Up next in 10
RV Water Tanks | Northwest Conversions 16,20 & 25 Gallon Tank Setup
2K views
May 3, 2025
NEW! DIY Camper Van Conversion Course Launches October 1st 2024! Don't Miss Out! :https://vanbuilderhq.com/camper-van-conversion-blueprint/ Don't forget to check out Odyssey Custom Vans latest build currently For Sale here: https://www.odysseycustomvans.com/ Whenever you’re ready, there are 2 ways we can help you: 1. If you need a vetted parts list, download our → FREE DIY Van Build Cheatsheet to help you save time and money on Van Parts and Gear: CLICK HERE: https://vanbuilderhq.com/ 2. If you want to get Done-For-You Van Build help, book a → FREE Consultation with my Calendly Link: CLICK HERE: https://calendly.com/odysseycustomvans/intro-call
View Video Transcript
0:00
[Music]
0:53
hey guys welcome back to live stream we are talking about water tanks today we're talking about RV water tanks the
1:00
four that I have here behind me they're from a company called Northwest conversions and um I had some order from
1:07
a different company but their machine went down and I've been waiting like a
1:12
month and a half so uh went back to uh A supplier that
1:19
actually has them in stock and I didn't know that they had this new upgraded one
1:25
I thought this is the only one they had that's why I did go to a different company for a minute but yeah we're going to talk about these water tanks
1:31
let me get this camera moved around just a little
1:38
bit yeah we're going to talk about these water tanks where we're putting them in the van their capacity all that stuff
1:45
and then uh if you guys have any questions during the live stream let me know um be happy to answer those
1:51
questions um I'm also streaming on Instagram right here on my personal
1:56
phone so trying to uh see how that that all works out but um yeah we're going to
2:03
be talking about water tanks today this afternoon uh or actually
2:09
right after this live stream I've already got these plumbed and ready to go so I'm going to walk you through how
2:15
I'm connecting them and then at the end of the live stream uh I'm G to put them in the van I might come back and do a
2:21
video showing you guys you know how I actually did the connections but I'll pretty much cover everything during this
2:27
live stream um let's see I'm going to double check the stream really quick my water
2:33
tanks today there we go looks
2:39
good okay let's hop over to uh this is not a sponsor video so we're going to go
2:45
over to Northwest conversions uh website and so this is the uh the
2:52
company Northwest conversions there are some sites that do sell these but uh I
2:57
just buy direct and and what we're going to do is uh we're going to go
3:04
to exterior water tanks and then we want to go to Transit van
3:11
tank we have three different style of Tanks we've got a 16 a 20 and a 24
3:18
gallon um what's really nice is the 24 gallon over here we're not going to use
3:24
this in this build uh this was an option that we were trying I was trying to figure out how to uh
3:30
make work um so Brian and Robin this is their van build uh we did a 16 for the gray tank
3:39
because we're taking out the Jerry cans for the trolino toilet and we're putting
3:45
in uh well we're putting in the tro toilet we're taking out the jury can so the there's no place to store water from
3:51
the sink so that's what this one is taking place of but there was a uh
3:58
thought to take the o overflow and move it into the 25 gon in the rear of the
4:03
van this is a new product that uh the industry has been looking for so
4:09
whenever you lift your adventure van put big tires on it the tire in the rear of
4:14
the van uh it doesn't fit uh you can't take the oversized tire and put it where the spare tire goes it just won't fit um
4:23
so now you have this open hole because you've put the new bigger spare tire on
4:28
a tire carrier on the back back of the door so you get hole underneath your van that's just useless so sprinters had
4:35
this uh available for a while from some other manufacturers and uh but the
4:41
transit didn't get it till just the last couple months and
4:47
um so this is uh cool it's 25 gallons it's basically this exact size of your
4:53
factory spare tire bolts up uh with using some hangers and just makes it
5:00
more convenient to carry even more water and it's 25 gallons whereas the other are 16 and 20 but they have their place
5:08
in the van the 16 gallon this is going to be going on the passenger side and on
5:13
a Ford Transit if you guys can see this on camera these two tanks have a couple of
5:20
differences to them so this is the original 16g tank that was sold and if
5:28
you don't have the Ford factory running board you can actually use this but if
5:33
you have the Ford step or running board
5:39
step it needs to be modified so these uh uh kind of cutouts are available so this
5:46
was the original if you don't have a step now this is the one that if you do
5:52
have a step so the other company I was working with um or that order that I'm
5:58
waiting on they had this and I didn't know that northw conversion had it they
6:04
