting holes on each register using the #5-6 self-centering drill bit and secured them with #6-5/8″ SR screws.  We then removed the two temporary black plastic registers from the front of the built in sofa.  I trimmed the tabs off of two new brown ones and installed them using the same procedure as the first two.

In the grand scheme of things getting the cover in place and the four registers installed was a small task but it needed to be done and stood in the way of other things.  The cover has been stored on top of the two front seats, which have been lying on their backs on the kitchen floor of the bus for weeks.  We plan to re-install the seats late tomorrow afternoon.

Two more small, but critical, tasks were securing the pull-out pantry and the refrigerator.  I have assumed for quite a while that we would secure the pantry for travel with some form of sliding latch but had not thought about it in any detail.  We also needed to secure the refrigerator but I had not thought about this in any detail either.  As we pondered the pantry latch it slowly became obvious that we did not have enough wood for a strike plate to receive a pin and we did not have two unobstructed surfaces that were in the same plane, which would be required for the kind of latch I had been thinking about.

As for the refrigerator, one of our bus nut friends secured their unit by running mounting bolts (machine screws) through the floor of the cabinet above the fridge and threading them into the unused tapped holes provided for the upper door hinge (if it was reversed) .  After looking at it for a while we realized that we could attach a section of small angle to the inside of the right alcove wall with the other side just against the face of the fridge case but not over so far as to interfere with the door gasket.  My measurements indicated that a 1/2″x3/4″ angle would be just right.  It looked to me like two 12″ pieces, one by the freezer door and one by the bottom of the fresh food compartment door, would be more than adequate to keep the refrigerator from rolling out as it cannot shift sideways or twist due to the aluminum angle on the left/hinge side at the floor.

About this time Phil returned in a red pickup truck.  He finished distributing the straw and loaded three unused bales into the back of his truck.  He pulled up in the main drive and we invited him into the bus to see what we had been working on all summer.    It is always a pleasure working with Phil.  If/when we build a barn we will have him do all of the site prep and finish grading.  He will figure out the final cost for the driveway extension and French drain and send us an invoice.

Linda prepared an easy but tasty dinner consisting of a nice green salad, mixed frozen vegetables (corn, peas, and carrots) suitably reheated, and mac-n-cheese that was both dairy-free and gluten-free.  After dinner we went to Lowe’s and The Home Depot.  At Lowe’s we bought a 1/16″ thick 1/2″x 3/4″ aluminum angle and three 8 foot lengths of brass colored nose edging but did not find a latch that we liked.  At The Home Depot we bought some screws for securing the handle on the front of the pull-out pantry and a solid brass door stop to keep the pantry in place.  The door stop folds up when not in use and should work to keep the pantry closed while traveling.

Although the new Panera on the southwest corner of Grand River Avenue and Latson Road was finally open for business we stopped at Teeko’s Coffee and Tea on the northeast corner of that intersection.  Jeff was there and took our order for eight pounds of coffee beans.  We got two pounds each of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, regular and decaffeinated, the Seattle Blend (regular), and the Sweet Dreams blend (decaffeinated).  They will roast the beans and then let them outgas for a few days before vacuum sealing them in half-pound portions.  This allows us to take them with us in the bus and keep them very fresh until we are ready to use them and to change what we are drinking more often.

We got home just after 8 PM and took our iPads downstairs to use while we watched our Monday evening CBS TV programs.  We caught the weather forecast and then headed to bed.  It looks like we will have two more days with unseasonably high temperatures near 60 degrees F but with intermittent rain and then a serious cooling trend with highs this weekend barely above freezing.  Our time for working on the bus and being in Michigan is definitely running out.

 

2015/11/12 (R) Unforced Solutions

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When I got up at 7 AM Linda had already left for the bakery.  I had granola for breakfast and made a cup of Stash China Black hot tea.  I went to my office and processed the photo that Byron sent me of him and Betty and e-mailed it to Gary and Jorge at Bus Conversion Magazine.  I then replied to an e-mail from Nancy (& Big Bill).  We met them at Suncoast Designers in Hudson, Florida in April 2014.  They are from Ontario but have a place near Ocala, Florida where they spend at least part of the winter.  I also replied to an e-mail from the Mitch in Florida regarding good places for bus service and forwarded my reply to Chuck.  I cleaned the kitty litter tray and finally got to work on the bus.

A piece of scrap SurePly underlayment used as a spacer/guide for the Porter-Cable oscillating saw to undercut he bottom edge of the side wall panel so it can be removed above the floor tile.

A piece of scrap SurePly underlayment used as a spacer/guide for the Porter-Cable oscillating saw to undercut he bottom edge of the side wall panel so it can be removed above the floor tile.

