Plodding Along

One is almost always a slave who cannot live on little.
Horace

I'm not getting a lot finished in the main project but I am using my spare time to continue working my way down the list of loose ends. Lots of the little items that need cleaning and painting are being cleaned and painted.

Dashboard vents, bumper brackets, towbar etc are all being carefully sanded, wire-brushed, primed and painted. I am also working on some of the camping equipment - gas bottles, cookers, tool-boxes, folding chairs all need to be taken down, dusted off and tidied up.

Unfortunately I discovered that my secure storage room had sprung a small leak in the roof. Most of things that I have put away for safety have been rained on regularly for the past few weeks, oh crap!

Luckily the mildew and the mould had not completely taken over. I laid it all out on the grass during a gap in the weather and most of it is still perfectly serviceable. The now-dried mould came off with a wire brush and the canvasses have been carefully repacked and placed back on the now-dry shelves. The sleeping bag, Marigold's curtains and a few other bits are sadly beyond use and have been tossed out. Lots of rusty nuts and bolts will probably be easier to replace than to try and restore. A pity but there you go, onward and upward. The leaky roof has been repaired so we should be warm and dry from now on.


Thanks for stopping by
CooP

Nice Pair of Hooters!

Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today.
Ernest Hemingway

It's amazing how your mind can wander when you are browsing around an auto-spares supermarket. When I asked the young lady to show me her hooters she barely blinked. I explained that I was looking for a nice pair, not too big and on the cheaper side of the market. She started frowning and looking towards the security guard when I asked her opinion on size and shape. She sidled away before I could get her view on whether anything larger than a handful is a waste. So, as usual, I grabbed the cheapest pair and headed for the checkout.

Am I the only one that finds this funny? Or am I turning into that creepy old man that our teachers used to warn us about?

I've cleared most of the crammed-in crap spares and equipment from the interior of the project and thrown it away/cleaned it/stored it/hidden it as applicable. Roof-racks, bumpers, a complete dashboard, ventilation systems, chairs, tables, stools, cushions, cooking equipment, gas bottles . . . Much of it will be re-fitted inside Marigold, a lot of it consists of duplicated parts that I shall probably sell, trade, gift or dump after the main project is complete. Click on the pics to enlarge 'em, go on.

I scraped most of the souvenir stickers from the right-rear window, the left-rear shall be attacked with a scraper-blade on Wednesday. I also removed the two side windows, the ones immediately behind the cab doors. The rubber seals on both were badly perished and cracked. They will need to be replaced with new ones.

My ever-friendly neighbour has invested in a new toy - a pressure washer that is remarkably powerful; for it's diminutive size it packs quite a watery punch. He made short work of removing the collected dirt, mud, insect nests and small garden of live moss (really!) stopping up the sliders. They slide back and forth just lovely now. The water jet even managed to put a little shine back onto the worn and weathered aluminium frames, thanks mate!

More soon, we've still got the last of the wiring loom to solder up (in? on? together?), should be able to make some progress later this week.

Thanks for stopping by
CooP

Cleaner Air

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
Anais Nin

I didn't get much work done this week; my friendly neighbour and I were busy working on one of HIS projects for a change. We are supposed to alternate on Wednesdays but my projects have been hogging the labour force lately so I can't complain. I have used some of my spare time to tidy up the oil-bath air filter. As usual you can click on the pics to enlarge them slightly.

In a previous post (Click here to view) I gave this device a mini-service by making new rubber O-rings and refreshing the oil. But it still looked a bit shabby to me so I sanded down the worst of the old paint and gave it a couple of coats of new.

I couldn't bash out all of the many dents because of the double-walled design of the main cylinder. But it certainly does look better to my little eye. Another job has been jobbed and we are one more step closer to the end. Next week I hope to finish the joining together of the main wiring harness.


Thanks for stopping by
CooP

Spaghetti Junction

There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy, and its charm.
Theodore Roosevelt

We managed to get some of the new wiring spliced in, soldered and sealed last night.

It helps to have prehensile toes! The rear section has been matched up, labelled and soldered. We have wrapped up the individual joints with a sleeve of shrink-wrap, then the whole lot has been sleeved with a larger piece of shrink-wrap. This lot has been bound with a bit of insulation tape, then the whole lot has been bunged into a plastic conduit. Finally that conduit has been stuffed inside the hollow chassis rail.