do now have it obviously it's here in the shop and so I'll probably be using this one going on because it's just it's
6:10
easier to get uh they have them in stock you can hop on a phone call you can talk
6:16
to them it's a very it's a very normal customer experience um you're not kind of waiting
6:23
to hear back to see what the heck's going on so yeah I went with all Northwest conversion tanks
6:30
this uh is going to go on the passenger side so this afternoon I'm going to be
6:35
cutting a bunch of holes in the van to do the plumbing so in a minute I'm going to zoom in with the cart we'll talk
6:41
about these fittings uh and you get to see what I'm using over here this is the driver's
6:49
side so the driver side tank okay passenger side is for the sink and
6:54
Driver uh driver side is for the hidden INF floor shower you've got 16 gallons
7:00
for the sink which is a ton most Vans have maybe s gallons 14 this is 16
7:07
gallons over here uh this is going to be 20 gallons
7:14
or it is 20 gallons and this goes in the driver's side and this is the shower uh for the shower now
7:21
20 gallons will get you about
7:26
five uh how do you say it like military style
7:31
showers um your average let me make sure I got
7:37
the statistic right this is wild it's that it's how much it's how many gallons
7:42
it takes a normal shower takes um see how many
7:55
gallons okay the average American uses 17.2 gallons when they take a shower so
8:04
every time that you take a shower at your house this is you're filling this up in one shower now that doesn't work
8:10
for Van life you know and I have a 4
8:16
gallon hot water tank for them that's what I pretty much put in all my Vans cuz it's just it's reliable it's simple
8:23
it's a household small 4 gallon hot water heater it's not fancy gasoline or
8:29
or anything like that and so 4 gallons hot
8:35
water 20-gallon tank five showers so probably about a week of good showers um
8:43
or two people a good weekend anyway it actually doesn't matter because this is
8:49
all that will fit underneath the passenger side of the van I mean driver side okay so we talked about
8:56
25 uh 20 and then these two so this guy I'm going
9:02
to move out of the way we're going to hop on and just talk about these other [Music]
9:12
ones and we're going to move this over all right so we're just going to
9:18
stick to these two because the these are actually what's going to be installed later today so let's bring it
9:25
in see how the Instagram's doing
9:31
Okay so we've got the two tanks here and I'm going to take all this junk
9:38
off of here so we can get a little more
9:48
organized and we're going to be talking about all the stuff they have stuffed up on here we're going to talk about it cuz
9:55
it's all part of this system now I've watched you know I'm just like you I watch a ton of YouTube videos I read a
10:02
bunch of Articles and stuff like that and I try to figure out what the heck people are doing what they're using
10:09
and I pretty much tend to just go with my gut and do my own thing um because
10:15
what's either happened is somebody has copied it from somebody and they're they've copied it from somebody and
10:21
nobody really knows why that way of doing it came about it's just everybody was doing it
10:28
and then just became some standard so I'm a little bit more practical when I try to design things
10:35
because number one uh you know I want to go to sleep at night after I've delivered a van I don't be worrying
10:42
about things breaking on a customer's vehicle in the future and number
10:47
two um I like to get stuff that's really relatively or readily
10:53
available such as fittings from lows or something that the customer could get in
10:58
a so hence these two half in uh hose
11:05
fittings so standard hose uh will fit
11:11
here and the reason you want to do that is some RV parks campgrounds or even at
11:17
your house you may not want to dump this directly to the ground uh at your house
11:24
what you might want to do is hook a hose to it and then have it go in the grass somewhere or like uh a ditch
11:30
or um something like that or Street drain so that's what's here uh the only
11:36
downside of this is two things one uh you're going
11:43
to uh need a hose connection to make that happen that's pretty obvious and two this uh the flow rate to drain the
11:51
tank is extremely slow now if you've got time after a trip to crack this valve
11:56
and just let it go wherever you want to go you know it'll take probably a couple hours to drain but that's option
12:04
one and then option two is kind of how this tank is designed you have a inch
12:10
and a half Port right here and so this one is
12:16
uh where you would actually put a bigger ball valve and I'm going to hop on let
12:21
me grab there let me grab this ball valve that I was using for an example
12:30
just so you can kind of see kind of how ridiculous this would be now remember
12:35
this is an adventure vehicle this is all-wheel drive it's lifted and this is the bottom of the van so when this tank
12:44
is up in the air you know this is this right here is uh your ground clearance
12:51
so anything below this is going to affect your ground clearance and you don't want anything below that