First up was to finish screwing the down the SurePly underlayment on the floor of the passenger seat platform.  With that done I turned my attention to trimming the switch panel next to the passenger seat.  This panel is just 1/4″ walnut veneered plywood but has both AC and DC switches mounted in a row across the entire top portion.  The added thickness of the underlayment and tile on the floor and back wall of the platform required the bottom and back edges of the panel to be trimmed so it could be installed and removed in case I need to get to the wiring behind it.  I used pieces of underlayment as spacers/guides and trimmed off the edges using the Porter-Cable oscillating saw.  This was the perfect tool for this situation where I could not remove the panel and take it to the shop.

With the panel trimmed and the sawdust vacuumed up I turned my attention to the tile.  After test fitting some pieces to see where the edges would land I decided to tidy up the front of the bus so it would be easier to work.  While that was certainly true it was also a tactic of stepping away from the work and letting solutions float into consciousness rather than trying to force them out.  After several trips to bring things inside the house and garage it was noon and time for lunch, which meant more time to relax and let my subconscious work on the tile layout.  Hummus and sourdough pretzel nibblers made a quick, easy, tasty meal and a cup of Constant Comment decaffeinated tea helped wash it down and warm me up while I worked on this post.

Two scrap pieces of the Armstrong Alterna Luxury Vinyl tile used as feeler gauges to make sure the side wall switch panel will clear the floor and rear wall tiles.

Two scrap pieces of the Armstrong Alterna Luxury Vinyl tile used as feeler gauges to make sure the side wall switch panel will clear the floor and rear wall tiles.

As long as I was taking a break I called Pat/Vickie Lintner to let them know I would be coming through Elkhart tomorrow (Friday) and verify that they would be home in the morning.  That sounded fine to Pat.  I will be picking up an accessory for a Nutone power base unit from them.  We have one of the power bases installed in the kitchen counter of the bus but the blender was the only accessory that came with the bus when we bought it.  Pat and Vickie had a power base in their bus but it broke years ago.  They never replaced it, and don’t plan to, so they no longer needed the accessories and were willing to give them to us.  We got most of the pieces from them at the GLCC Surplus and Salvage Rally back in September but we were missing a critical piece which Vickie thought she still had and eventually found.

After my break I reinstalled the large front trim board on the driver side vertical wiring/plumbing chase that is located on the outside wall next to the back of the driver’s chair.  I don’t recall how I got it out but I could not get it back in.  I ended up trimming off a small protrusion on the lower end and then it went into position without any further difficulty.  It was a small thing, but it needed to be done and it was good to get it checked off my (mental) “to do” list.  When I cannot solve the problem I am trying to solve (tile layout) I try to keep moving and get other small tasks completed.

I took a few more minutes to carefully measure the adjustment needed to the bump out on the passenger side HVAC duct cover and the dimensions for the two new pieces of walnut that will go on either side of the sofa seat.  I brought the old pieces in the house and found the leftover walnut in the garage as I have to take some of it with me tomorrow to Jarel’s cabinet shop in Logansport, Indiana.  I think an hour of my day disappeared between these small, simple tasks.

I continued to ponder the tile layout for quite some time, taking and retaking measurements as I tried to figure out an arrangement that would allow the joints to fall in reasonable places while making sure I could notch around things that go through the floor and avoid having any small pieces.  That is a lot of constraints.  The arrangement I finally came up with had three full 16×16 tiles centered on the landing and into the driver area.  There will be pieces about six inches wide along the fore and aft edges, and the first full tile will also be about six inches back from the edge of the landing (by the entry stairs).  The joints (grout lines) resulting from this placement will continue up the front of the passenger seat platform and result in tile placements on the platform that should work out well.

Linda called at 4:15 PM to let me know she was on her way home from the bakery and was stopping at Kathi’s on the way.  I was done working in the bus for the day so I adjusted the thermostats on the heaters and checked the house battery bank status.  The battery bank voltage was at 25.0 VDC, just slightly down from the 25.2 V level of a fully charged and rested “24 V” lead acid battery (2.1 V per cell x 12 cells in series).  The State Of Charge (SOC) was at 84% and I decided to leave the charger off until Saturday morning after breakfast.  I did have the shorepower turned off for a few hours Wednesday so the refrigerator was running on the inverter for a while but there are no DC loads operating in the coach at the moment and the Magnum remote is showing zero current coming out of the battery bank.  There must be some loads, however, as the battery SOC wound not drop that much that quickly due to self-discharge.  I locked up the bus, went in the house for the evening, and turned on the outside lights for Linda.  Given when she left the office I knew it would be dark by the time she got home.

I took a few pictures throughout the day so I went to my office and off-loaded them onto my computer.  I had an e-mail from Gary at BCM with the latest markup of the PDF for the December 2015 issue.  I proofread my article and highlighted a half dozen things that needed to be changed, using the sticky note feature for the first time to indicate the corrections, and e-mailed it back to Gary and Jorge.

