THIS OLD BUS - CHANGES
Recent developments have the potential for a significant revision of the conversion time line. Teri and I will be retiring as of this coming Friday – a year and a half ahead of anticipated. Teri is thinking about teaming up with someone else and continuing her work with children part time. I, on the other hand, have way too much to do to continue working! Like, riding my mountain bike every day, working on the Bus, trail work at the Fort, finishing some details in the house, wiring my new garage and shop, and oh yeah,

A 1970 Chevelle SS

I started a custom car business with a friend of mine. Mark painted my Vett last summer and it's now a show car instead of a daily driver. First show is Father's Day. We have some last minute stuff to finish with that project, like complete hand built custom headlight modules, paint the wheels, and some minor trim gasket replacement. Mark's dad was a body man and Mark painted his first car at age seven! He also painted airplanes for eight years at Duncan Aviation for the 1% group – multimillion dollar planes. Our first car is a rare 1970 Chevelle Malibu SS. We should have it done in about three months. Then we're doing a '39 Ford street rod. PLUS the Bus. But I digress.

New Dash

Since my last post, I got a lot of new cool stuff from the boys and girls at UPS, FedEx and the USPS. They are all here at least three times a week. My new custom dash arrived. I got the foam insulation kit, 1000' of wire, new windshields, 100' of heater hose (engine's in the back - heater's in the front) that's 60' plus side connections. I need a new heater core, but can't find anything that big – 26” x 18”. It has to heat the whole bus when it's on the road. It also has two windshield defrosters that have to be connected.

So, there are always surprises right? Well, all (as in ALL) of the brackets holding the fuel tank in place have broken off on one whole side under the Bus. Fortunately the tank is wedged against the bulkhead or it would have dropped right out the bottom. A full tank weighs 1120 lbs. - that's half a ton!  I can see it now, a 140 gal of fuel dumped down the highway and one little spark. Anyway, it's a relatively (everything is relative in this project) simple fix. Get under the Bus, jack up the tank, hang it from the top of the bulkhead (remember it weights 1000 lbs- use strong straps), take the jack out, bolt in a 2x2 angle iron, bolt all the support brackets to the angle iron, and lower the tank back down into the support brackets.

So I built a short ramp to run the front up and get under the Bus, secured the Bus to a tree with a cable so it won't roll backwards and crush me. While under there looking at the broken tank supports, we see that all the suspension bushings need replacing. I'm thinking, “there is no way I'm going to find suspension bushings for a 56 year old bus”. 

So, I go online and within five minutes, I've found new, high tech, polyurethane bushings for the Bus that are exactly like those used to upgrade OEM to racing suspension. And, I can get them in RED! Ain't the net great??