unleashed 2.0 - or "let's try this again shall we?"

[bp1791-unleashed]

Originally Posted by kazetsukai

Whoa- it sure sounds like it.

Not to second-guess you, but just know there's a middle ground between all-or-nothing: No solar, at all? Something modest might serve your needs well:

• Even a couple batteries with a single 300W panel will offset the costs of charging tool batteries, laptops, etc.
• You could forgo panels altogether and just tie batteries into a DC-DC charger. You'd charge with the engine on, which would power your essentials.

If you anticipate being plugged in all the time, feel free to ignore me. Just remember things like your water pump or interior lighting for when you're on the road... I think it would suck to have to run the engine or a genny just to charge something.

I would avoid using the starter batteries because as you likely well know they're designed for crank and not capacity.

You know, you're right. I have an AGM group 8D 350AH battery sitting around doing nothing but being maintenance charged. I have 2 100W rigid panels, and 2 100W flexible panels (I know) just sitting around doing nothing. I also have an MPPT sitting around doing nothing. It would be trivial to implement these into a smaller system than I originally wanted. There wouldn't be much cost associated either.

Originally Posted by kazetsukai

Yeah, so this is the mindset that made me stop going "all the way" on every bullet point in my build... I'd want to do a roof raise on a forever-bus, not on a transitional bus.

I think it makes sense to invest in demo and insulation (the base) even if you plan to move on in a year or two. I'd also do some future-proofing:

• Even if you're really going to go no-solar, make a spot for cable entry but just don't use it.
• Consider putting mounting brackets for solar on the roof before closing up the ceiling.
• Run DC down both walls in a way you can get to it if you wanted to later in the build. A simple solution is surface-mount electrical conduit. Use 2" if you can find space for it with an access box inline as often as you can afford. Later you can use this to run ethernet, DC, etc without tearing up walls.

Already planning extra conduit for future pulls. Adding the mounting brackets would be simpler pre-insulation, for sure.

Originally Posted by kazetsukai

Oh, and I _guarantee_ you'll thank me for this later if you follow through:

• Factor speakers into your build, running speaker wire from your electrical panel to each end (and maybe the middle) for use with a (12V) DC, bluetooth amplifier.

Playing music costs very little in terms of electricity and is a major personal comfort add. Even modest speaker setups fill a bus with sound. DC, because you will want it to work plugged in or not, bluetooth because any audio source on phone = done. Easily doable for less than $100 total.

Eh, I know this will shock people to hear, but I just don't care much about music. I enjoy it when I hear it out in public, but I tend to stick to audiobooks in my driving time, and TV in my other downtime. I already have a nice portable BT speaker set I can use anywhere with built-in battery, and USB charging. Now putting USB chargers throughout makes a LOT more sense to me. I think the TV sound system would be adequate for everything other than the audiobooks when driving.

But I will think about it.

Originally Posted by kazetsukai

Not to pull you into more work, but:
Attachment 48429

These were not really that hard. We cut the rounded corners in the ceiling into square corners. Tac-welded in some sheet metal vertically on the roof then installed square tube at the top of that to make it all rigid. Henry's roof patch all around, it never leaked through there. The skylight hatch is made of an identical size square tube frame with angled aluminum to sandwich in acrylic.

Took us two days to complete roughly, drying paint taking the most time. I spent another day months later to redo the glass using thicker acrylic. Its rainy out right now, not the brightest of days. Enough light in here that I don't need the lights on. Our beds are underneath one of these, you can see the stars at night. Combined with some lo-fi beats from the speakers... tiny, bite-sized luxury item for us at least.


Good luck.

That's a good idea. It would let in some light, and seal the hole, and looks relatively inexpensive to do.

I'm also back to having to solve the shower problem... where to place it so that it has enough head room, and doesn't interfere with anything under the bus. That'll be a fun new challenge.

I actually feel a bit of a letdown from this decision, but also a sense of relief. The pressure to try to get *all that stuff* done in such a short timeframe was unreal.

