Spotting a Rabbit

Since I am pretty caught up in other things right now, including building a new house, it looks like bus trips are on hold for the time being. Before I devolve into a self-pity session over that fact I have to back up and remember that the primary reason I bought a bus to begin with was so that we would have a place to live while staying in Nova Scotia in the summers after retirement (a state that I have apparently not quite reached yet). So with no trips on the horizon and no scheduled maintenance on my plate, keeping quiet on this blog might be wise; but quiet is seldom my MO, so here we go.

I was on my way to the dump this week hauling our trash (yes, since we live in the boondocks we have to haul our own trash), and I noticed a little car in front of me that looked familiar. It appeared to be a 1970s era Volkswagen Rabbit, but it looked awfully small to me, so I was not sure of its true identity until I got closer. This particular vehicle was painted the same color as a Rabbit my son Scott once drove when he was living with me in California in the 80s, a light blue that was pretty popular at the time, so I was pretty sure of what I was seeing. As I rounded the corner to enter the dump the blue car also entered the gate and I pulled in next to it.

This model was quite popular back in the day and was about the same size as other popular small car makes and models of the 70's. So why did it look so small to me now? There could only be one reason; cars since then have gotten progressively larger and larger. I had really noticed that trend with regard to pickup trucks more than in sedans but here was the proof that the same trend had occurred in cars, because the car parked next to me was really small in comparison to more current models of about every make. By this point I was quite curious and struck up a conversation with the car's owner.

I mentioned to him that I rarely saw a 70s VW Rabbit on the road these days and he said that gasoline-powered models were indeed rare, but this one was diesel-powered and he said that quite a few of them are still around. He is a mechanic and had recently rebuilt the engine and installed a 5-speed transmission, which was not available in this particular (1977) model. He said that if he holds his speed down to 55 mph he is able to get more than 60 mpg while with the 4-speed transmission that was stock in this model the best he could manage was about 45 mpg.

These numbers boggled my mind until I remembered that yes, the mileage of compact cars and trucks back then could indeed be much better than anything we expect today.  I cannot think of any currently available vehicles with mileage numbers that approach 60 mpg. Even the Toyota Prius, which costs an arm and a leg, does not get mileage nearly that good, even with a smaller engine, a highly complex configuration, and a bunch of batteries that are not only expensive to buy but are also full of heavy metals that will ultimately have to be recycled and will have to be replaced in a few years. The tiny Toyota Yaris can get only about 36 mpg on the road and the much hyped Smart car that looks like a glorified golf cart gets barely 41 mpg. But here, parked next to me was a 40+ year old 60 mpg vehicle. The obvious question is "How did we get to this point?"

The history of CAFE standards is more than troubling. The US auto industry used the light-tuck loophole to a large extent to sell the public on huge gas-guzzling SUVs that were exempt from any standards. The industry also lobbied congress ever since CAFE standards came into being in 1975 to reduce the mileage requirements based on their story that compliance would be "too hard to meet and therefore too expensive to the consumer". As a result, the average vehicle in the US gets around 25 mpg while the average vehicle in the EU gets over 45 mpg.  Do the math yourself to decide which option is too expensive to the consumer. Also consider the fact that through the years these huge gas-guzzlers have had a lot to do with the ever increasing demand for gasoline and the resulting price increase (see supply and demand in economics 101).

So while I am a self-admitted conspiracy theorist, here I was parked next to proof that I might just this once, at least partially, be right!

We finally made it to a rally

We had not had the bus on the road since Arcadia in January or since I replaced the front brake pads in April. We had been planning to attend the Palmetto Cove rally last month, but a new job and perfect storm of issues, mostly involving the house that I am building, all came up that week and we had to cancel at the last minute. This week I again had lot of paperwork issues in-work, but I had no subcontractors working and there was even a bit of a lull in my job so we figured sure, why not go to the Bus-nut Gathering 2011 in Fayetteville NC.

