Abominable Snowbus

[nat_ster]

We love pics.

Please keep them coming.

Nat

[VeldatheWonderbus]

We're at about the same point in our renovations, but luckily Velda is held together with screws inside, not rivets, so I'm doing a lot less grinding. You're kicking @ss! Good luck and have fun!

[nat_ster]

Smacking each screw sideways with the hammer and chisel will knock them loose, breaking the rust and paint so they will come out with the impact / screw driver.

We do this at work when doing electrical, ect.

Nat

[LRflip]

yea, those rivets were a real PITA.

these windows and the final interior prep work before build has been an even bigger PITA given it's been raining here for the last week or so.

continuing the rebuilding of the windows tonight. I snapped a gasket on one of the long windows which I don't have any extra of handy, so I'll be going back to the donor bus (again) for another round. I'll probably snag two of the extra long windows just for the gaskets.

Just a word of advice for anyone planning to rebuild their existing windows, be gentle on the gaskets around the panes. They're old, they're brittle, and they like to shrink after you wash them.

If you just give them a good tug (off the pane) they'll stretch back into shape but you must be patient or else you'll rip them like me. or better yet, don't take them off the pane in the first place, they're a pain to clean and I'm not sure the juice is worth the squeeze with cleaning them.

cheers,

Matt

[LRflip]

As promised, here's a picture of the operation. I'm getting about 3 done per night. This is a mixture of cleaning the snot out of them, drinking heavily, and watching the Trailer Park Boys. Notice the amount of beer bottles in the corner. Oh, bachelor life is good...



Also, if I keep it up...I think I'm going to enter a beard competition next year. I might have a good shot if I keep not shaving:



And, for whoever rated my thread 5 stars...thank you.

cheers,

Matt

[nat_ster]

That is some curly beard. It would be tough to comb. Lol.

Nat

[LRflip]

No real updates over the weekend. My friend had a birthday, so Saturday was spent throwing down and Sunday was spent laying down. I'm still not sure I'm back to 100%, but carried on with some work this evening anyways.

Until I get to the work, some other interesting things:

Apparently, there is a PI conference in town...the irony is staggering:



I also couldn't help but think of this too, lol:



Also, bent the clip on my benchmade to a point where it wouldn't stay in my pocket and I was afraid I was going to lose it. I love this knife, easily the best knife I've ever owned. I also hate serrated blades. I see their merit, I just don't need a saw in my pocket. Anyways, for $4.00 I had my local knife guy put a new clip on, clean, lubricate, and sharpen it. The knife looks like the day I bought it. Great to have local guys that can take care of you.



So, on to work on the bus. Got the back half of the window sills trimmed out and the rest of the panels painted. Hoping they'll dry overnight so I can start putting the windows in on the high side this week. I've got a real problem with water ingress while the windows are out...imagine that.

Here's the glow of the worklamp...



Another view from the inside. A keen eye will notice the Trojan T-105 plus power houses and the freshly rebuilt windows in the background.



Also, I got a new hoodie from work and the beard competition is imminent for next year:



Also, I don't know if anyone on here has Instagram...but, I'm on there by the same name LRflip. You'll find the same updates only with less fluff.

See you next time,

Matt

[EastCoastCB]

Good luck on the beard!
I shave twice a year...

Some friends of mine are honeymooning in Estes as I type this.

[LRflip]

Tell them to skip the Stanley, spend as much time in the park as possible, there's live music at Ed's on Tuesday until 9pm, The Rock Inn is the best restaurant in town, and to drive like they have a brain in their head.

Also, the Elk rut is best seen at the 9 hole golf course right off of Big Thompson Ave. It's closed right now because of the aggressive bulls anyways, and they can get close (but tell them to stay a safe distance away, some guy got gored last week).

http://www.estesparknews.com/feature...5636649a5.html

If I see someone get that close, I will personally bitchslap them. If it happens a couple times, the bull is put down. Fortunately, CPW "couldn't identify exactly" which bull was involved this time...and the guy is facing charges for being a dipshit.

Cheers,

Matt

[EastCoastCB]

Cool, thanks Matt.
I just texted them all that... Even though its a bit early out there!

[LRflip]

More work tonight...

Got a call from my buddy today, apparently his 14 yr old got caught at school with a can of dip. As a lesson, my buddy decided to do the old trick and give his kid as much dip as possible at once to turn him off of it. So, since I'm the only one he knows that chews, he called me and asked me my brand. I told him and he said after the punishment, he'd give me the rest...

So, score:



Onto the work...I started with about half of the bus to paint, and was determined to finish it tonight so I could start windows tomorrow:



So, onto the painting:

In thinking now, I probably should have painted the door too, but I'll probably just leave it.



It's crazy how fast the black dulls down with just a little bit of foot traffic:





Additionally, my neighbor made me my favorite desert. All I had to do was let her take a shower at my house and change her moms windshield wiper. Also, she's very attractive so not that difficult to handle.