Linda got home about the time I clicked ‘send’ so I wrapped up my desk work and went upstairs.  She had not been grocery shopping this week and wasn’t sure what to fix for dinner so I suggested vegan pancakes.  Fifteen minutes later we were enjoying flapjacks with real maple syrup and cups of hot tea.  Breakfast for dinner is always a treat.  We spent a little time in the living room by the fireplace and then went to the rec room to watch a few TV programs while we doodled on our iPads.  We have been trying to break the habit of watching TV in bed but we finished watching the last show in bed and then turned out the lights.  In a reversal of our recent usual morning routine I have to be up early and Linda does not, but she still fell asleep before I did.

 

2015/10/29 (R) A Setback

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Linda turned off her alarm and slept a few extra minutes before getting up at 6 AM.  I watched the weather on TV while she got ready to go to the bakery.  She left at 6:25, about 10 minutes later than usual.  I am always amazed at how quickly she can get showered, dressed, and out the door.

The temperature across our area was 37 degrees F, more or less, and the wind was blowing, which we could see just by looking at our trees.  The winds were forecast at 15 – 25 MPH out of the SW gusting to 40 and strengthening into the morning hours as they shifted out of the west in advance of a second cold front.

Last night I shut off the color laser printer, the two NAS units, and the Linux box as a precaution against losing power but left my laptop on since it runs on its own internal battery.  Even though all of our devices with hard disk drives are plugged into uninterruptible power supplies, and we have an auto-start whole house generator with an automatic transfer switch, I decided to leave all of these computing devices turned off until the wind subsided later today.  Morning showers were forecast as likely, with the possibility of a few snowflakes, but never materialized.  Overnight lows tonight are forecast in the mid-to-lower 30’s.  The bus is not winterized, and I have been working in it almost every day, so I have had the heat turned on in the bus for most of October.  I do, however, set the thermostats back to approximately 55 degrees F when I am done working for the day.

I got up, put on my robe, fed the cats, and made a half pot of coffee (Sweet Seattle Dreams).  While the coffee was brewing I heated up a banana-nut muffin, poured a small glass of orange-grapefruit juice, washed the last of the blueberries, and fixed a bowl of granola.  I was done with breakfast by 7:15, took my coffee to the living room, and enjoyed it by the warm glow of the fireplace as I worked on my iPad with Juniper on my lap and watched the night yield to the orange glow of sunrise.

New photo accessories from B&H Photo Video in New York, NY.

New photo accessories from B&H Photo Video in New York, NY., photographed with the new Sony a99v-DSLT camera.

My main focus today was the cockpit of the bus, specifically the floor/wall tile, but first I got dressed, turned up the heat in the bus and the garage, and then opened the boxes that arrived yesterday from B&H Photo.  I managed to do that at 8:30 AM; well ahead of my usual getting started time of 10 to 10:30 AM.  Most of the items were in one large box but two small items were in a separate box that must have been shipped from a different location.  The shipping boxes were in good shape and the B&H sealing tape was intact.  I removed everything from the shipping boxes and then checked them off on the packing slip.  Again, all of the individual product boxes and other packaging were undamaged.  I opened each item, carefully removing all of the pieces and manuals/paperwork.  I arranged everything on the dining room table and took a few photos to document what was there.

I had been pondering the damaged plywood under the driver’s seat ever since I removed the old vinyl tile.  The exposed plywood was screwed down in lots of places so I figured it was not the original floor of the bus.  I could also see many additional plywood layers in the holes for the seat mounting bolts.  Closer inspection revealed that the top layer of plywood in the driver’s area was in two pieces, fore and aft, and that only the aft piece was damaged.  Based on all of that information I decided to try removing the aft piece.

All of the screws came out except for two and they just spun in their holes so I figured the wood around them was bad.  It took a little prying but the piece popped loose.  I pushed the two power wires for the motorized seat back through a hole and the board was free.  What I found made my heart sink.

First look at the water damage in the aft portion of the driver’s floor area.

First look at the water damage in the aft portion of the driver’s floor area.

The underside of the plywood was much more damaged than the top side and it was moist.  The original bus floor was even worse.  Part of it was missing and I was able to crumble much of what was still there from the rear mounting holes back.  It was obvious that there had been considerable long-term exposure to water but it was not obvious how this had occurred and was, apparently, still occurring.  I texted Linda and Chuck with a photo of the damage and heard back from both of them fairly quickly.  This was clearly an unanticipated setback but long term it was better that I discovered it, and had a chance to fix it, rather than having covered it up.

Speaking of covering things up, the top layer of plywood must have already been damaged when we bought the coach in late 2009.  One of the things we had Creative Mobile Interiors (CMI) do to the coach between September 2009 and April 2010 was pull the carpet out of the entry and cockpit and replace it with the gray vinyl tile that I just removed.  The tile was under the swivel pedestal base of the driver’s seat so whoever installed the tile must have removed the base and must have seen the obvious signs of damage.  They should have stopped right there and let someone know and CMI should have contacted us to discuss a course of action.  The obvious course of action would have been to pull up the top layer of plywood and see what was going on.  We would not have been happy about it at the time as we were already spending more money on fixing things than we anticipated, but we could have discovered and fixed this six years ago.

