The Wandering Jackalopes

[CoffeeGuy]

Originally Posted by TJones

That paint job would be fantastic! Go Jackalopes!

Ted

Thank you! The colored strip down the middle was our new addition to go along with the roof raise. Otherwise, it was just too bland with that big blank canvas.

[CoffeeGuy]

Wow! the time it takes to make significant progress is strikingly poignant. We've made a little progress since the roof raise, though saying a "little" seems to diminish the amount of work that has gone on between out of town visits, equipment failures at the primary business and dealing with the old knees that really need to be retired.

I spent quite a bit of time figuring out how to turn the split doors into a single hinged unit with keyless entry and a deadbolt. given that bus doors don't conform to standard house geometry, it took a little finessing to get it where I wanted it. I'm planning to add a couple of polycarbonate panels to the inside so that someone can't just push through a window and turn the handle on the inside to bypass the deadbolt security.

We also managed to get our body riveted, prepped, and painted. It's mostly done with direct to metal paint from Sherwin Williams and a whole lot of buffing with red 3m scotchbrite pads.Once the color was on, I hit it with some spar urethane clear coat to give a little added protection to the color. I think we ended up putting in around 1,200 rivets.Paint-wise, I started with 5 gallons, we still have almost a couple gallons left.

Now that the paint is done (and it's too soon for the vinyl wrap) we're refurbishing the windows before they go back in.

Friends, we are coming up on the 1 year anniversary of our bus purchase. Admittedly, I spend more time on the Facebook groups for ideas and inspiration, but this forum is always the best place for "the real deal" information and insight. No amateur hour "BS" just good, solid info from people who speak from experience, not from assumption. It's what I tend to refer to as a high signal to noise ratio, taken from my years in audio engineering. I just want to put that out there, for whatever reason... and to say I appreciate what I learn on this forum.

[BeNimble]

It looked like you raised the roof under the windows so went back through and yep you did it, nicely done! paint looks great. And you raised to the drivers window...showing it is not 'wrong'. ;)

[TJones]

The paint looks great. Just needs a little more jackalope!

Ted

[CoffeeGuy]

There is still just a little work to do on our exterior, mainly replacing the windshield wiper arms and re-installing the clearance lights and side turn signals.

Much of the past couple weeks was spent refurbishing all of our windows, then painting, re-installing, and caulking. With the windows back in, it was time to recharge the rooftop air unit (it has a very slow leak, taking several months to lose refrigerant) so that we can work inside the bus.

The awesome news is that since we waited so long to work on the inside, the price of lumber is starting to return to relatively sane prices. It’s still not great, but BCX is under $50/sheet instead of twice that price.

We’re replaced the insulation we removed for the roof raise, and now we have 2” XPS on the floor under 3/4 plywood subfloor. Soon we will have to finalize our floor plan based on the 20+ layouts I have come up with so far.

In the meantime, I am trying to figure out how I managed to end up with 3 bad batteries when I really didn’t do anything to cause it, as far as I can tell. At 10am they started the engine just fine, at 2pm they acted like they were drained and I haven’t been able to start the bus since, even after a recharge. Tonight I took them to a shop for load testing and all 3 came back as bad. Has this ever happened to you?

[CoffeeGuy]

We finally settled on our floor plan, and we are ready to start framing the interior. I transferred our scale drawing to the subfloor to use as a general guide as we work through the construction. it seemed like a good idea, anyway.

Right now, though, progress has come to an abrupt halt because of a no-crank, no-start issue that has me baffled! My supposedly "bad" batteries tested at AutoZone are actually fine. I was suspicious, so I took the batteries to another place for a second opinion. Their tests were more comprehensive and it appears that I have 2,500 amps of cranking power. However, there is a single wire connected to the starter that is messing up everything, making the bus act like the batteries are toast.

I have posted a thread in the Caterpillar Drivetrain section, if you are interested in helping me sort this out. I've been on it for 3 weeks now, and I still haven't figured it out!

[o1marc]

Very nicely done roof raise.

[CoffeeGuy]

Progress update... I am still struggling with the no-crank, no start issue. I've tested and validated everything except for that single orange wire that takes 12v from the + side of my starter and runs to "I don't know where" but I am confident that "where" is where the problem is.

After eliminating every component in the engine compartment, I am convinced that there is a short to ground and a protection relay somewhere on the bus that kills power for around 15 minutes when that short to ground is momentarily engaged. I'll get to the bottom of it, eventually.

I just picked up a "Fox and Hound" tone generator and contactless wire trace diagnostic tool. I need to unmount my undercarriage storage boxes first, but I'll be able to follow that rogue wire to wherever it's going and finish my diagnostics. I've eliminated 95% of the possible issues, so it shouldn't be that hard now!!!!

In the meantime, my attention has returned to framing the interior. We're going to have a step-up where you enter the bedroom-shower-toilet area, with an 8" rise in the floor level. That puts the floor above the wheel wells, and we'll then have the shower step down a few inches for more headroom. We'll have some extra storage underneath the floor between the wheel wells, I'm sure that will come in handy. It also gives us a shorter hop to the bed, which will have its base about 40" up from the original floor. A step up from the raised floor will shorten the hop into bed and provide a place for our 6 LiFePo4 batteries that will provide close to 10kw storage.

Much of this I am working out "on the fly" as I've done some light construction and remodeling, but I don't have a very deep bag of tricks when it comes to framing. I'm figuring things out as I go.