Has it really been a month since I last posted? Apparently so. Its been a hectic March, so I apologize for the radio silence. Its still crazy, so this will be brief, but should get you all caught up too. Lots of work stuff has been going on, but I won't bore you with those details. Let's just say I've been at work a lot.
Moving
First, my landlord chose to increase my rent by $80/month when my lease renew was up. Seeing how my income is year-based, there's little I can do to bridge that gap other than cut spending elsewhere. I'm already kinda near the bone spending-wise, so I decided to counter their proposal with a move-out. This is where things get a little interesting. I thought I had until the end of April, but it turns out the lease was through the 11th, so I had to get crackin' on finding another place to live, packing up stuff, and moving. I have all that resolved temporarily, but I'm still vacating the old apartment. In fact, I've used the bus for a large bulk of the transportation.
Water tight?
In my last post, I talked about getting the little clip on from the bottom to get the cooling system to seal. That was the ticket, it turns out. After multiple trips over the last week or so, he hasn't dripped a drop of water. Oil, on the other hand, he continues to spread in little drips. I'll solve that later. Before I could really use the bus to help haul stuff, I had to make sure he was water-ready. For those of you not in the US Pacific NorthWest, you may not know just how wet it is here right now. We have had rain almost every day since my last post. With standing and moving water on the streets, parking lots and just about everywhere else, I needed to be sure the bus could keep going if I hit some.
So, the weekend I gave notice, I slid under the bus and did some less-than-permanent adjustments to some wiring. The radiator fan related wires all trigger off of a relay. That relay is now wrapped in plastic wrap. I know, that sounds positively awful, but it works, and the relay has stayed dry through this weather.
Next, I removed the belly pan from under the cab. After a good cleaning, I covered the inside with vibration noise reducing sheets. This should reduce a little road noise as well as seal off the small drain hole. I then caulked the front and sides of the pan and re-attached it. I know that if I hit a big enough puddle, water could come over the top of the support members, but that's a problem to be solved later too. For now, I'll avoid large puddles at speed. I didn't seal the back, thinking that any little bit of water that got in would need a way out. So far, the caulk and hole patch work very well: electronic accelerator and brake pedal switch have been working perfectly.
And Moving
After the minor water-proofish modifications, the bus was ready. I have driven him to and from a storage facility as well as to/from another apartment nearly every day for the last 2 weeks. He has started right up, driven with pep and carried every burden I put inside without issue. I have 2 or three large items left and then the usual debris that needs to be resolved, but my move is about complete. The bus has been a great way to move in a steady downpour, keeping my stuff dry without tarps.
I need to figure out how I can park both my daily driver and the bus at the new place, though. Unlike the old place, I don't have a 2-car garage. So, I'll annoy my neighbors for a while as I resolve this. As I mentioned earlier, this is a temporary housing solution, so I'll be moving again pretty soon.
That's it for today. I've avoided my moving tasks for long enough this morning, and need to get back at it. Today, I'll be completing the packing of the garage, and moving those big items I mentioned. That will leave the final sweep for stuff, a trash run and then the final cleaning. Moving is such fun...
