While we are still waiting to pick up the bus from the painter, we have been keeping busy. We spent the summer building our solar rack, then we spent several weekends working on projects around the house in preparation for selling it, and this past weekend the time came to
Q&A Storytime
Wow! You guys had great questions last week. We sat down and tried to answer them all. Before we get started, here’s one thing you should know about us - we are both introverts, but if you get us talking about something that we are passionate about, we aren’
Oh, Hi There!
Oh, hi there, Friends!
We have now had the bus for nearly two years (Oct. 22, 2016 was the day we brought her home). Many of you have followed along with us for much of that time. But, we have also had many, many new friends join us in recent
Solar Rack: Part 5 - Fitting a Linear Actuator
When we first started dreaming up the plan to have two layers of solar panels with the lower layer sliding out, we knew that the biggest challenge would be automating the sliding mechanism. There is no way we want to be climbing up on top of the bus all the
Solar Rack: Part 4 - Production, Clamps and Brackets
We finally had our solar rack design planned out and one of four sections built as our prototype. Now, we just had to recreate the prototype three more times. We set up production for each piece and part - measuring, cutting, sanding, drilling, bolting together, welding, sanding again, painting.
All
Solar Rack: Part 3 - Building the Upper Layer
Last week, we got a good start building our solar rack by designing and building the prototype for the lower layer of solar panels (4 of our 8 Sunpower E20 435W panels). This week, we are moving on up to the upper layer of panels (the other 4 panels). Initially,
Solar Rack: Part 2 - Building the Lower Layer
It’s finally time to tackle building a rack to hold our solar panels. The goal is to get all eight of our Sunpower E20 435W panels on our roof, giving us nearly 3500W of solar. We realize that using panels of this size (81.5”x41.5”) is quite
Planning a Solar Rack - Part 1: Building a Model & Our Plans
The bus finally made it into Mexico to the paint shop! Some of you may be wondering why we aren’t waiting until the end of our renovation to have the bus painted. The main reason is that we want the roof repainted before we install our solar panels. And
¡Hola, México! ¡Adiós, pintura fea!
After our first experience attempting to cross the bus into Mexico to get to our painter was a bust, we were a little gun-shy to try again. But, what was the worst that could happen? We would have to turn around and come home again...for the second time? We
Toyota Sienna Seats in an RV - Part 1: The Passenger Seat
When we first bought the bus, we knew right away we needed to do something about the driver’s and passenger’s chairs. First off, cosmetically they were in really bad shape. We looked into recovering them, but the more we sat in them, the more we realized it wasn’
Building Walls {for Mexico}
After being denied border crossing into Mexico when they said the empty bus (though it is registered, titled, insured as an RV) was too much bus and not enough RV to enter, we knew we needed to throw together a temporary interior. We had a couch that we could put
Mini-Split A/C Update #1: 8 months post-install
RV rooftop air conditioners are generally loud, inefficient, and take up a lot of rooftop square footage that we want to use for solar panels. For those reasons, we decided to install a mini-split a/c about eight months ago. Immediately after install, we were thrilled with both its efficiency
Polishing the Aluminum Bumper
We have shared with you before how we have polished aluminum: first when we removed layers of paint and polished our aluminum dash during our dash rehab, and just recently when we deep cleaned (but not truly “polished”) the anodized aluminum bay doors. This time, we took on the front