Woo! Managed to do everything in the housebus that I had in mind to finish this morning, so yeah, I’m feeling pretty darn good!

First off, I ran out to Home Depot again to pick up another quart of the Rustoleum protective enamel AGAIN. No big deal. Got back to the bus, and the first thing I had to do was reinstall this wild metal plate that was apparently covering up a big hole to access part of the transmission under the cab floor? What? When I pulled it up it was glued down with seam sealer just like the windows, so I made sure to apply a good thick bead of butyl tape around the edge before I bolted it back down.

Then I used the DAP urethane adhesive to stick a small metal panel down over the small rust holes I found, hopefully taking care of that for now. And then it was on to painting!

This was a much larger section of floor than I’d previously tackled in a single sitting, so I might have misunderestimated* how much paint I’d need to finish it up. Plus my roller has a much thicker nap than I think I really needed, so it tends to soak up a LOT of extra paint as well. Anyhow, I followed the same procedure I’d used for previous sections, using a brush to start along all the edges and pushing paint down into the seams between the metal floor panels, anywhere the roller wouldn’t easily go. Then I start pouring small amounts of paint into the tray and rolling it down. It’s crazy how fast painting goes once you’re actually doing it, especially with a good wide roller.

Started out in the rear area on the port side of the bus, getting down underneath the redirected coolant line as best I could, then filling in over to the starboard side. I worked my way forward, knowing I was going to end up basically trapped in the stairwell, and yeah, that’s pretty much how it went.

I came very close to running out of paint, I thought, but then realized I was much closer to done than I thought I was. After I squeezed all the unused paint out of the thick roller, I ended up with almost a half-quart leftover!

So, Yeah! I’m so happy this part of the process is completely done, and I can next move back to finishing framing out the subfloor. I think finishing up Section C will take a couple days—like I say, it’s a bigger section than either of the two I’ve already finished. But that’s okay: progress is progress!

Pictures!

*come on, this is totally a word.