Having a 12V house battery would also let me have DC powered LED lighting, DC powered water pump, would be easily charged by the alternator when driving, and could let me put in a small inverter for keeping the fridge and freezer running when not running the generator for the HVAC system. One thing I enjoyed when living in a travel trailer one summer was having water and light when the grid was down. I could also run the driver's entertainment from the house battery (radio for audiobooks, ham radio, GMRS radio, phone charger, GPS, etc)

Thanks for the suggestions.

-jim

[peteg59]

Sometimes, well many more times than we likely know, folks have to "adjust" build plans during a build out for many reasons.

It sounds like you've had, or decided, to make this adjustment bp1791.

The suggestions that kazetsukai made are reasonable even if you don't plan on going "all the way" with your bus. Main reason is if you need to liquidate it for building funds later or for any other reason, the "basics" will already be covered for the next potential owner to more easily install the things you are currently foregoing in your build, (and you can ask more $$ as a result).

Good luck, and post pics when you get going on your build...

[kazetsukai]

Originally Posted by bp1791-unleashed

Eh, I know this will shock people to hear, but I just don't care much about music. I enjoy it when I hear it out in public, but I tend to stick to audiobooks in my driving time, and TV in my other downtime. I already have a nice portable BT speaker set I can use anywhere with built-in battery, and USB charging. Now putting USB chargers throughout makes a LOT more sense to me. I think the TV sound system would be adequate for everything other than the audiobooks when driving.

But I will think about it.

Eh, I guess its not for everyone. Its also nice during movie night, fwiw. Audiobooks might also be a good use case.

Originally Posted by bp1791-unleashed

I'm also back to having to solve the shower problem... where to place it so that it has enough head room, and doesn't interfere with anything under the bus.

This suggests under the apex of the roof (middle of the cabin). Ours is colocated with the rear skylight and acts as the hallway. Killed a few birds with one stone: If the hatch leaked it goes into the shower pan, the shower head is above my head while up in the hatch, and I can open the hatch to let moisture out. Definitely a disruptive place to put a shower though, since you either make it into a hallway or make a shower room that protrudes into the center of the cabin.

Roof raises make showers much easier. =(

Other ideas:

• Lowering the floor in a strategic place for a "step down into" shower. I may do this on a future build, I think you may have ruled this out.
• Designing a "sit down" shower, has to be your cup of tea.
• Position the shower inbetween ribs, cutting into the roof to raise just that portion of the roof.
• Use a trough or some other tub substitute that sits on a platform and rolls out from a cabinet into the center of the cabin. The roll-out portion could be as simple as a floor dolly. It can drain using flexible hose. Use a 360 degree shower curtain in lieu of walls. When done, roll it back into its cabinet. (I saw this done with a composting toilet, thought it was genius, considered doing it with the shower).

[bp1791-unleashed]

One of the hurdles for working on the bus is clearing out a storage building so I can use it for storing bus stuff, conversion stuff, my stuff that will go in the bus when finished, etc. It's a 12x24 building, so I figure there will be enough room, but first it needs to be cleaned out.

So for the past week and a half, I've been working hard to get ready for another trip to KY taking a load of stuff, to include 2 upright freezers, and a freezer worth of food. Since the van isn't that tall inside, the freezers can't go inside it. That meant getting the towing on the van to the point my cargo trailer can be towed.

So we're using a 2017 Chevrolet Express 2500 cargo van to tow a 7x14 (7' ceiling) enclosed cargo trailer, tandem axle, 7000 GVWR for the trailer (well under the limit for the van). The van has a "trailer towing" mode for the transmission, a blunt cable tucked under the floor mat under the brake pedal for electric brake hookup, and a direct plugin trailer plug harness tucked under the rear. The frame has holes for a hitch, which directly bolted right on. So you'd think we could just plug in that trailer wiring harness and be good to go, right?

Nope. Dream on.

