| GETTING IN GEAR It took a few weeks to get a plan together, but we eventually got things in motion. Dennis was tasked to call Mike's dad and explain our intent. Norm Droulliard agreed to give us the keys and we arranged thepick-up date; the last Saturday in July. The plan was to rework the bus and present it to Mike when he arrived at Buses Of The Corn. The pickup run was made by John Dillon, Dennis Jolliffe, and myself.  We
left Toronto at 4PM and arrived in Windsor at 8PM.  We
checked the bus over, adjusting the valves, adding fresh gas and
checking the oil before lighting it up.  We
also had to evict the many kittens who had been living inside the bus
over the winter. Once we added a booster pack the engine fired right
up... the bus was in good running order. Since the clock
was still ticking we quickly packed up and headed east; arriving back
in Toronto at 3AM. |
DAY TWO:
The next day we dropped the bus at Chez 'Doom in Pickering; this was to be the bus's home until BOTC. We gave it a look over in the bright sunlight and the realization hit us that we had LOTS of work to do.... The interior was ragged and worn, and the exterior needed love just as badly. This was a good news/bad news situation: The bad news was that we had a lot of work in front of us. The good news was that *anything* we could do would be an improvement, and the odds of making Mike happy with the end product were definitely in our favour.
So the To-Do list was substantial. We also added ideas from an email Mike sent to Dennis that included some other things that Mike had wanted to do to his bus:
WHAT GOT DONE:
- Sand off the dozens of snow-boarding stickers and repaint the bus.
- Pull out the dents in the nose.
- Install a front spare tire carrier.
- Replace the windshield seal and several door seals.
- Change out the front doors. Spare doors were included.
- Replace the side view mirrors.
- Re-key the door locks.
- Front kick panels and parcel trays.
- Re-upholster the interior.
- Install new curtains.
- Reduce the "suicide" cabinet closet to below window level.
- Repaint the wheels.
- Replace the stereo system.
- Install a rear hatch "escape latch" and interior grab handle.