3 foot roof raise in Northern Arizona

[zoomy]

I think i remember from when i was designing a catamaran your looking at justabout 64 lbs per cubic foot of water. Wich is crazy to think you can get almost 8 gallons in a cubic foot.

On the smoker for rust treat it like a cast iron pan. Heat it up and rub it with oil.. i like bacon grease.

As for advise on a grill smoke likes to go up not over so build up not out. If I do another one i will try to get a residental propane tank thats out of date and flip it vertical. Make sure you have a good seal on the doors, brick or tile line the firebox, and you need to be able to have as much vent as intake but controle both.

[zoomy]

So today i should be hanging the last pannel in the rear. It has been a pain in the butt, but its just about over. The good news is i discoverd butyl strips/mastic tape/tacky tap so im not screwing around with the butyl caulk and inertubes exept in a few rough spots

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J368RokGI-U

I was fortunate enough that one of my uncles had a large 8' ish x4' aluminum panel so im able to have 1 continuous panel on the nose. I was also luck to have a friend drop in for a few hous and get it shoved in place befor the storm hit us too hard.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XCfWH4WQFWs

A few days later we came back to it and backed out the screws to move the drivers side corner up a 1/2 inchthen we starterd puting screws in and used ratchet straps to help hold down the corners while we beat the corners with a 2x4 and hammer and screwed them down one vertical row at a time.

Also i cut off the rounded tips of the trim and re welded them, flaper wheeled, and primed them on the other side so i can use them over what was the exit door to the new door.



Not too bad, may put a little bondo in at the end to smooth it out.

[cadillackid]

wow!! thats one serious roof raise.. how tall will your bus be total?
-Christopher

[zoomy]

Originally Posted by cadillackid

wow!! thats one serious roof raise.. how tall will your bus be total?
-Christopher

13' 5.9" +/- the uneven dirt its parked on and an escape hatch swap

[Robin97396]

That is an impressive lift, and pass the brisket.

Ahhh... .9"? Just add water, in tanks. I'm thinking the height may change when you get that loaded, or are you on air bags?

The back wall is out. Toy hauler? Wow, still can't get over the height. Not to many back roads for you, huh? Those 11' railway bridges around my area would block your getaway. Very impressive, and a lot of work done relatively quickly. That countryside looks pretty green in your vid. Arizona never looked that color to me, but I passed through in winter of '88.

[zoomy]

Originally Posted by Robin97396

That is an impressive lift, and pass the brisket.

Ahhh... .9"? Just add water, in tanks. I'm thinking the height may change when you get that loaded, or are you on air bags?

The back wall is out. Toy hauler? Wow, still can't get over the height. Not to many back roads for you, huh? Those 11' railway bridges around my area would block your getaway. Very impressive, and a lot of work done relatively quickly. That countryside looks pretty green in your vid. Arizona never looked that color to me, but I passed through in winter of '88.

no air bags yet thinking about it down the road. the .9" is me just being a smart ass 13' 6" is the legal limit and i'm trying to stay just under, it does com out to be around 13 5 and change on most of my measurements tho.

just got the back wall panels back in today, not toy hauler. that's why i got the 8.3 cummins so i can tow any toys.
yes driving back east concerns me for low bridges.
the bus is on the dry end of the property but down to the east we have an irrigation ditch that waters the lower pasture. its a great spot in AZ 1 hour from every thing. 1 hour up to skiing at snowbowl in the winter. 1+ hour to Phoenix for shopping......RV salvage yards.. 1-hour to Prescott and you can drive 10 min in any direction and go shooting. lots of land for hiking rock climbing number of lakes if you need the beach. definitely glad I made the exodus from Californistan and came home.

[zoomy]

the silver lining of yesterday

a frien came over and helped me hang and screw in the back panels. he brought his drill and impact, i think i might be investing in an impact gun becaus my dads onl 3/8 drive drill strips more, weighs more, drives less and is more likely to break your wrist.

any way we got a pretty good system down wich sped up the drilling and screwing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asmFb-HwnrM

[Tango]

13'-6" is the national standard but don't drive expecting it to be consistent everywhere. In fact, I believe there is a truckers guide somewhere that maps out thousands of known "low spots" around the country.

Guess how they were discovered?

[EastCoastCB]

couldnt resist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzkWTcDZFH0

[Scooternj]

Originally Posted by EastCoastCB

couldnt resist

Speaking of low spots...

[zoomy]

So I need to call on all the physics majors and any body with a knack for thermo and hydro dynamics. i'm trying to figure out my water system specifically the hot water because I want to have alternative heating methods. in the diagram below the very simple drawing on top is a tried and true water heater that I grew up with. hot water tank elevated above heating coils, 4 outlets to the tank hot and cold intake and out put then tank water to and from heating coil. the heating coils was 3/8" copper tubing coiled around the 6" chimney pipe. 6" pipe x pie 18+" time 10 coils a little better than 15' of coil creating thermal up lift and cycling the water WITH OUT any pumps or moving parts. only 2 cons to this. 1 too hot a fire and the water would boil in the coil... not bad just make funny sounds and then the pressure valve would vent. 2. we had hard water so every few years the coil would lime up and we would have to replace it. my dads advice was to use coolant/ oil in the coil.

this is where i need you guys the bottom part of the diagram is my skoolie blue is cold water, red is hot water, green is coolant. i'm going to have a disconnect panel going to the solar for movement and possibly for cold months, wood for winter, and LP heater if I end up some where with no room for panels and to hot for wood. now the question is where do i place the heat exchanger and the oil reservoir where i can still capitalize on the thermal moment and reduce the need for 3 pumps for the system.


