So, I decided try to run some wire to day form my leveling valve switches and solenoids. Sounds easy enough. I needed to go from the left side of the entrance stairs to over the driver's window. So, I dropped the wires into the spare tire compartment, and across to the auxillary tank where I intended to go up the through the electrical panel and up the wall just behind driver, which will eventually be covered with a cabinet.
So I get to the aux tank, and there's no hole in the floor to get the wires through, and with the heater lines and main cables in there, and the aux tank below, it's very tight. I found that there was enough room to get a long bit through nex to the rest of the cables, so I drilled a small hole. Not big enough, and the aluminum plate was bound to chaff the wires, so I decided to open it up a bit. Well, long story
short, my larger bit hung up in the aluminum plate, and made a mess. I pulled it out, and could see bare
copper wire in the hole! What the hell??
You guessed it. I drilled right into my main distribution bundle!! Can you say pissed boys and girls? Sure you can!
This bundle must have 40 freakin wires in it, and it's so stiff, there was no moving it. To top it off, the damage was just below the floor, next to the aux tank, behind the external panel... in other words, it was completely inaccessible by any normal means!
To be continued....
So, my first solution was a couple of these...
More to come...
Now that I was in the proper frame of mind, I assessed the situation, and determined the only way to get to it was to remove the stainless panel below the electrical door.
Yet more to come...
Hi Craig,
Sorry that your day wasn't that good.. Maybe it's not as bad as you think?
Hope you have a better day tomorrow.
Nick-
And here's the damage I found...
It turned out to be only 3 wires that were damaged. Two of them I could have covered with liquid electrical tape, but the third one was nearly severed, so since I had to do a proper repair to it, I repaired all three. The repair was fairly easy, but now I have to order some rivets to replace the stainless panel.
Didn't get my wires in yet, either, but I sure feel good now. Must be the brews.
I'll come back tomorrow when I'm sober and repair the text in this thread. :D
Aul Mannn,
Thats a bad spot for sure!
Good Luck
Nick-
Craig, as usual, I appreciate your sharing - especially w/pix so we can learn. Glad to hear repairs are underway, along w/ a plan of action.
I'm hoping things will look even better in the a.m.
Best Regards, Phil
Craig,
That's what I like about you, even if you screw up you still share with us, that's some pretty big kahunas! ;D ;D ;D
Glad to hear it was not to bad. At least the brews helped out the situation a bit!
This is one story for the record books, a great read. ;)
Paul
Quote from: Dreamscape on September 09, 2007, 06:48:25 PM
Glad to hear it was not to bad. At least the brews helped out the situation a bit!
Well, any excuse for a few brews. They're my first homebrew, and quite frankly, I think it's the best beer
I've ever tasted! ::)
Quote from: gumpy on September 09, 2007, 06:56:08 PM
Quote from: Dreamscape on September 09, 2007, 06:48:25 PM
Glad to hear it was not to bad. At least the brews helped out the situation a bit!
Well, any excuse for a few brews. They're my first homebrew, and quite frankly, I think it's the best beer
I've ever tasted! ::)
In that case I hope we meet up someday! ;D I really like the home brew much better, more flavor. ;)
Paul
Craig, I did notice that it was a dark beer, we will get along just fine.
And thanks for showing us what happened, a lesson for all of us!
Jack
One day last summer I had a friend over helping with final demolition and starting to rebuild the inside. The floor where the bathroom was had lots of holes so I wanted to cut that section out and replace it.
My friend was using the circular saw and I told him to set the blade just deep enough to cut through the plywood as all the tranny wiring was directly below. Well, you guessed it, he cut right into the wiring bundle! Luckily, he only cut three wires that I quickly spliced together and the tranny still worked.
Quote from: jackhartjr on September 09, 2007, 07:03:52 PM
Craig, I did notice that it was a dark beer, we will get along just fine.
And thanks for showing us what happened, a lesson for all of us!
Jack
Yeah, it's a Honey Porter. Really nice. Only problem is I've shared it too much and it's almost gone.
I have another kit of the same, so will do that one when I next time it rains.
