Friday was a day long exercise in frustration while working on the brakes. Russell and I got the new master cylinder, upper fluid reservoir and found the new lower fluid reservoir and the connecting tube were for a different year master cylinder. So I had to modify the tube and clean up the old lower reservoir, both of which took hours to get right. Got everything assembled and started bleeding the brakes. That seemed to be going ok, just taking forever when the master cylinder started making strange gurgling noises and wouldn’t pull fluid from the upper reservoir after pumping new fluid into the calipers. Finally decided that our new master cylinder was at fault. Luckily, when I called Mike and asked for his advice, he said he had another new one in his stash and he brought it to Russell’s Saturday morning. Life saver. It was a real struggle to get the bad new master cylinder out, transfer over the lower reservoir to the good new one and then install the new assembly under the bus. Really messy work with brake fluid dripping everywhere. But we got it in, got the system bled, and now have really good pedal pressure/feel. I don’t know what we’d do without Mike.
Bill Ross came by after he got off work to work his magic on a very hard closing sliding door. It took a lot of head scratching but he was able to figure out what was wrong and make the adjustments needed to get the door closing as it should. Russell can put the door panel on now. He’s very happy…. Thank you Bill…
Joe brought the new radio and dropped it off. It’ll look good in the dash. He wanted to install it but Mike and I were under the bus doing brake things and the bus on jack stands is too dangerous to have anyone working inside. Joe will maybe come by later in the week and get it in. Thanks Joe.
But the big news is Reuben went and picked up the newly upholstered bench seat. It looks terrific. I think Russell posted a picture of it and I really like the material/color choice. It’ll be going in next. It was a long drive and a lot of trouble for Reuben to pick it up. Thank you, Reuben.
I’ll start putting the dash/cover/padded trim back in place tomorrow. I’d been looking for a driver door switch for the front dome light and they are NLA. I’ve got an easy work around that I don’t need dash access for.
So the windshield will go in next week and we can start test drives just as soon as the newly upholstered front seats show up. I think they’re being worked on now. I hope.
Author: John Manning
John summarized it all so well. He didn’t mention but it should be obvious to the club that a big thank you to John for all his dedicated and exacting work. It’s because of him, the bus is sooo near completion. He’s been troubleshooting and fixing old parts and figuring out when new ones are needed. This bus will be special. When he’s been stumped Mike and Bill have come to the rescue. It’s a far drive for them to get to my house so we really owe them a great thanks too. Then Reuben and Michelle get the biggest effort for the club award - driving from Ahwatukee to Maricopa to my house in north phoenix and then back to Ahwatukee. All to pick up and deliver the long awaited z bed. It’s been At Jeremy’s Upholstery. Jeremy Jackson of Jeremy’s Upholstery is donating his time to the club to get this done for us. He also deserves a big thank you. Finally Greg Pickrel has been coming tirelessly like John to my place helping to be sure the cabinets and door panels are going to go in ok when we get them back from Jeremy. He’s been putting up with my many questions and a few screw ups on the woodworking. So, always- it takes a village to get the bus restored to the clubs standards. It will take a village to make the Jamboree happen. So this work is just the beginning. Thanks for continuing to pitch in.
Here’s the pic of the z bed so you can see what fabric was chosen.
Author: Russell Greene
More images on our Raffle Bus #34 page
Click image to enlarge
Beautiful Z-Bed Upholstered by Jeremy Jackson of Jeremy's Upholstery.
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