Plugging Holes, Plugging Wires

I indicated that boss-man was going to activate everyone to work yesterday, and he did. Since my wife was out of town, and I had C with me, I couldn't really go in. Besides, I had a pre-existing commitment to be at the neighborhood association Easter Egg Hunt. I haven't really gone into the details of the HOA, and the fact that I'm on the board, but lets just say that it takes up considerably more time than I anticipated. Yesterday morning was no exception. Today's post touches on my homeowners association (HOA) responsibilities, and the progress I made yesterday.

Hay Ho HOA
In November of 2008, there was all that election energy I got to thinking that I could do a little something to make the world a better place. Let's call it a case of the "civic's". Anyway, by the following February, I found myself on the board of our neighborhood home owner's association (HOA). By the end of 2009, I had taken on the position of "Maintenance Chair", meaning I had the responsibility for all of the common-owned areas excluding the neighborhood pool. Since the start of the school year, I have hosted 6 ivy pulls, coordinated the removal of 15 dangerous trees, oversaw the bidding process and selection of the maintenance company and a surveying company. We have had another tree fall, so there was a clean up (and now insurance company involvement) of that. There have also been a few small projects, including the clearing out and bark-chipping an area where the Easter Egg Hunt took place yesterday. Because of the project, I had to attend the Egg Hunt just to make sure it all was up to snuff... and my 8 year old ("C") was a hunter. The hunt went well, and the space looked great. After meeting with a number of the homeowners, I took "C" home and logged in to work. Fortunately, it was very well under control by my co-worker, so I spent the rest of the day around the bus.

Clean up on Aisle 6
Last Tuesday afternoon when we arrived home from Bend we moved the firewood from just in front of the bus to a spot much closer to the back door. This served 3 purposes - wood no longer touches the house, closer to the door we go through in winter for wood and away from the nose of my bus so I can work around the front. We only moved the wood though, we didn't clean up all the refuse that was underneath that pile. I did that Saturday. With last night's rain completing the job, it is nice clean concrete now. After the area was nice and clean, I set to work on the bus.

Genie Finally Bottled
With some fresh stainless steel bolts, nuts and fender washers, I installed the coolant bottle bracket that I had fab'd and painted before we left for Bend. With it tightened down, I put in the bottle - also with 1/4" stainless steel bolts, nuts and fender washers. With some short stretches of steel brake line, I connected the last bits if the cooling system "bubble system". I cut up pieces of donor rubber from the stock system for the 90* elbows. The leftovers were then sliced length-wise and wrapped around the steel lines. My thinking was that the steel lines could touch ground, and cause an electrical charge through the coolant. The net result looks like the bubble system is pure rubber, but its not. The steel will hold in-place, allowing access to the oil filter and guarantee that the high point of the bubble system is the overflow bottle. The lower nipple on the bottle was tied into the engine block with a section of leftover hose from the donor engine. After much celebration, and a small snack, I switched gears over to the electrical side.

Marinara on the Side
For the first time since last October, I pulled out the wiring harnesses that I got with the donor engine. Since I spent all that time labeling 60% of the sockets, it didn't take very long to get the spaghetti laid out and the important 2 sections identified. There is a primary engine harness that was left on the engine. This has the smaller ECU plug on it as well as a couple connectors for the vehicle lighting. I don't know what I'll do with those. For now, they're just hanging out. The second important harness connects to the other side of the ECU. This has the other engine connectors as well as the multi-plugs to go into the main harness. Both of these harnesses originally passed through the fire wall into the dashboard area (out of the elements).

Considering the length of the cables, I had few choices for a dry location. The most obvious location is the spare tire well on the left side. In the later Westvalia layouts, there is a closet cabinet on top of this well, which makes it a great candidate. An alternate solution could have been putting the "dry" stuff under the rock-n-roll bed. I am not sure the cables would have reached, though. Anyway, I cut a 4" long 1-1.2" wide rectangle in the very bottom of the well. This took some doing without removing anything. Once cut (and sharpness filed), it was pretty straightforward identifying which parts of the cables needed to be in the cabinet and which needed to be in the engine compartment.

I connected the bits that were well marked, and will have to investigate some of the circuits to be sure of others. I intend to physically mount the ECU and other bits into the wheel well, though some of the circuitry needs to find a different home. For example, I don't know what I will be doing with the donor dashboard. I could imagine it taking the place of the stock bus dashpod, but I don't know if I'll have that kind of time before camping season begins. Besides that, there are lots of other parts that would consume too much of the cabinet, and look awful if jammed in there. Instead, I am thinking of removing the parts of the fridge that do the cooling, and leaving the cabinet. We don't use if as a fridge anyway, so why keep all the heavy gets-in-the-way junk? Once that is pulled out, and a pass-through drilled between the 2 cabinets (closet and former fridge), I'll be able to pass the cables into the fridge cabinet. I intend to put in a false-floor under which these circuits would live, leaving the topside for dry food storage.

Next up, is more with the electrical, of course. Since most of the work is now contained within the bus, I should be able to do things even on nasty weather days. I have to put in the accelerator, brake and clutch pedal switches, but those installs are not blocking, so they can wait until a dry day. It really feels good to be on this part, and thinking about placement of electrical bits. It really is starting to feel like I'm almost there.

pictures:
top - coolant bottle installed with rubber lines.
upper middle - engine bay view of harness pass-through into cabinet. Note that big black thing. It contains the relays for the coolant heaters - which I'm not sure how I'm gonna use.
lower middle - the pasta from inside the cabinet. Eeek.
bottom - inside of the fridge cabinet that seem primed for holding some spaghetti.