We decide to expand our work beyond rubber seals for a spell, this to keep our morale up. Appetite makes short work of parking light lenses and license plate lamps and tail lights, I install the bumpers.
His X-treme Organization Ziplock Bags are proving to be helpful as they reliably feed us the sundry parts and screws and nuts, the wind then makes great sport of blowing them away. The front doors are subjected to "perfectionist striker adjustments" before the new door seals load them up to an unpleasant springiness that will die down over time as the seals develop a memory. We install the sliding door jalousie and the center left window with a desperately appreciated lack of drama. We install the luggage rack.
But we cagily circle around the Nightmare in Waiting, the left rear window, the window that has to butt against the Last Decent Vent Window with its questionably-dimensioned seal. Appetite has thoughtfully given us an out.
"I did not want to spend the serious money on a sliding rear window, but it IS an option. Had I known that this vent window would be such a hassle . . . "
"I like that vent window, it is in good shape. I just don't know about the seal."
"I like the originality angle."
"Me too."
Here, the bus is beginning to present a nice bus look:
Rain threatens as we run the safety test of the lighting (which passes all tests after we re-plug in the brake light feed wire to the fuse box).
"Well . . . we have saved the best for last."
"Let's do it," says appetite with that far gaze of steely resolve.
"Back it into the garage, we need to be near the wall to shove it in."
As we lubricate the rubber with hand cleaner and baby fresh flavored Vaseline slathered all over the opening, it sure looks like the window is too big for the opening. Our twine is falling out of the groove, the window squirts free the instant we release pressure on it, I am jumping back and forth from the outside to the interior where the great crescendo of finger pain is upon me as we try to "protect our gains!" the famous refrain of this entire visit. While appetite is applying force to the seal where it has landed, I am trying to pull the rubber over the pinch weld with what else? my fingers, and an assortment of screwdrivers and plastic spatulae, and we finally are pushing the glass into the opening with my feet up about three feet from the floor braced against the wall. Slowly, the window finally eases into the opening enough that I can go back inside and try to get the remaining run of rubber over the pinch weld. It will not go. The window is so tight in the opening that the string is jammed and the rubber is jammed, and I have to pry the window outwards-but-only-where-I-am-working to give the rubber room to be pried over the edge of the pinchweld into the interior. The final inch gives us the greatest fight.
In retrospect, it was fun. At the time, I had anxiety that we would not achieve our goals and petty irritation at the wind and various fitment issues, but appetite and I, we prevailed past an assortment of obstacles in a character-building testament to the finest in human cooperation (and you think I over-write).
Last photograph was shot through the windshield of the BobD as I was pulling out. Heck, I could barely turn the key to start with my exhausted and sore fingers.
Drove to the Piscatawecketywey Motel 6 to take a shower to wash off all that hand cleaner and rubber and vaseline and drop into a coma, cuz, very next morning, we had a 1966 Westy to look at:
Retro1302 was very solicitous of my newfound loss of dexterity. I struggled with the installation of a new throttle positioner in the bug while he struggled with Monster-Monkey Too-Tight valve adjustment screws on the bus.
The cold and the wind were still plaguing me and I tried to bring all of my work to the sliding door of the BobD where I could enjoy a little bit of sun warmth. After our tune-up of the bus, we went for a whole family test drive. What a sweetheart the bus is. We had a little Chloe soundtrack, a little Chloe power deficit and lots of early Volkswagen charm. Then I took them out for a little test drive in the BobD, their very first bay window bus drive. You have a great example there, retro1302, enjoy it!
Exhausted, I hit the road to Maryland, south! sun?! finally? Passed out in a Pennsylvania highway department parking lot next to a snow plow. It was supposed to be a ten minute catnap. It turned out to be a five hour drooling brain dead state of unconsciousness that I awakened from only after the temps had dropped below 38*.
So yes, I am in Maryland . . . it is 54* and rainy.
THIS is my life.
Colin