Rear Windows

I have been working on the rear windows most recently.

One of the windows had a definite water leak, and the water from that leak is what ruined the street-side rear corner area of the bus.

The first picture shows the damage on the driver's side, and the second one shows how the windows are installed - the glass is held in place with a rubber gasket between the body of the bus and the window glass.  The rubber on two windows is cracked and very brittle.  On the third window, (the drivers side rear window)  the gasket is different than the other two.  It is still pliable, but is a little loose and this is where the water has seeped in.  It is obvious that someone tried to seal it with silicone sealant,  but this is not effective for this application.

I used a chisel to carefully remove the brittle rubber.

The glass all came out without breaking.

The paint on the inside has unstuck from the steel in some places.   Also,  you notice that there are an inside and an outside body panel spot-welded together.   They are not the same height!  This means that part of the body is thinner than in other parts of the window.   I am going to weld a bead along the top inside edge of the outer body panel to make it thicker.   I will grind it down since my welding leaves something to be desired.   I also plan to coat it with epoxy to make it smoother.

Here is another shot of the rear corner before removing anything - a reference for how it goes back together!


So far,  I have welded, ground,  epoxied and sanded the metal clean.  I have primed and painted both the inside and outside.    I removed the aluminum strip from the outside which was below the windows and am polishing it up before re-installing it.   Always lots of cleaning and polishing work available on Retro!

Floor patched

I have patched the big hole in the floor where the water tank drain was!

I bought a MIG welder (seems like a handy thing to have if you own a 50 year old all-steel motorhome)  from Craigslist.  It was a pretty sweet deal including the cart and a gas bottle, and a very slightly used Lincloln 140 welder.

I worked to get the steel patch as close of a match as I could to the hole, it had some pretty good gaps part of the way around, but was pretty tight in some places.

I welded carefully - not running a bead too far at a stretch so that I would not overheat the thin steel and cause it to sag.  In some parts of the circle I was filling a gap of perhaps 3/8 ".

As you can see above, it is pretty lumpy and bumpy at this point, so I got my power grinder out and spent the next hour grinding away metal that it seemed to take mere minutes to put in place - 15 minutes of welding and an hour of grinding!

At this point, the deck is smooth enough to install the wood over,  so I am done grinding.  I painted with some primer to match the rest of the floor.  I also sprayed underneath with some rust-oleum undercoat paint.

I am pretty happy with this patch - it is my first experience welding.  I have signed up for welding classes at the local community college,  I would really like to KNOW what I am doing instead of guessing.

More to follow!

Slow time - other projects

Well, I have not been working on Retro much for the past month or so,  I have been busy with some other projects that came up.   I did buy a used MIG welder, and also managed to sign up for some MIG welding classes (seemed like a good idea).

Took Retro for a spin last weekend, never good to have a vehicle just sit.   I put gas in the recently drained front tank, so now the generator has access to fuel,  I just need to get it connected to the battery so I can try to start it.  I am sure it will need some work to get it running.   

I should be able to get back on task with Retro in the next week or so.

My current idea of a task list is:

1.  Weld patch on floor where water tank drain was.
2.   Patch screw holes where old wood subfloor was screwed to steel deck
3.   Replace rear window seals - current seals are dried out and cracked,  is cause of significant rainwater leak into bedroom - probably responsible for part of the damaged wood.
4.   Replace wood subfloor in bedroom

That should keep me busy for a while !

Rust Treatment

Retro has a number of spots where water has leaked in, particularly in the bedroom along the rear wall.  The water soaked some of the wood, destroying it and also got under the floor wood and rusted the 14 gauge steel deck in some spots.

I am using a product called Ospho to treat the rust.  According to it's manufacturer it will convert the iron oxide (rust) into iron phosphate, which is a stable metal.  After treatment and conversion, I will paint the deck with some self-etching primer.    This may be a slight problem, since the metal is galvanized and most paints do not stick to galvanized metal.  The rust-oleum self-etching primer was the only kind that did not indicate on the label not to use on galvanized metal.    After I bought some I investigated further on the rust-oleum website and it said there that it was not for galvanized metal, but I am hoping that after treatment with the ospho,  the paint will stick.   In any case,  the paint will be under the wood floor and I am not concerned with appearances.  I was hoping for some additional rust protection, but if the paint does not stick, it means the galvanized coating is still good and that should protect against rust, particularly since there should be no more moisture standing on the steel.

I think I am going to embed some moisture sensors in the walls and floors around the water system and plumbing,  maybe even under the windows.   The sensors should be cheap, and I can build a little arduino based system to monitor them and let me know if a leak starts.

Here is the floor with some ospho on it:

I will post more pictures after this weekend.    These are from last weekend.