The floor directly under the base of the seat is the ceiling of the first bay on the driver’s side of the bus.  It was very chilly outside so I put on my hooded sweatshirt and had a look from below.  I could see that the four threaded holes for the seat mounting bolts were part of two large steel angles running fore and aft that were welded to two square tubular steel cross members.  From that observation I decided on how to proceed.

My plan was to cut out the bad plywood by cutting between the centers of the holes.  That would leave half of each angle to support a new piece of filler plywood.  I got the Porter-Cable oscillating saw and started cutting out the really rotten wood aft of the rear seat mounting holes.  I was not prepared for what I found when I finally got that piece out.

The damaged bus sub-floor cut away. I could see through into the bay below the driver’s seat. The blue to the left is paper shop towels soaking up the water and rotted plywood in a small tray area.

The damaged bus sub-floor cut away. I could see through into the bay below the driver’s seat. The blue to the left is paper shop towels soaking up the water and rotted plywood in a small tray area.

What I found was water; not dampness, but standing water.  And debris, lots of mucky debris.  We had a lot rain starting late Tuesday evening, all through the day yesterday, and overnight into early this morning so I suspected that this water might be “fresh” as in recently arrived in this location.

The cross member aft of the rear pair of seat mounting holes is the top of the rear wall of the compartment under the driver’s seat.  All of the water was in the area aft of the cross member in what appeared to be a kind of tray about two inches deep below the level of the driver’s floor.  It was almost full of disintegrated plywood, and other stuff, and obviously did not have a natural drain.  I sent a second  text message to Linda and Chuck with a photo of the water/debris-filled pan aft of the rear mounting holes for the driver seat pedestal.  Some things you just have to share, and some things you just have to see to believe.

It took me a little longer to realize what was going on as my immediate concern was cleaning up the mess.  I put on a disposable glove to pick up all the detritus in the tray and put it in a trash bag.  The tray extended under the floor towards the outside of the coach so I reached back in there and just kept pulling out more and more wet junk.  At this point I started to analyze what was in front of me.

It was now obvious to me that the damage to the floor under the driver’s seat was caused by water filling this tray and coming in contact with the bottom of the plywood bus floor.  With nowhere for the water to drain it was able to stay in contact with the plywood for very long periods of time allowing it to penetrate the plies, soften them, and destroy the (water soluble) glue between them.

Clearly I needed to figure out where this water is coming from and stop it, but that was not going to happen today.  I did, however, go back outside and check the front electrical bay.  Sure enough, there was a little water on the floor of that compartment, so it was possible that the water might be coming from there somehow.  If so, I need to find the breach and seal it.  That, however, just pushes the problem down the road as I will still need to figure out how water is getting into the electrical bay in the first place and stop that.

The more I studied the way the bus was built the clearer it became that the original plywood bus floor extends under the left console into the first bay and separates the small upper compartment from the larger one below.  But this tray-like area was below the floor and farther back which meant it was under the front electrical bay and above the driver side steer tire.  I will have to check again but it appeared that this piece of plywood must be the floor of the electrical bay.

With a better, but still incomplete, understanding of the situation I resumed cutting out plywood.  My oscillating saw went through the rotten wood like a hot knife through butter, but did not cut the undamaged plywood very well.  I figured the blade was dull so I opened the Bosch replacement blade I had on hand only to discover that it did not fit my Porter-Cable tool.  Arrrgh.

It was probably a good time for a break anyway, so I went to Lowe’s to get a couple of extra blades.  I had good QSOs with Mike (W8XH) going to and from the store.  The weather is supposed to be very pleasant all next week, with afternoon highs in the upper 60’s, so we are going to try to find a day to work on my antennas and the small tower next to the house.  Bus or no bus, I also have to make time for our amateur radio hobby.  When I got home I made popcorn for lunch and then got back to work.  It’s a good thing I don’t have to fix most of my meals.

Linda called at 3:15 PM to see if she needed to come home and pick me up before going to Ann Arbor.  Given what I was dealing with I was tempted to say ‘yes’ but I knew that this was a situation where I needed to stay on task until it was fixed.  Brendan and Shawna both had work-related obligations this evening and asked Linda if she could watch Madeline for a while.  Rather than have her cut her work day short to come home she left the bakery and drove directly to Ann Arbor while I continued to work on repairing the floor.

I called Chuck to see if he had time to consult with me about all of this.  He called me back and we talked it through.  He thinks the entry point for the water could be the frame on the large piece of fixed glass just aft of the driver’s position.  I know we have a leak near the front of the large window assembly just aft of that one and the forward edge of the window panel may also be above the front electrical bay.

