She needs a starter, it should be done later on Thursday.  THURSday.

First day of school, maybe, if the glacier doesn’t break.

I’m at the Freightliner service center in Belgrade, Montana.  I’ve been to Floyd’s Freightliner here before, and they’re pretty good service location so I figured before I have to drive 35 miles an hour for the next 2,000 miles I’d better get it checked at some place reliable and see if they can’t help me out a little bit with the overheating problem.

I called school to let people know that I was going to be a little later and I’m going to miss about the first week of school.

I said goodbye to Mr Cash yesterday and I’m sad not to have a kitty with me last night.  I stopped and visited Carol and Gordon in Bozeman, and we had Taco Bell for supper. 

I don’t have a whole lot to say, fingers crossed that I get out of here with both my arms and legs and I don’t have to trade one for the expensive fixing my engine.

😸

The bus has never been so heavy

The floor is in and done for the main portion of the bus.  It still needs the linoleum installed and I found a place (Midway rentals in Laurel, MT) that has the 100 lb roller required to flatten down the sheet flooring and set the glue.  Now I need to find the right adhesive and I hope to install the linoleum before I head home.  This is mainly because the roll of flooring is about 600 lbs and we have no forklift at home to unload the whole thing from the bus.

We also blew a whole day trying to install the marine hatch in bright sun and dry heat, and it was grueling.  In the end we could not accommodate the curve of the roof to the flatness of the hatch.  We used scrap metal removed from the ceiling interior and screwed it down and sealed it with Butyl rubber. 

BUTYL RUBBER: salvation from leaks.  Good for just about everything.

Mellie invented a new word. I was so excited I kept saying it was awesome.

And then Mellie said,”no, Mip. It’s AWN-some!”

We have been working on installing the floor and we have the main section completed tonight.

I still have to paint and reassemble the driver’s area of the floor with sound deadener and seal the gap between the engine and the cowling of the bus compartment. 

Last week Mellie and I went to Billings to get Kyle and Zack at the airport and looked at some flooring shops to see if anyone had Marmoleum locally.

Everything in the store was fake looking wood vinyl type planking.  And very expensive at that.  The salesman was a little haughty when I mentioned nothing had any real color and suggested I go look at Home Depot. I sort of had my heart set on some linoleum sheet flooring with the colored flecks that go all the way through the material because I won’t have to worry about gaps and damage with pieces flooring. The salesman said “that’s not the direction the market is going.” Apparently the market is going towards ugly fake wood with no color or originality. 

Aside from the actual floor, I am planning on making a shelf that conceals the curtain track on the bottom, and has open shelf storage above.  I plan on making the front of the shelf have some decorative trim or other embellishment and have thought about mosaic tiles so I also looked at the tile section, and sadly, found this gorgeous sample:

Once the salesman gave me the price on that, I mentioned again that I was really looking for sheet flooring.  He then mentioned that he heard a rumor that their sister store, the World Famous Carpet Barn, had some rolls of marmoleum on closeout.

So I decided to check it out.

I had already priced marmoleum and figured with the amount I’d need, it would cost about $1800.  This was the color I was hoping to use on the floor:

 I walked in and saw a remnants section.  They DID have a small piece of marmoleum, about 80 square feet, in a bright yellow color.

A salesman came over to assist me and I told him what I was looking for.  He listened, and said, “well, I do have this…” And lede to the back of the store where three rolls of linoleum sheet flooring was lying on the floor, dusty…

Apparently, they had had it a while.  It wasn’t in their system, and no one was sure what it cost.

“Tell your boss I’ll give him $50 for the roll,” I joked to the salesman, “Cash money.”  He had a far better attitude than the guy at the upscale store.

He kinda chuckled, but then he said, “Let me check,” and went to give my offer to his boss.

He came back a few minutes later and said, “He’ll take $175.”

Compared to almost $2k, the color is close enough! So I figured out how to get a 500 lb roll of linoleum home.

We got most of the flooring pieces cut yesterday, and laid up to the wheel wells from the back last night.  It took a while to figure out how to put a durable edge at the rear entrance to the bus.  We came up with this solution: two pieces of extruded aluminum which we will cover with the linoleum, and put a grippy rubber stair tread on top.

Today, we got all the way to the front before we ran out of glue.

Ideas for labelling my spices in the rack.

“Thyme” to go for now. 😉

So…

After I made the last post, I accidentally permanently deleted my master list of bus tasks.

I sat in the living room cursing and trying to reconstruct the list from memory and thinking about next steps needed.  Luckily, I brain dumped most of the next steps in the post from this morning.

After I got what I could back on my list, I decided to throw together a quick crockpot meal so people could grab food when they are hungry over the next two days. 

And… WHACK!

I haven’t cut myself this badly in several years.

I guess today I’ll be happy to get the screws out of the driver’s side wall and deal with the rest after my finger has a day to heal up and scab over.

Lucky I have that extra day I didn’t realize I still had before Kyle and Zack get here to finish my list!

Just in case, I’ll wait to put together the table saw.

Kyle and Zack will get here  July 2.  I thought that was Tuesday, but I’m just confused about the dates. 

My goal was to get the bus walls out by the time Kyle and Zack get here, however with the extra day and method I figured out for removing the gluey wall panels, I think I can get the entire driver’s side walls out today. 

I have access to the bus marker lights now that the ceiling is fully out, so I can start replacing the old bus fixtures with new LED lights any time. 

Since that will leave me with Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, I think my next move will be to paint the remaining pieces of metal that have to go back in contact with the floor around the transmission and driver’s seat.

I also will need a metal threshold for the rear door so I should fabricate and paint that as well.  I hope the chassis saver left in the bucket hasn’t cured.  I sealed it up, but it’s been in the sun a few days.

Then, I’ll remove the remaining wall panels while that paint cures.

After I reinstall those painted floor panels, I can install sound deadener and foam rubber gaskets in the rear door and engine cowling/floor area to seal air and water out of the new subfloor once it’s installed.  

Then I can make a template for the subflooring that will go without insulation in the driver’s area. 

The way the seat is constructed, I think the best I can do is reinstall it with the wood subfloor and no foam. If I add any additional height to the floor in that area, the driver’s pedal control will be at the wrong height to operate the bus. 

I also need to measure the old subfloor wood- it looks like 1/2″, but the Advantek subflooring I bought is 3l4″.  By the time I add 1/4″ of sound deadening mat, and an extra 1/4″ of subfloor, that may not give the pedals the proper amount of travel to control the bus properly. 

I also ought to seal both sides of the OSB subfloor in that area with a water resistant coating like Red Guard to keep it from breaking down, and prevent the surrounding metal from rusting if moisture is retained.

Well, time to get to it!

Enjoy your Saturday!

Along both sides of the bus!

But the Chassis Saver paint job turned out great!!

I thought we would have the floor out by now.  But every rusted screw that won’t come out, won’t cut off, etc. is just taking forever.

It’s nice in the front.

There is a place out there under the trees but the place is crawling with people and card and noise

Space 21 is free he says to her

She give a him the side eye kinda loud idntit?

That’s it though he says

I’m too damn hot.  I don’t care.  They got showers. 25 bucks.

I’m already following the little golf cart before I think to ask if it has shade.

And we pull up to 21 which is a long narrow strip, the only possible parking way is broadside to the sun, with hours to go before sunset.

Why do people go to RV parks? They are parking lots made of gravelly grass.

With loud neighbors.

The baseline only repeats for an hour straight.