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How to plan for water tank install in a camper van
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May 2, 2025
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View Video Transcript
0:00
hey everyone welcome back to the live
0:01
stream we're on our little mobile rig
0:03
setup here and I want to give you an
0:05
update about where the van is right now
0:08
so we're working on this Ford Transit
0:11
we're getting ready to start working on
0:13
this one next week with the roof rack
0:16
install but today and tomorrow I'm going
0:18
to be finishing up the water system so
0:22
what we're going to be doing is I'm
0:23
going to flip the camera around real
0:24
quick and I'll show you what we're
0:27
working
0:28
with
0:30
all right so we're going to talk about
0:31
this let me give you an update where
0:33
we're at so finished up the top panel so
0:38
this is upholstered the side panel for
0:41
the uh heater and the 120 volt breaker
0:47
is all set to go we have some really
0:49
simple wiring we're just going to this
0:51
is our power supply coming from our
0:53
inverter that's going to be connected to
0:56
the blue SE
0:57
systems uh breaker I've tooken all the
1:00
plastic off so it kind of looks weird
1:01
right now but we just have this for the
1:03
input and then back there we have four
1:06
outputs so we'll have one for hot water
1:09
heater microwave and two
1:13
outlets so over there you can see the
1:15
plug for the hot water heater so for the
1:18
hot water heater we're using a Bosch 4G
1:22
hot water heater and this one is uh just
1:27
a you know simple small residential
1:29
Style
1:30
uh it's you know very cheap you can find
1:32
it at Home Depot um you know if
1:35
something happened to where this thing
1:37
you know went out on you you could
1:38
definitely just install it very quickly
1:41
we'll have
1:42
some uh quick disconnects right there
1:45
and then it's just a simple
1:48
plugin and you know work so it's just
1:51
it's really simple you don't have to go
1:53
too
1:54
crazy and since we're working with about
1:56
600 amp hours of power we don't have to
2:00
worry about it taking up too much um
2:05
Power all right next what we have is
2:09
those two lines in the back that is for
2:13
our outlets for the sink so we're going
2:16
to take this top of the sink off one
2:18
more time we need to install
2:22
this uh right here really cool check
2:26
that
2:27
out so it does have the USB in there
2:30
which you know I always talk about how
2:32
that's not very efficient but hey if you
2:34
already got the inverter on you're
2:36
making some margaritas you want to
2:37
charge your phone up on the kitchen galy
2:42
then no big deal you can do it with this
2:44
one I like this because it's got the
2:46
stainless steel look it is metal I have
2:49
tested that it's not
2:51
plastic and when you don't need it it's
2:53
out of the way the countertops flat so
2:55
just imagine
2:57
this we have two of them one's going to
2:59
be connected to the top of the kitchen
3:01
Galley and then one's going to be on the
3:03
back sides in case you want to cook with
3:05
the induction stove outside the van so
3:08
those are going to be our two outlets in
3:10
the
3:11
van one is for the hot water heater and
3:14
another one is for the microwave now
3:17
that space inside this van I'm calling
3:20
it the flex space so you can put uh your
3:23
toilet in there on drawer slides you can
3:25
put a microwave in there which uh I'm
3:28
pretty sure I'm going to do um got to
3:30
the point to where I think that's what
3:31
I'm going to decide to do because it
3:33
fits perfect and I've already purchased
3:36
it it's a contour microwave you guys
3:39
will see it
3:41
later uh but let's keep moving on and
3:44
showing you what you're to expect in the
3:47
coming days when I get some footage put
3:49
together so we're working with a
3:51
Northwest conversions 40 gallon water
3:54
tank it's the over the wheel well design
3:58
so this pocket is is cut out goes over
4:01
the wheel well 40 Gall um what's nice
4:05
about that is it helps you not have to
4:08
fabricate a box for you know around the
4:12
wheel well which can kind of be
4:13
challenging now what I've done to it's
4:16
kind of a cheat plus it looks good is
4:18
I'm reusing the factory the Ford factory
4:21
wheel well covers and then what I've
4:23
done is just made sure I integrate them
4:26
uh nice and clean into the floor and to
4:29
the Advent wagon system that we
4:31
have so you may be asking how are we're
4:34
going to mount this so it is nice and
4:36
secure
4:37
safe so what I'm going to do is I'm
4:39
going to do the same thing that I did
4:41