As soon as I was done talking with Chuck I removed the reading light on the vertical walnut chase by the driver’s left shoulder and then removed the nine screws that hold the cover in place and took it off.  I have known for a long time that there was a lot of stuff running through that chase but I had never removed the cover to look inside.  It is crammed full of AC and DC wires, coaxial cables, air lines, and residential air-conditioning refrigerant lines.  My immediate interest was evidence of water, and I did find the same stains that were similar to ones we have found elsewhere in the coach, but I did not see anything that looked or felt wet.

With the new blade for my oscillating saw I managed to cut out the piece of plywood between the four mounting holes but it wasn’t easy.  With that piece out, however, I could use my inspection mirror to see the underside of the floor and reach into the space below to determine distances to various structural members with my carpenter’s tape measure.

I still had more wood to cut out but by 4:15 PM I’d had enough for today.  I set the top layer of plywood back in place and covered all of the larger holes with painter’s tape in a feeble effort to keep critters and cold air out of the coach overnight.  I also used two pieces of felt and painter’s tape to seal the hole where the steering column goes through the floor.  I took a few more photos, which I had been doing all along today.  Tomorrow I think I will use the circular saw and/or the cutoff tool and try to make quicker work of this.

Before quitting for real I decided to unscrew the 3-sided bump out from the passenger side HVAC duct cover and measure the left desk base and pedestal to see what the correct distance needs to be.  The bump out protrudes about four inches but it should only be three inches.  As I suspected it is too big by the width of the wood, but I will take more careful measurements before I take it to Jarel to have it cut down.  I also discovered, however, that the filter material we used to cover the hole where the heater hoses previously came out of the HVAC duct was interfering with the fit of the duct cover, including the bump out.  While I was thinking about it I pulled out the two filler strips that go on either end of the plywood sofa seat.  Jarel is going to remake them longer and out of solid walnut.  Since we moved the seat board out almost five inches one side of each strip is now exposed and visible and the stained plywood edge is just not the look we want.

We had a heavy overcast most of the day and by 5 PM the light was fading.  I dialed back the thermostats, grabbed the camera and the house phone, locked up the bus and went inside.  I changed into my robe and then fixed dinner.  I did not want to spend a lot of time preparing and eating a meal by myself so I had a can of Amy’s Chili with Vegetables.  I added crackers, Smoked Tabasco Sauce, and shredded Daiya mozzarella vegan cheese.  Some strawberry preserves on crackers added a touch of sweetness and Stash Raspberry Pomegranate Green Tea added its own warmth.  Given a little more time I can make a better meal for myself but ever since Linda retired and took over preparing our whole-food plant-based (vegan) cuisine I am no longer as comfortable/confident in the kitchen as I once was.  This way of eating involves ingredients and techniques with which I am simply not familiar.

After dinner I sat on the living room couch in the same spot, and in the same robe, as I did at the beginning of the day and worked on this post.  I like the sense of things coming full circle, but mostly it is a comfortable place to sit and use my iPad.  Linda and I texted for a while after she had put Madeline to bed.  At 9:07 PM she indicated that she was leaving Ann Arbor and heading home.  She got home a little before 10 and we sat in the living room for a while and finally turned in at 11.  It had been a long day for both of us.

 

2015/10/13 (T) Desk Alignment

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I got up at 8 AM, put on my robe, made coffee, fed the cats, and refreshed their water fountain while Linda got dressed and washed blueberries to put in our granola.  We took our coffee to the living room where I turned on the fireplace and we were joined by our feline friends.  I put the finishing touches on yesterday’s post and e-mailed it to myself while Linda pulled up the latest video post from Dr. Michael Greger at NutritionFacts.org.

Linda left at 9:30 AM to meet Diane at Kensington Metropark for their weekly walk.  As this will probably be their last walk together until spring they planned to go to lunch afterwards.  While there was some work I could do by myself on the (permanent) installation of the desk there were other aspects of the job that would definitely require two people.  I needed to finish updating the roster for the FMCA Freethinkers chapter so I spent about 30 minutes reading the manual for the new Sony SLT-a99v camera and then got dressed and worked in my office for the rest of morning.

After a short lunch break I resumed working on the roster until Linda got home.  She and Diane had lunch at Baker’s in Milford as it is close to the Metropark parking lot where they meet.  We removed most of the things from the bus we were not currently using, many of which were stored in the sofa storage box.  We got the sofa seat off of the desk pedestals and set it back in place on the sofa base.

I wanted to use pieces of a 24″ X 30″ furnace filter to cover the various air inlets in the desk bases and the air outlets in the OTR HVAC duct.  The best way to hold the filter material in place appeared to be with some very strong tape.  We did not have any such tape on hand so Linda went to Lowe’s and bought a roll of Gorilla Tape while I cut pieces of filter material to fit the various openings.

The left desk base and passenger side OTR HVAC duct showing the pieces of furnace filter material used to seal these openings while permitting filtered airflow.

The left desk base and passenger side OTR HVAC duct showing the pieces of furnace filter material used to seal these openings while permitting filtered airflow.