Should be fairly well protected I reckon! That's the rear end finished, next week we'll do the front section joins.

In my spare time I have been tidying up a few loose parts, mostly plastic and rubber bits. I love rubber bits. They looked pretty rough to start with but a simple scrub with some soapy water already got them looking a bit nicer. Pictured are air vents, step rubbers, mirror, door handles and cubby door.

A lot of polishing and buffing with regular shoe polish and they all look like new! Loads of elbow grease but it's all worth while and these bits will look luvverly when I refit them.

Thanks for stopping by
CooP

Staying On Course

There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.
C.S. Lewis

In our attempts to remove the old and useless ignition switch we also managed to damage the steering wheel quite badly. It'll still work but it looked a bit naff so I took it home for a bit of extra tlc.

The Plastic was a bit old and brittle and a couple of larger chunks had been dislodged, although the main metal frame is still strong and undamaged.

I filled it with a two-part epoxy putty and gave it a few hours to set. I filed it and sanded it until it resembled the original a little more. Re-fill the holes and low spots and sand it down again. Repeat a final time to fill in the blemishes caused by my own drunken careless file work. It's very much similar to the earlier work that I have done filling dents in body panels, but this putty sets really, really hard!

I sanded down the entire wheel after I had tidied the putty work. This to give it a bit of a key for the paint, which I applied from a rattle-can. Eight coats on the centre hub but just two on the outer ring 'cos I want to bind that with leather strips.

A few unfortunate slips with the rasp means that I left a couple of wee blemishes in the final finish but . . . so what? It looks pretty good to my weary eye and I have more important jobs to get on with right now. It looks okay fitted back in it's place and I think that I can learn to live with it as it is :)

Thanks for stopping by
CooP

Vague Steering

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We are continuing the slow slog down the long list of loose ends and trying to tick off a couple or three each month. We have stripped and removed the steering mechanisms from both donor buses and will attempt to assemble a best-of-the-best setup from the selection of parts.

These are some of the steering bits, parked on my spare desk for now, a reminder of the work I need to do in my spare time this week. It's in pretty good nick, just needs cleaning and maybe a lick of paint and we'll be able to replace it next week.

We also managed to do some more work on the re-routing of the new wiring underneath the bus. We are using a combination of regular plastic conduit, plastic electrical sleeving, shrink-wrap and the natural chassis rails to route the new cables. Most of it is using existing holes and channels in the chassis, some of the newer holes are our own handiwork. Next week we can start the joining, soldering and wrapping.


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CooP

Must Dash

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.
John Muir

Marigold's original left-hand-drive dashboard was removed before the skeletal remains were dragged away and taken to places unknown. I do have a bit of a soft spot for the old dials and guages, having spent so many happy years of my childhood studying them on our regular holiday trips. So I have taken out the relevant clocks and dials and transferred them to the new, right-hand-drive dashboard. Makes my heart happy to see, it really does, like a familiar smiling face. As usual, click on the pics to enlarge 'em a bit.

I managed to locate some colour images of the wiring diagrammes (thanks to the nice people at The Samba for the help) and printed them out to use in trying to make some sense of the tangle of wiring beneath the project. I cut and slashed rather indiscriminately when I did the original Big Chop and did not really think ahead very far. At that time I expected to redo the entire wiring loom in the unseen future. As it happens the wires that exist have been well protected from weather and other agents. They are in excellent condition and I expect that I'll be able to safely re-use long sections of the original loom. Thankfully, despite some minor differences between the 1971 front and the 1972 rear, the wiring is very similar and the colours all seem to match up except one.

When I look at the front interior of the project I think that I must be a bit blinded by affection. Or beer maybe, it could be beer. I don't seem to notice the huge collection of mess until I take a photograph and realise just how awful it all still looks. Never mind, any progress is good progress and we are indeed getting something done every week or two. After seemingly endless fiddling and following all of the exact directions on various expert websites I simply cannot get the ignition switch removed. I only have a working key for the original ignition switch taken from the other front-end. So I'm going to just change the whole housing and move it across - it'll be simpler in the long run I s'pose.

I gave the housing a light sandpapering and a couple of coats of satin black from a rattle-can. Looks okay, now we just have to get the steering wheel loose and I can fit the whole thing. Next tasks: to complete the wiring, test it all and chuck in a battery. We're getting there!


Thanks for stopping by
CooP