Last Updated: 19/12/2019

Summer is here

In just two weeks we went from a nice top temperature of 24° to today 40° (possibly more in the sun) 😂 Problem is, we are still in September… What’s going to happen in December???  🙄

The conversion is however proceeding on several fronts simultaneously:

Gigi already had all of his side lights, front and both roof front and back replaced to LED, but as you can see from the first picture, for some unknown reason the entire rear set was left original… After a phone call to Maxipart the choice was made to use Maxus LED lights as they make the Combo (tail/stop indicator and reverse) at a very competitive price.

Very pleased with the result as it make the rear look like cleaner and 10 years younger… They are also unbelievably bright as they each use 24 LED. Once the conversion is complete, the idea would be to have 100% LED lights for everything, including all interior and service lights

 

After removing all the seats, the Aircon side ducts had to come off… Luckily this time, the amount of Sikaflex was nowhere near the amount I encounter in the other vehicle, so in a couple of days it all came off. Off course the front pod, made of Fibreglass did not want to come off without a fight. In the end the only way out was to cut it into small pieces and then remove it..

 

Then the TV frame had to come off but again it was welded on from the top, possibly before they mounted the Fibreglass front end of the Coach…

 

In the end between the angle grinder, a good chisel and a massive hammer, I opted to remove just the actual unit and leave the two pieces attached to the main frame. It won’t affect the new ceiling anyway. You can see in the picture the two unpainted 40×40 galvanised piece left from the TV frame…

At the same time the electrical removal of all unnecessary wiring was started: the aircon wiring, all the stereo speakers, old UHF radio, aircon controller, GPS locator, emergency exit lights wiring, under seats lights wiring and two massive harness under the dashboard, they all have to go…

 

This is definitely not an enjoyable job. 😏  They used the same colour coded wire for different purposes and it makes it hard to follow each wire…

This may take a bit longer than expected but the end result should be a clean and easy to follow electrical system. It should also give me more room in the outside panel as lots of wiring is related to the Stereo PA system… I’m actually happy to have decided to rewire the coach as some wiring were rubbing against the Fibreglass in the ceiling and some of them were already been cut… Lucky they didn’t have a fire on the bus with passenger on board… My suggestion to anybody thinking of doing a conversion would be to, even if not removing or replacing any wiring, to at least check for the integrity of the harness, both above and below the floor…

Finally, to make the challenge a bit more fun I went ahead and started the installation of the Levelling system made by Redfoot and sold by Titan Trailer RV in QLD

As it is a big job, I decide to make it a separate blog, coming soon… (HERE)