We got all of the openings taped up but I still needed to fabricate two tongue and groove alignment devices between the pedestals and the center connector/cover.  I make these out of flat mending plates, one on the pedestal (tongue), and two on the connector/cover (groove).  The tongue is flat against the back side of the pedestal vertical board and protrudes about 1/2″ beyond the edge.  The groove is made from two plates, one stacked on top of the other, attached to the back side of the vertical connector/cover board.  The upper plate is just back from the edge of the board and the lower one (next to the wood) is offset from the edge a little more than 1/2”, just enough to create a space for the tongue.  The tongue and groove devices match two others lower down on the connector/cover.  All four of them are oriented vertically allowing the connector/cover to drop into place and force it to align with the matching pieces of the pedestals.  A pair of horizontal plates, one on each pedestal, provide a resting surface for the connector/cover that aligns it horizontally.

With the devices fabricated we were finally able to set the pedestals on the bases, drop the connector/cover in place, and align everything as if the entire desk was a single unit.  We then got the Corian desktop out of my car, brought it into the coach, and set it in place.  It will require some careful adjustments before we screw everything down but it basically fit properly and looked good.  Final positioning of the left pedestal and base, however, would require us to put the front HVAC duct cover in position.

We got the cover out of the library and into the bus for the first time since we brought it home from Jarel Beatty Cabinetry in Logansport, Indiana.  The length was perfect but the bump out where the heater hoses were originally going to loop through was too deep.    I suspect the mistake was in my design/drawings.  Jarel knew this piece was supposed to line up with the left pedestal and base but I no longer recall if he even had the desk pieces in his possession when he was building the cover.  At this point it didn’t matter anyway.  The misalignment is with the base and is not very visible.  Also, the bump out is screwed on to the main cover so it can eventually be removed and trimmed or replaced with one that has the correct dimensions.

Once we had the cover in place I realized that I also needed to fabricate and install alignment plates between the cover and the left pedestal.  I had not planned on this and did not have enough mending plates so we went to Lowe’s to buy more.  While we were there I bought another can of 40:1 premixed fuel and a bottle of bar and chain oil for the new Poulan Pro 18” chainsaw.  We stopped at Walmart to see if they stocked a particular folding chair made by Stakmore that we have seen online, but they did not.  We think it would work nicely as a desk chair, and go well with the interior materials and colors in our bus, but we would like to see one in the round before buying it.

Back home I worked on the alignment plates while Linda prepared dinner.  We had leftover lentil loaf, microwaved sweet potatoes, and a mix of steamed broccoli and Brussels sprouts.  She added a little water to the lentil loaf before reheating it to moisten it a bit.  We both like ketchup on our lentil loaf and I added some Pick-a-Poo sauce to mine.  All three dishes were served hot, which was comforting on a cool evening, and everything was very tasty including the cup of hot tea.

I returned to the bus after dinner and finished installing the mending plates on the HVAC duct cover.  I was not able to put it in place by myself, and there was no reason to have Linda come out and help at this hour, so I set the thermostats back and locked up the bus.

I called Butch and this time the call went through.  I updated him on the installation and testing of the fan-coil heat exchangers and asked him about the operation of our new refrigerator.  He suggested that I isolate the remote temperature sensors by using pieces of the furnace filter material to keep them from touching an objects or surfaces directly.  He and Fonda are wrapping up at the RV Park in Bouse and moving to Quartzsite on Thursday.  After we were done talking I worked on this post while we watched a few TV programs and then went to bed.

 

2015/10/09 (F) All Charged Up

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We finished the current batch of granola for breakfast and had just finished our meal when Chris, from Bratcher Electric, showed up at 8:45 AM to service the whole house generator.  He let me watch and explained the various steps in the process.  The trickiest part appeared to be replacing the spark plug on the back side of the engine.  Everything else was fairly accessible.  There is a 1/4 turn valve to drain the oil and a rubber tube to get it out to a collection vessel.

Chris had what looked like a small gas can but it was painted blue.  It had a clear plastic tube attached to what would normally be the air vent.  The tube was sized to just fit inside the oil drain hose.  A vacuum pump was threaded on to opening where the pour spout would normally go.  A few pumps of the handle and the device sucked the oil right out of the engine and contained it so he could transport it easily and cleanly.  It was a very clever device, and obviously very handy for someone who does several generator maintenance procedures every day.

He gapped the spark plugs at 0.028″, checked the air filter (it was fine), replaced the oil filter, noting the date on the filter with a permanent marker, and put ~2-1/3 quarts of 5W-30 synthetic oil back in the engine.  He cautioned me to only use the specified filter and pure synthetic oil.  The engine runs hot under load and regular oil can lead to problems.  He checked all of the settings and changed the weekly self-test to run at full speed for the entire time.  He prefers that setting as it gets the engine up to normal operating temperature and helps burn off any moisture in the oil.  He started the unit manually, let it run for a while, and then shut it down and put in back in AUTO mode.