The Fayetteville rally in 2010 was the first rally we ever attended so we knew the people and knew it would be a relaxing weekend so we went ahead with it. There were a minimal number of things to do to the bus to get it ready. All I had to do was to check the tires and oil and de-winterize the fresh water system and we would be ready to go. Flora had the week off and did all the packing and food preparation so about all I had to do was throw my clothes in a bag and drive, which was great because the day before we left I worked about 16 hours and then went to a birthday party that started at 10 PM; so I was not in great shape to do much else when I got up the next morning.

The KOA campground in Fayetteville is only about an hour and a half away so we cruised on down with no issues at all. The bus purred like she always does and the new brakes felt about the same as the old ones. Traffic was light and I used my old ploy of driving a few miles under the posted speed limit (I consider 64 MPH to be a  maximum speed in the bus) and letting the traffic flow around me; this takes discipline on my part but always results in a less stressful drive. We spend the weekend relaxing (which we both needed), hanging with nice people and swapping lies and tales of past bus trips, and we ate far too much good food - aren't those the things that bus rallies are supposed to be about? Our thanks to Gene and Frances for organizing it all yet one more time and we look forward the the Gathering 2012, same time next year!.

Replacing PD4106 Front Brakes

The first time I changed the oil in the bus I hired Robert Moore, who knows these buses inside and out, to teach me the process. While we were at it we jacked up the front of the bus and crawled underneath to do the front end lubrication and inspect the components, including the front brakes. One thing that Robert pointed out was that the front brake linings would need to be changed "before too long". Several thousand miles later (I am not very hard on brakes) in early April we finally got nice enough weather to allow us to do the job in my driveway.

Bus securely lifted onto jack stands

Robert showed up early one morning in his service truck. The fact that he can come out to my place rather than my having to take my bus somewhere is a nice thing. Of course that means working in the dirt, but he has a big sheet of plywood that he slides under the bus so it is not that bad. His truck has a big gasoline-powered compressor, ramps to drive up on, an air-operated jack, and jack stands to hold the thing up. The compressor also runs the air wrench; I would hate to try to get those lug nuts off without that tool.

Getting the bus up in the air and secure on jack stands took a little over a half hour. Because we did not know yet what issues might come up during this little adventure, we needed to make sure we had everything secure enough to hold it up there for multiple days if that became necessary. The next thing was to get the wheels off. The chrome wheel covers are held on by some of the nuts but the air wrench made quick work of removing the lug nuts on the passenger side, exposing the brake drum. You can see the drum with the lug bolts sticking out and the hub cover that holds a bit of oil to lubricate the wheel bearings. I am used to wheel bearings being packed in grease so this was something new. Robert said that the oil in the hubs needs to be re-filled every 5000 miles or so because it slowly leaks out.

Hub assembly with drums on showing retaining screws

The brake drums are secured by some flat-headed screws. Because the previous owner had been good about coating the threads with anti-seize compound when he re-installed them the last time, the bolts came right out after being "bumped" with an air chisel to loosen them. Once those bol
ts were removed, the drum was lifted off to expose the brake components. While disk brakes are more common on newer vehicles (including buses), back in the 60s when this bus was built, drum brakes were used on most vehicles, including the PD-4106. Disk brakes clamp down on the outside of a rotor (like the hand brakes on a bicycle) while drum brakes like these operate by pushing brake shoes out against the inside of a drum. The brakes in larger vehicles like this bus are air-operated, while the brakes in most smaller vehicles are activated by a hydraulic cylinder.

Removed drum

Once the drum was off, it was just a matter of pulling off the retaining springs and two rollers and then the brake shoe assemblies could be "flopped" out. On more modern brakes, the lining material is generally bonded onto either the shoes (drum brakes) or the pads (disk brakes). The brake lining in older vehicles were usually removable and were attached to the shoe with either bolts or rivets. On this bus the linings are bolted onto the shoe so it is very important to replace them before they wear down to the point where the bolt heads start to contact the brake drums, ruining them. Replacement parts for antique vehicles are never cheap and are often unavailable (such parts in the busing world are often said to be made of "un-obtainium). An inspection of these shoes revealed that the bolt heads were still between 1/8" and 1/4" from contacting the drums, so this was the perfect time to replace them since this is obviously not a repair you want to have to make out on the road.

