Today I pulled the bus out and gave her a good washing, top to bottom.  My ladder was not tall enough for me to actually climb on top to scrub like I wanted to but I was able to get up on the sides of the top where you can see, at least.

Here is my friend Scotty helping me by hosing off what I have washed.  

This is a picture of me washing one of the stainless panels.  I did not realize just how much of a job this actually was and by the time I was finished I hurt all over.  This job surely took a toll on my back and knees... but the bus looks SO much better.  This is the first time I gave her a washing.

Today the weather was unseasonably cool which made a great day to take the bus out for a drive.  The last time the bus moved was last Sept so it has been about 8 months.  Way too long.  We drove the bus down to Love's Truck Stop in Richmond and back... she did perfect, as usual.  The air dryer purge valve that we installed a couple of weeks ago works great and purges just like clockwork.  The bus looses a lot less air than it used to.

The next project will be trying to locate the source of the fuel tank leak that I had this past winter.  It has not leaked in several months now but I figure if it leaked once it may just leak again and I can't afford that to happen while on the road.

In my last post I mentioned that the purge valve that I rebuilt did not work properly... actually stuck open and purged continually preventing the building of air pressure in the system.  Today I took the bottom part of the air dryer to Charlie and Bluegrass Tours for advice.  He looked at it and immediately knew that I had put part of the valve parts in reverse order.  Also the bore where the parts go was scored badly.  Charlie had some parts from an old air dryer that were in better shape than mine so we swapped out some old parts of his with some parts of mine.  He reassembled the valve for me.  I took it back to the bus, installed the end assembly, aired up the bus, and it worked perfectly.  The bus now airs up, and the purge valve purges and seals like it was designed to do. 

After putting everything away, and getting the front of the bus down on the ground from where it had been sitting jacked up and on wooden blocks I started it up... the last time the engine was run was back in Sept 2013... so it has been over 7 months... I cranked it until oil pressure built up and then I released the fuel shutoff and she fired right off. 

Maybe if I can arrange it, I can take the bus out this coming Sunday for a short spin.  Now I can check this project off my list.

Toward the end of last Sept 2013 I should have made a post here about having an issue with the purge valve on the air dryer sticking open.  This issue made it impossible to air up the bus and if you can't air up the bus you can't unlock the brakes and move it.  I removed the air dryer completely, which is not necessary just to remove the purge valve but I wanted to inspect the complete air dryer as I had no idea what shape it was in.

The air dryer was in good condition.  I ordered a repair kit for the purge valve.  It took several weeks to get the kit and by that time I was too busy with work for several weeks to get back to working on the air dryer.  After that the weather would not cooperate.  Either it was raining or just too cold.  This lasted until May with one of the worse winters we have had on over 10 years.  I am limited to the weekend to really do much work on the bus normally and with my tax prep business I was swamped with work from Jan through the end of April anyway.  So just lots of reasons I could not work on the bus again until May. 

Finally warm weather is here to stay and today I attempted to install the purge valve kit, new internal 'dryer bed' canister and then install the complete air dryer back on the bus.  The assembly sits just forward of the front axle in the center and you have to jack up the front of the bus to have room to get in there to work.  It is an ordeal just to properly jack up and block up the bus safely.  

At any rate, the dryer is back on but the purge valve still leaks.  It has also been so long since I took it all apart, I honestly can't remember for sure how the bottom of the canister is fastened on.  I again removed the bottom assembly of the canister and will take it to Charlie at Bluegrass Tours tomorrow for his kind instruction and hopefully he can tell me what I have done wrong.  

Once again, it's one step forward and two back.