The Ultimate Adventure Van Build | Lifted, AWD, Off-Grid Power & Adventure Wagon Interior System!!
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May 3, 2025
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View Video Transcript
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[Music]
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hey guys Nick iserman here with Odyssey custom vans and I'm so excited today we are finally doing the official tour of
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our Glacier build and um yeah I'm just so excited this has been the big project
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with uh all the options all the upgrades and uh I can't wait to give you
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the tour of this van first off start off this is a 2020 all-wheel drive for
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Transit High roof 148 inch uh wheelbase has the EcoBoost twin turbo engine um
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speaking of engine we did put a second alternator on here from Nations it's a nation second alternator 280 amp um high
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output let's start at the front of the
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van all right front of the van here we have
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the Raptor Grill now this is actual Ford product is from the transit Trail in
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Europe so that's where we Source these um sometimes they on eBay so check that
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out but the front is nice and simple we did put yellow fog light bulbs in the bottom and uh we did this really nice
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toppo wrap on the hood and then the back two sides of the van but really the front of the van is just nice and simple
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um clean we're going to step over here to
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the left side if we look at the wheels uh we took
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the factory wheels and we powder coated them what's nice about that is when you
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powder coat factory wheels you don't have to worry about the uh offset all that good stuff we went with a
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BFG um alterrain k2s uh very popular Tire these are the
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25576 so before uh this van does have a lift it's got a van Compass uh Topo 2.0
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kit on it um but the lift that tire size
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2557016 will be the biggest size you can put on a factory Ford Transit um without
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having it rub um but we did do a 2-in lift front and rear and uh yeah this thing is ready to
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uh go Offroad again all-wheel drive before we step in the van this is
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kind of turned to be a little bit of a signature thing that I do I really like this bamboo back I did this on John and
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Susan's van uh as well uh by the way this is Brian and Robin's new adventure
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van so we did this bamboo uh we have the offset here for the legom mount table so
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that the arm will swivel and not uh hit the bamboo face we've got an outlet down
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here uh these Outlets are awesome so they are water resistant but you always
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also you should always make act like they're not um but right here they close
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they lock um big thing to remember about these since they are so nice but make
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sure that you close it before you close the door we have Lagoon Mount table um arm
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over here uh we're using the uh ABC rig step
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so this is a kit comes with a step and the trim so the step and the trim we got that
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installed and uh yeah let's welcome you guys into the van so just take a shot of the back kind
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of take this in nice clean you know the bamboo the uh powdercoated
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aluminum Marathon Fabric and heather gray just a really nice clean modern
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vibe in here coming up to the front we'll start at the top so we have an overhead Shelf
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and this is just keeping our insulative covers for uh the sides and the back two
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windows up front we didn't do anything to the dash uh we left it Factory because it does have the big uh sync
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screen from Ford um we did put in the two swivel
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seats for scopa so both of those are there uh down here you can see the two fuses these are
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for the two dual DC todc Chargers in the back of the van and
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uh they also are uh since they dual that means they have a dcent DC charging
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option and they have a mppt solar charge controller uh built-in feature as well
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so that's the front of the van um under here this is kind of I I like to uh store the fiama f45
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awning uh bar I guess you could say it there um we'll back out I always uh
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somehow I miss talking about the awning when we get done with the van tour f45s
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awning on a flatline vanco uh version 1.0 roof rack and we'll hop up on the
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ladder at the end of the tour we'll talk about the solar and all that good stuff so back in the
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van um this is multi-purpose van so you know if you're a solo travel traveler
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couple or you have kids or friends and family that want to travel with you we have the fredman flip and fold seat this
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seat is incredible it has a locking feature so you don't have to worry about it rattling as you drive down the road
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it's got a safety lock uh right here and then the actual part that unlocks the
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seat believe it or not this is a fold out table so this table will come
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out and um it'll actually fit inside the seat we have that in another video and
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um um but we're going to keep this in here now this basically slides out and what you do is when you flip the
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table up you rest the table in here so you have a nice big area to uh you know
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prep food meals stuff like that but once you fold this down you pull this tab
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here and then this is going to open up the seat and it comes all the way back and we got a little felt pad in the back
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here so it doesn't scratch the countertop but now you have additional two seats with seat belts so you can
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travel four people in here safely um we did put a crl window into