Lemon Icebox Pie:



Cheers,

Matt

[Tango]

Mmmmmm...Yum! Nice score!

[EastCoastCB]

That Copenhagen will make your beard extra "good".

[The Nebuchadnezzar]

Good progress, good sir.

[LRflip]

More work on the Abominable Snowbus this evening...and, according to weatherbug, it's about a week from earning it's name, so it's time for me to scoot and get some real work done.

Took a small break from work today to head to my local ACE Hardware. For being such a small town, we have no shortage of hardware stores...We have a True Value in town that has damn near everything, there's a mom and pop joint called Park Supply, and there's a lumber yard. Between the 4 you can usually find what you need, but the hours of all of them besides ACE suck for actually having a project after work or on weekend, so I generally find myself at ACE.

Anyways, went to ACE to pickup some silicon for my planned window install tonight. In the sealant aisle, I quickly found a general white silicon sealant that I seemed pleased with. Then I looked up and saw it, like the beard of Zeus himself....

Great Stuff, on sale, for $2.99. The wide gap and the regular stuff. So I bought every damn can on the shelves...$93.60 worth to be exact.

I ended up with 27 Cans:



Hopefully I'll be able to use it for all the voids on the metal that I can't get the polyfoam into.

Onto the windows:



They went in simple enough...no real magic here. Just some adjusting and aligning which for some strange reason I had a lot of patience for tonight.





This irks me that I didn't clean the bottom glass when I rebuilt all the windows, but a quick once over with some windex will take care of that...I have more important **** to do.



The first window behind the drivers seat isn't the exact one I took out, I didn't realize this until I reinstalled that a couple small drilled holes didn't line up. I'll re-drill them and support them with some wood over time. Since I didn't have the screws and/or the patience to deal with it, I just put a small hand clamp on it until all the sealant sets and I can fix it right.

Potter was not impressed tonight...even for a Malamute, I think it got a little cold for him. You know, metal floor and all.



The rubber window gaskets say to only install on surfaces 40deg and higher for best results. I could tell that was bullshit when they started to peel after I had applied them on the last window of the night. 44deg is close enough for me to call it quits for the night. All I had was a light hoodie and the metal conducts the cold so well.



Finally, my friends left town for the season in search of some work in Texas. They left me her car for storage and gave me a new pair of wading boots as a thank you. Since I have the space, it was easy to oblige.



Well, I think thats about it for tonight. I'm going to watch some Bojack Horseman and eat some leftover guacamole from last night.

Hasta Manana or whatever.

Matt

[LRflip]

So, this came in the mail for me today:



If I'm going to compete, it's time to get serious. This is what the current world champion uses. If it's good enough for Big Red, it's good enough for me.

Finished the rest of the windows tonight, before dark even...I was pretty proud of that:







I tell you what though, the windows are doing great. I wish I could find a girl as tight and smooth as those windows. I'm just having one that is giving me issues, I'll probably take it out to rebuild, but not sure yet.

I used silicone sealant from the inside, but I will be going around and filling all the gaps from the outside. Pretty big gaps there are too. I installed the rubber gaskets which will act as a sort of backing rod for the exterior sealant hopefully.

I was on a bit of a roll and feeling spry so I got onto figuring out how I wanted to start insulation:

Measured and cut the 2' PolyIso, and glued it into place.



Great Stuff filled in everything else:



Then I just kinda kept going:





Thats it for tonight...hopefully crawling up on the roof tomorrow for some scrape and seal time. I'm not really looking forward to it...I don't like heights.

night,

Matt

[LRflip]

Got the rest of the walls insulated, and about 3/4 of the roof seams ground out and sealed. By the way, Lexel was something I just picked up and it turns out to be a great product...it comes out like rubber cement. Dries flexible and is paintable. I'd coat the entire roof in the stuff if I could.




Then I did this:





It's about 90% wired up. I used all my connectors and ended up a few short. I've got them on order. Once they get it, I'll run it through the gangbox I installed and frame up my rig for the charge controller, converter, etc.

That's it.

Matt

[Jman6631]

Great looking project, man!

What kind of paint did you use on the interior? Rust-Oleum? I read back a few pages but didn't find it listed.

[charles_m]

Nice looking stuff man, we should meet up! I live in a bus yard in Denver and Im in Boulder all the time.

I did wonder why you mounted your middle panels angled? I would think that not having them at least all flat means that theres always going to be half of one of those two that is underperforming/and/overperforming the other one. This will cause efficiency issues with your charge controller, depending on how you wire the panels and what kind of technology your charge controller uses. As is, your setup might require MPPT technology (I recommend MPPT for anything over a few hundred watts anyway) Id recommend going with the same pitch on all the panels--you want to try and keep the panels performing equally.
cheers buddy! I got a beard too

[The Nebuchadnezzar]

Making great progress! Just turned the key on my solar for the first time yesterday, so the Neb didn't blow up