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By Sylverstone, on December 19th, 2009 the 12v generator project was originally intended for the castle, but circumstances changed and it was decided that it would be better to install it in the bus…
of course, all the interior space was already accounted for, so an external enclosure was needed.
so i start in on the box…
yes, more salvaged bed frame. light, strong, cheap.
(pretentious art picture for the win  )
i tend to error on the side of “make the right part for the job, and weld it” instead of “cobble together to save production time”…
simply because there is nothing that will last longer than a temporary fix, and if you’re going to spend your life with something, you only want to build it once…
more welding…
and here i start jigging the top of the box together…
it’s designed to open like a clamshell, the front of the box, and the top, all fold out of the way for maintenance…
like so.
the hinges welded on the sides are there to keep the box closed in a manner that will prevent it from accidentally coming open (you need a mallet and a punch to pull the pins out)
and here we go with the bottom of the box put together.
the weather stripping is silicone, to deal with heat better, and the engine is electric start, so once we cobble some circuits together, you won’t have to get into the box except for maintenance…
the alternator won’t charge until a switch is flipped, so it starts easy. (no load on it till it’s spun up to running rpm, which we have set to the torque peak, which is 2800 rpm, so it should last a long time.
this enclosure was then bolted to the back of the bus, directly below the back window, to charge the batteries when the sun isn’t out.
this was all a mad dash build, as we were a couple months behind schedule (no fault of ours) which is why you see a lot of “working in the dark” pictures here..
to be continued…
-stone
By Sylverstone, on December 18th, 2009 having seen the legs for my kitchen trailer, caris decided that a set for the castle would make his life easier…
so…
first we cannibalize the boat trailer axle for the steel…
do a bit of welding… (those jack legs are 4,000 lb rated, from northern tool http://www.northerntool.com/
here’s the legs ready to mount…
passenger side front… notice that these legs, you pull the pin, drop it down most of the way, and then use the screw for the rest of the distance…
this is very very handy for uneven ground. 36″ of total lift for the win
my world would be quite difficult without welding…
this welder is a different one that the one we used for the bed… much hotter, but we needed the generator to run it…
looks good. very solid, and we can replace it if we have to.
and here it is up on it’s feet.
rock solid, and easy.
(note that the handles were replaced with a nut welded around the jack shaft, so leveling can be done fast and easy with a cordless drill)
… to be continued…
-stone
By Sylverstone, on December 18th, 2009 so we get over to the fleet engineer’s place with the bus and the castle…
and find out the castle has a broken leaf spring (i went looking for it when i realized it was leaning hard to the left) the inside of the break was very rusty, so it happened sometime before the “adventure in the yard” thing..
so here’s the culprit… drivers side front.
i do some scrounging and come up with
out of my “excess stuff i haven’t built something out of yet” pile…
it’s a boat trailer axle that’s seen better days…
but the springs are rated higher than the ones on caris’ trailer, so we decide we’re going to pull them and use them on the front axle…
1,000 ft lbs of torque for the win…
and this, well, this image is called “things i learned from mishka”. heh no, i don’t recommend that you do this. we were out of angle grinder blades and it was about midnight, and caris had to leave in the morning.
if you don’t recognize what this is (please don’t give it away in the comments, but go ahead and message me privately if you know) then you absolutely fail gear head 101… (the object behind the rugs…)
i hate working in the gravel in the cold wet. ugh. anyway, here’s the new (to caris) springs installed… *way* heavier than what was in there… (3500lb instead of 1750)
remember the battery rack i mentioned in (building somadina’s room… (part 0002))? well, here it is. allows for mounting 8 trojan deep cycles over the rear axle, keeping the weight low and centered. made a world of difference.
as you can see, it’s built like a tank, and at full suspension travel, it sits 1/4″ above the rear axle…
so then we decide to kick out one last thing before he leaves for the winter…
to be continued…
-stone
By Sylverstone, on December 18th, 2009 so, earlier we had some fun…
this would be “getting the f450 turbo diesel dually with the posi” stuck in somadina’s yard trying to get the castle out.
