Rusty 87 build thread

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by Frochevy

Can you purchase little brackets or make brackets that bolt to door and tensioner goes through?

The windows I have are as follows. 28 3/4" wide by 28 3/8" tall. Let me know if they will work for you.

Ah well, that's too wide unfortunately. Mine are 27.5" wide. The height is right at least - maybe I can hammer 'em in.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by Oldyeller

Regarding the tensioner, how about if you cut out a piece of the insulation in the area to be welded with a thin bladed implement, do the required welding then glue the now "custom cut patch" back in?

That's a very good idea.

[Frochevy]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

Ah well, that's too wide unfortunately. Mine are 27.5" wide. The height is right at least - maybe I can hammer 'em in.

Oh well. Worth a shot. Thanks

[musigenesis]

The corpse of my eternal foe (the Tree of Heaven, motherland of the spotted lanternflies), nicely framed by my back door.



Starting on the framing for my back wall. This needs to be a bit beefier than my theoretical ideal of a pure XPS foam board wall, since it has to hold up storage and my bed etc., so I'm using 2x3s ripped to 2". My brother found me a 1952 table saw on Craigslist for $25 and with a new saw blade it's working great. I love me some 50s tools even when they have nothing resembling a safety feature.

I'm trying to figure out the best way to attach these studs to the folded piece just above the door. I have a gadget that lets you drill at odd angles and I'm going to try to run deck screws through predrilled holes in the metal from the back side and into the wood, but I'm not sure that's going to work. Probably holes with a deep counterbore and bolts would be a lot easier, but I have to at least try to do everything in a funky manner first.



Added some wing pieces to hold the XPS foam board in place and to anchor the studs at the top.



My bus is having fuel starvation issues at high RPM while going up hills, which I'm hoping is just a sign of needing a new fuel filter. I'm going to be taking care of that for the next few days, most likely.

[Native]

Did you have the honor of cutting down that Tree of Heaven?


You sure are an imginative one. It will be interesting to see how your wall is fastened.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by Native

Did you have the honor of cutting down that Tree of Heaven?

No, the tree fell of its own accord and then somebody else chopped it up. I was annoyed at first because they left something like ten trunk logs lying behind my bus, each one about two feet long and a foot in diameter. Fortunately Tree of Heaven is more like balsa wood and I was able to pick these logs up with one hand and fling them into the creek.

Originally Posted by Native

You sure are an imginative one. It will be interesting to see how your wall is fastened.

It will be interesting to me too! Since I haven't exactly figured it out yet.

[musigenesis]

Now that I have a spare escape hatch, I can leisurely try to turn it into a skylight. I cut out the vent to get some scraps of the hatch plastic to play with; once I figure out how I'm going to do this I'll cut out the rest of the inside leaving just the rim of the hatch.





My idea is to cut a piece of Lexan to fit snugly in the opening and then "weld" it in place with my soldering iron. My experiment (with 0.08" plexiglass) worked although it was pretty ugly.





Er, no it didn't. Snapped right off with no effort. The presence of the black stuff (I'm guessing it's carbon) when I weld plastic is a sign I didn't let the iron heat up enough.



This worked a lot better, with the plexiglass overlapping the hatch plastic. The plexiglass broke instead of separating from the hatch when I bend-tested it.



I'm kind of surprised, seems this might actually work. I would use seam sealer as well to ensure it was watertight, but the risk is that it would separate over time from vibration and temperature extremes.

[musigenesis]

Took my bus in to a new shop today, recommended by an owner of a garbage pickup company in my neighborhood who stopped to ask me about my bus a few weeks ago. They seem not prone to doing unnecessary work. My bus has been losing power occasionally at high RPMs up steep hills and I thought possibly the fuel filters need changing, but the mechanic said the filters and the fuel look fine; he thinks possibly some air bubbles got in the lines when my tank got low, or possibly the turbo is having trouble spinning up sometimes until it knocks some rust loose.

My front brake drums are apparently cracked or cracking. Mechanic said they would technically fail a PA safety inspection, so I'm going to have them fixed. I'm registered in VT and don't legally need a safety inspection unless I drive to Vermont, but I do want to not crash and die or kill others.

He found a faulty air sensor up front, which is the source of the random squawking alarms I've been getting from it. It's so agitating to have that thing going off all the time while driving, they definitely chose the correct sound for it. He also is going to try fixing the dashboard cutting out - he's aware of this being common in ICs and hopefully they can fix it (this is something I was planning to do myself but I just have so much else to do and really need to milk this shop trip for as many fixes as I can get out of it).

He was able to determine that my ABS is out because of a cut line to the left rear sensor, and said it made sense that the welder I hired probably cut it during demo or possibly some slag from welding did it. They'll pull the wires out of the shroud and fix that problem, too.

I'll get the estimate tomorrow. I'm braced for a large number.

[Native]

Here is tohoping it is not drastic. What you described is probably (not a paid mechanic here) 4 shop hours to fix, plus parts. So, my guess will be $500.00 ... just a guess.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by Native

Here is tohoping it is not drastic. What you described is probably (not a paid mechanic here) 4 shop hours to fix, plus parts. So, my guess will be $500.00 ... just a guess.

