Perfect Day

If you’re going to do something, you might as well do it right.

This is the logic that led me to rip out the driver’s side floor in the bus, just like I ripped out the passenger side. Sure enough, the driver’s side had water damage as well. The metal was in much better shape though. The front sliding window leaks, always has, probably always will. That was probably the source of the rotten wood, but I resealed the headlight anyway. Tearing the floor out also gave me a chance to widen the access hole to the master cylinder, which is now big enough to get my hand through.

I still haven’t replaced the windshield wiper motor, which is what started this whole adventure. Nor have I called the radiator shop about welding the leaky extension tube, but I did replace the exhaust manifold gaskets and it has been life changing.

I know that sounds hyperbolic, but I mean it. Nothing I’ve ever done to this engine has improved it as dramatically as these gaskets. Many thanks to our friend Bret for recommending them. I ended up with a different brand (I used Remflex), but the idea is the same — soft gaskets that crush and seal up the leaks from worn, less than perfectly smooth, manifolds.

With the exhaust sorted I was finally able to start driving it regularly again. I took it for a spin to burn off the old gas that’s been sitting in there for a year.

Then I got some new gas, changed the fuel filter, and we went for a family drive around the back roads of South Carolina.

It felt good to drive. The engine was quiet¹. Everything ran smooth, vacuum was good, she just felt… damn near perfect. The bus still creaks and sways with the roughness of the road, but she’s rolling again and it feels good, it feels right. This is what she was meant to do, ramble around the back roads at 40 miles an hour, in no hurry, with nowhere particular to go. This also how I like to live.

The kids were excited to be riding around in it again too. The views from the bus are little more exciting than the backseat of a car. They got to see a Cooper’s Hawk up close when we startled one out of hedge of junipers, and the cows all turned to look at us as we rumbled down the road.

There are still things to do. It needs new hoses and belts and plugs and oil. And naturally things will go wrong down the road. It could blow the head gasket tomorrow. But for now — it’s just about perfect.

I think we’d all like to move back in tomorrow, but there’s more to do before we can. We’ve got some new strategies to finish implementing, and it’s still going to be a few months before that’s done. Then the weather will turn and we’ve already done enough cold in the bus to know we’re better off waiting it out.

On the upside, we recently discovered that our local Mexican market sells homemade tamales on Sundays, so we have that tide us over. There’s nothing like fresh tamales. As long as I don’t have to make them.

We’re not real complicated people. Give us some tamales, a working bus, nowhere particular to be, and we’re happy.