Follow Our Progress
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October 13th
2003
Man what a bummer day...
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Our day started off nice enough. We put the framing in
place for the two back beds. It all came together exactly
as planned and the holes that I had predrilled in the bedroom
wall held the bed supports perfectly. Everything lined up
and hit the marks...
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...but then I noticed something in the corner. The new
plywood paneling in the corner was water stained. It's
been raining really hard for the last week or so. I had
noticed a small amount of water on the back window shelf, but I
had assumed that the rubber seal was cracked (like all of the
side windows) and was just leaking a little.
I started tracing the leak...
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I had to pull off the metal sheeting that surrounds the exhaust
pipe. Once I pulled it off I found very wet fiberglass
insulation just above the stained wood.
At first I thought that there must be a leak in the
fiberglass box that surrounds the exhaust pipe outside, but
after pulling the insulation out, I found more water above the
entire assembly.
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I pulled off some of the rubber insulating material that covers
the bottom of the air conditioning compartment and found some
rust and water there too.
At this point I started getting a bit depressed. The
first rain of the season and the back of the bus is leaking all
over the place it seems.
I couldn't see a thing, so I had to pull off all of the
rubber insulating material that was glued to the bottom of the
air conditioning compartment.
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It was not an easy task. The rubber is glued on with some
kind of rubber contact cement. The stuff is still VERY
sticky even after 30 years... It took a lot of prying and
cutting with a construction knife to even get 1/2 of the stuff
off.
I think it took me at least 2 hours of prying and pulling and
cutting to get all of it off so I could see the metal underneath...
Unfortunately, that didn't help me a bit. I still could
not see the source of the leak(s)...
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When I opened up the other corner panel to finish removing the
last of the rubber insulating material, I found a big wet mess. LOTS of water!
Now I was determined to find out how much damage I would find
to the back of the bus under the shelf...
All the wood that we had put in the back of the bus had to be
pulled out again to get at the screws to remove the metal shelf
in the back window. I was afraid of what I would find underneath.
I found some wet insulation, but nothing rusted out or
anything. I also retrieved my favorite drill extension
that had rolled under the metal shelf a week or so ago. I
thought that I'd never get it back and had missed being able to
quickly change bits. At
least there was something good to come out of removing
everything from the back of the bus...
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I still couldn't find the source of the leak. It wasn't even
raining and there was still a steady drip from somewhere above
the window. There had
to be a puddle of water on the roof or in the air conditioning
compartment, so I climbed up on the back of the bus and tried to
look inside the air conditioning compartment. It was
impossible, I couldn't see well enough thorough the screen to
determine where the leak was coming from, so I pulled
off the screen...
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..Oh boy...
Sure enough, at least a couple of gallons of this gross
green/gray water was trapped below the heat exchanger.
There was rust along the back of the bus from the top edge of
where the water is trapped to the rubber seal on the back
window.
It was the worst on the right side of the compartment, but
both sides are rusted and in pretty bad shape.
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There were layers upon layers of some kind of sealant that
someone had used around the whole compartment to try to stop the
leak apparently...
How could GMC design a compartment that can fill up with
standing water? I couldn't find a drain hole anywhere...
Even if I fix the damage, there's no place for the water to go
in the future.
Maybe I will find a drain hole under all that sealant, but it was freezing outside, so I wasn't about to haul a spray
hose up to clean it out and start chipping away at the sealant. It will have to be a project for
a warmer sunny day.
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I thought that I spied some light coming through the rust from
the inside of the bus and and
sure enough when I looked in the same spot from the
inside... I guess I can see
why there's water inside the bus.
Crap! Now I have to learn how to fix rusted out metal too?!?
Oh, what have I gotten myself into?
I decided to move the bus back 5 feet or so to see if I could
remove the fiberglass cover over the air conditioning
radiator...
It took a couple of tries to get the bus started - the first
time it hasn't started immediately since I bought it... and the
smoke... it was thick and black and not clearing up.
What is that strange knocking noise coming from the engine
now... It's a day of problems to be discovered I guess.
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I finished moving the bus back and was not able to budge a single
screw holding the fiberglass end cap in place, they were all rusted very
solidly in place. I gave up for the
day. It was too depressing and now that I've removed the
past few days worth of work I don't feel like working on the bus for at least the
rest of the day...
...As if that wasn't bad enough, my Jeep decided to make a bit of a fuss...
Something is terribly wrong with the clutch or something. It
sounds like there are pieces of metal banging around in the
transmission. We made it home, but I dread what will be found when
I take it in to get the noise diagnosed... We don't have ANY money
at the moment and if the Jeep requires a hefty repair bill, the bus will
have to take a back seat for a couple of weeks so I can come up with the
money to pay for the repairs to the Jeep.
Keep your fingers crossed... Unfortunately, I don't have a good
feeling about anything that has happened today. |