over here on the power side and that is
4:45
we're going to take these bolts out of
4:48
this piece of LR we're going to map
4:52
those holes to a new piece of eltrak
4:57
right here not eltrak sorry 8020
5:00
and then we're going to drill out those
5:02
holes you know the corresponding holes
5:04
where they line up we're going to slide
5:07
a bolt down in here and I did that in a
5:09
previous live stream and I think a
5:11
YouTube short but we're going to put a a
5:13
bolt through here with the same thread
5:17
pitch as this bar I mean these holes and
5:21
then what we'll do is we'll put the 8020
5:25
bar up there and we'll bolt it right
5:28
against this rail and it'll be nice and
5:30
flush and that way we have two things
5:32
one it's positively bolted to the van so
5:37
this cage of 8020 frame is going to
5:41
encapsulate this so it's going to come
5:43
around the top and uh the back actually
5:48
misspoke on that it's going to
5:51
come I'm actually offsetting it from the
5:54
wall that's what this little teaching
5:57
this is the main part of the video today
5:58
is talking about
6:00
uh making a jig so that you can you know
6:03
figure out where your holes need to be
6:05
how long everything needs to be
6:08
cut so we're going to make a frame to
6:11
hold this frame's going to be bolted to
6:13
the van and then uh it's going to rest
6:17
on the
6:19
floor and I
6:21
may I'm probably going to bolt it into
6:24
the
6:25
bottom right here of the uh Flatline
6:28
vanc galley
6:30
just securely
6:32
but it might not be necessary um you'll
6:36
see in the future
6:37
videos but that's the approach that
6:39
we're going to
6:41
take now what I did for measurement is I
6:45
needed to find out where everything's
6:47
going to be laid out because you know
6:50
custom vans there's no rules on or
6:53
there's nothing to go off of when you're
6:54
putting this together so the first thing
6:56
I did is I put the water tank in here
6:58
and I found out my my
7:00
dimensions of I got the width of the
7:03
water tank so that's pretty obvious we
7:06
need to make sure it
7:08
fits and one thing to be careful on is
7:10
when you do the width of the water tank
7:12
let me switch around
7:14
here when you do the width of the water
7:17
tank this one
7:20
is so it says uh
7:25
13 13 and a half so like 13 78
7:29
but what you have to keep in mind is I
7:31
put this in I said okay 13 and a half
7:33
I'll be safe well with water tanks they
7:37
tend to bow out like this and that's
7:40
just part of the manufacturing process
7:42
uh it's really difficult to get these
7:44
things absolutely
7:45
perfect so even though you're measuring
7:48
13 and A2 you gave and you get that
7:51
included an eighth of wiggle room I had
7:54
to add another half inch because this is
7:58
Bat Out so
8:00
much so instead of 13 and a half
8:04
actually yeah/ inch from the original so
8:08
it was 13
8:09
and what did I
8:12
do one two three 4 five 13 and 5/8 so
8:18
now the width of my 8020 bars are 13 and
8:22
5/8 that's going to make sure that in
8:25
the Middle where that tank bows out it
8:27
still fits and what I'm going to take is
8:30
actually some uh it's like garage door
8:33
foam it's like a 1 in strip or inch and
8:35
a half strip of expanding foam and it's
8:38
got adhesive on the back and you just
8:40
peel and stick on this side and this
8:42
side and that'll keep it from you know
8:43
squeaking or making any noise so that's
8:46
what I'm planning to
8:48
do uh the next thing after
8:52
that so that was our measurement from
8:54
here to
8:56
here now we need to do from here all the
8:59
way to the back and that's the easy one
9:01
so that one we measured at 16 and 64 and
9:07
58 that 64 and 5/8 was because we want
9:10
to make sure that we can fit in a/2 in
9:14
Wood panel so see how this one there's a
9:16
wood panel that actually goes back there
9:19
in the back so to get this to look the
9:22
way it
9:24
did and to keep this you know nice kind
9:27
of
9:28
professional look and be able to keep
9:31
that/ in panel you got to kind of bake
9:34
that into your measurements so you can
9:36
see here we've got um so just look at
9:39
the 10 in Mark see how 10 and 1 half
9:42
that is our space that we can slide that
9:45
panel
9:47
in so we know what from this Venture
9:50
wagon panel to here is measurement it's
9:53
going to be we know what this back here
9:57
to this is going to be we know how we're
10:00
going to mount
10:02
it and from those measurements what
10:05
we've done is we've come over here we've
10:08
got this little block of wood and so
10:11
these are our
10:12
Cuts so we need four 13 and 5/8 so
10:17
that's the the little width part of
10:21
the cabinet uh and then or the frame and
