Road-Ready when Rain Relents

I didn't have the boys last week, so in theory I could have gotten some things done on the bus.  Instead, I went out for drinks, messed around with my media-center-acting PC and worked late a couple of times.  So, that left me entering this weekend with the bus in the same shape it was in when I left it on July 4th, pretty much.  With Fall-like weather pressing in around us in the Pacific Northwest (read: pouring rain almost all day), I appreciated the garage all the more, and I want to be ready when the Summer days (read: sunny and dry) return.  I'm about an hour away from being truly ready, but I'll cover what I got done to get that close.  In the background, I'm watching the Overhaulin' episode when they did a 21 window bus.  Never seen this one...

Harness Swap #7
I mentioned in my last post that I'm giving up on the original harness.  I've lost too much time to it now, though a replacement is spendy at $150 on eBarf.  I've put so many hours into the original, I hate giving up.  I could charge $5 per hour on my time with the original and be able to pay that $150.  I used to decide whether to hire someone to do something based on how many hours it would take me to do it.  We should all highly value our time, and I need to think that way again.  If I'd thought that way, I would have given up on that old harness after a few hours and bought one by now.

I had a "shower epiphany" yesterday for how to use Justin's harness without damaging it while still getting an oil pressure signal.  I don't want to cut a single wire on his harness, but the plug end on his "newer" harness doesn't fit my blade-style sensor.  I could buy a newer sensor, but instead, I took a short 18gauge wire with a female-blade end on it.  I stripped the other end and simply jammed it into the plug.  Taking care not to mess anything up, I verified the connectivity, and a-fixed it with some simple electrical tape.  Will this stand the test of time? Heck, no, but it's not supposed to.  It just needs to last until I have $150, which should be the middle of next month.  So, out came the original for the last time, and in went Justin's... again, hopefully for the last time.  That was this morning.

Cool and Clean
With the engine harness resolved for test-driving, next I needed to be sure the fans would fire.  I hit the Bentley to the test procedure.  I should have done this before, but I was installing this outdoors in the rain, so I'll forgive my self.  On the test, though, it failed.  I dug into the Bentley wiring diagrams, and that big fan control module isn't even useful in my installation.  From what I could tell, it is necessary for A/C, and if you have the auxiliary coolant pump to continue to circulate the coolant if it's hot on shutdown.  I don't have that, nor do I have A/C.  Honestly, if I need that kind of thing, I'll buy an electric coolant pump from a yard and tie it in with a simply relay.

Anyway, by not needing all that, I had a bunch of extra wiring I needed to get rid of. The view from the rear is now much cleaner too.  The small wire bundle that used to run down along the engine harness is now gone.  Now, there's a single fan power wire running from the fuse block a-top the battery running up to the rad.  It passes through the temp-switch there.  It is a "2-speed" fan switch, so I have the front fan running to the "slow" and the rear running to "fast".  I will eventually tie both fans into the "fast", but I need an isolator of some kind.  Regardless, I re-performed the tests, and we have power to the fan.  Just to prove it, I cross-wired the source to the fan, and "whirrr", the fan spun to life.  Sweet... we're ready to test fly.


So that's what I did today.  I messed around yesterday too, but I'll get to that in another post.  With the pouring rain today, and rain forecast into the week, I don't know when I'll be able to try giving the bus a drive.  Remember, he doesn't have a top, he looks like a sunroof model, except... there's no slider!  So, once the rain stops, I'll start test driving to work, the boys to camp, etc.  I guess I should start with starting him and driving out of the garage, eh?  Stay tuned....  This last picture here stands as a reminder to take a seat in the driver's seat from time to time to remind yourself why you're going through all this trouble.  There is no view like the one out the front of a flat-nosed vehicle.  Thanks for following along...

pictures:
top - retrofitting a plug for a spade connector
middle - cleaned up view of wiring through rear-access
bottom - view through the windscreen in current spot. that thing suctioned to the windshield in the middle there is the holder for the UltraGauge