Once the brake shoes were "flopped out" it was easy to use air tools to remove the retaining nuts and bolts. Robert said that in most cases some of the bolts will have to be broken out to remove them but on this bus every one of them was able to be unscrewed with minimal effort. A little bit of wire brushing and we bolted the new linings on with the new brass bolts I bought. We also replaced the springs and rollers when we reassembled and installed the brake shoe assembly.

Newly installed linings showing recessed bolt heads

I was able to buy all the parts from Mohawk for less than $150, which for a bus like this seemed pretty good. We moved on to the other side and things went smoothly. We took advantage of the opportunity to lube the undercarriage (it was sure easier with the wheels off. Robert adjusted the brakes after he installed the drums, put the wheels back on and after removing the bus from the jack stands we were done in record time (about 3.5 hours). It is always a pleasure to work with someone who knows what he is doing!

The old linings and springs, ready for recycling

We have a trip to the NC mountains next month and I look forward to having new brake linings.

Bussin' 2011

Last year, after I was bitten by the bus bug, I had hoped to be able to drive down to Bussin’ 2010 in Arcadia FL for New Years. It would have been a good opportunity to see a lot of buses and get a lot of my questions answered and boy, did I ever have a lot of questions! But when the time came, I couldn’t get enough vacation time to make it happen. I had already taken some time off without pay earlier in the month for our trip to Hawaii and didn’t think it wise to push my luck by asking for yet more time off. In the long run I guess it really would not have mattered much, since they ended up laying me off three months later anyway. But this year we actually had a bus, I was without a job to tie me down, and Flora had the time off, so I made the reservations early and sent in the money.

The first Christmas storm since 1947 (already our third of the season) came close to scuttling the plan, but on Monday afternoon we checked the roads, found them clear enough, and we decided to leave the next morning. The only thing standing in our way was the snow and ice in our driveway. I had spread the ashes from our woodstove over the snow around the front of the bus as soon as the snow stopped falling, and that had helped to melt some of it, but getting out was still a little iffy. I have found that a very thin dusting of dark soot on top of the snow really helps to absorb the heat and melt the snow. It was 17 degrees when we got up to leave and I was really glad I had turned on the bus block heater. The engine started on the first revolution, I untethered us from the power cord, made a final check around the perimeter of the bus, and we were off. The new rear tires never spun a bit on the ice.

It’s 750 miles from Chapel Hill to Arcadia, too far for a single day in the bus, so we planned to stop for the night in Savannah, GA. Later on I compared notes with several other bus people at the rally and found that most of us prefer to travel no more than 250 miles in a single day, but we were on a tight schedule since Flora had to be back at work the following week so 2 days on the road each way was about all we could spare. We finally managed to leave home at about 9:30 AM and later pulled into the Pooler GA Wal-mart at 4:30 in the afternoon. With the sun so low in the sky this time of year, it had been shining in my eyes much of the day and the peepers were letting me know that they had had just about enough. I have noticed that my eyes tire much more quickly than they did when I was a pup and now they are much more sensitive to bright light.

I subscribe to a Yahoo group that maintains a list of Wal-marts that allow overnight parking and on that list, the one in Pooler was listed as not allowing overnighting. But I had been told by someone on the bus board that he stays there often, so I thought I would go and see for myself. There were a few RVs in the lot when we arrived and by dusk there were nearly a dozen, so I figured it would probably be OK, even with “no overnight parking” signs posted. Worst case, if we were asked to leave we could always drive across the street to the Sam’s Club, which had no such posted policy.

We woke up at about 8:00 AM, after a cold and restless night, to a temperature of 26. We realized that had we parked at the other end of the place we would have already been in the sun warming up. Sometime in the night my friend Dave Evans had arrived in his GM 3903 and I finally got to put a face with the name. It was Dave’s write up about the previous year’s rally that had made me really want to go to this one. Dave was also the one who turned me on to Robert, my bus mechanic. We stood in the cold and talked buses for a while but all too soon it was time to go with a full day’s drive ahead of each of us.

