So far I’ve painted 7 Skull Bus painting in an effort to raise money to repair the bus so that I can use it for a special project at the 2016 Classic City Fringe Festival here in Athens GA. Out of those seven I have sold five paintings and raised a grand total of $155! Of course that’s nowhere near enough to fix the bus completely, but it’s definitely a start… And that’s exactly what we did today!

A friend of mine (who coincidentally will be working on Laura “Orange Twin” Carter’s school bus next) came by today to get the brakes done. He spent an hour getting everything apart, removed the tire, unbolted the caliper, he even took the rotor off to inspect the bearings…

Good news is that the bearings are fine so we’ll probably be reusing them since they are better than the new replacement bearings cause they are all-metal. The calipers are dry rotted, but I expected that already. The hoses look ok but I may replace them to be safe (will cost $50). I’ve already bought the brake pads and a rotor to replace the bad one, and so we went ahead and ordered the two calipers… Then we were looking at the rotor I bought (purchased a year ago mind you) and realized that AutoZone sold me the wrong one!!! So we called them back and asked if they had the right ones and found out that the 5 lug rotors are no longer available, they switched over to 8 lug!? So basically I may not be able to fix my brakes correctly because to replace this very worn out rotor I have to also replace my wheels! So the job suffers another set back…

So far I’ve spent $120 (not counting the parts I still have to purchase) out of the $155 raised leaving me with only $35. Tomorrow I go buy the calipers (about $50) and my buddy will see if this very worn rotor can be turned (very unlikely, and another unknown cost that I will have to cover)… Then we put it all back together even if we have to put the worn rotor back on… At least the brake pads and calipers will be new and the brakes will actually work! They of course will wear out quicker than they would if the job was done right… But I have lifetime pads so, no worries.

With the brakes working I will begin the cleaning process, removing the trash, scrubbing the walls, and removing the rest of the wooden cabinet structures in the galley… Which will of course go towards more Skull Bus paintings that should be available again soon!

Thanks to to everyone who has help with this project so far, it means the world to me that you would support my crazy ideas! Let see how things go tomorrow.