… we didn’t even get to it
(and no, that jack leg isn’t broken, it’s pivoted that way on purpose)
so we have to fight the big truck back up onto the hard stuff…
and break out the come-a-long and the straps.
this is a skid strapped to the tongue of the trailer, (2) 3,000 lb ratchet straps to keep the trailer form going anywhere when we reset the come-a-long, and a 2 ton come-a-long to do the pulling. anchor is the top hitch on the f450…
to make it work, the tolerances were a bit on the close side..
but no, they didn’t touch.
i really hate to have to work this way, but caris doesn’t have the winch installed yet…
almost far enough up to pull it out with the bus…
(which was really easy, detroit locker for the win)
to be continued…
-stone
By Sylverstone, on December 18th, 2009 so way back when i started building a massive 12 volt generator for caris’ castle… ( see (sufficiently advanced technology…) for more)
this project got retasked to the bus instead…
so i had to get a 4″ industrial pulley from grainger to make the alternator spin at the speed i wanted it to…
and then i ordered an absolutely sweet mounting plate from the epicenter since i didn’t have time to make the one i wanted to do.
and let me tell you… you all know how important customer service is to me. well, the crew down at the epicenter were a positive pleasure to deal with. i had a couple questions that bryan fielded for me, and a few suggestions he made that i followed. they even caught the fact that the industrial pulley from granger takes a different belt than the pulley the alternator comes with, and installed the right pulley on the alternator (which also came from them) just so i didn’t have to mess with it. i will be doing business with them again i am sure
so anyway, moving right along…
and a thrush turbo muffler
for a honda…
and a delco alternator with an industrial pulley, so we can use industrial belts for this (they kick ass all over the ones your car uses)
and some black iron pipe…
so here’s the stock muffler… it needs to be sacrificed for the flange…
and the exhaust studs need to come out…
and some wood stove replacement gaskets (the ones they use for the door seals), and a 2″ to 3/4″ iron pipe reducer…
some mad skills angle grinder work on the reducer…
and it slips right into the muffler…
the flange and a piece of iron pipe…
and a bit of grinder work, and allen bolts…
test fit…
test assembly…
looks good, so we nuke it…
till it glows…
because of the fit, this is kinda a pain in the butt to weld…
anti vibration mounts from a pressure washer… normally these would isolate the engine, but we decided to make the plate full floating so that we didn’t have to worry about building flex into the exhaust…
building the muffler mounts…
welding the muffler mounts, with the unit assembled…
more welding…
note the belt on the alternator…
a bit of a clearance issue was solved with the angle grinder…
(we were pressed for time, otherwise i would have rebuilt the muffler bracket)
now we assemble the exhaust for real…
and i use the glue provided with the gasket kit, and the gasket material, to wrap the exhaust with.
not as pretty as the race car stuff, but it’s about 100 bucks cheaper and does the same job…
then i wrap it with galvanized screen and tie wire to keep it in place while the glue dries, and keep it neat…
i then fired it up and ran it for 10 minutes or so to cook the glue on there…
results? that screen, after running for 5 minutes, hit 105 degrees and stayed there.
… the exhaust was over 200 at the bottom elbow by the muffler (best our measuring equipment would do) so i would call the wrap a success (the entire point is to get the heat out of the area as fast as possible)
to be continued…
-stone
By Sylverstone, on December 18th, 2009 and so the fun begins… >:)
i needed about 550 square feet of foam, so a bit of research turned up versifoam systems… rhh foam systems
a bit of time on the phone with debbie buss (who was an absolute doll to me on the phone) i ran up to pactechproducts in lakewood (the local distributor) and picked up a foam kit…
rh foam systems
95% closed cell
20psi compression
531 sq ft kit @ 1″
r 7.7 per inch
cost about 1/3rd of the estimates we were getting to have it done by a pro…
this stuff is awesome. insulates like nobody’s business, eliminates condensation problems, and works as an epic sound deadener.
… it also adds structural stability, as it stiffens up panels quite a bit.. (knocking on a panel gets you a dull thud instead of sounding like a bell…)
so, not wanting to sacrifice any of my protective gear (this stuff will never, ever, come out of anything) i donned my makeshift safety gear…
brought to you courtesy of wal-mart (grocery bag on my head) 3m (organic vapor respirator) and glad (trash bag vest) for the ultimate in diy fashion…
everyone needs a little rockstar in their life
so the bus had a bit of foam in it already for corrosion control, but 1/2″ wasn’t going to cut it…
in many places it wasn’t applied at all, and in others it was done wrong so it was peeling, separating, and otherwise screwed up…
so, after i pulled the compromised foam out, and derusted a few trouble spots, i started in on it for real.
the first step was to spray all the gaps and crevices…
this stuff expands *a lot* so the trick is to spray enough in so that it fills the void to the top when it expands, but not so much that it oozes all over… what you see here is almost perfect, the piece falling from the ceiling is where the 4 gaps above this rail come together.
the corners of the window frames were a pain in the butt, but it was a huge thermal hole, so i did those next… you can see here, i’ve also done the top c channel above the square tube, and partially blended it into the ceiling…
you can see here a section they didn’t do at all in the right of the pic…
you can see here i’m doing the ceiling, having finished the back wall. anything not masked in this photo is going to get foamed over.