Seems GM went on a serious penny pinching mode somewhere along the way. Ordinarily, you'd just plug in your harnesses to your connectors, install a few fuses, and be good to go. But on this van, the fuse sockets are lacking the conductors. Additionally, the connector on the bottom of the fuse box lack the conductors on the box side into the wiring harness. The only way to make this work using factory wiring is to replace the fuse box, which is extremely expensive. Also, every fuse box we found that had the trailer fuses lacked some other circuit this van has.

GM is unfriendly to people doing this.

Instead, we went the old fashioned hack and slash brute force method. Now the van is wired up to tow a trailer properly, with trailer braking, and an electric brake controller. I also added a rear view monitor to attach to the video cable from the trailer (that we added when we bought the trailer).

When I return from KY, the van and trailer will be empty, and I'll be able to start loading up the rest of the stuff from the storage building for the next trip (thanksgiving?).

Which leads me to the point of *finally* being able to use the building for bus work staging/prep.

[kazetsukai]

Originally Posted by bp1791-unleashed

Seems GM went on a serious penny pinching mode somewhere along the way. Ordinarily, you'd just plug in your harnesses to your connectors, install a few fuses, and be good to go. But on this van, the fuse sockets are lacking the conductors. Additionally, the connector on the bottom of the fuse box lack the conductors on the box side into the wiring harness. The only way to make this work using factory wiring is to replace the fuse box, which is extremely expensive. Also, every fuse box we found that had the trailer fuses lacked some other circuit this van has.

GM is unfriendly to people doing this.

This is pretty common, I don't think it has to do with penny pinching, they just like being able to reuse fuse boxes. There's very little reason to populate positions that don't go anywhere and normal fuse boxes don't have an internal bus bar to tap off of.

It is _always_ easiest, when dealing with custom electrical work in a vehicle, to start with a brand new and separate fuse block. You control everything: If it is on with ignition or not, power source, which positions go where, etc.

Originally Posted by bp1791-unleashed

When I return from KY, the van and trailer will be empty, and I'll be able to start loading up the rest of the stuff from the storage building for the next trip (thanksgiving?).

Which leads me to the point of *finally* being able to use the building for bus work staging/prep.

Its going to be thanksgiving before you can even start prep? Maybe I'll make it in time to help out then, who knows.

[bp1791-unleashed]

Originally Posted by kazetsukai

Not to second-guess you, but just know there's a middle ground between all-or-nothing

This really resonated with me. It's been rattling around in my head for the past few days while I've been working on addressing the hurdles to getting traction on my project.

It is September already, and I'm wanting to be living in the bus by spring! Yikes!

For labor day weekend, I have a trip out to KY and back. Then Sep 12, there's something I need the van and trailer for. So Sep 13, I'll be able to start loading the rest of the stuff from the storage building into the van and trailer for the next KY trip.

Between the 8th and 11th, I'll be going through the storage building bringing things to the front (front half is mostly empty now) in prep for being able to load it up after the 12th. Once the rear of the building is cleared, and a path to the back available, I'll start cleaning out the misc stuff from the bus, dropping ceiling panels, getting up the flooring, etc.

I figure the last half of September will be devoted to prep work. Ceiling panels need to be removed. The extra floor we added must be removed. The fridge needs to be pulled out. The seat bases we couldn't remove need to be cut out, then the original flooring pulled up. The flooring needs to be rust remediated as necessary. Wall panels need to be removed as much as possible. I want the entire body space to be down to ribs, and the metal flooring. I want to be able to study the structure.

Once the floor is rust remediated and primed I want to put a good garage floor paint down on it to seal it, then remove all the windows. I don't want to stress over any water that might sneak in ruining the floor work. I know there is rust under there, I can see some of it from the side emergency exit. How much rust remains to be seen. This is the part that scares me.

Getting back to what Kaz wrote that I quoted above, there's a middle ground between "too ambitious" and "get it done quickly".

