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Camper Van Water Tank Fittings Install
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May 3, 2025
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View Video Transcript
0:00
[Music]
0:53
hey guys welcome to live stream today we are going to just do a quick one on Plumbing fitting in stall uh so putting
1:01
these in the products that I used actually make sure that it doesn't leak
1:07
and uh yeah that's pretty much going to be it so just really quick stream because I'm popping these in the van and
1:14
it'll be the last time that they go in or come out and go in so if you missed
1:20
the last live stream uh what we have here are two graywater tanks for a Ford
1:25
Transit van the left the one on my left is a Northwest conversions and it is the
1:33
16g version that is designed to go uh and work with a Ford factory step so on
1:41
a Ford Transit you've got this uh running board here and the brackets on it are a little different
1:48
than um I guess other running board brackets they're they bump out a little
1:53
bit and Northwest conversions made a little step out here that allows you can
2:00
see that there you go so this little uh step in here to compensate for that so
2:05
it slips right up in there easily um while I'm thinking of it there's also a heat shield over here on
2:12
the exhaust you'll just need to kind of bend it in just a little bit um just so
2:17
it's not direct resting directly on the tank so what I did under the van is I just kind of bent it when I did a test
2:22
fit and it just sits about a quarter of an inch away from the tank and um that's
2:30
uh that's what you want to do also um this comes with three stainless still
2:38
brackets that you're going to use to mount this so it's up to you kind of where you
2:44
slide this you do have some forgiveness right here um probably like 2 in where you can move it back and
2:51
forward um depending on how you want to line it up now it is possible to connect
2:56
a fitting right here to the top of the tank uh I'm not not going to do that um that's pretty challenging if
3:03
you uh in my case if I do that uh you're going to need a pole big enough to where
3:09
you can have that pipe come up through the van and I've found that right over here
3:18
is where I'm probably going to install it so whereas this hole would be right
3:25
in right where this divider is for my kitchen Galley I'm just going to do a different install and have it come up
3:33
through the floor back here um yeah so that's what I'm doing today but in this video we're just going
3:40
to go over the plumbing fittings themselves and uh what I use and what I
3:46
think is just nice and simple in the last live stream I talked about how uh I
3:51
think it's important to have Alexa stop okay canc
4:03
um this uh these fittings are on are from Lowe's so I got these from
4:09
Lowe's hardware store we got an inch and a half plug to plug up the tank I'm using this as a quick drain
4:15
Port um that will help us maintain ground clearance so we don't have a big old valve coming out and then over here
4:22
this will be your easy goto drain um now this is convenient because
4:28
you got a valve but but also remember that the diameter the inside diameter of this is really tight so your draining
4:37
flow rate of this uh will not be as much as an inch and a half Port which is
4:43
pretty obvious but it does allow you to easily connect a water hose so that you
4:48
can drain it off to the side in the yard like if you're at home or um at a
4:53
dumping station for example but if something happens to this you know it's an easy replacement
5:00
and all the items that I'm using are easy off the-shelf Hardware components
5:05
from Lowe's for example so we'll be installing those and
5:12
then over here on this side this is
5:22
the this one on the right side is the driver's side and you're going to get
5:27
more capacity uh with the driver
5:33
side by the way if you guys have any questions let me know
5:38
um just checking something on my phone there we go all right got the chat
5:44
pulled up yes so if you have any questions about water tanks go ahead and ask those questions um again this is
5:50
going to be a short live stream if you guys are tuning in uh over here on uh so let's continue
5:55
with this one this is a 20-gallon tank which is really nice this fits on the driver side and um again it comes with
6:02
three stainless steel brackets and one reason I really like
6:10
these tanks is I first tried to do a kind of DIY
6:15
version of a tank I bought from it's like I don't know like water tanks.com or something like that that's not the
6:21
website but there's a tank website with that has hundreds of RV tanks and you
6:28
have to you know measure dimensions you're trying to find something that works but the key is the the mounting
6:34