(too many windows is a nightmare for efficient heating and cooling)
the windows that we are foaming over were sprayed black from the inside first, (the mad skills of fayd at work…) … the rest will be tinted, so from the outside it will look like a handicapped bus with dark tinted windows, which is very common where this bus will live most of the time.
… part of the plan is to be able to urban camp anywhere, without being noticed.
working on the ceiling…
passenger side rear corner… you can see i’m already starting to get it all over me. the gun is actually glued to the glove by the foam at this point… eagle eyed readers will notice the drop cloth has vanished… the foam was gluing it to my shoes, so it got pulled out in the first 5 minutes.
drivers side, directly behind the drivers seat. you can see here the first window covering has been done, and the unmasked part of the second window has been done (but the wall under it has not been finished)
from the rear looking forward, almost finished here. there is a large amount of foam around the door frames, and in the front, as much of it was not done originally. anywhere there was a hole i could stick the gun in i sprayed foam into…
touching up the ceiling… took 2 days to get the foam bits off my arms 
drivers side wall, finished for now. the foam is about 130 degrees as it’s curing…
keep in mind we’re under a lumber tarp so we’re pretty insulated, but it’s 38 degrees outside…
the foam is *highly* flammable when applying, so we couldn’t use heat after we started, which is why this is being done quickly. the foam is so sticky that you pretty much have to do it in one session.
it’s actually worse than it looks here, but it’s going to be dry and finished expanding in about an hour…
and then we can start pulling the masking off…
you can see that we left the tops of the windows that open unfoamed, to allow light and ventilation…
cleanup sucks :/
but you can see in the above photo how awesome the office in this rig is going to be
the foam comes as a 2 part system, the tanks are visible in this shot.
this is a closeup of one of the windows that opens, with the foam roughly trimmed out, in the early stages of shaping…
the frame on the lower left of this image is actually going to be a pull out bed for a guest, and a couch the rest of the time. the main system batteries will be under this on one side, and under a jump seat on the other side, to keep all the weight over the drive axles and keep it balanced.
to be continued…
-stone
By Sylverstone, on December 18th, 2009 so i need the bus to be 70 degrees, inside and out…
and it’s 38 outside.
ugh.
so we borrow a big lumber tarp from the fleet engineer’s uncle randy, and get busy…
this is a 250 lb rubberized canvas tarp…
several 2×6′s for the roof…
several ratchet straps…
to in essence tent the bus so we can use the uber heaters of doom (propane fired) to warm it all up enough to make a real mess…
to be continued…
-stone
By Sylverstone, on December 18th, 2009 so, a couple painters drop cloths…
a half dozen newspapers…
and a bit of time…
and we’re ready to go…
(remember when i said i was going to want to cover up some windows to help make it more thermally efficient?)
to be continued…
-stone
By Sylverstone, on December 18th, 2009 and then, on to the bed…
so the plan for this is to have the desk at the very back of the bus, and just deep enough for 3 lcd monitors (caris is a “1337 c0d3 h4x0r”)… the bed directly in front of it, and set up so that the bed can be raised up out of the way when he’s not in it.
so we started with building the lift platform…
welding in 4 vertical supports with stops, to hold it in one place (both side to side, and off the floor)
and a bit of magical pulley…
and cable…
and winch
arrangement, and a lot of welding…
and it now goes up and down with both myself, and the fleet engineer sitting on it.
actually, that’s a 2,000 lb winch, so it’s perfectly capable of breaking the entire thing if he’s not careful…
(this entire project has a red light warranty anyway… first red light, and the warranty expires (be that brake lights, traffic lights, or whore house) >:)
so with that out of the way, on to messier things…
to be continued…
-stone
By Sylverstone, on December 18th, 2009 one of the things that annoys me about the bus is that there is no room for a passenger seat…
there is a vertical steel bulkhead in the way…
so…
it’s kinda structural, but kinda not, and it’s really hard to tell what’s going to happen if i just cut it out… (i’ll be putting in a new one that’s not as “passenger space” intrusive, but i have to get the old one out first…)
so with a little (okay a lot) of angle grinder work, it’s apparent that this is not structural when the bus is not moving…
and it looks like i can make a new brace before we pull the old one out… (yay!)
so here’s part of it welded into place. i can’t seem to find the good pictures of this… sorry :/
to be continued…
-stone
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