In reply to bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) :
Great to see this on page 1 again, and congrats on having enough work to keep you distracted. There are worse reasons to be away from the garage.
and I'm totally stealing the double-walled doghouse *and* the minivan hatch seal ideas for MonZora. Thank you for posting those!
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
Having learned the hard way, I recommend doing the first skin, adding the foam, and then installing the second layer.
this thread lives!!!! YESSSSSSSS!
I have to be honest- I think about this marvelous piece of old iron often...
bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
Having learned the hard way, I recommend doing the first skin, adding the foam, and then installing the second layer.
I would look at ceramic fiber insulation. Roughly the same price, but 100% fireproof, and will actually help keep the temps down.
So I build a new dash out of 3/4 inch plywood. Tried to more or less replicate the old one which is here: Notice how the defrost was a two center mounted vents which I could not replicate thanks to a big ass radiator in the way.
Here is the new one under construction
Wrapped it in gray vinyl as I did not care for the brown that Bluebird put in everything. Must have been the cool color back in 1981 but in conjunction with dark wood it made for a kind of cave like interior. I already replaced the floor a few years ago with gray, and I have new(to me) gray air seats to match.
I installed a big heater core and fans from an International school bus. One fan is defrost and one is passenger (wife) heat.
I had no room for the ducting Bluebird installed so I used a channel at the base of the windshield as a duct and cut some narrow vents into the new dash. I sealed the dash to the windshield with some stickyback foam tape. Seems to blow pretty good.
Right now I am having a very rough time with the dash instrument panels. I have made some or the three four times now. My problem is that I cannot get the wood veneer to adhere well to the aluminum. I have tried three different contact cements and I have tried clamping the panels for a time between heavy sheets of wood. But a couple days after gluing the wood starts to warp and lift from the aluminum. I am inclined at this point to take my latest and best effort and use them, and have them redone down the road by someone else, or buy pre bonded panels that I see advertised on home building sites.
In reply to Mr_Asa :
Oooh! Good stuff. Thanks for that link
Hey don't mean to belittle the current dash discourse I'll come back trust me ....the driveshaft two pages back definitely had my attention....cause for concern when seeking the shop to execute you're desired outcome or are they a dime a dozen up your way eh? love this BUS!!!
Installed the gauges this afternoon. Have to extend some wires and add a few more functions and bolt everything in, but it seems like kind of a milestone.
That looks awesome! Really well done.
Man, I can't wait to see this thing rolling up a grade at 75 with a cup of coffee in your hand...
In reply to bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) :
Man, that sure do look good!!!
Any update on this???
Sorry for the lack of updates but life is getting in the way. I took a couple weeks off to go through a Honda Goldwing I bought at an estate sale, so I could ride it through the summer. Then hot weather and general busyness happened and my shop is far too hot to set foot in, and then I broke my collarbone quite badly...... which needed surgery and involves a considerable amount of pain. So now I am one handed for the next couple months and that is going to slow things down considerably. But having said that, progress has been made and I will post some more pics soon.
In reply to bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) :
Are the Honda Gold Wing and the collar bone related? They would be if it were me
TurnerX19 said:In reply to bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) :
Are the Honda Gold Wing and the collar bone related? They would be if it were me
They are as a matter of fact! My first real accident in 40 years of riding. It was fairly low speed but I still managed to go through the windshield and land on my shoulder.
Yup, collarbones and motorcycles don't mix. BTDT myself.
Hope ya feel better soon!
I apologize for the lack of updates. I have been picking away but at a much slower pace. I am working with one arm which means mostly tying up random electrical and air plumbing details.
I used the wiring harness from the Freightliner in order to make connections and diagnostics simple both now and in the future, but of course nothing is ever simple....
I went to Freightliner to pick up a wiring schematic some time ago and they pretty much laughed at me. I had to know the modules I needed and order them one at a time. They did not hold up much hope of getting them at all for a 22 year old truck. Fortunately the internet provided......
In Russian of course.
Fortunately I have a friend with Russian and Ukrainian parents (severely conflicted at the moment) who kindly translated almost every page for me. I promised her the seat with the cushion on the test drive.
See the wire numbers?
They all need to be found in a 22 year old harness.
I have spent hours now laboriously peeling back the sheathing father and farther into the harness trying to find one number that is not faded to obscurity so I can connect it. When I removed the harness I labeled the different main branches, but each one goes off in different directions and nothing seemed to make a lot of sense once I dug into it. But bit by bit I have worked my way through the harness and connected or identified headlights, tail lights, heater controls, marker lights (found in the sleeper harness. DOH! Silly thinking they would be in the taillight harness) back up lights, A/C connections, and all the rest. Part of the struggle was finding the matching Bluebird component. One turn signal and the taillights are two bare wires running behind the sofa's on the left side of the bus and the rest of the rear lights are in a heavy muli twire and inaccessible cable running down the right side. I suspect they had a problem with that cable and rather than tear out the dinette, closets and etc they just ran a couple new wires. Because the whole lot was buried behind the interior cabinetry I had to abandon it and I instead extended the Freightliner harness underneath along the frame rail to the back, and then I drilled up through the floor between the inner and outer walls (steel/sprayfoam sandwich) to access the tail light locations.
