It's been a few weeks since I've worked on The Bus. I finished the wiring in the garage and got the Corvette on the road! I went back to The Bus last week resuming work on getting the heater refurbished and running. I finally got most of the grime removed and started to put the heater fan back together. The system works similar to what's in your car but much bigger. Hot water runs from the engine, through a heater core (radiator) and a fan sucks air through the heater core, heating the air and blowing it into the living space.  The difference is size!  The heater core in your car is about 80 sq. in.  The heater core in The Bus is 468 sq. in.

The old heater core was toast. Couldn't be fixed. I couldn't find a replacement anywhere. To get a custom one made would cost around $800.00. I found two brand new school bus heater cores online that, combined, were the size of the one I needed - $100.00 each. Now I know why I always froze my ass off on the school bus in the winter! Half sized heaters.

Here's the bay that contains the heater fan and cores.  I spent three days in that miserable cave - reassembling the heater fan, and installing the new heater cores.  They sit on this nice, durable, inch thick, blue closed cell foam flooring that was left over from Teri's gym area for kids.  That was about 6 years ago.  I've been saving it all this time.  She says I collect junk, but I say a save material for future unknown projects!  I also had to make new access doors and hook up all the hoses.  I still have to replace the old wiring, relays and solenoids for the BIG DC motor that turns the fan.  I also spent about four hours scrubbing the heater ducts with degreaser.  those silver panels were black when I started.  

Also decided to clean the top of the fuel tank as it was a source of a lot of fuel smell.As usual, the whole process took four times as long as it should have, or maybe it's just my optimistic appraisal of the required time.  Anyway, there's a 1/4" copper tube that allows remote greasing of the fan bearing. When I went to grease it after assembly, I discovered a crack in the tube, so all the grease oozed out into the just cleaned heater box, and didn't reach the bearing. So, I had to take that apart, go to the hardware store and get a new piece of copper tubing.  Then take the old fittings off the old tube and solder them on the new one. Overall this added about 4 hours to the process.  I have run 1" heater hose to the back of The Bus.  I'll finish hooking that up when I replace the engine radiator (next on my list).

The Bus has good Karma. A friend of a friend is a cabinet maker par excellence and is into Streamline Modern. He's interested in doing the cabinet work. Then I ran into a former patient, we got talking about The Bus. He is a HVAC expert, and as some great ideas that “we” could do with The Bus! Basement AC with airliner ducting. Sounds "cool" to me!

Next.  My radiator is bigger than your radiator.