We (Mark and me) spent about 7 hrs. on The Bus today. Almost all of that time was spent rebuilding the generator and converter/inverter/battery bays which I thought would take like a couple hours. Isn't there something like Murphy's Law that applies to the time you estimate a project to take? Like the Panama Canal. It was started about four times beginning in 1882 and was finally completed in 1914. They thought it would take five or six years, but actually took 32. Maybe this underestimation thing should be called Panama's Law or the Law of the Panama Canal or the What the Hell Was I Thinking Law. 

Anyway, this is where the 6000 watt generator will sit to produce A/C power if not plugged in to campground electric. It will also charge the “house” batteries whenever it is running. House batteries store power for D/C lighting and to supply the inverter for A/C appliances – like refrigerator, dishwasher, microwave, TV, etc. The generator wouldn't run when I got The Bus. Since then I cleaned the points and hot-wired the coil and got it started. Still have to troubleshoot power to the coil and adjust the carb. I'll cover all that in another post.

Ugly and open bay

Stripped out bay

 So we removed all the bent and nasty aluminum cobbled together to support the generator. When we took the generator out it required the removal of ONE BOLT! I'm surprised it didn't fall out the bottom along with the fuel tank. So, I made a trip back to Alro Steel and Plastics in Kalamazoo to buy about 12 feet of 1 ¾ x 4” rectangular aluminum tubing to beef up that section. I think they should change their name to Alro Steel, Plastics, Aluminum, Copper, Brass and Stainless Company.

 Here we've added four aluminum supports and ground all the surfaces to get good glue adhesion.

I bought this high shear strength glue online to increase the structural rigidity (that's a weird word when you type it) of the body. It costs about twice as much as Liquid Nails. The first batch was out of date and was impossible to get it out of the tube. I sent it back and got all 10 tubes replaced. Guess what? I can get the glue out – barely. It takes all of my 110# grip (I know what it is 'cause I'm a PT and have measured it. My grip is down 10# from when I was in my 30's :-( As soon as I can use this stuff up, I'm going back to Liquid Nails!

Cut the plywood to fit, applied glue to all the aluminum supports, drilled 75 holes and screwed 75 self-tapping flathead screws.

DONE. Bay on the right is for the generator, bay on the left is for the converter/inverter and “house batteries”.