I installed my new LED taillights and they look bitching.
Prior to busting my shoulder (Titanium now!) I was working on the dash and passenger side. I built a new overhead panel to replace the big two piece chunk of wood that used to be up there. The top one with the speakers fell on my son one day and hurt him and it was high on the list of things to E36 M3can. Bluebird used 3/4 inch plywood and held the top piece in with a couple of thumbscrews which came loose one day. Here is a bad photo of the old one.
And here is the new one. I used a sheet of aluminum bent to roughly the same angle as the old one.
Covered it with grey vinyl.
Installed the same bits more or less that were in the old one, except I moved the CB up from the dash where its supposed to be in a truck, and also the altimeter that was in the lower dash before. And new speakers of course although the old 6x9's actually sounded not bad for being over 40 years old. The big mesh rectangle is there to break up the monotony as it was in the old panel.
This one is hinged with restraints to make for easy access and less dropping on someones head.
I better start a new post because its usually about now when I get sidetracked or hit the back button and lose everything.
I installed some more stuff into the lower dash. I added a 110 volt plug and a couple USB ports, and I think the dump valve, suspension pressure gauge and the ugly ECM diagnostic port are new as well since I last showed that. The port will have to be moved as it's ugly and I cannot find a cap for it.
I added an amp and invertor and hooked up the stereo so I can have some entertainment again while I am working.
The inverter is a small one I happened to have and is just enough to power a laptop or a blender. One day I will splurge on a big one that will power the whole bus but that day is not this decade.
I also finished off the passenger compartment. Built a toekick with a heater duct:
Connected one fan to two adjustable ducts pointing down and ahead.
And wrapped it in grey carpet.
You can also see the hardwood maple floor I laid down and the seat frame I had to build to adapt the truck air seat.
Bolted in the seat
And installed the three point belt from the Freightliner, which entailed welding a new bracket up top.
And that's where I am today. I made a list of tasks to complete and I figure around 200 hours, which sounds like a lot but I am in it for around two thousand to date so I am actually getting close to the end!
Also I fired it up again just for fun and was happy to see it lit right up and idled nicely so at some point it will drive out under its own power.
You're a mad man. A machine. An animal. Such an awesome thread and project.
In reply to Scotty Con Queso :
Well I do call it the world's dumbest repower .....
It's been 7 months with no updates, I'm losing my mind with not knowing what's going on with the big bad a$$ engine upgrade.
I just hope you didn't get it running and drive it off the side of one them big a$$ hills you live near.
PLEASE let us know whats up
OldDave
I assume he is just saving money for new rear tires after big ass burnouts!
It turns out I'm not very good at build threads. Sorry about that!
I go out at night and pick away for a half an hour here and a half an hour there and have been slowly getting it back together. I found it much easier just to take some videos which I have been doing all along and you can see the last few if you like which will get you up to date. Right now I am just dealing with a fueling issue. It was starving for fuel so I ran a new 5/8 line from the tank to the pump to replace the 3/8 that Bluebird had used. The 3/8 in fact had some compression fittings that narrowed it down to a quarter inch in spots. I thought that would take care of it but it still runs rough intermittently and will sometimes have trouble starting. When I pull the line off at the injection pump there is no fuel despite a new check valve at the tank. Last weekend I installed the pusher pump I had used on the old motor which actually flows a lot of fuel, but it did not help and in fact seem to make the problem worse. I need 25 lb pressure before the injectors and I guess I'm not getting that. I am thinking that this motor returns so much fuel to the tank that it is still starving. Not sure what the solution is yet but next weekend I will run fuel from a bucket and see what that does.
Actually as I write that, I wonder if there is a flow restrictor on the return that keeps pressure in the rail which is not operating. Off to the Cummins tech line to find out.
Here is the youtube link
https://youtube.com/@martinbuysabus932
glad you are still among the healthy.
made a bookmark of the youtube articles and will follow them.
how about a valve in the return line, then you can vary the amount of fuel returned to the tank.
or a adjustable fuel pressure regulator set at 25psi that would allow more flow if the engine required it.
OldDave,
I think I have figured out the fuel issue. There should be a return line check valve that holds 14 pounds of pressure. It seems to be missing. I most likely removed it and failed to replace it. So fuel is draining back to the tank without ever building the 25 pounds required.
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