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the side of the van over here and that's just going to make you know your uh people that riding with your van more
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comfortable it's got dual window vents on this side and then we did a Custom Trim ring
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to uh clean up and hide this Gap so that when we put the insulative cover on
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everything looks nice and professional looks like a factory finish you don't some Vans uh don't have this and you can
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see the paint from the van and uh I just I like the clean look here you'll notice
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we have L Trak all throughout the van this van has an adventure wagon interior
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kit so the whole entire inside of this van has the adventure wagon kit that allows us to put bolt down um a lot of
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components such as the Flatline bed system the Flatline G gley kitchen Galley this is the 41in kitchen Galley
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and then over here I'll fold the seat back down you guys will be able to check out
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the uh 24in Flatline vanco Galley now this one has been highly modified I
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removed the drawer and I uh cut it and I rowder coated it to fit an isoo Cruise
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130 fridge um big fridge everyone loves this
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fridge it's one of most popular fridges in the whole uh the van life I believe
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it's just it looks nice the stainless um tons of capacity but
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essentially this is reserved for that um over here we've got a little hidden USB
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outlet that you can turn on and off and this over here is for uh you
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know if you have kids or you have friends that cell phones you want to charge it you can do that it has a uh
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quick charge port on it USBC and uh USB a
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um up here you know you can put your laptop or charge it but it's just a nice convenient charging port that we put
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in coming over here to the kitchen Galley um this is the 41in flatl vanco
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kitchen Galley again highly modified just because that's what I do in the
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shop so this part right here is technically supposed to be for a uh a
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drawer style fridge um instead what I did is I put a microwave in here and I built some
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structure so that uh microwave can actually make its way in here we're using a contour microwave um I love this
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microwave it's uh stainless comes with this really nice trim ring and it just happens to fit perfectly in here with
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the uh with the van down here we have um
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another custom feature that I designed and this is the pullout step so this
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pullout step is going to allow uh Brian Robin to get in and out of bed easily and it provides additional storage so
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I'm kind of hide under the bed here to give you guys a really good view of it um but it's a locking drawer slide so
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when it comes out it locks into place and um then we have a lid up here this
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lid is just kind of like a like a vacuum fit if you will I've put their shower curtain and
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their uh shower wand I'll show you how this works in a minute or uh rather
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where it connects so this just comes down to here doesn't rattle um again 500 lb drawer
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slides giving you that extra storage and then down here uh put it in pull up locks into
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place down here at the bottom this is the drawer where You' put an induction
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stove for example um I made sure this is the cutout for the sink drain
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um but I made sure that the Gap from here to here is a little over 20 in most inductions are a maximum of about 20 in
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for a single burner so you can still fit this in here um but that is all the storage on
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this side you do have a uh drawer up here very big drawer this
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is for silverware you know you could put induction stove in here if you wanted to
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um but over here on this side we've got the storage
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for this used to be uh the original design of this was two Jerry cans two
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sgon Jerry cans um but Brian Robin really stepped it up uh they wanted to
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do upgraded water tanks we did the upgraded alternator so a lot of really cool upgrades um and I really enjoyed
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this because it pushed me to uh design uh this system which I probably will use
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in most of my Vans cuz I really like having a home style drain it drains
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quickly it doesn't drain slowly like Jerry cans do um we've got all of our
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cables managed over here on the right hand side this is our sub panel this is our 100 amp sub panel we've got uh
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everything in here labeled on here so you know when you
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when you have ports that are not used I recommend that you populate them with some fuses that you would use in other
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places in the van just as a holder it's just easy place for an unused place to hold the
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fuses um yeah but this space is for a we've we upgraded to the under uh Mount
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tanks so that they could put a trolino medium siiz uh toilet in here so that's
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why there's so much room in here so that that toilet can be placed it's got a home um over here on the right hand side
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this is our water heater switch so whenever you want hot water flip this up 10 to 15 minutes you've got hot water in
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the van both front and rear there's a rear spray down shower in the
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back uh speaking of shower I'm standing on the shower it's a hidden shower so
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this part right here is a uh is a Tetra van in floor hidden shower pan and it's
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really simple so this is just the pan and the drain I'll show you where everything else is but basically you're
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going to lift this up and you can see you've got a shower
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drain this is powdercoated steel and the powder coed steel is going to allow you to have the magnetic curtain hit down
