After a week long visit by Chad (oldest son), much progress was realized.  We started by removing ALL roof mounted items including AC, vents, etc. and patching with new aluminum sheet.  We used automotive panel adhesive, screwed the panels in place until adhesive cured, and then removed all the screws and filled all the screw holes with more panel adhesive. We bumped out all major dents in the roof. Next we have to strip the paint, skim coat, and paint the roof. I'm considering mounting self adhesive, flexible film solar panels on the roof. These are 9'x15" panels, so I could install up to 15 panels which would not be visible from the ground.   That would supply 60 amp hrs of battery charging while driving or parked, or about 600 amps on a sunny day.   With a 700 amp battery, that would do almost all the charging without lugging a 350# generator around.

Teri has the sides of the bus almost completely stripped. Looks MUCH better with original silverside restored.  We have some drill holes to repair on the bare aluminum and I've come up with  a paint scheme to allow standard body work to cover  major holes cut into the sides for previous vents, etc.   The original silverside is made of fluted anodized aluminum panel  and is impossible to restore to its original look if you have to patch a big hole.  This is the paint scheme I'm considering.  The blue would be a darker Cobalt Blue metallic.

Our second big accomplishment was to spray foam the interior with insulation. The foam didn't rise to the advertised thickness - another "doesn't work as advertised" product!  The up side is I can install 1/2" aluminum faced panel over the foam and get a higher R value than foam alone. The foam does seal up all air infiltration - a big factor when the average wind speed is 60 mph when on the road.

 

The third big project was reinstalling the radiator.
We had to clear out more space above the radiator to get it further up away from the ground.  Then fabricate a new support / skid-plate and then hook up all the hoses including the new on-the-road heaters.  We also added a second alternator (300 amp) located just behind the radiator that runs off a pulley mounted where the old fan was.  This alternator is for charging house batteries and running cooling fans.  The radiator has four 12" electric fans each pulling 1200 cfm. 

Filling with 27 gal. of coolant.  Once filled, we figured out the air / electric controls to fire up the engine.  Ran smooth - no leaks.





Next - Sand all floor seams and fill seams and countersunk screws with Bondo.  Then flooring!