I know I'm removing all the windows, skinning over them, and then adding my own windows after it's skinned (once I figure out where to put them). Let's call the time it takes to skin over the windows "X".

Now, if I add in a roof raise, I figure it'll take about a day to physically raise the roof, assuming all materials are handy. Then it needs to be skinned over, lots of rivets added for structural stability, and eventually new windows added. Let's call this process "X + 2 days".

So, I need to determine the value gained to me by burning 2 days (and a lot of materials) to increase the volume of the bus.

Honestly, I think it is worth it. Totally worth it. I can't do the huge door moving, front cap raising, that was in the original plan, but I can raise most of the roof, keep existing doors, and end up with a more comfortable space.

The time and money budget is there for it, especially if I can scrape up a helper.

So I figure sometime in the 2nd or 3rd week of October, I'll be doing a roof raise and skinning over my windows. Maybe later in October.

The more observant might have noticed I didn't address one of the hardest parts of a roof raise: the transition. I expect the transition alone will take a day or two, but I'm motivated, and I will find a way to make it happen. Many before me have succeeded, so I think I can succeed as well. And it's still worth it to me.

By the end of October, I want the bus fully closed in, and significant progress on insulating, thermal breaks, etc. Because as soon as it is insulated, I want to start on the electrical, and install the mini split systems to heat and cool the bus.

I've also decided rather than continue to hate my air operated door, I'm going to steal an idea from offgr1d's bus and add a small air tank and 12V DC compressor, and rewire the door to operate via remote (key card? maybe, easily enough done). The 2 things I hate about the door are needing the key on to operate the switch, and when it's not "live" it doesn't stay closed on its own. If I can keep it closed, and open/close it from outside electrically/pneumatically, it solves most of my complaints. The only other thing is the leaking, and that's just a matter of fixing the seals.

Once it is dried in, insulated, and has heat (and cooling), I can work inside the bus comfortably, and then I can make progress as fast as my wallet can handle it.

-jim

[bp1791-unleashed]

Originally Posted by kazetsukai

This is pretty common, I don't think it has to do with penny pinching, they just like being able to reuse fuse boxes. There's very little reason to populate positions that don't go anywhere and normal fuse boxes don't have an internal bus bar to tap off of.

I had a 1998 Toyota Corolla, and did an instrument cluster swap to gain additional gauges, and added a thermistor to the plug in the grill to gain external temperature. I didn't have to do any rewiring. All the functionality was there in the harnesses. I even considered getting doors from a junkyard with electric locks, and retrofitting that. The spots in the fuse panel had pins and I could have just installed fuses, plugged stuff together, and gone with it. I eventually decided since I could reach all the locks and window cranks from the driver's seat while driving, it was kinda pointless.

I had a 1993 Dodge Dakota, and it also had the harnesses and fuse positions for all the features it did not come with. I never added any of them though.

My old Volvo had the same thing. I was able to add fog lights by just buying them, plugging them in, and installing the fuse and switch.

My 2011 Taurus... well, I got rid of that thing before seeking to add any feature besides a functional stereo. Do not get me started on that SYNC mess. I did put in a shunt in place of the SYNC fuse, that was fused and had a momentary switch (using the normally closed connector) so I could just push the button for 15 seconds to reset the SYNC system when it locked up, which wast least once a week. Replacing that with an aftermarket head unit would have meant $1200+ worth of aftermarket add ons just to keep the automatic HVAC system working.

My 2005 suburban had a trailer hitch receiver, and only the basic (left/stop, right/stop, tail, ground) pins connected in the 7 pin harness. I bought an adapter that plugged into a spot under the dash, and put in a fuse, and an electric brake controller, and now the brakes work on the trailer. If I wanted to make +12V AUX work on the connector, I could do something similar, I just never cared enough to chase it down. Same for my mom's 2003 Silverado.

On the suburban, I also added extending mirrors with heat and turn signals in the mirrors, for when towing. The old mirrors already had the heated mirror feature. The new mirrors just plugged in and worked, including the turn signal feature, no need to add fuses.