12:59
so for example you see this fitting this is inch and a half this fits this and
13:04
then you've got a big ball valve as a dump valve now technically this is a
13:10
great thing because you can just crack this the whole Tank's going to dump out and you can close it but the problem is
13:16
you're using you're losing 4 in not only that if you snag this when you're going
13:21
on a trail or wherever these guys are going to go if you break this you've damaged the tank and you're pretty much
13:29
screwed if you want to take a shower now because it's just GNA leak out of the ground and all that
13:35
stuff so instead of this going back to keeping it simple is
13:44
the better way to go and although not as convenient we're
13:50
going to we we use a simple inch and a half plug just a normal Plumbing
13:57
plug and so that plug just going to go in here you just use a little bit of Teflon tape and that'll seal that and then you
14:05
can just you know open that up take it on and off um and then when you're you are at a RV
14:13
ground or whatever you can uh since this is gray
14:18
water again this is just water from doing the dishes uh when you're in an RV you do not you want to separate the food
14:26
and all that the crumbs you want to strain it before it goes into the tank and that's just to keep the tank so you
14:31
don't have to do maintenance and clean it um same thing for the gray water this just going to be shower water a dirty
14:37
shower water so nothing crazy so if you open this up you know and you got it on you it's not that big of a
14:44
deal but to actually make this to where it's not a you know a nightmare to drain
14:51
or worry about ground clearance or something breaking off just a roll of Teflon tape and this plug is just going
14:58
to it's going to be perfect for you so doing that on both of these now
15:06
if uh Brian Robin requests that we do put a valve on you can still do that
15:11
it's just uh it's just going to be a bunch of I think it's not necessary um
15:17
typically what happens when you drain these tanks after a trip is you hook a hose up to it you crank this out you
15:25
know uh in your drain um that type of thing and then uh the same
15:32
thing here and then you just open this up you go inside you're kind of done with your trip and then these guys will
15:37
drain appropriately and same thing you know if you're an RV dumping site you can just
15:44
put your hose drain this right into the RV uh Wastewater dump site same here so
15:49
this is the quick method and then if you have these P up to the
15:55
brim and you need to be have a faster way of draining them you can take out these inch and a half plugs you just
16:01
take this out and then this whole thing is going to drain out so that is how this is
16:09
situated uh moving on up when you when water goes into a
16:17
container there's a couple things that happen uh pressure builds inside so the
16:24
water the fluid that's going in needs to uh display place the air in the tank
16:30
so if you can imagine um you know think of this as like a balloon if we took a water hose
16:36
in a balloon and we filled the balloon up the balloon is going to
16:42
expand once the balloon expands it's going to get to a point it's going to pop so that's no different with this
16:48
that expansion what we need is uh the air that's being pressurized in here we need it to vent
16:56
out this vent is the same thing whether you have a water tank in your van or you
17:01
have a great water tank so fresh water or gray so the air so when you take a shower and that water is rushing in here
17:09
the air has got to be displaced and that comes through the vent comes out of the vent right here same thing when you're
17:14
doing dishes or in the van kind of washing your hands that water level that's Rising is displacing the air so
17:22
you want to have a vent uh also you want to have a vent where uh bugs and stuff
17:29
like that can't get in so on my freshwater tanks I use a
17:34
stainless still screened breather vent uh so it's a very fine
17:41
screen um and then for these the uh there's it's kind of different the water
17:47
being pumped out of a freshwater tank is done with a water pump and the water
17:53
that's used for the drain is just kind of gravity Fed so water pump can pull a
17:59
little bit more suction and that fine mesh for the Breather vent um on the
18:04
freshwater it's not really a big deal because the pump can overpower that however if you're taking a
18:11
shower and the air cannot get out fast enough it's going to start to back up through the line it's going to back up
18:17
into your shower pan tray and you're going to have to stop taking a shower because it you can't get the air out of
18:24
the tank um that sounds wild but that's just how it works
18:29
same thing you know you're doing dishes and you go ahead and pull that drain you drain the whole entire sink um you need
18:35
something that has enough area so that and I'll show you
18:40
what this looks like so you see this is see these little vents so it's
18:46
screened off so that you know bugs and stuff can't get in but it allows enough air out so that it