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here at the bottom and it makes sure you don't Splash and uh you know leak water out of your van uh Pro tip on this install put felt
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pads on the bottom of this pad because if you buy the kit with this top
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um and you don't have the those felt pads those screws will scratch your
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uh floor pan okay how do you take a shower we
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have eltrak there's a shower curtain that you just saw in the drawer it comes out snaps into these uh eltrak
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holes with some d-rings then you come over here to your uh
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sink now this is a riot sink everyone loves this sink it is my favorite this is a by
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20 um very deep sink as you guys can see
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you've got a strainer you got to place like a drying rack for your dishes another thing very important in
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Van life strainer basket don't put food in the sink but if you accidentally get
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it in the drain you have a little catch Basin to uh to hold on to it okay next
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we have the shower so if you're getting ready to take a shower you put the
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shower curtain up snap it into place this right here you're actually going to
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um make sure the pump's off we got a little residual pressure we'll let that drain out so
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what you're going to do is you're going to pull this side and when you pull this it's going to activate this and this is
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where you're going to screw on that shower wand that I showed you in the drawer now this is the coolest part you
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can shut it off you can turn your water pump on
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you can set your temperature of how hot or cold you want your
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water and then you can pull this and charge your shower wand and then that
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way you don't waste any water um one note always get in the habit of when
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you're done washing your hands or doing dishes to always turn off your water pump um it's just a good habit because
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if you go grab a phone call or you hop outside the van for a second talking to a friend or whatever and you leave it on
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if something happens to your plumbing in your van um you're going to want to make sure
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that this is off so that if something breaks uh you don't have to worry about it running and draining the whole entire
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tank um another Pro tip is uh when you travel just put a little
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like a tea towel or cloth right here this is going to drip it's just it's just van life um so do that and you'll
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be all set we have a very huge area here for cooking making margaritas just you
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know organizing just space in the van to to use over here we have another Outlet
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now you do have to have the inverter on pretty obvious to uh have this Outlet work and the USB ports but let's talk
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about turning the inverter on so up here is our Command man Center I guess you would call it and
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uh this up here we're going to uh go left to right we got the Renegy M1
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controller so that reny M1 controller is controlling 600 amp hours of lithium arm
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phosphate we've got dual DC todc uh combo Chargers from
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Reni and we also have uh a 3000 watt pure sine wave inverter charger and it's
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all Bluetooth controlled from here and the batteries are actually networked into this unit hidden right here is
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actually the light switches so we've got the interior lights we've got the indirect lighting which is right up here
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on top of the uh cabinets that indirect lighting that is what allows you to see
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inside the cabinets um you can actually remove these cabinets if you want to the cable right here just snaps
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unsnaps from the uh the wall and uh you're all set to go with that
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and then the third one if you go outside um we'll show that later we'll just keep it on for now that is a rigid scene
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light and it's an amber color amber is better for bugs uh White attracts more
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bugs we've got a Max vanan 7500k this is the nice one that has the auto
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thermostat right here you hold it and it sets it to 78° when the van gets over 78° it opens when it gets below that it
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closes 3,000 W inverter and then we have our our Webasto airtop Evo 40 with the BL smart
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Bluetooth 3.0 controller uh this is so that when you're in bed it's cold you want to wake up in the morning you just
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hit your phone warms the whole van up you get out of bed um it's very very
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nice again very very simple uh control
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panel system to interact with the van the lights here these are Luma coin
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lights they they are freaking amazing if you double click on them you can turn them red they do have a memory so if you
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turn them off and turn them back on they'll remember double click again you're back to White if you hold it will
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dim it'll remember that setting and if you hold and dim again once it
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flashes you know you're at your highest setting so we get them all set on high and they're just really nice soft lights
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they even have this uh uh little heat heat fin keep them nice and
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cool all right we are going to uh go to the back of the van and I'm going to
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talk to you about um some features in the back so right here um we'll stay
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here just to talk about the windows and the AC and then we'll come back and we'll talk about the bed in the rear of the
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van so we got the max vanan we also have a dtic RTX 2000 it's a 12volt rooftop
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air conditioner
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and then over here on the left hand side we've got a crl aw 1033 awning style
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window we got one on the left and then we've got one on the right we've got your uh Flatline vanco
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bed system now this bed is fully removable six bolts the whole entire bed