So with this history, you can imagine my surprise when I dug into the 2017 (newer, so surely more advanced) and discovered that the harnesses are there, the positions in the fuse box are there, and if you remove the fuse box and take it apart (don't ask) the traces are there. It simply lacks the physical pin/connector component on the board for those features. If they save a penny by doing it this way, and make 500,000 vans, that's $5,000 saved. I'm sure it's probably more saved. But what about the added complexity of having so many versions of the fuse block that all plug into the same harnesses? Surely that offsets the savings. I don't know, but it just seems to me to be designed to make you go to a dealer and order a specific fuse block, and pay them to install it, in order to get the features already mostly built into your vehicle to work.

Originally Posted by kazetsukai

It is _always_ easiest, when dealing with custom electrical work in a vehicle, to start with a brand new and separate fuse block. You control everything: If it is on with ignition or not, power source, which positions go where, etc.

This is true to a point. For example, when I replaced the stock stereo in my suburban with a carplay supporting aftermarket, I did not run all new wiring, I simply bought the right harnesses to plug into the stock wiring. The steering wheel controls even work. Additionally, you still need to tie in somewhere to get your initial voltage source, especially switched. Unswitched could go straight to the battery, but switched would need some other pathway.

Originally Posted by kazetsukai

Its going to be thanksgiving before you can even start prep? Maybe I'll make it in time to help out then, who knows.

I expect to be doing prep in late September and into early October. It'd be great if you could help, I'd really appreciate it. And if you can't, that's fine too. Scheduling is always a nightmare, and things rarely go to plan. I really appreciate the intent as much as I'll appreciate it if you can be here during that.

jim

[kazetsukai]

Well, you have quite a few data points of contrary examples. Many of the fuse blocks I've encountered look like relay boxes in that the vendor can plug in as many fuse positions as they care to.


I'm about to wire up the connections for my shorty's hitch to support the tow dolly (towing the van) myself. Since the secondary electrical is all solar the brake controller is probably going to be always-on

[bp1791-unleashed]

Originally Posted by kazetsukai

Well, you have quite a few data points of contrary examples. Many of the fuse blocks I've encountered look like relay boxes in that the vendor can plug in as many fuse positions as they care to.


I'm about to wire up the connections for my shorty's hitch to support the tow dolly (towing the van) myself. Since the secondary electrical is all solar the brake controller is probably going to be always-on

I've owned a few vehicles over the years. Thinking back on it though, I don't recall anything earlier than early to mid 90s that I owned that had features that were pre-wired but not installed. And the newest thing I ever had with features wired but not installed was the 2011 Taurus. I don't know if all manufacturers did it, but I have specific knowledge of a few vehicles that did it.

This cargo van is not really intended for long term use, we really want to trade/sell it before it loses too much value (and gets too many more miles from us), so we are doing the absolute minimum to modify it from stock.

If we had more time, and were prepared to modify however we wanted, then we would just pull a high current 12V source to the back, tap all the signal lines there, and put every line on the trailer via a relay.

Oh wait, GM already did that, they just left out the bits that let you plug in the relays and fuses. grrrr.

Now if this van lacked those harnesses and places to install things, it wouldn't annoy me so much.

Regardless, I still want to find a short bus with handi-lift, 5-8 windows, GM or Ford chassis, metal body, preferably Thomas body, with a diesel engine that isn't the 6.0L Ford one day, preferably when I also have the money for it. LOL

It's warm and humid today, so I can put in about 30-45 minutes outside then need a gatorade and some a/c time.

One concern I do have about my timeline is that my roof raise coincides with hurricane season. So, when the time comes to cut, lift, skin, I really want to focus on that to get it all done in the shortest length of calendar time as possible.

jim

[kazetsukai]

Originally Posted by bp1791-unleashed

One concern I do have about my timeline is that my roof raise coincides with hurricane season. So, when the time comes to cut, lift, skin, I really want to focus on that to get it all done in the shortest length of calendar time as possible.