That would be nice, but I think maybe just the ABS fix by itself is going to cost that much - he said it would take a couple to a few hours, and I assume their hourly rate is well over $100 (I should have asked but sometimes I'd rather just not know).

Oh well, it will be nice to have some peace of mind going into the winter here.

[kidharris]

Originally Posted by musigenesis

Now that I have a spare escape hatch, I can leisurely try to turn it into a skylight. I cut out the vent to get some scraps of the hatch plastic to play with; once I figure out how I'm going to do this I'll cut out the rest of the inside leaving just the rim of the hatch.

Attachment 49030

Attachment 49031

My idea is to cut a piece of Lexan to fit snugly in the opening and then "weld" it in place with my soldering iron. My experiment (with 0.08" plexiglass) worked although it was pretty ugly.

Attachment 49032

Attachment 49033

Er, no it didn't. Snapped right off with no effort. The presence of the black stuff (I'm guessing it's carbon) when I weld plastic is a sign I didn't let the iron heat up enough.

Attachment 49034

This worked a lot better, with the plexiglass overlapping the hatch plastic. The plexiglass broke instead of separating from the hatch when I bend-tested it.

Attachment 49035

I'm kind of surprised, seems this might actually work. I would use seam sealer as well to ensure it was watertight, but the risk is that it would separate over time from vibration and temperature extremes.

Plexiglass (and maybe Lexan/polycarbonate) can be bent using similar techniques to bending metal sheet. Use a resistance wire stretched above the bend line to soften the plexi for bending. Google it. You could just bend flanges on a flat sheet and lay over the hatch and screw the flanges into the sides of the hatch




Some thing that may interest you...Plexiglass will soften with heat and deform, not sure if Lexan or polycarbonate will. I used to make skylight bubbles/domes to fit skylights broken during hailstorms.


We would weld up an open top metal box with a 1" flange around the outside of the opening. Mount the box on a table on casters for easy movement. Drill a hole and weld a male air line quick connect fitting somewhere on the side of the box



Cut the plexi to the dimensions necessary to cover the box. Lay the plexi on top of the box and clamp barstock or some other heavier metal around the out side edge of the of the plexi. The rectangle formed by the inside edges of the clamped barstock is going to be the the edge of the dome and the plexi under the barstock will be the flat flange of the plexi dome. Using different sized clamping stock can produce different sized domes.


Measure from the ground to the top of the box and build a frame about 8" to a foot higher to stretch 110 volt electrical resistance heating element wire across using appropriate isolators. I used some scrap corrugated galvanized roofing to form a refective cieling/roof about a foot higher than the wire.


turn on the power to the heating element. after it is hot, roll the box under it withe the plexi clamped in place and air line plugged in. When the plexi warms up and starts to sag a little slowly turn on the air and the dome will start to rise, when it is about 3" high roll it out from under the heat and allow to coll, maintaing the same tiny air pressure when it is cool remove the plexi.


It is easier and faster than it sounds. Once you have made your rig, it only takes a few minutes to make a dome.

[o1marc]

Why not just cut the hole in the lid and secure the Lexan the same as you would to the roof, overlap with butyl tape and screws. Lexan be bent like sheet metal in a brake. Plexi needs to be heated and softened in order to bend with out snapping. Plexi is very brittle and not something I would use in these type applications.

[musigenesis]

[musigenesis]

[musigenesis]

The corners of my rear windows have a 3" radius, which by happy accident is the same radius as a corn hole hole. So I bought a corn hole saw and cut holes in three pieces of 1X and glued them together, then used my table saw to separate the corners into four wedges like this.







These will go into the corners of my frame around the window, allowing it to match the rounded corners of the window. Would have been easier to cut these out of thicker material with a band saw, but I do not have one of those. Which reminds me that's something I keep forgetting to look for on Craigslist.

[Phatman]

A band saw always makes cutting some shapes a lot easier. But hey, that’s what building a Skokie is all about. Working with what you got and making the best of it is what makes you a craftsman. Nice job��

[musigenesis]

Notch for the door latch.



Bolted on with 1/4-20s. I wasn't sure how I was going to attach the back wall but this is working out very well. A little bit of countersink, and I'll backfill them with plastic wood if visible or bits of XPS if not.



Oh well, so much for foresight. I predrilled the holes and didn't realize I wouldn't able to get a drill on the top hole because the crosspiece would be in the way. The extra bolt isn't really needed, fortunately.

[musigenesis]

Originally Posted by Phatman

A band saw always makes cutting some shapes a lot easier. But hey, that’s what building a Skokie is all about. Working with what you got and making the best of it is what makes you a craftsman. Nice job��

Thanks thanks! Because one thanks is insufficient word count.

[Native]

Thank you!


(That is just long enough.)

[musigenesis]

Decided to deal with my giant mess of a wiring situation by labeling and cutting everything. Now it's all-new wiring or my bus is never leaving my driveway again.