18:55
can let the air out um and then last but not least we're going
19:01
to talk about uh how the water's actually getting into here so I've gone
19:08
through a bunch of iterations on these Vans um from the first van that I did which is Thomas's van that's Marine one
19:14
you can check that uh van tour out um also John and Susan's van they did the
19:19
Jer kanane method which is just nice and simple and that's actually what I have in my personal
19:25
van this one uh these guys are going
19:30
uh they're using this machine they're going off-roading they're going places
19:36
where they need to recoup the power of the second alternator they need some capacity so this is the uh I guess this
19:44
is the ultimate setup um so to match that when you do your
19:50
fittings uh you kind of have to Plum this like a house because if you
19:57
use the Jerry tanks you have to be mindful of how much water can flow into the
20:04
tank the sink is going to drain slowly and uh that just comes with the territory there's nothing wrong about it
20:09
draining slowly it's just the diameter of the drain is slow or tiny and it just
20:15
it drains slowly um but with these tanks if you're going to have a shower
20:22
if you are buying something like this it needs to uh have a a little bit of a
20:29
different functionality if you take a shower I want you guys to experience the drain working I don't want the drain
20:35
slow and stopping up so we're matching the inch and a half fitting with inch
20:40
and a half Plumbing so this is actually inch and a half schedule 40 uh plumbing pipe it's
20:47
the same thing that you would use in a house um being schedule 40 it's a little Overkill but I just you
20:54
know if I can get it then I get it uh the schedule 40 is going to going be nice very very
21:00
thick these are rated from 32° up to 140° fenhe and so underneath the Vans
21:08
not going to be an issue um I was going to hard pipe this and then I started doing some
21:15
experiments on uh fittings and pipes and stuff like that and I found these things they're called fernco fittings and
21:21
they're just uh they're actually made for like emergency repairs or that type of thing I like them for vans because
21:29
you can uh if you need to uh if you break
21:34
this or you've done something where you hit a massive bump or you ran over like a tree limb and you broke something in
21:40
the van you can take this out go to Lowe's cut you a new piece and pop it back in in like 10 minutes under your
21:47
van so I kind of like to design in the
21:52
uh repairability into these Vans as well so to do that you just got to think simple so we've got nice schedule 40
22:00
pipe inch and a half fitting and that's what we're doing on both of these so
22:05
this one uh you kind of learn from my mistake this is hilarious I put this in the van
22:12
and already had it installed as you can see from the uh the stuff right here and
22:17
I didn't cut out the plastic uh blank so each one of these is blanked
22:24
off so that when you buy these the half-inch ports are the only ports that are actually cut out and then the inch
22:30
and a half ones are the ones you have to cut out because what they'll do is uh let me
22:35
check on my Instagram here
22:41
nice um what you have to do is cut those out uh with a razor or
22:49
blade but you don't want it to fall into the tank so that it's hard it's pain in the butt to get out so we're going to
22:55
come back to this in just a second let me talk to you about how to cut these out so this is my
23:01
method it works excellent so get a dry this is a drywall knife you guys have
23:08
never seen one of these this is how you cut up cut like electrical outlets like a get pie of D dryw in your house you
23:15
take this you stab it and you can cut out your electrical boxes light switches that's what this
23:20
is and then you're going to use a box cutter something really sturdy like this
23:26
so this is just just so the blade doesn't break off what I like about the drywall knife
23:33
is it's thick and it's designed to pierce through drywall well guess what
23:38
when you pop it into here you can Pierce to this plastic and then you can kind of
23:44
you know move around and cut it and then not only that you can use it to pry cut the piece of plastic off and then throw
23:50
it away with your hand take your knife slowly cut and pull out the pieces now
23:58
it's not the end of the world if it drops into the tank uh I do two things when I before I put a tank in a customer's van first I'd blow it out
24:06
with a little electric leaf blower just get the big stuff out and then second
24:11
what I'll do is I'll have a hose that goes in here and I can vacuum out all the little bit of filings now it does
24:18
not matter for a gray tank now however when you get to freshwater tank you're
24:24
going to want to uh flush and drain it out a couple of times there is a mesh
24:29
screen filter in the water pump that's going to catch a lot of that plastic um
24:35
but it's always good to have maybe a secondary like John and Susan's van they have a secondary
24:43
um water uh filter so on their cold side they have that water