Here is what I worked on tonight:

That is fresh wet water from a leak in the rear window (left side,  right of picture)  from the rain we had a few days ago.  It is neat to have the walls stripped and see where the leaks are.   I am going to try to find some new rubber seal that goes around the window and holds it into the bus.  If I can't find new seal, I will work to clean up what is there and possibly seal it with an appropriate caulk.  I think I will be able to find some seal that will work, though.   The floor was dry tonight, so I wire brushed all the loose rust away,  vacuumed the dust and painted ospho on.   The ospho is fairly dangerous to work with - it contains phosphoric acid as well as other stuff.  It stinks and can burn skin, so protective equipment is required when working with it.   I put a fairly small amount in a paint mixing cup - perhaps 10-20 cc's or so.  Then I brush it on and work it into the rust.   I spread it pretty thin - it is about as viscous as water.  If needed I will go back and do another coat tomorrow, let it dry till Saturday and then spray paint Saturday afternoon.

I may rent a MIG welder this weekend and patch the hole(s) in the floor.   There is about a 4" hole where the water tank drain was,  and lots of small holes - perhaps 1/8"  where the wood was screwed to the deck.   I got a nice piece of 14Ga steel and a box of 100  #14 X 1-1/4  screws - exactly like the ones I pulled out of the floor. If welding the small holes closed is impractical, I have some JB weld to seal them up with.  I just don't want the wood of the floor exposed to the outside if I can help it.

 It is exciting to think that the step of installing new 5/8 marine plywood onto the deck is coming up - perhaps even this weekend!    I will probably paint the wood with some epoxy paint - perhaps I should let it dry for a week before installing the floor.   I will read about epoxy paint and try to figure out the best thing to do.

Progress!!

Well, it's been two weeks and I have actually made some progress on Retro.  At first I was sort of... stuck.   I figured I needed to get the bedroom cabinets out in order to remove the wall paneling, some of which had been water damaged.  There were screws holding the top of the front of the cabinets to the ceiling, but I was uncertain of how the rest of the cabinets were held in.   It turned out to be a stack of 1X2 furring at the back which the rear of the bottoms of the cabinets were nailed into.  The furring stack was screwed to the metal frame of the bus.   Using a prybar I was able to get the cabinets out without too much damage,  and when I replace them, I will screw the back to the stack of furring strips so that it can be removed more easily in the future.

After getting the cabinets out, the wall paneling came pretty easily, I had to cut some sections but mostly I was able to pry it off.    Some of the fiberglass insulation was soaked and moldy, all the rotted wood and moldy fiberglass went to the dump.   Fortunately the specially cut corners were intact and I can use the old wall panel sections as templates for the new replacement wood.

After getting the walls out, I took out the aluminum water tank, plumbing and water pump. Then  I ripped up the carpet - both the "nice" carpet in the walkway and the industrial soundproofing carpet which had been under the beds.    This exposed the wood underlayment of  the floor,  some of which had also been rotted away from water leaks over the years.

Now the metal floor of the bus is exposed and there are a few issues to take care of!   First there is about a 4 inch hole which had been cut for the fresh water tank drain / cleanout.   Having looked in the tank (uugghh!)  I am pretty sure I am replacing it with a shiny new plastic one, so the hole can be closed and a new (smaller) hole installed for the new tank.  I want to weld a plate into the hole (or over it perhaps) to restore the structural integrity of the floor.   Also,  the floor is rusted in several areas.   This will be a job for Ospho rust converter.   The Ospho will convert the rust into Iron Phosphate, which is a stable form of metal.   I will then paint the entire floor with a good rust-resistant primer.

In addition to the demolition on the bedroom,  I removed the Jacknife sofa from the living room.This will let me remove and replace the water damaged wall panels which were behind the couch.

This brings us about up to date.
The next few weeks will see us working on:

Continued removal of bedroom floor,  covering drain hole,  fixing rust, priming floor
Replacing wood sub-floor in bedroom
Replacing wood furring strips in bedroom
Demolition of walls in living room
Replacing wood furring strips in living room
Replacing window framing (plywood) in bedroom and living room.



Maybe I will update in one week instead of two next time.

Plans

Retro needs a lot of work in different areas.   He has good bones, which makes it worthwhile to do the work that is needed - it is likely that if the various problem areas are properly addressed he will be a fine coach to travel and camp in.

By taking stock of Retro's condition and listing all the areas that need work I can plan the work so that where part of a system in one area affects a different area that I may not be working on yet  I can perhaps do a few extras that make the later work easier.

So here is a first draft of the things that need to be addressed in Retro - broken down by driving issues and living issues.