Linda prepared the dry ingredients for her vegan chocolate cupcakes and then put together a grocery list.  She left to go to Meijer’s while Chris was still working.  He finished up around 10:15.  I worked on the bus, using split plastic wire loom to protect the wires that power the fans on the heat exchangers.  I then worked on reconnecting the wires from the front bay electric heater to the supply wires.

A close up view of the fill/bleeder valve assembly for the heat exchangers in the desk bases.

A close up view of the fill/bleeder valve assembly for the heat exchangers in the desk bases.

The supply wires run inside the HVAC duct.  They originally came out of the duct and went through a hole in the floor into the OTR air-conditioning bay and then through the partition wall into the front bay.  I had to cut the cable and pull it through the floor from underneath so I could install the new floor tile.  I could clearly see where the OTR HVAC supply duct came into the distribution duct but when I tried drilling from below I seemed to hit metal.   The bottom of the duct was clearly plywood so I drilled from above with a 1/2″ spade bit.  I got through most of the plywood but again seem to hit metal.  I knew there wasn’t anything in that location, like wires, pipes, or air lines, so I switched to a 1/2″ twist drill and finished the hole.

I dropped a screwdriver through the hole so I could locate it from below.  I then pushed the electrical cable from the heater up through the hole and secured it to a fastener on the forward wall with a cable tie.  Linda got back at this point so I helped get the groceries into the house.  She then mixed a new batch if granola and put it in the oven to bake.  I gathered up my electrical tools, uncapped the feed wires, checked them with a volt meter to make sure they were not energized, connected the feed wires to the load wires, and tucked them back inside the duct.

We had a choice as to what to work on next—fill the heat exchangers and hoses with antifreeze or hang the wallpaper in the hallway—so we had lunch.  Summer has passed, but tofu hotdogs with mustard, onion, and relish, along with some red grapes, was still a tasty lunch.

When we got back to work in the coach we decided to hang the wallpaper.  The pieces were already cut and laid out on the bed.  Hanging them not only got them off the bed, it would allow us to get the wood trim off the bed as well and back on the lower wall.  But not today.  The wallpaper adhesive needs to cure for 24 hours before we work around it and does not achieve its full cure for 5 to 7 days.  We have one piece of wallpaper to hang behind the forward end of the sofa but the wall prep is not finished in that area.  Once that piece is up, and we have the Corian top for the desk, we can complete the installation of the desk and sofa.

Shawna was bringing Madeline at 4:30 PM to spend the night with us.  It was already 2:30 and I needed to get cleaned up and put on non-work clothes before they arrived so we called it a day.  I had once again accumulated quite a few tools in the bus.  I gathered up all of the ones I was done with, returned them to the garage, and locked up the coach.  The UPS truck showed up with my package from B&H Photo which I set aside temporarily while I took a shower and got dressed.

The box looked like it had been treated well in shipment.  I opened the box, carefully removed all of the contents, and compared them to the order/packing list.  Everything was there and appeared to be in pristine condition.  I unwrapped the battery charger and Lithium ion battery, put the battery in the charger, and plugged it in.  The new charger is essentially the same as the one that came with my Sony alpha 100 years ago so I got the old one from the basement.  I bought five additional batteries so I opened one of them and plugged it in to the old charger.  I then found the Instruction Manual and curled up with it on the living room sofa while Juniper (the cat) curled up on me.

The directions with the charger and the batteries indicated that it can take up to 175 minutes to fully recharge a battery and that full charge is not obtained until an hour after the charging light goes out.  So, basically, I need to leave the batteries in the charger for three hours to ensure they are fully charged.  The camera takes one battery, and the vertical grip accessory takes two batteries, so my normal operating configuration will be to have three batteries in the use.  That’s why I have a total of six batteries for this new camera.  I will probably buy another charger so I can charge three batteries simultaneously.

I called Chuck to let him know I got my car back late yesterday but would not be able to move the windshields box until sometime next week.  It turned out that he and Barbara were also busy all weekend.  His daughter, son-in-law, and grandson were in town with more family arriving from Trinidad and Tobago this evening.  Tomorrow is his grandson’s first birthday and Sunday he is being baptized at the church in Ann Arbor where Chuck’s daughter was married.

Shawna showed up just after 4:30 PM.  Madeline had fallen asleep in the car and was slow to wake up, clinging to her mom for quite a while.  Linda brought in the various bags of clothes and toys along with the inflatable bed and got everything situated in the middle bedroom.  When Linda mentioned making cupcakes Madeline finally woke up and became cheerful.  Once her focus was on baking with Grandma Linda Shawna was able to slip away without any drama on Ms. M’s part.

Today was Brendan and Shawna’s friend Jorge’s birthday and the three of them were headed to a new restaurant in Detroit to celebrate.  The restaurant does not take reservations and is apparently very popular at the moment so Shawna was not sure if they would actually get to eat there.