24:48
filter but uh once you flush and drain this about two times
24:54
um it's almost there's almost hardly any nothing out there so uh but it's always good to get a
25:01
habit of filtering your water wherever wherever you go um I recommend always
25:07
filling this up not these but your inside fresh water with like City water
25:13
so from your house um you know not questionable locations unless you got like a UV
25:20
filter and stuff like that which people in Vans actually have U but yeah you cut this out these are two tools that I use
25:28
and then what we'll do to connect it to this pipe is I have an inch and a half
25:34
fitting that is threaded on one side and then just has a a smooth face on the
25:40
other side I'll take that and then this is where I'll actually plum in the line
25:45
so just like that and I've got a multiple of these fernco fittings to where I can come branch connect but you
25:52
can see this is just a simple solution uh there's all kinds of stuff
25:58
in the industry such as uh hoses like these right
26:05
here so you've got this which is Spa hose um for like hot tubs pools and then
26:13
you've got this stuff that looks more familiar it's like a braided nylon uh
26:18
it's just it's a pain in the butt to work with so I don't use
26:24
it and this stuff's great I cut it with my mitera super clean it's really really
26:31
strong now it doesn't matter how strong this stuff is if you're in below
26:36
freezing environments um you know these these tanks you're going to to be very
26:42
careful of how you use it uh they do the method is if you are going to be in those
26:48
situations there is a RV an freeze it's a pink antifreeze specifically designed
26:54
for RVs um it's non-toxic you can use use it for your freshwater tanks and
27:00
your gray tanks um but it's really more for like winterizing you don't want to use it for when you're actually using
27:06
the tanks um now gray tanks you can add that to the shower drain to try to
27:13
minimize the tank from freezing but remember if you're in those below freezing
27:18
environments you know nothing is really going to prepare these for that um
27:25
that's why these tanks sometimes if you're really going to go do trips to Alaska or Canada or something like that
27:31
you know the you want to keep these inside your van um I'm not saying you can't use this in blow freezing
27:36
environments you just got to be mindful of how how much coolant you've uh I mean
27:43
how much antifreeze you've put in here to just kind of make sure that this doesn't
27:48
freeze uh these valves you know you'll want to like crack so that they kind of
27:54
do the drip thing just like you would do at your home if like a big freeze is coming through through um but you know again comes with
28:02
a territory if you're going in those environments with an adventure van you know uh it's up to you on how to take
28:09
care of everything so this is half that's uh that's piped um and then if you don't want to use
28:18
we're going to talk about mounting and then we'll go and see if anybody's got any
28:23
questions so if you don't want to use these ports say you're using this tank for for a different purpose uh see
28:29
actually using it as like a freshwater tank and your the pump is pulling from this one uh you have these blanks and
28:35
you can actually blank off these so each tank uh that Northwest conversion sells they give you two of these half inch
28:42
blank out plugs um for some reason the inch and a half plugs these things were uh hard to
28:49
find they're not at Home Depot or Lowe's that I could find I went to uh Ferguson Plumbing to get these
28:59
all right then we're going to talk about mounting so mounting these tanks is the
29:04
pretty much the hardest part drilling the van out not not too hard mounting these is pretty challenging one there's
29:12
not a one siiz fitall where this bracket goes you kind of have to take this bracket and move it up and down you get
29:18
three of these brackets per water tank these are stainless steel brackets and
29:23
so each of these brackets are going to you know you're want to put one in the middle left right but where you put
29:30
these is going to be dependent on uh the structure of your van Sprinter is
29:36
different than Ford Transit since we're talking about Ford Transit you may need to shift it up or back 3 in or something
29:41
like that um you may need to uh have it
29:47
offset but when you do find that sweet spot you're going to take a Perman marker mark these holes and then this is
29:55
where the hardest part comes in uh Automotive vehicles are made with all
30:01
kinds of different steel they have like regular like stamped steel uh you've got
30:08
metals that are treated differently they have different uh additives um there's one called boron steel and the boron
30:16
steel is the upper kind of cap or ring of a Ford Transit and it's also on any
30:21
type of structural Services that's the the the metal they use that I've learned
30:26
it's impossible to drill through it will destroy like four drill bits for one hole I'm not kidding and you need to
30:34