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comes out really nice we did do the bump outs from Adventure wagon so these are not flare space flares they're just
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utilizing the natural bump up that comes in a Ford Transit cargo van so they give
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you more room if you wanted to sleep east to west um or north to south you
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know whatever you want to pick all right let's hop to the back of the van and uh check out the power
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system so on our way to the back we've got flat L vanco's new uh box and their
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Adventure uh rack right there um if the Box wasn't here you could put bikes on here or do what do whatever you want to
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this right here opens up clamshell design um we'll close the doors a minute but you know you can have a cooktop up
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here all your wet clothes you know dirty shoes can go back here uh really really cool
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add-on um as we make our way to the back of the van we have our power
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system so this is kind of an art piece of the van I always have like some type of art
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piece in the van um that I spend some extra time making really look neat
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cool 600 amp hourss of lithium iron phosphate it's the Renegy smart lithium
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so that's the network batteries that all communicate together we have a v victron links
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distributor for all the high amp loads so rooftop AC DC todc Chargers and the
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3,000 uh watt pure S Wave inverter so that's over here um coming down to the
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bottom these are those tool dual DC todc and MPP solar charge controllers they're what manage the
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solar and engine charging now I mentioned that we have a second alternator that second alternator it's
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built into here and it's uh the regulator right up there is we're using a Wakee speed regulator so the
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ws500 and so that little box right there um since it was an afterthought we didn't really have a place to put it
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that is the best place for it to go so we didn't have to modify the cable or anything like that but that is 280 amps
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of charging which really overtakes these two boxes but this is a good backup good
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for redundancy the little tiny box you see right here this is our uh 110 outlets in
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the van so that's going to be our microwave yeah so that's going to be our
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uh microwave it's going to be our water heater our kitchen Galley Outlets top and and bottom so nice and simple out of
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the way easy to get to um over here we've got the massive 40 gallon
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Northwest conversions water tank uh they actually don't make this anymore they make a 36 Gall so we got
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the 40 when they were doing the 40 so tons of water capacity the hot water heater is a Bosch
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4 gallon a small residential hot water heater runs off the inverter so inverter needs to be on to heat the water 4 G
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tank uh we have scandic uh valves for our mixer and for
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our rear shower so this hose comes out you're able to take an
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outdoor shower wash your feet wash your dogs kids whatever you need to wash
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off um and then over on the right hand side we have our aquar system the aore
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system is amazing it is a uh
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hose bib here that goes onto your hose uh it is expensive a lot of people
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don't go with it just because it is a very high-end uh piece of Kit doubled sealed when you hook this up to your
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hose you're just going to take it like this you're going to twist you can control the fill on or off
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and typically I have a water filter before this um so that is this
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part over on the right hand side is the emergency disconnect for the water pump
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so say you're out here maybe your kids are playing around or you goof and you snag this hose and you break it off and
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you can't run inside the van to the sink and turn the water pump off this is your disconnect so you just hit that button
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cuts the power to the water pump um right here we have a little
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viewing window when we have the uh water pump on so I'm going you stay here I'm going to turn the water pump on
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so when the water pump's on the tank turns blue and it's going to allow you to see where the water level is so our
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water level is pretty much like right there um just a nice viewing window it's simple it doesn't you don't need gauges
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Electronics you don't need to cut into the water tank to find out what the level is so super
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nice um two things I forgot to mention over here we have ventilation and then we
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have a thermostat ically controlled exhaust fan so this is connected to a
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circuit board and it's got a preset temperature so that if the inside gets too hot this
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will come on like it's very hot outside today so this is venting the system make sure it keeps it um
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safe back there we I'll grab this uh we have the outlet for the wo airtop Evo
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40 right there uh I like it in the back sometimes just because the back is so open we don't have a door and if you
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have that set up I like to have the heater mounted in the back rather than the pure seat and that's just so it keeps you you're underneath the bed nice
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and warm uh if you are going into really cold environments all right talked about that
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we got our valves we talked about the uh bed system let's talk about Vander Moon
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so Vander Moon makes these storage pieces that bolt to the back of the van so if you don't have rear windows this
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is a great way to not only uh we have some uh insulation behind here so we use 3M thelate this whole entire van has 3M
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thinsulate and sound deing throughout the whole entire van all right so we got our Vander Moon storage it just pops in
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looks nice and clean they do make ones for the very bottom and the very top we just went with these so over here we've
