Album: Repair

     Album:2015-04 Breakin:Repair

So, the bus was destroyed. And on top of that, just about all of the systems had broken down. It was one of my worst bus experiences to date. To wit:
  • The fan broke (for completely unknown reasons)
  • Both A/C units broke (for completely unknown reasons)
  • It was a hundred fucking degrees out
  • The generator fan broke. Again. Failure number five. Probably because it had run too much when the thief ripped the controller off the wall
  • It was a hundred fucking degrees out
  • The water was off, because the rats that came in the broken window had chewed through the hoses, and on top of that the pump died (the 5th one so far)
  • It was a hundred fucking degrees out
It was nightmarishly uncomfortable, and we couldn't cool off or wash up.

The generator had been hell, which you can read about more in the bus log. The gist is that I have a Wrico genset, which is the gold standard in RV generators, and with it was installed an extremely over-engineered (and expensive) 1KW squirrel fan to keep it cool. These were industry strength fans that would last 100 years in a warehouse. Wrico had only seen five of these fans fail. All of them happened in my bus.

And because the fan was supposed to be rock-solid, I had installed it in the middle of the bus between the genset and the 3/4 ton of batteries. Which meant that I needed to completely disconnect the genset, forklift it out and disassemble the doghouse just to get to the damn fan. Which I had done five times before. I couldn't bear to do it again and I didn't have the time or equipment or energy. So instead I decided to try something different. I went with a smaller fan on the presumption that I was seeing failures because the air box was too small and it was straining the fan, and that I didn't actually need that much cooling after all (turned out I was right), and I lifted the bus up and then pulled the fan out through the floor. Tricky since the fan was much bigger than the hole. Fixed that with a grinder and a metal saw and some sweat and got a destroyed fan in the process. Satisfying. Then I cut a jigsaw like pair of floor pieces which allow me to put the smaller fan in the space, put up the floor pieces, attach them to each other, drop them down, bolt them to the bus, then drop the fan down and bolt that to the floor from the bottom. It was a very tight fit and was like working with a Rubik's cube, but I got it to work, so now (with these photos) I can take it apart if, by some nightmare in the future, I need to take it out again.

The buses at Baton Rouge Bus Repair
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Buses in the yard
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The back of the bus depot
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Bus kissing
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Dave after pulling a window
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I started to lose my mind a bit
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We drove the bus up ramps
so I could get underneath. ( comments)
Finishing up the windows.
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Wiring for the new fan motor
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Cutting the shit
out of the old fan ( comments)
Sparks pouring on the face
It was a grueling job. ( comments)
The destroyed squirrel fan.
May it rot in fan hell. ( comments)
New starting capacitor.
The old fan caps kept blowing, so I need to remember to get some of these. ( comments)
Holding the fan in place
while I screw the two supports in place. This is looking up through the bottom, with a piece of 2x4 holding the supports up ( comments)
Better view, this is attaching the floor
pieces together while they are lifted up ( comments)
Then I move the fan
sideways to barely get to the wiring. ( comments)
Captain Mango
shows off his injury, thanks to an angle grinder that had it's blade explode in mid-grind. I still have the scar almost a year later. ( comments)
Then I drop the floor pieces
and bolt them to the bus floor with the fan set to the side inside. ( comments)
Drilling the fan into place.
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The fan, installed. And removable.
With markings showing which screws to take out if I need to (sadly) go through this hell again. ( comments)
This is what the work felt like.
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This is what kept me sane
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She is also my (damn fine) driver.
Yikes! ( comments)
Driving, finally
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Album created by album tool from MarginalHacks by David Madison on Wed Oct 23 10:47:26 2019