have something called a solid car by drill bit so sometimes I have them sometimes I don't for this one I ran out
30:40
but uh so I'm going to be using just they're nice drill bits from my local
30:46
tool shop but I got two of them because I know I'm going to you know I'm
30:53
probably going to use one per tank actually already did this one so two is for this
31:00
one so trying to drill through that metal that's so hard to drill through uh
31:05
that's the hardest part and then kind of the to top it off what you're going to have to do is uh by the way this is the
31:12
drill size so this is a 1732
31:19
um drill bit the half inch shank okay that this is not a half inch drill bit
31:26
this is the shank this is the 17
31:31
302s so
31:37
um and then you're going to have these things called Riv nuts and the riv nut is what you're going to put into the
31:43
hole after you've actually drilled out the hole so this rib nut is going to go
31:51
in and then you're G to take something called a Riv nut
31:58
drill adapter uh XL Riv nut drill adapter this this
32:07
guy and this guy has a tip on the end and I'm going to use a
32:13
different size just for an example because I know some people don't
32:19
know how to use this and uh you only get one chance to do it right and this
32:24
little tip I'm going to give you is going to make sure you don't screw up the first time you do
32:29
this so hey guys hope you guys are enjoying
32:35
the Instagram this is uh my Instagram as you guys can probably see if you're on there this is kind of behind the scenes
32:41
um and uh so what I do is right now I'm live streaming on YouTube the channel is
32:47
Van Builder HQ and the link in my bio is the one that goes to the channel so if
32:53
you want to see this in 4k on a normal screen you can go to Van Builder h HQ on
32:58
YouTube and check it out all right so this is what it looks
33:04
like so you see what I did is this is the tip these are they're
33:12
different sizes and you want to screw this on okay then you want to put it on your
33:17
drill and then you want to spin the drill until it barely touches
33:24
just barely touches don't because when what the drill is doing is it's it's going to squish it's going to squish
33:32
this it's going to make it a rivet but it's a Riv nut because it's a rivet nut
33:39
if that makes sense that's why it's called Riv nut they're also called plus nuts I don't know who came up with that
33:46
but when you do this um this gives you so you can pop it
33:53
up in the hole and then you're going to pull your drill and then you're going to listen
33:58
for it compressing so the drill is going to start going and then it's going to start
34:05
making like a it's going to basically sound like it's about to stop
34:12
and right before it stops you want to stop because you don't
34:18
want to squish it uh compress over squish it because then you'll actually
34:23
tear the threads up and then it's useless so that's that's a pro tip for
34:29
you guys so anyway that those rib nuts go up into here just like that and then the
34:36
bolts uh the rib note goes into the thing and then you unscrew it and this
34:43
part once it's compressed you reverse the drill and then this is made into the
34:49
van then you take the the bracket uh take the bracket and you're going
34:56
to install it and these tanks are very thick uh there was a concern that it had
35:03
about the bracket with its interaction with the tank and that's not that went away
35:10
because there's so much uh forgiveness in there because the way that this has to mount under the van that's kind of
35:17
been thought in the design I hope it's been thought in the design because it looks like it has but that is that makes
35:24
it to where I don't uh it's not necess NE to put any type of like protective or rubber or anything like that um cuz once
35:32
this goes in the tank is not moving once the the plumbing is there that thing is not going to move and it's
35:38
not going to rub on this it's it is solid all right let me uh hop on the
35:45
website we'll talk about um again this is not sponsored I just like these tanks uh I
35:51
like the customer service I like that I can actually call them on the phone and
35:56
get a quick answer answer check on shipping all that good stuff so let's uh let me go to their
36:09
website um so if we go to here we go so this is the website
36:15
Northwest conversions and we're talking about the Ford Transit
36:22
tanks and these are all reasonable you know we've got uh$ 299 for the 16 and
36:27
gallon tanks and then the 339 for the 24 gallon now it's got a little bit more
36:34
bracketry that type of stuff um and oh yeah perfect I was wondering
36:43
if I can see that photo okay okay check this out this is what
36:50
the underside of your Ford Transit looks like when your spare tire is gone so it's just a bunch of wasted
36:56
space um and now you can actually take this tank and this tank will
37:02
install just like that underneath the van uh now I have in the shop I have
37:09
actually installed a rear one but um what I was trying to do for my customer
37:16
was connect this to the other tanks and it's just not because of the axle the Springs the shocks suspension the
