Follow Our Progress

October 17th 2003

Today was a pretty good day...  Things are beginning to look up again.  For the past week it seems like we ran into one thing or another that went wrong for us, but today things worked out in our favor.

I was stuck at home for a few days while the shop looked over the transmission on the Jeep to see if they could determine what the grinding noise is...  We had to walk everywhere and the bus was just too far away to be worth any work I might have been able to accomplish.

The good news is that the Jeep problems are not related to the transfer case as the local transmission specialist had thought.  It turns out that it's some bearing that is involved with holding the clutch plates apart.  Anyway, the rest of the transmission and related junk under there checks out just fine - in fact the mechanic said that our transmission is quieter than some new ones that he's listened to.  All the lubricants were clean -no metal or graphite type stuff in the fluids at all.  So, we have our car back while they work up an estimate for the new bearing and to change out the clutch while they have everything apart.  So until at least Monday or Tuesday we have transportation again.

	We started out this morning with a stop at the home improvement store for some wire and a few more electrical boxes. When we got to the bus we decided to re-assemble the back of the bus until I come up with a good solution on how to deal with the leaks.  Tomorrow we will move the bus completely under the RV port to prevent any further leaks until I get a chance to deal with it.
	After we finished re-assembling the back of the bus, we removed almost all of the stranded wire and replaced it with the Romex style wire we picked up at the home improvement store.
	I left the stranded wire between the switches and light fixtures.  I'll be running those wires through a piece of conduit in the near future since the wires will eventually go through the ceiling and between some metal supports that are part of the bus.  For now the lights are just temporarily mounted on either side of the bedroom in the back of the bus. I feel much better about the new wiring.  It's a lot easier to secure and with an insulated staple about every 12 inches or so, it doesn't move at all. We also finished putting metal plates over each location where the wire passes through one of the 2x2 wall studs.  That has added some additional peace of mind.
	The girls spent their time watching movies, coloring on the walls or playing on the play structure outside. The walls in the back of the bus have become quite the work of art.  It's too bad that we'll have to paint over it all, but for the time being at least, there's something nice to look at.
	Not only did we get the back of the bus all rewired, but we also got a good start on the bathroom and kitchen as well. I wired a switch for the hall light, the kitchen light switch and a bathroom plug before my hands got too sore to do any more wiring. Becky has been peeling away at the vinyl strips all along the outside of the bus.  It looks like she's got about 10 feet of the outside of the bus down to the paint already.  That will help out a lot when it comes time to prep and paint the outside.

Tomorrow after we move the bus I should be able to get 3 runs of wire to the right side of the bus through conduit.  That will let me finish the 110V wiring for the bus.  I've also been dying to sheet over the kitchen wall on the front side and at the end of the hall.  If I have time that would really change the look of the bus again...  We'll see what we have time to accomplish tomorrow.

As soon as we have all of the inside wiring done and the lights are all up, it will be time for another bus sleep over.  The weather has gotten warm again, so we may be able to pull it off pretty soon...  If it gets cold again, the sleep over will have to wait until I have the heater working.  Not too much longer I think...