June was a hectic month. We found out that our landlady wouldn’t renew our lease because she needed to move into the place. So we asked to work out of our Detroit office, which was approved. After that it was a mad dash to finish up as much on the bus as possible so we could enjoy our last month in Tampa. I’m typing this in mid August. Took much of July and August to get settled back in.
We rewired the lights. The previous lights weren’t meant to handle 110, so we took some lights built for a runner and stripped off the runner hardware and wired and mounted them up. Pretty easy to do, and these lights look much better and are for sure brighter.
I also finished wiring up the automatic transfer switch, the shore power hook up and the inverter/charger. I was kind of apprehensive about the inverter/charger since it wasn’t cheap and I didn’t want to mess it up. I managed to hook it all up correctly. It was pretty easy once I broke down what I needed to do. The manual was also helpful in showing some basic wiring diagrams to give you an idea of how to wire it. So, still no battery bank for the interior.. but we have lights and power when we have shore power!
We also finished up the water system. The water tank is really large for how big the bus is. So the downside is that it takes up a lot of room, the upside is that I shouldn’t have to worry about water too much while traveling. It was a complete bear trying to wrangle the water tank in and build something to hold it in. It was even worse getting the water tubing to go where we wanted it. It got done though! After that we were able to make a counter top. Just took a 4×8 and trimmed it down and cut out a space for our sink.
We also had a trailer hitch put on, and bought a trailer as well so we could haul all of our crap. We somehow managed to fit a motorcycle, and a L shaped couch into the trailer and bus along with all of our instruments and other crap. The trip north is deserving of its own post though. Unfortunately I don’t think I have any pictures from that period, so.. fingers crossed that Matt does.