10:25
then we got three of the 64 and 5/8 and
10:28
four of the 18 18 in so the 18 in that
10:33
one is this next
10:36
part so let's take
10:39
this Frame right
10:43
here let me see if I can get fancy with
10:45
this new setup I just put
10:58
together
11:18
okay so as you guys can see this is
11:22
a this is just something that I'm using
11:25
as a template to figure out or a jig to
11:29
figure out where all my measurements are
11:30
going to
11:32
be so the challenge here
11:36
is trying to find something that is make
11:40
sure I'm still in
11:45
frame there we go the challenge is
11:47
trying to make
11:50
sure hold on I think I can let me let me
11:53
zoom out to the big camera
11:57
here here we
12:04
go I'm using the new DJI Osmos 6 I think
12:09
it's what I'm
12:16
using there we go looks pretty good and
12:19
if you guys have any questions just pop
12:21
those in the chat um it'll it'll come
12:23
through on my
12:25
phone so here's
12:27
our jig and everything is nice and
12:29
square on the bottom and so we're just
12:32
going to take this and place it where we
12:34
have our measurements here on the bottom
12:37
of the
12:39
floor and this way we can line
12:42
up and I'm going grab that piece of
12:44
scrap half inch wood that I have the
12:47
measurements
12:50
on so you can see take this cuz this is
12:53
what's going to go behind here that's
12:55
that panel that needs to go back
12:57
there and see we've located our this is
13:01
our vent port for our
13:03
tank and we need to make sure that a
13:06
tube is going to be able to get in
13:20
there so now that that tube's good we're
13:24
kind of working our way up so the next
13:26
part is this this part so this is the
13:28
this is the part that I wanted to the
13:30
main part I wanted to talk about in this
13:31
live
13:32
stream so this I just lightly have it on
13:35
here so I can go up and down so what I
13:38
need to do is I could measure with a
13:41
tape but it's better see how this
13:44
wobbles right here I need to make sure
13:47
that I find a kind of like a true home
13:51
position for that so it's right there
13:53
that's where I want to
13:55
be and then I just come back to my line
13:59
and so now what I want to do is I want
14:01
to measure this I want to move this up
14:04
and have this even with the 82 uh the
14:09
adventure
14:10
wagon
14:13
portion so once I move that into
14:17
place now I know that my bar that's
14:21
coming across the
14:22
top this is where I need to make my cut
14:25
so from here to here is what I need to
14:27
measure for my
14:30
my upright for my
14:32
frame and so if I come in here and
14:35
measure
14:36
that it's 18 in so it just happened to
14:40
be it's technically 18 and a 16th but
14:44
I'm it's that's not going to be that big
14:46
of a deal um so we're going to do 18
14:51
in
14:52
even because if I put some weight on
14:57
here it's going to lift this up just a
14:59
little
15:00
bit and so that's going to get me to my
15:04
18 in without doing the 16 so you can
15:07
kind of see where the issue is right
15:10
here now once I do this
15:13
18 what I've done is I've just triple
15:15
checked so I've taken this
15:18
away and then I've come in here and I
15:21
made a
15:24
mark where that bolt hole is where the
15:26
bolt
15:27
is
15:29
and so we got 20 and A4 inch so the 20
15:34
and
15:36
A4 and then we need to
15:38
minus um let's see 18 and a half one two
15:48
3 so we can double check we got 20 and a
15:51
qu from the
15:57
ground
16:02
and then 20 and
16:04
A4 to our Center
16:07
Line so that 20 and A4 is our Center
16:10
Line where this hole is so the reason
16:13
that's important is
16:18
remember this back bar is what's going
16:22
to have the bolt in it so I'm going to
16:25
go grab a
16:27
bolt
16:34
all right now this is just
16:36
for this is just for example purposes
16:39
but this bolt is what this bolt is
16:43
what's going to be into the L track this
16:45
is the wrong size but all you have to do
16:48
is you drill through the whole entire
16:50
piece of 8020 in the
16:52
middle and then you're going to have a
16:55
bolt right here that rides in this
16:56
Channel and because I'll have to use a
16:59
smaller bolt I put a washer but this is
17:02
what's going to connect it to the whole
17:04
frame to the adventure wagon so that's
17:06
how it
17:09
works so the most important part of this
17:12
it's not where this bottom 18 in is
17:15
which that is important it is this
17:17
Center Line so I want this Center Line
17:20
so that when I take this bolt out for
17:21
this
17:22
bracket it'll bolt right in because that
17:24
has to be
17:26
perfect cuz 8020 has to be perfect
17:28
perfect
17:29
so so that's what I do is this