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got the same thing um we've got our sh power plug if you're going to buy a sh
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power plug make sure you buy one with an integrated RV surge protector this is
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going to keep you safe at RV sites where you have no idea who's maintained the plug is it wired properly so before you
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toast your van put this in and uh take care of your
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van we got a flatline vanco rear tire carrier with a trash R this is fun you
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don't have to put trash in here you can use this for anything you can put you know extra close uh you know breakdown
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gear we've got a 30 amp furion Shore power
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Inlet it's a 30 amp but this dongle right here converts it to 15 amp you're
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typically going to be charging at your house popped it in there then the inverter automatically turns on starts
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charging the batteries when you're at a campsite so stay right there I'm going to put this back in the back of the
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van all right let's talk about got some really cool graphics little
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Topo graphic with the Odyssey custom van logo all right I'm going to grab the camera we're going to go on top of the
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van and show you all the features on top of the van by the way this is the exhaust outlet for the
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Webasto uh we got a flatline vanco ladder and this is their uh version 1.0
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roof rack uh we did relocate the antenna the
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Ford antenna you don't always have to do that but sometimes it's good to do that
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um if we come up a little bit higher we've got two 100 wat solar panels from Rich solar this one in the middle is a
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140 watt panel from new power and uh we've got a doedic RTX 2000 we talked
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about newest upgrade is the wee boost so we got our we boost antenna here all you
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got to do is pop this out lift the arm up and you've got your wee boost
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antenna so back there is also our Soler and the very far in the back is an extra
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awning now that awning was a little bit of a
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uh like an experimental design you would say so I got that because when I was
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taking this Mana trade shows I wanted to shade the back of the van so that's why that's back there
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um let's see if there's anything else I'm missing we talked about the awning
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uh yeah let me show you where I mounted the wee boost and that might wrap up this van
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tour so right here we've got the we boost again if you guys want to have
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power for your laptops you get an extra USBC and a port this is a cigarette
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lighter this is all going to allow you to turn on your we boost and use that
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you got the cable ran all the way to the front where you're probably going to be sitting using the
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uh actual we boost itself and
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uh yeah so we got that going on um all right so let's close this video
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out so we'll shut the doors so you guys can kind of see oh yeah I forgot to mention this we got the flight line
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vanco 500 lb drawer slide right here in the back um this is where I just house
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the Lagoon table that goes inside the van this is through bolted through the
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floor so if you're going to buy one of these through bolt them through the
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floor so you really can actually utilize the 500lb drawer slides don't W wood screw them into the floor of the van
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that's not safe to do that but uh yeah let's take you to the front of
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van and close out the
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tour yeah I come back
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here when you do these additional upgrades make sure that you just you're mindful of closing these doors uh you
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are added that extra weight so just make sure this latches into place good this box is going to be very heavy when you
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load it up so same thing just take care and shut in your
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door um we'll show you this side of the
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van so we've got um another toppo map with the logo and then
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we've got our crl awning style window here that we put in and last but not least there is that Amber awning light
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from rigid all right guys thank you so much for checking out this van tour of glacer
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uh if you want to learn more about the van you can visit Odyssey customs.com we have a whole set of photos from the van
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um with all the specs and features of the vehicle itself and uh yeah if you
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have any questions on this video put those in the comments any questions about the van but believe it or not
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Brian and Robin are on their way right now to the shop to take delivery of their new adventure van I'm so excited
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for them and uh before you guys head out don't forget to subscribe to the channel and uh I'll see you guys in the next
32:07
video if you're doing your own DIY van build then I have something that is really I think you'll find uh very
32:14
helpful it's called our DIY van build cheat sheet so over the last three years of doing this van business I have uh all
32:21
of my Amazon purchases I have taken them and put them into an Excel sheet organized it from anything from
32:27
electrical fittings brackets screws anything I do with 8020 water pumps
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solar panels um a lot of the renery compon components that I use and I've taken all that I've organized it and um
32:39
I've put it into this sheet and guess what it is completely free and it is for you guys so you can download this list
32:46
of over 250 curated items uh completely free all you have to do is go to Van
32:51
Builder hq.com or you can click in the link in the description below you're just going to put your name and email
32:56
address in uh click download it's going to go right to your inbox and I really think it's going to help you out once
33:02
again it's called the DIY van build cheat sheet and uh I think it's going to be great check it out um if you guys
33:08
have any other questions put those in the comments below other than that we'll see you guys in the next video
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