Well, we'll see if my timeline holds up. I should know with about 80% confidence in about two weeks, and if that's good I should be able to pull away to pitch in for this part even if parking in VA ends up not being on the table for us. I really don't want to miss this if I can help it, both to help out and for my own experience going forward.

[kazetsukai]

I forgot to mention:

Originally Posted by bp1791-unleashed

I've also decided rather than continue to hate my air operated door, I'm going to steal an idea from offgr1d's bus and add a small air tank and 12V DC compressor, and rewire the door to operate via remote (key card? maybe, easily enough done). The 2 things I hate about the door are needing the key on to operate the switch, and when it's not "live" it doesn't stay closed on its own. If I can keep it closed, and open/close it from outside electrically/pneumatically, it solves most of my complaints. The only other thing is the leaking, and that's just a matter of fixing the seals.

I have a pair of 12V DC compressors that are still unused after 1-2 years if you'd like one...

My air door is controlled by a pair of electronic air valves. The valves act like relays- they send air to either A or B depending on whether the signal wire is live. If yours are similar, simply flipping the air line will have the desired effect.

The first valve on mine is just used to control whether air is sent to the second valve or not (allowing for a state where the door can be moved freely by hand), the second valve determines open/close.

[bp1791-unleashed]

Originally Posted by kazetsukai

I forgot to mention:

I have a pair of 12V DC compressors that are still unused after 1-2 years if you'd like one...

Yes please. That would really help.

Originally Posted by kazetsukai

My air door is controlled by a pair of electronic air valves. The valves act like relays- they send air to either A or B depending on whether the signal wire is live. If yours are similar, simply flipping the air line will have the desired effect.

The first valve on mine is just used to control whether air is sent to the second valve or not (allowing for a state where the door can be moved freely by hand), the second valve determines open/close.

I've not dug into the electrical side yet. When the bus is off, you can manually open and close the door, but there's resistance. There are 2 manual emergency override valves, one outside by the door, the other inside on the upper front bulkhead. Turning either of those bleeds off all air in both directions, and it's super easy to open/close.

Without air supplied to the system, the door won't stay closed. So when the wind blows past the bus, the doors open a little. this lets in wind, rain, and birds, lizards, bugs, etc. I've been using a bungie cord when parked to keep the tension on the door, but the sun destroyed my cord this week.

The air ram in there has been replaced once, and the original is still in there as well. It's a bit of a mess actually. Like so many things on this bus, it was the bare minimum effort to get back on the road.

Thanks,
Jim

[kazetsukai]

Originally Posted by bp1791-unleashed

Yes please. That would really help.

Let me know when you want it, I can probably ship it in two weeks.


And yeah, that sounds simple enough to power via tank made for your typical train horn/etc.

[bp1791-unleashed]

would that be called congress?

Anyway, as so often seems to happen, life has thrown some unexpected events my way. I don't want to get into too many details, but I basically have 90 days to create a livable space that is mobile.

Even scaling the bus conversion way back, I just don't see it happening in that time window, let alone being something I would want to live within.

In somewhat related news, this weekend, we towed the cargo trailer with the cargo van, and both were fairly lightly loaded. I probably had about 500 pounds or so of cargo in the van, and perhaps 1500 pounds of cargo in the trailer. Call it 3500 pounds over an empty van, by the time you add in the trailer weight. The trip wasn't as promising as expected. That little 4.8L engine in the cargo van just can't handle the load. Fuel economy plummeted from the normal 16-20 mpg to a mere 8-10mpg. A large part of that I'm sure is the height of the cargo trailer, since it has 7' ceiling height. Coming back empty, it improved less than 1 mpg.

So we've proven conclusively that the cargo trailer we bought to help us move is practically useless at helping us move, unless towed behind the bus. With the bus getting only 7mpg, it's not very practical for that purpose either. Granted, the bus gets 7mpg whether empty or full, so in terms of mass+volume per dollar, it probably wins.

