2026 Jamboree Splitty
Finished up the week on a positive note.
On Thursday Mike, David, Miller and Wayne all worked on the bus. David started with the heavy lifting. Cutting away the rusted 5” of the floor right at the cargo doors opening. Pretty intense process. Cut away a small section of the floor, drill out the welds, clean things up and move on to the next section. Takes hours. Very impressive work. Finally got everything cleaned up to the point that we had to make a decision to order a whole new rocker panel for that area. Great job David.
Miller took the rear drum Dan at CE had donated and turned for us and cleared it up so we could paint it and install it. Mike and Wayne worked at removing the old rusted clutch and accelerator pedal assemblies trying to prep everything for the new pedal works ones . Then they moved on to adjusting the brakes. Started at the rear driver and that went ok. The front driver really didn’t want to adjust. So we removed the drum and discovered that the springs that came in the front brakes hardware kit box were the wrong ones. David and Mike both have enough history to find the problem easily. I didn’t have a clue. Thanks guys for your expertise.
On Friday I went to see Dan at CE to get the correct springs for our bus. He said we probably had springs for a bug. Sure enough, he had the correct ones. I also went to David’s to pick up a later bus “pinch bolt front axle bearing adjusting nut”.
On Saturday Bill was able to finish welding in the new battery tray. It looks like new. I’ll pick up some seam sealer and make it water tight. On top of that, he brought back the front door window frames that he media blasted. What a difference! They look spectacular and are ready for primer and paint. We need to get the finish colors so we can get these done.
I took apart the front brakes while Bill was working on the battery tray. The new springs were correct. But that didn’t stop them from giving me fits on the driver side. And then the passenger side shoes just went right on! Sheesh…. Was able to get the front drums on, bearings adjusted, and the brakes adjusted. It really feels pretty good now. The real test will come next week when I pressure bleed the brake lines. We’ll let everyone know how it goes.
Author: John Manning
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