On the Road Again.....

[Ncbob]

WE left Franklin this morning and pulled into El Rancho Hobe about 4:30 this evening.  Fred was first to point out the my left rear outer was looking pretty overburdened...checking the inner I found that it was flat. Hmmm. I stopped at a rest area south of Macon, GA and took all the tire and hub temps and whacked all the tires and they were fine.  Methinks it must have been that turn-a-round I had to make after going past Fred's place...a closed business..a great place for a stray nail.

But that's the side that has to come apart for the new airbags anyway...so I'm not going to worry...unless I need to replace a tire. Ugg!

So, we're in Madison FL for a few days to get the new LED tail Lights installed and two new airbags.

Surprisingly I can't get a Verizon phone signal here but the Verizon data link works great.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I'd changed the Primary and Secondary fuel filters before leaving home.
The upside of that is that the engine doesn't roll against the buffer spring like it did.  Hmm, I'll make a note of that and change them at the first sign of falling off the buffer.  FWIW.

Bob

[FloridaCliff]

Bob,

Good to hear your at stop #1, safe and sound.

Looking forward to your arrival down here.   

Cliff

[Nick Badame Refrig/ACC]

Hi Bob,

You two have a safe and a enjoyable winter vacation...

Nick-

[NewbeeMC9]

You must be takin the cold with you, it was mighty warm here today.



be careful and have fun.

[NJT5047]

Yep. The cold is all gone for one more day!  NICE here today!
Bob, you'll have to post a pix of those new LEDs.   
Regarding your Verizon...that's exactly what happened to my service at Palmetto Cove.  I coud access the internet, but couldn't call anyone??  How does that happen?
Monroe International Airport has a TurboMeca (helicopter plant) being built near my home.
Suddenly, now we have  a great Verizon EV and 1X signal.   Lovely! 
I see one of those little aircards in my future.
Can those cards be used to power a router so that two computers will operate off of a Verizon aircard?  I believe something like that was advertised recently? 
Tell Jackie HI! 
JR

[buswarrior]

El Rancho Hobe is one fine place to be!

Many of us are jealous, for sure!

You will learn things you never thought of, and remember, you have the awesome responsibility to soak it all up so that you may help others as you have been helped!

Stay away from the sprinkler heads in the lawn.

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[Gary LaBombard]

Bob,
You and Jackie have a safe and wonderful trip in the sunny section of our country.  You will get a verizon signal if you look at Fred's bus shop from the front, go to the furthest right hand corner of this shop, walk away from his shop at the right hand corner about 5 - 8 ft.?  I know, this is strange but this is the only spot I found a signal when there last time.  You cannot move from that spot when signal is made. 

Give Fred my absolute best, I envy you as he is a fine man and sure wish I could come down to visit with him again soon. Meet his neighbor Don that lives next door also, he also is a hoot. 

Drive safe, see you at Arcadia.

Gary

[JackConrad]

Bob,
   Welcome back to FL.  Tell Fred we said Hi.  We had a nice visit with Fred & Carolyn on our way back from LA (Lower Alabama) a couple weeks ago.  See ya'll at Bussin' 2008  Jack

[Ncbob]

In the sincere hope that we don't bore y'all......

Let me be among those who feel that Fred Hobe is among the stalwarts of our Conversion Community when it comes to knowledge and experience. Fred is certainly a man to go down the road with.......

The first of the bad news was that when we removed the duals from the driver's side, knowing that the inside tire was flat, we found that we must have picked up a rock or similar object, as it not only took the sidewall out of the inside tire...it definitely bruised the outer tire as well...and took out the wet tank drain cable and the mud flap as it departed the premises!  And a Michelin tire with another 40K miles bites the dust!

With hope in my heart, we tackled the air bags. With the removal of the first and later inspection it was Fred's opinion  that the bag was fine and didn't need to be replaced. Hmmm, so much for my knowledge.

After a monumental fistfight with the fasteners of the second and the final removal is was determined that it, too, was in good working order and that the problem was in the mindset and intelligence of the P/O who, in his wisdom, had somehow stumbled into the discovery that the air beam had a leak on the rear innermost side....where the salt and slush of the northern states would accumulate and do the most damage.  His solution was most typical of street rodder's, fill it with fiberglass and forget it!  Lest I offend any of the membership who might be street rodder's, I wish to offer the opinion that the P/O would be at the lower end of the food chain in your company.

The only option being that we now must use the block-off plates, of which Fred had a pair, but we needed the longer bolts to accommodate the plates which are about 3/8" thicker. Though we ordered the "kits" from a well known bus company in Central FL...they didn't have the good sense to include the hardware (Rich is no longer there)....not a problem. I called MCI in Apopka and they seemed to know what I was talking about so the parts will be here tomorrow.

For those of you who own MCI's later than my "5", the BusGods are smiling on you tonight as the Imagineers who
designed the original "5's" discovered that they'd placed all their mistakes in one basket and managed to improve
on the rest of the line.

And for those of you who might be sitting on the sidelines, wannabe's, maybes or just hopefuls...don't let my tales and seeming plight cause you to turn away from your final destination of being a future BusNut...quite the contrary...
these minor bumps in the road are not to be blown out of perspective....the are just that...bumps in the road...which lead to my better understanding of what a marvelous machine the Engineers at MCI developed and built for me and my wife...an ongoing challenge to my patience and tenacity...with the rewards of traveling in the most comfortable and safest venue I could possibly imagine.

Bob

[ktmossman]

JR,

Here is one router which will accept an Aircard.  There are others out there, but this one works with (a couple of the) Verizon cards.

http://www.evdoinfo.com/content/view/264/63/

Kevin

[uncle ned]

bob

   You left to early. it is snowing today wind about 50mph. Beautiful weather.


uncle ned

[NJT5047]

bob
   You left to early. it is snowing today wind about 50mph. Beautiful weather.
uncle ned

Yeah.  It's cold'ern a witches....nevermind...   Yesterday, 78 degrees...today...waay too cold.  High tomorrow, 50.   Bummer.
Weatherperson just said that there were 100 MPH winds in the high country...?  Cold too. 
Had pix of snow...she may have been standing in front of a snow machine!   
What the temp at Fred's place???    About 80*?
It'll cool off down there too I'll bet! 

Kevin, thanks for the link!  Now that we got a good Verizon signal, both EV and 1X, the aircard thing may work.  I've got RR now and it has been great.  Minimal problems.  I cause most of my problems!   
JR


 

[captain ron]

Bob, Good luck on your bus and adventure. If you are using an office conectivity kit to get online beware of charges.

[Ncbob]

Thanks Ron, that won't happen.....

We're half done. Fred finished the new tail/stop/turn signal LED's this afternoon and we decided to wait until tomorrow to install the new airbags and block-off plates. If all works out we'll be heading south on Sunday.

I wanted to take pix of the lights this afternoon when the sun was right but, naturally, the camera battery was dead...so after charging it a bit I got one after dark.  They look real good to me...but the guy behind me will have to be the final judge.

More pix tomorrow as we progress with the airbag stop-off plate installation.

Bob

[cody]

Your sure causing me a lot of problems lol, we're getting ready to head down to see dallas, cat and BK, but my wife is saying florida would be great for the next stop on this adventure, I've looked all over but I just can't find any palm tree's up here in northern michigan and my wife seems to think we might be able to find one in florida.