Hey Craig...we'll $#!+ happens. If I posted all of faux paws I've done to the bus, I'd have to start another busnut site.
Glad the issue was resolvable without big $$$$$....that's how I measure my mistakes. What is this gonna cost to fix now! ;)
BTW, interesting brew mug! Holds about a liter?
I was looking at your pix...I believe my MC9 has 4 times the junk in the lower electrical panel in comparison to yours. All sorts of wires and relays.
The uppper panel is full too??
JR
Well JR, the upside is that I had to remove some of the rivets holding on the headlight panel to get that stainless panel off, so now I can get that new headlight panel installed after my double deer strike last December.
I've also figured out how to replace the broken plastic headlight adjusters, so will post that when I get it done. NAPA only had one set of the adjuster screws I used and I need to get some more, but keep forgetting when I'm up there.
Gumpy,
Bummer.......But lets take a step back.
With a few premo brews all fixed without................ big ooooops.
So the solution is not to start anything until after a few brews.
I'll have to try it myself this measuring 2...cutting 3 times is getting boring.
Skip
Hey Gumpy,
Nice looking honey porter. makes issues work out easier. Not problems just oppurtunities :D Having one first i guess falls into the "few ounces of Prevention" catagory. :D
Maybe you could have used the situation to get a plasma cutter. ;D
Thanks for the sharing and hope we can at least provide moral support.
hey gummpy
i might be able to make it a little easter.
when i started to lower the floor in my pd 4501 sceniccruiser. started to cut the plywood on the floor with a skill saw. taking small pieces out one at a time,
i noticed something black coming out with the saw dust. quess what. i was cutting right thru the wiring harness going the lenght on the bus with about a 120 wires . i cut about 12 feet of wire into. try going back from one end to the other end to find the correct wire to connect back. tweed covered also.
thanks jt
Quote from: jlaney on September 10, 2007, 05:16:33 AM
i noticed something black coming out with the saw dust.
I know that feeling. In July, I was helping my Father-In-Law put in some irrigation line and electric line out to his garden and where he parks his
camper and other trailers. He had rented an awesome ride on Ditch-Witch. I was pumped cause I'd never run a machine quite like that. We put
in about 600 feet of trench and laid the lines and electric and I started backfilling. The I remembered he wanted to put in a gutter drain off
one corner of the house. It had to cross the newly laid water and electric, but I knew they were deep enough in that area and the gutter drain
was only going down about a foot. So, I'm digging along and look back to see a big gush of water coming out of the digging chain. Yep, right through both the new water and electric lines!
Quote
i was cutting right thru the wiring harness going the lenght on the bus with about a 120 wires . i cut about 12 feet of wire into. try going back from one end to the other end to find the correct wire to connect back.
Now that's what I call a missed opportunity. If I'd cut the main harness in the middle of the bus, I would have had to cut the bus in half and lengthen it by 5 feet to fix it. Especially if it were an awesome Scenicruiser! :o
I can't wait to see what we cut through when we install the tail light conversion circuit board. Plus I usually have Summit in the fridge in the front bay: to be used for medicinal purposes only.
Fred
Quote from: Fredward on September 10, 2007, 08:31:34 PM
I can't wait to see what we cut through when we install the tail light conversion circuit board. Plus I usually have Summit in the fridge in the front bay: to be used for medicinal purposes only.
Fred
We'll start with the Summit. Installation should go much easier, then.
Craig you are truly a man with discerning tastes. Would we have time next week to tackle it? (I'm asking myself as well) With the weather forecast upcoming, I might have to move it into the heated side of the shop!
Fred
Let me check my calendar...
Hmmm...
Oh, look, I'm free! Nothing on the calendar. No work. No life. Just me and my bus.
Yep, anytime next week should do. Let me know when.
QuoteSo, I'm digging along and look back to see a big gush of water coming out of the digging chain. Yep, right through both the new water and electric lines!
So, you wanna hear about the "Larry and the cat burial" story? ??? Do ya? I've probably told it before. . .
