Week #9

All good plans

We ended last week with another episode of the bus not starting. Window cleaning continued, however, since that can be done at home. We went to the storage place on Saturday to exchange clean windows for more dirty ones. While there, we decided to make another attempt on trying to get the engine going. I put the key into the ignition, turned it to let the bus run through its starting sequence, manually switched through the transmissions (neutral, forward, reverse, back to neutral) and turned the key to start….

Guess the bus liked the nicer weather of the weekend, because its engine started without issue and was purring like never before! YAY! I called Cindy and she said to bring it home right away so we can get some real work done since next week was spring break.

Filthy filters and black oil

Now that it was home, it was cleaning and filter changing time. There are quite a few filters on this vehicle; a water separator filter, fuel filter, oil filter, cooling liquid filter and an air filter. Unlike with a gas engine, the main risk of changing fuel filters on a Diesel engine is air in the line. If for some reason you get air in the line, the engine will cut out immediately. I read up on how to change these filters without dousing the driveway in fuel prior to changing the water separator filter. Luckily, the filter tool arrived the very afternoon we brought the bus home. What would we do without Amazon.

After a little bit of searching, I find the manual fuel prime pump and the fuel filters are changed in just about an hour. Of course, we have a little cat-engine experience from our merchant mariner days. Started the engine and no issues.

Then it is time to crawl under the bus and change the oil. The engine takes either 6.5 gallons or 4.75 gallons of fuel. So was looking for a bucket that would fit that amount of oil. In the end, one of the bins with cots from underneath our bed was sacrificed.

Letting the oil pour out was not a big deal and neither was unscrewing the oil filter, but that is merely because engineering assistant Cindy walked by just in time to help and catch the filter without spilling oil everywhere!

Last but not least is the cooling water filter, but that is straight forward with two valves to block of the filter.

Getting the inside started!

Meanwhile, the cleaning process was started on the inside of the bus. The flooring and sides were SCRUBBED! By Sunday night, Ivo was able to paint rust prevention coat on the first 4ft section of flooring.

Spring break is next week, with the bus in the driveway. It’s starting to turn around from demolition to rebuild!