TL;DR:
I have decided that the trailer needs a quick and dirty conversion into an efficiency, so that I have a place to live while continuing to work on the bus conversion properly.

I've got the massive 12V battery I can use, as well as a small breaker panel, and a generator input box for the outside of the trailer. If I keep it stupid simple, it should suffice. The trailer is somewhat insulated in the walls, but not much really. It will not be efficient to heat or cool, but it will be survivable in the areas I intend to take it. The basic shell is complete, so I can focus solely on infrastructure within the shell. I've got a new rv roof vent coming (the old one broke, and we sealed over it temporarily, and that is starting to come loose, so I want to fix it right, with a fan this time).

I can repurpose one of the mini splits I bought for the bus in the trailer, and replace it later when I'm ready to install in the bus. With a 7' interior ceiling, there's room for a shower. I suspect I'll have to do a wet bath, still figuring that out. A very small set of holding tanks should be doable as well, but I expect the trailer to only be used in locations with hookups.

I estimate I have about 100 sq ft of space to work with. There's already a side door on the passenger side, and a drop ramp in the back, and a small "generator" door on the driver side front angle of the curved V nose. Originally there was a box for the generator to be mounted on slides and pulled out for operation. That box took up too much space, and we yanked all that stuff, so all that is left is that door.

In spite of the abrupt shift in direction, I'm trying to look at the positives.

First, this gets me out of my current apartment even faster than originally intended. That'll make it easier for my parents to sell this place.

Second, I'll have a bare minimum livable space while I work on the bus. So, if I need to take off to a new working location for the bus, I can take that with me. I'll still be able to live within the trailer while working on the bus. That means I can take more time with the bus than originally planned, and do it "right" instead of "rushed". Less compromising in the bus build will make me happier long term. If that means living in 100sq ft for a few months, then so be it.

Even after the bus is converted, I could treat the trailer as guest quarters or something. Or sell it. Someone with a good diesel pickup truck would be able to tow it as a cargo trailer without any compromises. With that in mind, I'm attempting to do the bare minimum of changes that affect its use as a cargo trailer.

2020 certainly isn't the best of years...

[bp1791-unleashed]

I swear, I'm pivoting so often and so drastically that I'm spinning in circles and getting dizzy.

Mom and dad weren't exactly on board with the Q&D trailer conversion.

kazetsukai was kind enough to beat me about the head with a bent solar panel until I realized I was being stupidly short sighted. His point was basically that once the roof is raised and the skin is on, ie it is dried in, I can sleep on a cot and shower anywhere while working on the rest of it regardless of where it is. Valid points.

The fact is that while it is a nice cargo trailer, it is the wrong trailer for me. The only thing that can tow it without strain is the bus. I would rather tow something else behind the bus.

The trailer is now for sale.

This weekend I went to a ham radio swap meet up in Delaware, and took the trailer with some stuff to try to sell. I had some decent success, and one person was interested in the trailer, so I'm waiting to hear back from him. If he doesn't go through with it, I'll list it on craigslist and facebook marketplace locally.

Turning the trailer into money will really help a lot. I'll be able to use the money to get supplies sooner than waiting for each paycheck. That means I'll be able to get that roof raised quicker. Of course, the cost of metal and building materials went up dramatically this week, so there's that to counterbalance the benefits.

More to come...

[BeNimble]

Is this 4.0 or 5.0, or 2.5?

Given the prices of buses right now, i'd just sell the bus and the trailer and your car, and buy a van...like this 88 chevy for $1,400 in Richmond, VA..

[kazetsukai]

I don't remember beating anyone over the head with that panel. Just sayin'.

Uh, I have some sheet metal in my garage. Not enough to cover windows, but it is something. I was just going to scrap/trash it, let me know if you want me to bring it when I head down. Will send dimensions/pics later.

Yeah, supplies are getting expensive. Even more reason not to waste them on a trailer when you'll have to rip it all up anyway down the line...