Small Additions

November 2020 Update

November’s work on 1130 included a few finishing touches before the full onset of winter as well as discovering a few more issues which we plan to take care of in the springtime. 

One of our tasks was the cleaning and bulb replacement of the license plate light assembly which hadn’t been illuminating the plate properly at night. This assembly consisted of a glass dome-shaped lens over the light bulb fastened with a bracket and two screws, both of which were severely seized and stripped of their Phillips heads. Fortunately they stuck out for about half a centimetre on the other side, so with a pair of small vise grips and a lot of WD-40, I was able to remove the screws. I thoroughly cleaned the lens and replaced the bulb, and put it back together with new screws to replace the rusted and damaged old ones. The license plate light now worked beautifully.

In addition, for purely operational sake, I decided to fit my own windshield washer reservoir cap to the bus as the proper white screw-on cap was still missing. I did so by using some steel wire to tie a generic automotive flip-up washer cap to the filler tube. This should at least stop the reservoir from filling with snow/water and freezing during the winter as the filler is on the exterior of the bus.

I also removed the faulty rear Vultron route number indicator and took it home. After emailing Calgary Transit, I was able to obtain a rear indicator from retired D40LF #7651 at a cost of $150 with pickup at the city surplus store. I swapped the control board from the 7600 sign into 1130’s sign and reinstalled it in 1130 to see if it would work now. It didn’t, and the issue with the system tripping out with the rear sign’s fluorescent light ballast connected, remained as well. As a result of all this, I assumed that the issue is not with the rear sign board itself, but elsewhere in the system. I know almost nothing about how the system works so Ken will eventually come down and investigate further.

On another warm evening in November, I started up the bus with hopes to drive it around the block one last time before the winter, but I found some new issues with the bus since my last time driving it the previous month, most notably the air throttle not opening all the way despite full depression of the gas pedal. This made moving the bus on its own power impossible. Yigal and I came back to the bus a few weeks later to diagnose this. The bus was powered up, aired up, and Yigal held down the gas pedal as I went to the back to check the air throttle itself. I discovered that there was a lot of air leaking through the plunger to the other end when the pedal was depressed. 

I removed the air throttle control assembly from the bus and took it home to take apart. After doing so, I discovered that the assembly was filled with motor oil and the rubber “U-cup” seal of the plunger was stiff as plastic and not sealing properly. The entire assembly will need to be cleaned of the oil and lubricated properly with silicone, and a new seal will need to be installed on the plunger, before we can drive the bus again. Fortunately with some help from a local heavy shop I was able to find and order a full repair kit for the assembly online.

Other than that, we aren’t planning to do much else with the bus for the time being, especially with no insurance on the bus yet. The batteries will be disconnected and the bus will remain parked for the winter. Our next tasks after fixing the throttle will be getting some new tires to replace the bald scrap tires on the bus, as well as taking 1130 to a gas station and car wash. Both of these we plan to do in the springtime after we get the bus insured. I would also like to replace the fleet number decals that I put on 1130 back in June with decals of the proper font thickness as the current ones had started to annoy me as the months went on. I delegated this to Michael, however it will have to be done when the weather gets warmer in the springtime since the decals require a minimum of 7 degrees Celsius surface temperature for application.