With Linda’s help Madeline mixed the ingredients for the cupcakes and managed to pour most of the batter into the baking tray.  Linda then prepared dinner while I played with Madeline.  We did the ABCs on her placemat, and then colored with crayons.  Dinner was mock chicken tenders, edamame, and steamed carrot rounds with fresh orange segments and sliced strawberries, so it was mostly fresh, whole plant-based foods.

As soon as the cupcakes were cool enough to be frosted Madeline coated each one with the special Halloween orange frosting and the back and orange Halloween sprinkles.  I was summoned to inspect the work and then it was time to eat.  Madeline selected a cupcake for herself and then one for me and one for Linda.  We ate them at the table and they were very good.

After cupcakes we played soccer with two different balls, kicking and throwing them all around the house.  By 8 PM we needed to start winding things down.  Shawna had left her iPad and Madeline selected a Curious George video about Christmas.  Linda and Madeline climbed up in our bed where they could stretch out their legs and watched the first 60% of the cartoon.  I opened two more camera batteries and put them in the chargers and then joined the girls.  We will watch the rest of the cartoon tomorrow morning.

I helped Madeline brush her teeth and Linda got her into her pajamas.  Linda read her several stories and finally got her in bed around 9:15 PM.  During dinner Madeline inquired about having pancakes for breakfast.  (I had made the same inquiry over lunch.)  Linda did not have all of the ingredients she needed so after Madeline went to bed I went to Meijer’s in Howell and bought avocado oil and all-purpose flour.  Linda is trying to use up ingredients rather than stock up on them so I bought a two pound bag of King Arthur organic unbleached enriched all-purpose flour even though I could have bought a 10 pound bag of the Meijer’s brand (bleached and not organic) for only 50 cents more.

Just before going to bed I opened two more batteries and put them in the chargers.  We went to bed at 11 PM but did not turn on the TV to ensure that we did not disturb Madeline’s sleep.  I was basically done with the draft of this post and read some more of the Instruction Manual for my new Sony alpha 99 (SLT-A99V) camera and vertical battery grip (VG-C99AM).  I am really looking forward to using this new equipment but it takes a couple of days to charge batteries, install software, and read manuals enough to be able to configure it for first use.  This class of camera has a lot of adjustable parameters with default settings that may or may not be what any particular user wants.

 

2015/07/27 (M) Finish Drawings

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I got up at 7:25 AM and fed the cats.  There was a very large tom turkey feeding in the back yard by the basement walkout and just far enough out from the house that I could see him from the dining room doorwall where we keep the cats’ food dishes.  He walked up the west slope and then cautiously headed for our lower deck.  I kept an unseen eye on him from the kitchen corner window as he headed east towards the main deck.  I thought he might have spotted Linda’s tomato and herb planters but he kept on going.  Perhaps he caught sight of Jasper, or me, or his own reflection but something spooked him and he trotted to the east end of the deck.  He had Jasper’s full, undivided attention by this point and just walked around until he decided to walk down the stairs into the east yard and around the east end of the house.  I lost sight of him after that but we have seen turkeys feeding on that end of the house before and they have ready access to dense, protective cover from there.  I suspect this is the same lone tom that we have seen feeding in Cory’s yard across the street.

I sat and played games for a while and then started working on this post at 8:15 AM.  At 8:30 I caught a glimpse of a deer crossing the road into our yard by the main driveway but could not get up to get a better view as Juniper had settled in in my lap.  Linda got up around that same time having finally gotten a good night’s sleep.  I got dressed and made coffee.  We finally had breakfast at 10 AM.

My initial focus for today was to finish the drawings for the pull-out pantry, design/draw the cover for the front half of the passenger side HVAC duct and wiring chase, and design/draw the small cover that will connect the chase cover to the left side of the left desk pedestal base and hide the heater hoses.  I took occasional breaks to chat with friends on the South Lyon 2m repeater and finished my drawings at 4:30 PM.

Linda located a FedEx Office location in Brighton so I drove there instead of to the one in Novi to make copies and buy a mailing tube.  The copies did not come out as well as at the other office so I rolled up the originals and put them in the tube.  I checked to see what it would cost to have FedEx deliver the tube.  Their cheapest method was going to cost $28 and take three days to get there so I went across the street to the post office and mailed them to Jarel in Logansport, Indiana it for $2.94.  It will be there by Thursday and may get there by Wednesday.

When I got home I e-mailed Jarel to let him know the drawings were on the way.  Linda then reheated various leftovers for dinner.  I had started the day with an ambitious list of things I wanted to accomplish but by the time we were done with dinner I decided I had accomplished enough for the day and took an uncharacteristic nap.  I had just woken up when Butch called and we chatted about buses for a bit.  We turned in earlier than usual and watched Antiques Roadshow and the concluding episode of Ken Burn’s “The Dust Bowl” on the Detroit PBS station.