Thursday, August 19, 2010

On the road again

We’re in Humboldt for a 2nd night.  Marilyn has a meeting here tomorrow morning and I had a couple of files here.  We had a pretty easy go of it getting our Saskatchewan inspection done.  The Frenchy-bus is almost 30 years old now but the repairs it required to pass its inspection cost me less than 1/3 of what the repairs to the 2005 Exploder cost. 

We had a busted tailpipe which took about 24” of SS flex pipe to repair and I’ve got a tire on order that we will put on tomorrow.  Other than that we are pretty well perfect mechanically.  The tire probably would have passed but I don’t like the looks of it so I’m going to replace it anyway.  I ordered a bunch of brake parts delivered to Darrel’s shop because I was so certain that we would need to do the drive axle.  As it turned out the rotation on one side of the drive axle was 80 degrees – the other was 65 degrees – I’m allowed up to 140 degrees.  My front linings measured 11/16” and we debated whether to call them 11/16 or 3/4.  New linings are 3/4” thick and these have been on the bus since we bought it.

Now we’ve got a complete set of brake parts stored in Darrel’s shop and I intend to put them on next spring anyway.  That will certainly be the last brake work that we ever do on the bus.  Our windshields passed but I’ve got a set of glass sitting in Darrel’s shop and we’ll put them in tomorrow night.  Prevost glass is so cheap its hardly worth repairing it.  We’ve got one long crack on each side plus the normal complement of stars and chips.  I’ve repaired most of them over the years but its replacement time now. 

The tailpipe must have been coming apart for a long time now.  I can hardly hear the engine running anymore & I can’t hear the Jakes working at all.

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