Driving Issues:

1.  Radiator needs to be cleaned.  When under high load like going up mountains,  Retro overheats.  this is mainly (probably) due to the radiator being clogged up.   The radiator needs to be removed and taken to a specialty shop and rodded out (rods pushed through the tubing to clean out gunk).

2. Brake lights don't work.   I think the hydraulic brakelight switch is bad.  There is electricity in the wire going to the switch, but not coming out.  The switch was replaced with the master cylinder rebuild so this kind of bugs me.  Some things I have read seem to indicate that these switches fail when used with the newer silicon based brake fluid.  I need to check into this.  There are mechanical replacement switches,  I might check those out.

3. No emergency brake.   This is a big deal.   There is a brake that is supposed to be installed on the back of the transmission and to the driveline.  It was removed by a previous owner for rebuild and the shop lost the pieces and so now Retro has no emergency and parking brake.   I think I can buy an old transmission that has the parts or maybe get a newer design that will fit Retro.

4. Gas tanks.  The two gas tanks are almost certainly rusty inside.  I can remove them and take them to a shop that will clean and then coat the inside.  

5. Radiator fans.    Retro has electric radiator fans.  The two fans do not cover all of the radiator.  I may be able to redesign the system with 4 fans and cover the whole thing better.

6.  Redo 12 Volt electrical system.    Right now,  Retro has 1 starting battery for starting the engine as well as running all the 12 volt items in the house part of the coach - lights,  water pump, refrigerator etc.    I want to split the system so that the house stuff has 2 or 4  deep-cycle batteries (how ever much fits physically) and the starting battery is used for starting the motor,  starting the generator  and for things like headlights / marker lights / brakelights / windshield wipers / turn signals etc.

7.  Redo  instrument panel - make beautiful and add a few instruments - gas gauge for each tank instead of switching one gauge between tanks,  fix transmission temp gauge, add brakelight indicator lamp etc.

Livability issues:

1.  Water damaged wood.    There have been water leaks over the years that have affected Retro's interior wood.   There are spots in the bedroom and living room and possibly more that I have not found yet.    I am going to remove the paneling in the bedroom,  remove most of the furring (the wood behind the wall that is screwed to Retro's steel frame and to which the paneling is nailed) and replace with new wood.     The living room has some problems of this type also, and I will do the same work there.

2.  Replace sofa & loveseat.    Retro was infested with rodents at one point so all the textiles in the bus are going to be replaced.  All the foam too.    

3.  Replace old window style air-conditioners with RV rooftop units.    This will also include removing the "boxes" that hang off of Retro's back and side and replacing them with smooth new steel panels painted to match the existing scheme.

4.  Replace lighting.   I am certainly going to LED lighting.   I may switch to all 12 Volt lighting. Right now the lighting is a combination of 120VAC fluorescent lights  and  12 volt lights in the same fixtures.  I could just replace the 12V bulbs with LEDs,  though I think I want to use LED strip lighting.   The fluorescents could be replaced with regular  120VAC lamp sockets with LED bulbs in them.  Put 2 or 3  in each existing fluorescent fixture and it should work fine.  But perhaps just having a 12 volt lighting system is good enough ? When I am plugged into power  the electricity would come from 120VAC  through the converter keeping the batteries charged.   I will think about this.   The 120 Volt circuits are already there and may be a good backup if something goes wrong with the 12 volt systems.


5. Convert two twin beds to one queen bed.

6. Add microwave / convection oven  (perhaps over stove as fan hood?)

7. Replace old fanless propane heaters with modern  RV  forced-air heaters, suplimented with 120VAC heaters - perhaps oil-filled radiant baseboard heaters ?

8. Redo coach plumbing with PEX pipe / fittings   and new faucets.   Maybe add outside shower.

9. Maybe replace current electric / motorheat only water heater with a modern  RV  propane / electric / motorheat water heater.   The current one works, but I am concerned about needing to have electricity when boondocking  to have hot water.   I don't want to have to run the generator for hot water.


There are lots of other small issues,  I will work on all of them over time.   When I first looked at Retro it seemed like I was looking at a 2-3 year project.  That still seems to be the case, however I want to try to work in a way that lets me use the coach even while the project is going on.  There will be times when things are pretty torn up and we can not go camping, but there should be time between the phases of work when we can use the coach and evaluate our work so far as well as how the original equipment that we have not gotten to yet is working.

The Tarp of Shame!

It has rained for about 10 days out of the last 15 or so. 

Retro has leaks, and I am not in a position to look for them from the inside, so I have covered him up with a couple of 17' X 19'  tarps.   I bought the 40 pack of bungee cords at Harbor Frieght and the tarps are pretty secure.

The tarps intersection is in line with Retro's door,  so I could still get in and work.

Now that the rains have stopped,  I have pulled the tarps off and Retro has regained some of his dignity.