| Everyone has a little home rendered trick-of-the-trade they learned through hard work, trial and error, or just plain luck. The kind of thing, when you hear about it, you bang your head on the table, drop to your knees and wail, "If only I'd known this, I could have saved 5 million dollars." Well, okay, maybe it's not that dramatic of a revelation, but it's a tip that would have made life a lot easier had you known it. We would like you to share your hints with our readers. If your hint gets published, we'll send you a Bus Conversions license plate.
A Road Fix in the Driveway
to Save the Weekend!
by Terry McGraw
As is par for the course there comes a club newsletter of a great weekend
rally and it is only 3 and a l/2 hours drive away, topped by both the
good wife and myself being able to get a Friday off for an early start.
Then it happens! The unexpected. I was just going to top off the air with
the compressor in the garage so that we can get the refrigerator level.
Why doesn't the compressor stop? Shut it off, oh no, I still hear AIR!
A quick walk around the bus and its coming from behind the rear axle,
the 4104's wet tank. Out it comes suryup, it has a pinhole leak, it does
not even hold 40 pounds! I made calls to everyone I could think of and
no one had a tank. It always amazes me when asked by a parts man what
it was used in, when I say a '58 GM 4104 bus and it seems like they renew
their search with visor.
Calls flew back and forth with my good friend and bus mechanic "Doc"
Engle (an MCI-7 owner). We decided to pass on the tank till we can "manufacture"
one. (I found out since the rally that '06's only have the two!) I went
to the local hardware store to get two 3/4 inch pipe thread 90 degrees
elbows and one 3/4" by 1- inch pipe thread nipple. You have to take
the compression fittings from the tank and put them all together and then
you only have to work in that small compartment on two fittings. I used
Teflon pipe tape so that when I get the new tank, the fittings will come
apart easy. And we had a great weekend at the "BUSSIN. BUDDIES"
Pig Roast in Connecticut.
You also know that those three connections will be forever in the toolbox
as there are still two other old tanks on the bus. The tank appears to
be the same in '06 and '04 so maybe this letter will help someone on the
road.
by John Fetz
The cleaner the water in a radiator is, promotes better
cooling and protects the entire system. Water in a radiator sometimes
appears rusty from metal in non-distilled water, and from the metal in
the engine. To have the cleanest radiator water in the land, tie nylon
string around a Radio Shack speaker magnet (the kind with a hole in the
middle.) Drop it in the overflow, or surge tank of the radiator, leaving
the end of the string outside for easy removal. The magnet attracts the
metal in the water, pulling it away from the tank.
Check the magnet once a month or when you think of it. You can remove
the metal that gathers around the magnet with a rag, then resubmerge the
magnet. Within six months of regular driving,
you'll have several ounces of metal, and perfectly clean water. Lose the
string? No problem. The magnet will stay at the bottom of the tank, gathering
metal.
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When you look
at the photo of this brilliant idea, you will laugh just like
my wife did. |
Vent has directional
louvers so I can aim the air in any direction. |
Keeping
Your Cool In Arizona
by Robert Beeson
I live in Arizona and like
the feel of cool air blowing on me. We don't get much of that here.
When I bought my 4106 that was aleady converted, it had two roof airs,
and the bus air removed. The only way to keep cool when leaving Phoenix
or coming home, which always seems to be in the heat of the day, is
to run the generator and use the roof airs. Well, that was fine but
one happened to be mounted in the center of the bus and the front one
was about 10 feet from the drivers seat. I couldn't feel the air at
all. Well, after sweating all over the road maps for two years, I moved
that front unit forward five feet. I put a Fantastic Vent in the old
opening. That's one of the nicest products I've ever put in an RV, but
that's another story. Now that I had that roof air only five feet behind
me I could still barely feel it, and it still didn't keep me cool when
it was 110 degrees outside. Then I got a really good idea one day when
I was servicing the air filters in that unit. I had it running with
the inside cover off and there was plenty of air flow coming straight
down out of the squirrel cage blower. When the cover is on, that air
is deflected by baffles forward and rearward and out through some fairly
small vents. I decided to install a four inch round floor vent right
where that air comes straight down. I bought the vent for about $6.00.
All I had to do was cut a hole in the plastic cover where it would fit
into the blower opening.
That vent has directional louvers so I can aim the air in any direction.
It is powerful enough to blow papers off the tables, and it feels cold.
My wife will not sit with it aimed at her because it's too cold. When
she complained I knew I had something. I can aim that at the drivers
seat when going down the road and I can feel a breeze. It really works
well when parked in HOT weather. If you travel the southwest in the
summer you would really like this modification.
Well, I still hate coming down into the valley when it is 110 degrees.
The last day before coming home I always stop for a day at Jacobs Lake
in Northern Arizona. It's always cool up there. Now there's nothing
like hating the way things are, to get you thinking about how to change
it. Well I was sitting there in the shade at about 70 degrees thinking
about that hot sticky trip down into
Phoenix the next day. Then it hit me, I had a spare piece of four inch
heater vent hose in the cargo bay.
Don't ask me why, but I have about anything you can think of down there
somewhere. Why else would I have a bus for an RV? I even had another
floor vent and a couple of big hose clamps and a telescoping handle
from a window squeegee, and some good old duct tape. Yes, yes, I had
every-
thing I needed to really keep my cool on this trip down the hill.
First, I had to take that vent I had added to the A/C and turn it over
so the backside was sticking down. Now I had a sleeve to clamp the heater
vent tubing to. I then used the telescoping pole to make a beam to tape
the air tube onto so it was up by the ceiling. I then put the other
floor vent on the other end of the tube. I could turn it off or change
the flow direction. I had that cold air vent right over my head.
When you look at the photo of this brilliant idea, you will laugh just
like my wife did. I must admit it looks pretty strange. Hey, what new
idea or invention looks pretty the first time its built? I could hardly
wait to try it out. When it started to get warm as we were coming down
into the valley I fired up the roof A/C and I couldn't believe how cold
that air was, and I could direct it right on my bald head or bounce
it off the windshield or side window. You all that travel the desert
probably won't believe this but I came home with the A/C on medium and
I had to turn the vent so it bounced off the windshield or else IT WAS
TOO COLD! ! I thought I would never say that. You laugh all you want
but now I can keep my cool in Arizona. If the "Fleetn Easy"
passes you somewhere in the desert and I have frost on my head, you
will know I am really keeping my cool. Now to perfect it so it doesn't
look so tacky. Actually, I can stow it away in about two minutes, once
I get out of the desert heat.
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