the bracketry if you don't have something that's uh you know bent like this and it's
6:41
stainless um it's just a pain in the butt to kind of install like a a real custom tank it's better off to spend the
6:47
money and buy something like this it's pre-made and purpose built so that's my
6:53
recommendation um if you want to have a tank underneath your van the benefits of
6:59
having these custom tanks is is really comes down to uh compa capacity if
7:05
you're using a Jerry can in your van which I actually have in my personal van that's convenient it's not heavy you can
7:10
fill it up easily take it in and out of your van dump it um it's really easy but if you're on those longer trips or
7:16
you're going off to some place in particular that you can't drain your tank daily um somewhere this is where
7:23
the capacity is going to come in now the customers um Robin and Brian that uh are
7:29
using this this is their van behind me this is the passenger side is going to
7:34
be the gray water for the sink and the 20 gallon is going to be the gray water for the shower so good capacity you can
7:41
actually take a shower you're not going to really top this up too quick um I anticipate maybe five showers you can
7:48
fit in here um and that is because there's a 4 gallon hot water tank so you know 5
7:57
showers Time 4 20 gallons um you could probably stretch that if
8:03
you had a place to drain this like if you were at a uh camping ground that
8:08
actually had a dedicated RV site where you could actually uh connect this hose
8:14
fitting to the drain so you could just leave this open with a hose on it and just let it drain the whole time you're there so that's pretty
8:21
easy um and again this one has the same plug over here for quick
8:27
drain now if you missed the last live stream I talked about how you could get
8:32
a big old high flow dump valve like this ball valve but if you have an adventure
8:39
van this is the your maximum ground cin right here and you really just don't
8:46
want anything protruding from here yes you can put this like this but
8:53
um there's a lot of stuff under this van we have the tank uh we have the basto uh
8:59
air toop 40 Evo right here with the exhaust and intake it's all over here
9:05
and on this side of the tank I have the um the Dual alternator wiring so the
9:12
280 amp uh high up second alternator is the chunky wiring is coming straight
9:19
through here and then going around and coming up through the back of the van so for my application I'm really tight on I
9:26
just don't have the room Plus remember there's still Plumbing under
9:31
the van this tube right here that's going to go here and serve for the drain coming into from the shower so there's a
9:39
lot of stuff going on and you run out of room quickly so just keeping stuff
9:45
simple is uh I think it's key when you're doing
9:50
any type of van conversion so just a simple plug you can take it in and out um and if you have like a little kit
9:58
in your van you know you can keep some uh pipe tape maybe an extra fitting and
10:04
just keep this in like a little bag and that's your kind of go-to to uh take these in and
10:09
out um see we'll just uh talk about this
10:15
just for a quick second this is a scheduled 40 inch and a half pipe it is not what you probably typically see uh
10:23
people with Vans have um oh yeah let me show you this contraption [Laughter]
10:29
so this right here is my tank cleanout system I know it looks really
10:37
sketchy but basically it's a piece of wood taped to a tube nylon braid tube
10:43
and this allows me to um once I cut these holes out so to
10:48
cut these holes out in the tanks last live stream we talked about using a drywall knife to kind of get the thing
10:55
started and then finishing up with a uh just a nice Hefty box cutter to kind
11:02
of trim away those bits now if you if you mess up or you just miss a piece and
11:08
you actually drop something in the tank this is my final method for doing a
11:13
final cleaning of the tank to get all those little plastic bits out and those
11:18
little shavings they're really not a big deal in a gray tank however this
11:25
valve uh some it's possible that they could actually get caught up in here and clog it and just to make sure
11:32
everything's ready to go for these guys I put this tube and then I take it and I
11:37
can just stuff it right into the tank all the way down and then I can maneuver
11:43
it while the vacuum's on to suck all the little bits out so it's super clean inside if you do this Method Keep the
11:50
vacuum on as you're pulling this out if you turn the vacuum off too fast it can some of the shaves can fall back into
11:57
the tank so it's just a little Pro tip for you but my point
12:03
before taking this off of here uh is this braided nylon hose you know this is
12:10
typically what you see as drain lines for Vans and that's okay but just
12:16