37:23
exhaust it's there's no way this this tank if you're going to be using it for that you have to plan ahead and go
37:30
through the floor in the back of the van and for this current build that's not
37:37
possible but if you were planning ahead you could figure out a way to get some
37:42
type of water in here what I would use this tank for is I would use this tank for a freshwater
37:50
tank and then try to figure out how to Plum up through the floor to pull that
37:55
into your van um um I think if I did it again that is what I would probably use
38:01
this for uh it's just too difficult to do something else with it and 25 gallon
38:07
is actually pretty good if you are just doing uh like Weekender trips or stuff
38:14
um but if you have places to top off you know 25 gallon could be a 50 gallon technically you just build up twice
38:22
anyway so this is what it looks like um
38:27
bunch of different ways to uh get water into this or fill this there is a hole
38:33
to where you can actually cut through the floor but again it's really dependent on your Van's
38:40
layout um let's see what else
38:45
okay we'll back up we'll talk about the other two tanks and I think that'll be it so this is the one that goes on
38:54
the passenger side it's got the bump outs the cutouts for the Ford Transit
39:00
step um there are some bolts that you need to
39:07
cut flush however you this is I would say I might
39:14
ask him about that I think these are the ones that the Ford Transit is the
39:20
factory step is connected to so I have not seen another there to where these need to be cut off yet could be wrong
39:29
um yeah I will double check on this because I don't think some of this stuff may not be necessary with the modifi
39:38
tank um so that's what it looks like underneath there yeah see this clears so that
39:44
cutting those bolts off I don't think I'll have to check that I'm
39:49
installing this uh tonight and then I'll get you
39:55
guys some feedback um and one more the 20-gallon tank so this is the 20 gallon it doesn't
40:03
have that cutout there's more room on the driver's side um now this one it gets
40:10
complicated because if you have a gasoline fired
40:16
heater uh the exhaust the intake this tank and then the second alternator
40:21
that's what I'm kind of dealing with right now is how to figure out how to actually make this work
40:27
um I've figured it out now I just have to actually do it so that's what tonight's doing um there's some
40:35
engineering drawings in case you need to uh double check on fitment size this
40:41
would be more akin to or are more if you're doing something inside
40:47
the van you really can't you these are specifically made for underneath the Ford Transit so the size doesn't matter
40:54
it's it is what it is all right so that is those tanks and
41:00
what we're going to do really quick is we're going to hop on over to Van build HQ so if you guys are let me say hi to
41:09
everybody on Instagram what's going on guys thanks for watching so if you want to watch this live stream on YouTube
41:17
that's where I normally do the live stream I'm just kind of testing stuff out right now on Instagram but go to YouTube go to Van Builder HQ and you can
41:25
actually hop in the 4K live stream and it looks much better plus I'm doing
41:31
stuff on the computer that you can't see on
41:38
Instagram all right I have something called the DIY van build cheat sheet uh
41:44
what this is it's an Excel sheet of the last three years of all of my Amazon purchases to the shop and it's
41:50
completely free for you guys it's just there to help you out it's got over 250 curated items they're all organized from
41:56
like electrical fittings uh man what is on there electrical fittings solar panel water
42:03
pumps uh a lot of fuses bracketry for 8020 there's
42:09
uh uh a lot of Renegy components so back in the day where I use a lot of leny
42:15
components I still think they're great um uh there's something for everyone's
42:20
budget and I personally have Renegy stuff in my van um I know a lot of stuff gets a bad WP but at the same time
42:29
there's about five or six different companies that use almost the same type of footprint or style of product it's
42:35
been rebranded it's just kind of like the industry so um if you're getting components that
42:40
are not that complicated so something that's like a dedicated DC todc charger or a solar charge controller I've had my
42:47
stuff running for like five years straight I've installed it once I haven't ever touched it it works
42:53
fine so uh don't get too hung up on that when you see those components
43:00
um you want to be more careful on components that you've never heard of before so uh you know R is something
43:07
that a lot of people use they make a ton of solar panels and stuff so um but other companies that are kind of uh
43:15
maybe more stuff that's on Amazon it's kind of questionable you
43:20
know easy thing if it's on this list I've used it so I would recommend pretty
43:25
much anything that's on this list so click on it you guys can check out the list um it's always being upgraded
