Week two of bus renovating continued with nice Florida weather and a list of to-dos that seemed to grow daily.

We found a nearby glass place that whipped up 6 new windows for us. Never having purchased new glass before, I was pleasantly surprised at how inexpensive it was. The old windows are covered in purple tint, and a couple are cracked. A couple of them we could have left alone, but what the heck, a new pane of glass with no streaks or scratches looks so nice. Weirdly, we went to pick up the first batch and found that every single piece was scratched. The lady running the place dismissed it as a problem with letting the new guy do the job. She called in the old hand and had him replace them all, which was fine, but was just another example of how much time is wasted running around town when you’re trying to get work done.

At the moment we’ve got no working 12v power on the bus. No water pump, no lights, no nothing. The new lithium battery bank will be in the closet on the left, and most of the 12v stuff we eventually install will be in the back half of the bus, so behind that little panel in the bedroom will be where the fuse panel goes to distribute that stuff. I’ve been running loose ended wiring behind all the panels as we go along.

Looks a bit peicemeal in raw form. But once paint is on, and mattresses are in place, it will look completely different. This back shelf was one of the harder bits to work out. We would have probably gotten rid of it completely if we could have, but a metal box was welded in place right in the middle, and is where we think a big air conditioning unit was originally installed. In the end, though, this turned our pretty well.

Time to bust up the bathroom a bit. This is one of those rooms that there just isn’t much that can be done to improve on what is a pretty poor design. The toilet can’t be moved (well it could, but it would be a lot of work) because it “drop” flushes right into the blackwater tank. Issue with that is that when sitting down your knees are pressed against the door. They built in a huge shower, which probably could have been a bit smaller to give the rest of the room more space, but it looks like we’ll just have to live with what we’ve got. We’ll recover the walls, rebuild a cabinet, replace the faucet and sink, and call it good.

I was hoping the oil leak was just some loose oil pan bolts, but, like every old engine I’ve ever had, I’m now 99% sure it’s the rear main seal. The rear main was a constant headache for me with the ol’ Dodge Travco, too. Not a job I can pull off myself with no jacks, and almost no tools. Next time we settle in somewhere for a little while I’ll hunt for an old-school mechanic that doesn’t mind a messy job on a 60s engine.

Took us a while to find just the right sink. Ali is in love with this one, complete with all the sink gadgets like trays, cutting boards, and drying racks.

Just about one coat on.

Piece, by piece, by piece, it comes together.

Our lumberyard stack of wood is slowly dwindling. This is a positive development.

The house we rented has been used mainly as a place to eat, shower, and sleep. The rest of the time is spent in the bus or running around town for bits and pieces. Ouest is lending a hand with dinner this night.

Somehow renting a house still always manages to feel like homeownership. Lowe was goofing around one night and managed to lock the master bedroom door, which for some odd reason had a key lock on it. I called the owner who said she had never even realized that it had a key. So instead of waiting for her to come up with some sort of solution, I grabbed my tools, and pried the door jamb back. At that point I was able to pick it with a credit card, impressing the kids. I told the owner her door jamb would need a little touch-up paint, and that she might want to replace that knob.

Bumfuzzle hasn’t been forgotten back in Aruba. In fact, this work of art is on a slow boat to Aruba right now. Twice in the past couple of months I had broken my foot right through the teak on the old one. The once thick boards had slowly been worn away over the years, and now every step was needing to be made very carefully. Not much fun when you spend as much time on that platform as we do. We got a quote on a repair job in Aruba, but didn’t feel the least bit comfortable with either the price, or the skill of the guy giving the quote. Instead we found a company in the States that specializes in building these things. Their quote was about the same, with the only really extra expense being the shipping. It’s over 12′ long, and heavy. It will also come with stainless trim, and a new swim ladder. Looking forward to returning to this upgrade.

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