the feed in to the bus is looped so when i take it to cold climates there will be more circulation to keep the pipes and tanks from freezing. i also wanted to have the heat exchanger in the under storage with the tanks but i'm not sure if that will be conducive to thermal flow.

also i thought i had an exchanger lined up that would be conducive to thermal flow but this is all i can find now.
50 Plate Wood Boiler Heat Exchanger 1" Ports Outdoor Wood Boiler Radiant Heat | eBay

let me know your thoughts

[Elliot Naess]

To find low clearance underpasses, the book you want is Rand McNally's Motor Carriers' Road Atlas. It has a list of all such, and much else. You should be able to buy it in any truck stop.
Many states allow 14', and this atlas shows those also. I doubt many states enforce 13'6", but you might want to be safe on that.
Chicago is a special case, because of the infamous Elevated Trains. There is a whole book full of nothing but Chicago underpass clearances, many of which are ridiculously low. I must have given that book away, as I cannot find mine. (Of course, it was rather old, too.)

[cadillackid]

I Love all the Uhaul's on that bridge.... penske needs to close the rental office near that bridge!
-Christopher

[Carytowncat]

Viva le Brisket!

[dgorila1]

Originally Posted by aaronsb

Enjoy the time with the kids (both kinds) they don't stay small for long.

I agree, you can never get time back. Spend as much time with your kids as you can. Buses come and go every day but the kids are what you're doing it all for.
And yes, that is an awesome smoker!

[dgorila1]

Originally Posted by Elliot Naess

Impressive. Very impressive, Sir.

Regarding height, wind, and handling....

I drove 18-wheelers for 27 years, mostly pulling 53-foot vans, and I was mighty close to blowing over a couple times on I-80 in Wyoming when I had very lightweight Kellogg's cereal loads. But the worst was one time in Oklahoma with the trailer empty -- pretty sure I had daylight under the left trailer tires for a moment.

Millicent, with her two-foot roof raise, has not been in anything like such winds, but I feel I still understand the basics of driving her. And the fundamental concept is that a bus is no more a car than an 18-wheeler is. You simply must drive a bus as if you are your own grandma. Slow waaaayyyy down for any curve. Never change lanes if you can help it. If a dog runs out in front of you... simply drive right thru it -- don't even twitch a finger on that steering wheel.

By driving Millicent pretty much the way I drove 18-wheelers, I do not expect any difficulty -- even if I raise the roof another foot or so, which I am considering doing. And at the current height we have put 56,950 miles on her so far.

Last year I loaded her past the axle ratings, and the weight was fairly high in the rear cargo compartment. Basically, I had Stuff made of steel stacked to the ceiling. And the living quarters were piled almost as severely -- I had to climb on top of tool chests, lumber, and much else heavy stuff to get to the bathroom midships.

This made for noticeably trickier handling, especially leaning in curves. I drove accordingly -- like great-great-grandma this time.

I don't think I can possibly emphasize enough the importance of driving appropriately for the vehicle and load.

At the trucking company I sometimes trained new drivers, and some of them scared me severely. They had not yet understood what they were driving, and they flew into curves as if they were in a sports car. With a fleet of 200 - 250 trucks, and a severe shortage of experienced drivers, we had one laid over on an exit ramp or other curve about once a month.

I appreciate mathematics. It gets "fun" with wind having increasing leverage for each unit of vehicle-height, and also the diminishing angle to the opposite side tires (as referred to earlier), which increases the tipping force even more. Studying this would no doubt be educational. But what the driver of a tall bus really needs is the realization that he must use both his gut and his brain every second the bus is in motion.

That concludes the sermon. Please help yourself to cookies and tea in the vestibule.

What it comes down to is they're buses (aka truck chassis), not sports cars and must be driven as such. There was a spate of commercial coach bus crashes recently in NJ and NY from the drivers driving them way too fast. In every one of the crashes the coaches rolled over and people were killed and seriously injured. These drivers just don't understand you can't drive a 40,000lb vehicle like a car. My daughter is only 12 and already knows to give semi's, trucks and any other large vehicle room when we're driving. She's just picked it up from me complaining while driving when we see idiots pull right in front of trucks with no idea of the amount of time it takes a truck to stop and the huge weight they are. At least she'll be well informed when she gets her license in 4 or 5 years. Don't even get me started on everyone driving distracted because of modern technology, doing their makeup, eating, etc!

[zoomy]

Got to get back out on the bus while its cool so ill be brief. Working in a steel tube when its 110 in the shade sucks so ive gone nocturnal. Stubed plumbing and electric in.

[RC000E]

Originally Posted by EastCoastCB

couldnt resist

I love the guys with the fifth wheel campers...they tear those cardboard trailers apart and I don't think many of them even knew it hit. Imagine getting to the campground and seeing your a/c units, antenna and everything else gone...

[dbhost]

Originally Posted by zoomy

Rear corner pillers in place. You can also see how I delt with the whole backend




The rubber strip that the factory put in the seams that is reminiscent of the inertube strips that the guy at Ace recomended.




Rik trying to be a vato. Got all the new steel primed. Most of the existing steel was galvenized.





Things look so bright and shinny in side with the silver metalic primer on......and with the tarps off





Night pic




Outside after priming. You can see the homemade D tube that we made for the front corner pillers.




The infamous Aluminum skin being beaten in to shape. Used my 1,000 yard target for an anvil to keep it flat.

Whoah that thing is massively tall!

What is your total height from the ground? I suspect short bridges are going to be a problem for you!

[zoomy]

https://youtu.be/D_s7UO6TwFQ

I hate laying wires.... that is all