17:32
bolt I'll just keep it in so you guys
17:34
can see this bolt will come
17:39
around and then it's going to go into
17:42
there'll be a hole on the back side so
17:44
you can the hole just needs to be big
17:45
enough so you can fit an allen key
17:47
inside to tighten the other side of the
17:50
bolt so you don't want to drill it too
17:52
much cuz you'll you'll damage the 8020
17:55
you want it
17:57
is uh thick is that little center part
18:01
that way the whole thing still stays
18:03
together so once you do that that's
18:06
going to bolt it here this one bolt
18:08
right here will do the same thing over
18:11
here for this uh bolt so that's going to
18:15
be our this way movement and the one on
18:18
the Top's going to be our
18:20
top and once you put about we'll
18:22
probably just do one two three
18:25
four five we'll do five
18:29
uh we'll drill out this five times and
18:32
then we'll have this so we'll have
18:34
six bolts bolting the whole water system
18:38
into uh the van which is extremely
18:41
strong and we'll probably have two more
18:44
by the kitchen
18:46
Galley um at the lower portions so this
18:49
will take care of the top and the bottom
18:51
one will be the lower
18:53
portion and that'll be eight eight bolts
18:58
so extremely strong
19:01
and once we have that done we can pop in
19:03
our water tank we can pop in
19:07
our um hot water
19:10
heater and then we can start figuring
19:12
out where we got to Plum everything so
19:15
we're just going to wrap up here and
19:18
talk about how the plumbing is going to
19:20
be
19:22
run let me go grab oh there it is
19:27
awesome
19:30
so I got one thing I got to
19:40
get all right so down here we're
19:43
offsetting the water
19:46
tank we're offsetting the water tank
19:48
down here by inch and a
19:51
half so this is going to come out like
19:54
that and then we have our three-way
19:57
valve
19:59
so this is going to allow us to uh
20:03
direct where we want the water to
20:06
go so this goes right here and then the
20:11
outlet of the
20:15
tank it's going to be right
20:19
here and so we have a couple different
20:23
positions so we want when we want to
20:25
take water out of the tank
20:28
we're actually sending it to the pump so
20:30
the pump is sucking on this side so
20:32
normal operation it'll be sucking up
20:34
this side going to the pump and then we
20:38
want to drain the tank we'll turn the
20:40
valve up into the
20:42
right and that way it closes this and
20:46
drains the tank
20:48
here now there's two things you want to
20:50
do when you drain a tank with this setup
20:53
you want to turn the pump
20:56
on pump out as much much as you can
20:58
until there's nothing else to pump then
21:01
you could park on a little bit of grade
21:04
turn this to the right and then drain
21:06
the the rest out of the
21:10
tank and then the top of the tank here
21:13
we'll have our last fitting which is the
21:15
top down to this post and that is going
21:18
to be our vent
21:19
Port so that when you fill the tank up
21:22
and it overflows the Overflow comes out
21:25
of the bottom of the van plus when
21:27
you're using it this can balance the air
21:29
pressure inside so when you're taking
21:31
air out of the tank it'll suck in air
21:35
and then when you're feeling the tank up
21:37
the water is pushing air out of the tank
21:40
and it comes out of this bottom
21:44
vent all right so that's uh that's
21:46
pretty much an update next time you see
21:48
this we'll have the frame and we'll
21:51
start doing the plumbing process um
21:54
there will be one piece of that little
21:56
grid over there that I'm going to going
21:58
to have
21:58
to uh cut out just to fit the two lines
22:02
in and that has to do with wherever the
22:06
8020 bars land and the reason why is I
22:10
use these special Clips so that the PEX
22:13
tubing doesn't vibrate and slap around
22:15
when you're
22:16
driving and so I actually mount it to
22:18
the slot of the
22:20
8020 and that just keeps everything nice
22:22
and
22:23
organized so it'll probably be right
22:26
there is where I actually cut out that
22:29
uh aluminum I just need to cut out one
22:31
little slat then we'll do a little bit
22:33
of matte black matte black paint to
22:36
clean it all
22:37
up and we'll be good to go the last
22:41
thing is this power
22:43
wire that power wire is going to be
22:46
connected to a
22:48
button on the top of the
22:52
tank and it's going to P provide Power
22:55
to two actually two
22:58
uh two devices it's going to power a
23:01
light so that you can look through a
23:04
cutout and find out the water level of
23:05
the tank that's going to be a blue light
23:09
and the other one is going to be a white
