May and June '08

Hey all,

Well 1930 is registered and had it's debut back on the 20th April out at the Museum Of Fire out at Penrith .
It was a great day out and 1930 performed relatively well, although feedback from those who've driven her say that I need to get the brakes and steering looked at. Als0 there seems to be a mysterious short in the dash, plus the front door switch needs replacing.

With 2413, I spent a day up at the yard ripping out the school light wiring and with the help of SW, ripped out the CCTV wiring (and all the little odds and ends) in a hope that I could then charge the batteries up and be able to leave it sit without the batteries again being drained via some sort of glitch in that system. Needless to say I made a few discoveries while doing this, first off, the ad machine on the drivers bulkhead must of gone at overhaul, since there is a large patch plate in the drivers locker whereas in 2360 that never had an overhaul, there's some moulding for the ad machine's motors etc, this has been removed in 2413 with the hole just patched. Also 2413 would probably of had one of those powered offside full length ads in the late 90's, since there are 2 wires that are attached to nothing and loose in the electrical cabinet. Slightly more oddly, 2413 had two bowser plates- basically the bus rolls up to the bowser, the depot computer then "talks" to the bus via the plate bus connected to a plate in the concrete.
In the end myself and SW had stripped out a large wiring harness and with all the wires and "black boxes", I was able to fill a glad tuff bag - the black CCTV box that sat in the luggage rack, I've thrown in a pile with 2413's "scrappy" bumper and 1930's mangled bumper. These along with whatever else metallic that comes off my buses I'll put in for scrap, may as well get something back (or someone else get it back) from all this...
All in all with the help of SW who cut what needed cutting and me stripping out what remained, I attached the battery charger last thing and hoped for the best the next day. On Wednesday I got up there pretty late in the afternoon (for winter) about 2pm, darted up to 2413, disconnected the charger, reconnected the terminals to the batteries, shot back to the drivers cab, tried the hazards, yes good we have hazards.... turned on the battery "clunck" went the solenoid, slight depress of the accelerator and press the engine start button by the door switches - nothing - removed the key, another go of the hazards, yeap they work. Key in, battery on "clunk" slight depress of the accelerator pedal - still nothing- , key out, try hazards nope nothing- grrrrr the batteries are cactus! Oh well worth a try

Also with 2413 I've had some work done on fibreglassing the hole on the back of the nearside and the offside front and rear - seems she'd suffered a hit that cracked the front corner and rear corner panels. All done by a bodybuilder from where 2413 came from....
So school lights gone
CCTV gone
Ads gone

I'm up for a new set of batteries and a new 4 way valve - so a few hundred $$$'s

I'm now on uni holidays for six weeks (yay world youth day) and will have the first two weeks of July off from work as well, so I hope to really put a dent in the work on 2413, hopefully have her ready for painting externally, also remove all the seat cushions and prime up the seat frames.

On another front, I'm also hoping to secure a handful of mkI and mkII shells from a local private company, for one thing, I need a side desto set up for the mkI and 2413 needs two windows down the back, plus a new back and both curved windows - scratchitti grrrr! Finally 2413 needs an original seat frame, the 2nd last on the nearside - the one's that there is an interloper - stainless steel frame, common on all the other PMC mercs but the mkII's, they had mild steel frames which were dipped in electrified black paint (kinda like the process for chroming metal I guess?) Also an original front bumper could be gained - although if I can't get these shells I can get a front bumper another way...
At least one will be a shed where I can store my stuff and ultimately a place to put the seat cushions under cover (unlike 2360's which are strewn all over the yard!)