43:32
all you got to do to download the free cheat sheet is click on the link put your name and email address it'll come directly to your inbox it's completely
43:39
free it's just there to help you out um I use it actually is just my own cheat sheet so I just kind of reference parts
43:45
and stuff like that because they're they're all Amazon links and it's just easy for me to order again for my own
43:53
sheet so that's the DIY van build sheet DIY van build cheet sheet
43:58
okay this is exciting news this is what I'm going to end with I'm coming out
44:04
with a van build course on October 1st so right now uh it's the DIY camper van
44:11
conversion course uh I'm calling it the camper van conversion blueprint and it's
44:16
going to give you a foundation on start to finish from buying a van whether it's new or used figuring out what van you
44:22
even want to get all the way up into moving into the van
44:28
uh how to operate it all that good stuff and then everything in between the power system the solar roof rck suspension um
44:35
we'll even talk about insurance requirements uh
44:40
campgrounds uh financing like the everything that I've learned is going to be in this course and uh so right now
44:48
we're doing a pre-order uh before the launch and you can save some money by doing the pre-order and it's right here
44:55
so you just click on this link and you you can actually pre-order the course and get a significant discount before it
45:01
comes out so it's a camper band conversion blueprint uh I've got a couple of notes down here that show you
45:08
what's going to be in the course and um we're going to clean this up over time this is just to uh start getting things
45:14
in the works and pretty much there's going to be these modules so one's about getting started choosing the van
45:20
designing layout one will be about offgrid power system design fresh and gray water storage would actually might
45:26
be uh some more in-depth of this video installation and sound
45:33
dampening exterior upgrades finalizing your build and then one thing I'm really excited about is we're going to have a
45:39
private online community so any of the questions that you guys ask during the live streams or in the comments in the
45:46
YouTube anything like that we're going to organize we're going to put it together and it's going to be answered
45:52
in the private online community so when you buy the course you're going to get access to that and then you guys as the
45:59
wirers on that Community can ask questions back and forth I'll hop in to ask them questions um from time to time
46:07
and it'll just be kind of like a place to uh share ideas and uh kind of support
46:13
each other with the DIY process um because everything from like cutting a
46:18
hole in your roof of your brand new van for the first time that stressful and then even trying to figure out you know
46:24
how to manage your power system system or your plumbing uh there'll be a bunch
46:31
of feedback in that yes so you guys can click on this link pre-order save today it's a
46:40
DIY camper van conversion course called the camper van conversion blueprint and
46:46
uh we'll have a bunch more fancy stuff as time goes on but um yeah check it out
46:52
and uh if you're not already make sure you guys are subscribed to Van Builder h
46:57
Q don't forget that vber HQ is a massive blog so there is a ton of articles in
47:03
here that I don't think a lot of people know about so go through the website
47:08
there's topics on your power system counter on top ideas uh awnings heaters
47:15
um air conditioners lighting wiring uh it's pretty much my brain put
47:22
into a blog post with a bunch of photos from the events that we've actually gone to so every photo that's in this blog is
47:29
actually one that um I took or that my brother took when we went and flew out to these
47:35
shows uh we're going to be doing another one soon I'm not sure what show we're going to be going to haven't made that
47:42
announcement yet but if you guys are interested just uh you know get
47:47
subscribed hit that notification Bell so you guys get notified when I go live and uh I'll get you updated on when that's
47:54
happening all right so Instagram looks like it's still on it's
47:59
doing good I'm really curious to see what that's going to look like when I hit finish on that
48:05
video but yeah don't forget to subscribe to the YouTube channel check out the
48:13
website um hope to help you guys out if you're looking at uh water tanks for
48:19
your custom van conversion DIY conversion U this also applies to RV
48:25
tanks so besides the footprint of these tanks being customed to afford
48:31
Transit all the other stuff kind of still applies to a RV water tank and um
48:37
yeah but if you do have any questions over what we went over today put those in the comments be happy to answer them
48:44
um but we're going to go ahead and sign off for today and uh we'll have to we'll see you guys in the next live stream
48:52
[Music]
49:55
e
50:25
e
50:55
e
51:25
e
51:55
e
52:25
e
52:55
e
53:25
e
53:55
e
54:25
e
54:55
e
55:25
e
55:55
e
56:25
e
56:55
e e
#Other
#Plumbing
#Trucks
# Vans & SUVs