23:10
light there's going to be lights mounted
23:13
on the outside of the tank there are
23:14
cargo lights for the rear of the
23:16
van and they're really cool um I have
23:20
them packed away right now but I'll show
23:22
you to them show you them later uh
23:24
they're really low profile lights
23:29
and uh they're pretty cool over here
23:32
we're waiting on some screws to dry
23:35
these are just kind of
23:36
placeholders but this uh LED over here
23:39
I'm going to ahead and turn this off
23:40
real
23:42
quick so the LED in here is working so
23:45
this is the just for
23:49
looks red LED to uh show off the
23:53
electronics if you guys didn't see the
23:55
last live stream uh we
23:59
installed see that is installed up there
24:02
in the 8020
24:04
channel so really
24:07
cool and the reason I got it the way I
24:09
got it to look like that is there's a
24:11
special LED strip where the LEDs are
24:14
really tightly packed together and
24:17
that's how you achieve that uh other
24:20
than looking cool this is functional
24:22
because we have
24:24
our uh our temperature probe that's in
24:27
the bottom of the inverter and that's to
24:30
make sure make sure that this the
24:32
temperature inside this box is
24:34
maintained so on a hot day it is
24:37
regulating the temperature for
24:39
you the inverter obviously has its own
24:42
built-in fan that's going to intake air
24:43
and cool it but when it gets to a
24:45
certain point that it can't it need some
24:47
help this little circuit board uh comes
24:51
into play I've got to go back in and
24:53
take this off I need to set it to about
24:55
80 degrees Fahrenheit
24:59
um that way it's just not kicking on all
25:00
the time 80 is pretty safe uh it can
25:04
actually go up
25:05
to you know maybe 100 but the max temp
25:09
that the inverter uh can get is 120° f
25:13
on the
25:14
output so I'm setting it to 80 just to
25:18
get ahead of it so we don't have to
25:23
um we just you know make sure
25:25
everything's nice and
25:26
safe and the other parts are the two
25:29
Reni DC to DC
25:32
uh Chargers there those indicator lights
25:36
it's cool to see them because you can
25:37
quickly diagnose what's happening or
25:41
find out how the system's
25:43
charging and then finally you can see
25:45
the window in here for your
25:49
uh when you have connect when you
25:51
connect Shore power there's a little L
25:54
LED LCD display where you can see uh
25:58
kind of what's going on there with the
25:59
Renegy 3000
26:01
wat inverted charger and uh yeah
26:06
so this turned out really
26:09
nice nice and
26:11
clean this is mounted
26:15
directly perfectly on top of the intake
26:18
vent for
26:20
the inverter
26:23
so yeah coming
26:26
together but that is pretty much it guys
26:30
if you have any questions put those in
26:32
the chat below be happy to answer
26:35
questions uh hope you like this new
26:38
format this is kind of the mobile format
26:39
we're still be going to be using the uh
26:42
the main live stream rig over here for
26:45
more detailed stuff when we talk about
26:47
you know stuff on the internet products
26:48
and stuff like that or we do some
26:50
unboxings but I'm probably going to use
26:52
this setup uh just to get you guys some
26:55
more updates on what's happening with
26:57
the van hands cuz a lot of stuff is
26:59
happening and I'm not filming that much
27:00
so if you like this new format let me
27:03
know in the comments and uh also if you
27:05
have any questions put them there as
27:07
well make sure you guys are subscribed
27:09
to the channel like this video If you
27:11
enjoyed it share it if anybody needs
27:12
some help that you know is working on
27:14
their DIY van conversion and don't
27:16
forget to check out our website van
27:18
Builder HQ for new blog posts that are
27:21
coming out on a lot of DIY van topics as
27:24
well as our DIY van build cheat sheet
27:27
that is completely free link is in the
27:29
description below it's just a
27:32
essentially an Excel sheet that I've
27:33
developed over the last 3 years and it
27:35
can really help you find parts uh easily
27:38
they're all organized and curated over
27:40
250 items on that list so check it out
27:43
in the link in the description below put
27:45
your email address in sign up for it and
27:47
it'll get right to your inbox it's
27:49
completely free I really think it's
27:51
going to help you out thanks so much for
27:53
checking out the live stream today join
27:55
us next time when we talk about another
27:57
topic on the van get you guys a good
27:59
update but other than that we'll see you
28:02
guys in the next live
28:11
stream
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