Thursday, April 9, 2009

Big Blue Update - Floor is in! Jack is found!

Well, Big Blue's new floor is finished, for the most part (for more details on the floor, see this old update). It's been several weeks in the making since laying each piece involved gluing it down, placing something heavy on it (most of the time my tool box,) to weigh it down. So each piece dried before I moved on to the next piece. That combined with actually using the bus and some nights that were too cold to lay a piece down, and you can see why it took a while.

Here's the glue I used:


The glue seems to be holding. Overall, I'm happy with it. There are a few places where I wish the pattern matched up better, but, it's a floor, so no big deal. Here's a final picture:


The corner behind the driver (in the right of the picture above) will be covered by the bench seat (the next step in this process). The corner in the back left will be put in when I take the bench seat out soon to fix it (it is missing one of it's hinges). Once I get time to put new Baltic wood on the fridge (a task I am curious to see how it turns out) and install it, Big Blue will be looking quite cool on the inside.

In case you don't remember, here's what the old floor looked like (original California Road Runner Camper floor)...



While working on the bus, I thought that I would remove the passenger seat to clean under it, as PJAlau showed me how to do it while camping with him the fall (couldn't be easier, just squeeze and lift). When I removed it, I found a ton of dirt and.... the jack!


Just to keep you up to date on some other things, here is a shot of the wood interior pieces that I am finishing up. Still many pieces to do before I get to the big pieces in back, but it's starting to look pretty good:


Another note for you bus owners. I went to replace Blue's headlights with halogen bulbs as they were at least 10 years old and were dim. When I did, I found a ton of dirt and crap in the headlight housing. There wasn't much rust to report on, but it certainly looks like a place where it could start if it goes unchecked.

Two Big Blue camping trips planned for the month of April, so I am trying to get as much of this done as possible to enjoy for the summer.

3 comments:

marcandeliana

Looking good! Too bad we can't join you on the camping trips .... greetings from Grenada!

Big Blue's Driver

ExoticDVM - You guys are crazy. Do you never slow down? Good stuff!

Anonymous

Hey, I could have told you where the jack was located!!

Check out that old flooring carefully - it has hundreds of layers of Mop and Glow on it. I love the look of your new flooring.

I've got a bunch of photos of VW bugs to past from Baja.

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