Monday, March 25th
Russell and I spent today trying to get the tent on the Raffle Bus. It's quite the ordeal. After all we did Saturday getting the top attached to the bus, we had to spend all day unattaching the bracing in a kind of sequence to allow the tent to be attached behind where the bracing was interfering with the screws and stapler.
We first had to shore up the top with whatever we had to get the weight off the cross braces. Then had to cut wood strips out of a big piece of 1/8" Baltic birch plywood to insert into the bottom seam of the tent. Only had to do this twice because I didn't cut them narrow enough the first time. Screws go through this strip and into the wood frame around the opening in the top of the bus. There's a vinyl covered trim piece at the rear of that opening that we had to remove along with the X brace so the tent could be stapled in place. Then the trim piece and braces were replaced. Also added a fifth spring at the bottom here. We don't think the four upper springs are enough to allow the top to go up as easily as it should.
Now comes the tricky part. The lower rail, an aluminum angle piece, that the bottom of the side X braces attach to, had to be unscrewed from the top of the bus. This let us get to the lower edge of the tent with the 1/8" strips in the seams and screw through the strips into the wood frame around the roof opening. And that's why the top had to be shored up and all the weight taken off the X braces!
So the rear and one side are attached at the bottom. And it only took all day. Tomorrow we'll do the other side, add another spring to the lower front X braces, glue in the interior roof piece that fell out Saturday and figure out how to attach the tent at the front. Then we'll be ready to staple the tent at the top and get the interior tent trim pieces all in. Probably be a longer day than today was.
Above Author: John Manning
Russell Greene added...
Greg and I also played with what I call "the spice rack". It sits behind the passengers seat. It will hold what ever ails the new owner.
Tuesday, March 26th
After many false starts and much doing and undoing, the tent is finally being stapled in place.
We added two more springs on the front sides along with the new one we had previously added to the rear and it was WAY too many springs. Couldn’t lower it at all! So we pulled those off and it seemed to work as well one could expect. At least we could raise and lower it way easier now than when it first rolled into Russell's driveway. Could hardly move it then.
Stapling the tent at the top is hard. It's very cramped quarters toward the rear and it's hard to get the staple gun lined up correctly. But we got it stapled 2/3 the way. We'll get the rest of it in place tomorrow after some grinding on the steel angles. It's really looking pretty good.
Mike brought over the rear bumper mount off of a donor bus and he, David Pedrosa, Greg, Russell all worked like crazy to get it in place and bolted up. Also did some work on the front bumper to get it lined up. Looks pretty good, now.
David and Mike and Joe pulled the wing vent out of a donor door to replace the one we just couldn't repair. It was too far gone. But this one looks pretty good. We'll paint it and put the new rubber seal on it. I stopped by ACE and they had an assortment of what looked like solid rivets that just may work on these vent's pivot points. We'll see how they fit. By the way, Joe was able to pull the vent out of the door because he had videoed David Cissna installing one in the driver door last Saturday. That door repair video will be posted on our website for anyone to view and maybe learn from. Thanks Joe and David. Maybe we could video other parts of our rebuilds to help more people learn how to do stuff? Let us know....
Russell tried to put in the rear lights, but the male tabs are too wide for the female factory connectors. Gonna take some work to make them fit. Very frustrating. But Russell's not afraid to tackle anything!
Still lots to do so plan on being at Russell's next Saturday for more fun. We'll post what we'll be working on on the website before Saturday.
Thanks to everyone today. We got way more done than I would have ever hoped for on a Tuesday. You guys are all terrific!
Author: John Manning
More images on our Raffle Bus #33 page
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