SanFord the Great! A 1956 Ford B-600 RV

It looks a little better with paint. I'll probably go ahead and stripe it like the rest of the bus. 

Exterior power plug installed and breaker panel repaired. 

I also got the front A/C wired in permanently. 

I did get a little done this afternoon. 

Mount built for the black water tank. 

Trial for a different curtain color. 

I think we are going with the blue. 

More to come. 

How is the paint holding up? Is that just dirt or is it turning chalky already?

On that flip down a.c. panel, don't do a mural on the outside, it would just look strange. Paint it on the Inside if the door, so when you flip it down it draws attention away from the a.c. compartment.

In reply to Mad_Ratel :

The paint is holding up very well. I haven't wash it in 6-8 months. That's on the agenda this weekend. 

This afternoons project was mounting the gray water tank. 

And I've changed my mind. With the changes I've made under the bus, I have enough room for two tanks so that's what I will be doing. A gray tank for the shower and sink, and a black tank for the toilet. 

This tank works much better than the old one. Not only does it not have holes in it, it's totally behind the skirt. Nothing to be seen from the outside. 

I've got a hour or two of plumbing to do to tie in the shower and sink tomorrow and I think I've done everything that needs to be done before the race. 

The rest of the plumbing to tie the sink and vent to the gray water tank is done. 

I also pulled the plug on the rear axle for the first time. It was seriously stuck when we were leaving Wisconsin. I didn't want to break the plug or strip something, so I took a chance and never checked the rear end before driving it home. This time it popped loose with no issues. It took 1.5 gallons of gear oil into it to fill it up. It was pretty low. 

That done, I took it for another drive. About 20 miles this time. Everything ran pretty flawlessly. The only problem I ran into was dust, 10 miles at 55-60 mph blew dust and grit out of every cranny. I'm going to have to clean it again. The old engine runs pretty good. 

Very little done today. Added a couple of 12 sockets and gave it a bath. It cleans up pretty well. 

I'll finish loading it up tomorrow, but it's pretty much as done as it is going to get before it leaves town on Thursday. 

120 miles done. We are set up at the track. He ran like a champ. 

So much awesome in this pic 

Though I feel a little weird seeing the shuttle sitting next to the bus.  It's like the young shuttle thinks the old, wise bus is just helping him learn the ropes, meanwhile the bus is plotting to strip his heart, arms, and legs to prolong his own life.  

I can't say I'd blame the bus .

that's quite a setup y'all have going.  

two-tone and stripe that AC cover and it disappears.

Cool pic. Those jerry cans should really be painted to match the dark green of the bus though. 

My teammate who built our Planet Express with me just excitedly sent me a photo of SanFord. The first CMP race I've missed in 5.5 years and SanFord shows up. Dammit.

Well, he did 240 miles round trip without a problem. The engine didn't miss a lick. The transmission still sounds like it's full of rocks. The rear axle preformed perfectly, even after 100 or so shifts from high range to low. 

Problems encountered, the refrigerator died. Completely. I'll be looking for something to replace it. Luckily I had extra coolers with me so it wasn't a issue this time.

There is a leak in the water system. I didn't see any water where it didn't belong, so it may be a check valve in the the pump. It was causing the pump to cycle ever 10 minutes or so. 

I'm going to call this a unqualified success. Left under its own power, came back under its own power. 

Huzzah!

Wait,

is the crown vic towing the trailer? while the two big ol vehicles amble along? 

Mad_Ratel said:

Wait,

is the crown vic towing the trailer? while the two big ol vehicles amble along? 

The CV is towing the Polaris. The short bus is towing the Lemons car and pit bike. SanFord has a hard enough time moving on its own. He's screaming along at about 3000+- rpms to maintain 55 mph. That and I wasn't sure he would make it up there at all.

We hauled entirely too much stuff to race a junky little civic. 

We hauled entirely too much stuff to race a junky little civic. 

Understatement of the year! Not that i care, it's just funny. It was probably fun, and that is its own justification. 

In reply to Vigo :

Racing was only part of the reason we were there. 

buzzboy said:

My teammate who built our Planet Express with me just excitedly sent me a photo of SanFord. The first CMP race I've missed in 5.5 years and SanFord shows up. Dammit.

Are you with the Planet Express Pizza team? If so, congrats on the C class win this weekend.

We ate a head gasket Saturday afternoon and by the time we got it back on track we were 93 laps in the hole. 

A little more loving for SanFord. 

First up, trailer hitch. Nothing fancy, just a universal hitch bolted to the frame. Middle son got to help drilling holes. 

Next problem was the crapped out refrigerator. 

I did a fair amount of research and decided to pass on the absorption fridges. For starters, they are $1000. For seconds they don't work well if they aren't level. Lastly, they are problematic with frequent failures of control circuits. 

I also decided to pass on the 12v dc units. Again they are expensive and there are few sized available. I wanted something that would fit back in the hole the old one came out of without major modification. 

What I went with was a compact refrigerator/freezer. It draws about 100 watts at 120v. 

When running or away from shore power, I'll power it off of an inverter and the house batteries. Those will be charged off of the alternator, solar or generator as needed. The house batteries should power it for for several days before being depleted. 

The old unit was enormous. It almost wouldn't fit between the cabinets. Between the cabinets was 24.5", the fridge was 23.5". It's also surprizingly heavy. 

Since I no longer needed that huge hole in the side of the bus, I plugged it. 

Sheetmetal followed by foam followed by the grill. 

I may also plug the roof vent as well. 

This will do nicely.

The new unit fits fairly well. It's a couple of inches narrower, and 1.5" shorter. That's enough air space to let the unit breath. 

For the interested, this is what the back of a ammonia absorption refrigerator looks like. 

The burner to boil the ammonia is bottom right. The evaporator is not visible as it's inside the refrigerator. 

Fair amount of gaseous ammonia in an enclosed space... seems real safe to me....

Hmmm, that might be a problem. 

My daughter pointed this out to me while I was changing the guts in the distributor. 

Catastrophic failure of the passenger side exhaust manifold. 

Looks like the only thing holding it together is the head. 

At least they are cheap.