Still on the Edge in Sumas

Well Blogger dot con just screwed me over again! A lovely post written in joy has just be swallowed by cyberspace. To repeat,

The bus rack is done. I drove it out of Jim's machine shop for the last time. What a pleasure! I think Jim was pretty relieved to see the thing gone as well; at 7 x 14 feet it takes up some space.

I took some odd pleasure in being mistaken for an employee while working on the rack that last few days. On Tuesday I brush painted the entire thing with a primer, on Wednesday went over it again with glossy black, and then today actaully attached it to the roof (using a crane and a bunch of pop rivets). Its a funny place, but I can't say I'd mind working there.

A bunch of very friendly people meandered in and out through my time there...a weathered guy came in with a part off a cider mill, he wanted Jim to fabricate him a mirror image clone of it. Another guy with an old Schwinn that works in a neighboring shop and who kept going on about the price of steel. This wirey Christian that cornered me to tell me about Jesus and the Bible (until I told him my story of the kids in Nanaimo). I'll have to get back to that... This cutey delivery boy that stopped by to pick up some huge gears for a farm tractor; the guy that stopped by to pick up the scrap metal. A retired man with a part to weld off his RV. His employees who seem to have issues worthy of Jerry Springer. But all of them amiable, chatty even, enjoying their day. As was I, whistling while I worked even, on a retired Gillig schoolbus, Number 3.

There's definitely

Progress! Today I painted the completed roof rack for the bus. Gawd I am so ready to move this thing out and get on with it. Here's a picture from a couple weeks ago, during a test fit of the roof rack to the roof of the bus. Its gonna be sweet...



The guy on the roof is Jim, the fabu fabricator who's slowly but surely got the thing together. Now if the paint will just keep the rust away (or at least to a minimum) then I'll be very pleased indeed.

Tomorrow I'll drive the bus over for the final install. Just to keep it interesting I'll also get to see how the new sending units for engine temp and oil level behave. Motor Weld swapped out the original sending unit (195F setpoint) for a new one (210F setpoint) at no charge, so hopefully that will solve my high temp buzzer prob.

The white panel on the side is an aluminum sheet that will permanently block a few windows for privacy. The rest of the windows will remain as is. Here's another view before the aluminum was painted:




You can just make out the round insert in the middle of the new aluminum block outs...they look great. Here's a close-up, the inserts came from a salvage yard:



More pics later! Can't wait to paint it...here's the general idea (via Photoshop):



Neato, huh?