The rest of the trip was uneventful; the portion of I-95 that had been under construction the previous year was now finished (and really nice and smooth) and we pulled into the fairgrounds in Arcadia at about 5:00 PM, which was nice since I really hate having to try to park the bus after dark. There were buses everywhere (over a 100); I had never seen so many. There were at least 17 4104’s and lots of 4106’s, so I would have plenty of other GM’s to look at for ideas. I found us a space between a gorgeous Scenicruiser and a big Dina; compared to them my 4106 looked pretty small and insignificant. We met Lou and Rene who had a huge Neoplan two spaces down from us and they gave us the tour. Diezel had many other dogs to watch through the window, I had buses to explore, and our bussing weekend was off to a good start.

During the rally I attended some great seminars, met a lot of great people, and talked buses from dawn to dusk. Sean’s plumbing seminar covered the basics well and I could also apply much of the content to my upcoming house build. There was a defensive driving seminar and I was sorry than I missed the first half of it since I covered a lot of the questions that I had had from the first time I drove one of these huge machines. For example he talked about braking techniques on steep roads, something we all have to deal with from time to time. Since these seminars were simulcast over the Internet, I hope that someone will eventually post the recordings on the bus board so that I can catch the part I missed.

I also bought and installed some LED replacement lighting for the inside of the bus. When we are drying camping (running off of our own electrical power as opposed to being plugged into shore power) the thing we use power for as much as anything else is lighting. All of our lighting is 12 volt and consists of either incandescent bulbs or florescent tubes. You can touch a light bulb and tell that much of the electrical energy is wasted as heat. Fluorescents are more efficient but not nearly as efficient as LEDs. Since LED lighting is fairly new it is also still pretty expensive. We paid about $25 each for replacement bulbs that were slightly brighter than the incandescent and used a small percentage of the energy. Since we will have to replace our batteries every few years (at more than $1000 each time) I figured that even with the high price of the LEDs, they would be worth it in the long run by reducing the number of batteries we require. We replaced only a few at this time and are hoping the price will come down a bit before we do the rest but so far we really like the quality of the light they produce. I would also like to eventually replace the two six-foot fluorescents that provide out main living room lighting.

As always, the time flew by; before we knew it it was New Years Eve and we would be leaving the next morning. At the rally we saw a lot of expected things and some not so expected. In the latter category was a flock of Sandhill Cranes that liked to hang out in the field in front of our bus. We got to hear them sing and dance every time someone would walk their dogs nearby. Our final evening Flora finally got close enough to get some pictures. We have noticed that seeing the wildlife is always the most memorable part of any trip. We still reminisce about the wildlife we saw years ago on other camping trips, for example the Roosevelt Elk in Olympic National Park and the Bison in Yellowstone. Where we live now there is an abundance of deer, which we love to see, while other complain about them.

On New Years Eve most people dined on barbecued ribs and I enjoyed the baked beans and cole slaw. Music was supposed to be 50s/60s but was mostly 50s and most of it was not very danceable. Note to organizers, you have to keep it on the upbeat and keep us old folks moving if we are going to make it until midnight! By the end of the evening there were only about 25 people left in the pavilion and we could see a few other outlying groups gathered around campfires. Just before midnight we made the rounds to wish everyone a happy new year and headed for our bus. Florida is so flat that we could see fireworks all around but surprisingly none of the bus people lit anything off; I might have to do something about that next year.

Early the next morning (New Years Day) buses started leaving. I had missed opportunities to see some unique conversions, including Sean’s Odyssey and that big red Scenicruiser that was parked next to me, but I guess it is impossible to see everything. We finally got away mid-morning as planned and headed north for another night at the Pooler Wal-mart. The sky was overcast, which is my favorite kind of driving weather. Traffic was fairly light because of the holiday with hardly any truck traffic and we arrived as it was getting dark. The parking lot was full of RVs, many of which had very noisy gasoline generators. I discovered just how well insulated our walls were and we both slept like a log. The next morning we left early, stopped and took on fuel and dumped our tanks, and arrived home just in time to watch the Tarheel basketball game after getting the bus up on our ramps. It was a great trip and a great rally, but we were very happy to be home. As I get ready to post this we are waiting for our 6^th snowstorm of the season and it was 58 in the house when I got up this morning; Florida weather is sounding pretty good right about now!