Oh, whether you do or not, here goes. ..if you've read it before, just ignore the rest of this post:
So, the neighbor's dogs were running loose, and while we were away, they broke in through our patio door screens, killing my beloved cat. As you can imagine, I was pretty upset when we returned home, (the dogs were still inside the room), so I called a police friend and Margie, in that order. When the police officer offer to "dispose" of poor Moose's body, Margie, seeing the look on my face, wisely suggested that perhaps I would prefer that Larry bury him for me. I suggested a spot under our Rose of Sharon trees, and we lovingly prepared a small box for him.
Now, I gotta tell you, Larry is like the typical guy, and even though we had three different sized backhoes within a couple of hundred feet, did he grab the smallest one, (which, I still insist, was more than adequate to to the job ;). . . ) NO! He brings down the big, 27,000 lb, JCB 1700 B, extend-a-hoe. ::) He claims he was simply trying to get the job done quickly and as painlessly as possible. 8) This simply wasn't meant to be.
The first scoop he takes out pulls up the drain line from our main geothermal system. Well Crap! So, he walks on up around the house and comes in and tells me he had a little problem. I asked him if he shut the system down and he hesitates. . ."well, no. . . ". Oh, crap, crap. :o I run for the thermostat, and then downstairs to confirm what I feared, yep, sure enough, now that the outlet of the drain was 6' up in the air outside, all of the water it was putting out was pouring right onto the floor of my woodshop inside! Arrrrrggh. >:( :'(
Ok, we've had enough trauma, so, between he and Margie, they get Moose into the ground carefully and quickly.
The next morning, he decides he'd better repair the drain line, so that we can turn our geo back on. He takes another scoop and proceeds to drag up our water supply line from the well out of the ground. Crap, crap, CRAP. >:( >:( >:(
By this time, it's clear to me that if he had used the little backhoe, he would have had to work a heck of a lot harder to drag those lines out of the ground, but he's not buying. We finally agree that I need to watch for him as he digs to repair BOTH THE DRAIN AND THE WATER SUPPLY, cause GOD only know what else is lurking under the ground for him to hit!
By the time we got all the repairs done and covered up, our teeny tiny little gravesite was large enough to have buried a herd of buffalo! :D Geeze. Christy Hicks
:D :D :D :D :D :D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
Gawd A'mighty Christy! If it weren't for poor Larry you wouldn't have any excitement in your life! ;)
Soooo good to see you post on the Board again...it's been toooooo long!
NCbob
Gosh Christy, That story was too funny! Tell Larry to use a water finder next time he decides to dig, stick or coat hanger works great. ;D I'm sure glad Larry chose the right tool for the job. ::)
I'm sure there will be lots of similar stories around the campfire this week in Texas. :P
See you Thursday,
Paul
The power of homebrew is not to be taken lightly!
That could have been a disaster if the bundle was cut through. Thanks for sharing that with us.
I have been a homebrewer for about 15 years. Another rewarding hobby ;D
Tell ya what...if I give up the bus search tomorrow and decide not to be a bus nut any longer, I'll still read this board for the rest of my life just to see what happens next! LOL I don't know what stupid story to tell on myself first...
Dennis
QuoteTell Larry to use a water finder next time he decides to dig, stick or coat hanger works great.
Well, I'm sorry, but you left it wide open. . . we actually have decided that a Backhoe is a "Dowser" for Larry ;). . . really, ANY tractor works when he's on it. It's the TRUTH! ;D
The other day, for instance, he was lowering the dirt on the west side of my new garden building, so that water flows around it instead of trying to run back at the house. Sure, we've got some underground feeder lines for my watering system, but they are about 2' deep, with only one, count 'em, ONE, water line that comes up shallower right at the edge of the hill. . .which goes on up the hill and stays about 12"-18" deep at all times.
Guess which line Larry found? ::) Yep! That was with a box blade, going, juuuuuuust a tad bit deeper than the 4-8" I suggested he remove. I guess the tractor's pretty noisy and when I said he "only" needed to be about 8" deep at the most, he heard, "make it about 8" deeper than the foot you've already gone!" ha ha.
Oh well, that's what they make primer and glue for! Luckily, since we do plumbing too, we have lots of pipe, fittings, glue and primer on site at all times. . . and people ask me why we decided to do plumbing! ;) :D Christy Hicks