anything this small is very restrictive um and you
12:22
know just me personally I don't think it's a pro way to do plumbing in a van
12:29
I like robust things so yeah schedule 40 I'm sure it's Overkill but this pipe is
12:37
really very thick nice uh diameter on the wall thickness um so this is the
12:44
drain going into a fernco fitting and this is an inch and a half by inch and a half it's really designed
12:51
for uh like emergency plumbing repairs so maybe in like behind drywall where
12:56
you can't really cut into uh wall if you're a plumber doing construction but
13:02
for a van guess what it's perfect because it's easily serviceable if you damage this or do
13:08
something weird you know all this is available at Low's um and you can just pick it up and
13:16
just replace it nice and easy you'll see in a second we're going to be using these uh little adapter plugs which goes
13:24
from the inch and a half to a a smooth surface and that is going to go here and then this will come right on top of it
13:30
and it's just a nice clean way I think to do plumbing in a van nice professional way to do
13:37
it so this is where we're getting to all right so for the point of this video
13:43
we're going to go ahead and put all of our tape on
13:50
here get our fittings installed and that'll be pretty much the video two
13:55
products I'm using I'm using Mega tape um it's just a for gas and water
14:02
lines it's just hat VCH uh it's PTFE tape and then something I've used on all
14:09
my Vans um is this
14:16
uh it's a food safe pipe thread sealant for water and gas
14:24
um it's called Uh slow Dry soft set rectoral
14:31
5 so that is what it looks like and the theory behind using this is
14:40
well one it's it's worked every time for me but two um it's a soft set so it
14:46
doesn't have I feel like with a van and vibration and all that stuff and then you got you know plastic kind of
14:51
expanding and Contracting it's just an extra layer of leak protection um for
14:57
grade tanks uh it's not not that big of a deal really if there was like a little weeping drip um but definitely for
15:05
inside your van your clean uh freshwater tank I would I would definitely consider
15:11
using that on the fittings going into here um I'm going to go back here and
15:17
grab a wrench and then we're actually going to talk about I'm sure everybody's got a
15:23
question about Metal fittings going into plastic uh tanks so we'll kind of
15:29
briefly talk about that and then we'll talk about this event and why it's
15:50
important all right so this wrench I'm using I'm only GNA be using it on the
15:56
outside of these fittings I won't be using it to cut or to grip onto this uh part to damage
16:01
it um something else that I've done and this just a little OCD move but it is
16:07
possible that this could be an issue for you there's these molding lines right here and sometimes these molding lines
16:15
stick out and just in my experience doing a lot of
16:21
handyman work um sometimes that little
16:26
uh molded piece is is going to create a place for a fitting to leak so if you
16:32
take a razor and just kind of cleanly get off that uh I guess technically you
16:39
would call it flash that's like a term and uh molding so you're kind of
16:45
getting that off of there um getting that off is actually something that I would
16:52
recommend um just to give you some peace of mind when you're actually putting everything together so all you're doing
16:59
is just taking the razor and just kind
17:04
of you know scraping that off but go easy because you don't want
17:10
to create create a problem by trying to fix a
17:15
problem yeah so just it just takes two seconds and you're just getting that little bit of bur off of the uh the
17:21
plastic fittings so that when your fernco fitting goes and clamps on it you don't
17:28
have a potential leak point now with these hose clamps I mean it would be pretty challenging I think to to get a
17:35
leak but um a lot of the stuff that I push on
17:41
this channel is you know kind of overdoing it so you don't
17:46
have to go back to it um the worst thing you want when you're like doing an RV thing is to have
17:52
something to take care of when you're actually trying to enjoy have a vacation that sort of
17:57
thing um um well believe it or not I didn't cut this out so actually we can do that live and I can show you how this
18:06
whole process works which means I actually need to hook my vacuum cleaner up but
18:11
hey doing it live is not too bad
18:19
um so this right here is going to be our drain for our sink and we're going to take our
18:25
drywall knife we're just going to just tap it like that then be careful
18:32
don't cut yourself when you cut bring it back up and I'm just kind of popping
18:38
this down and just kind of rotating it as I I hit this I've got my feet kind of
18:45
holding the
18:50
tank it's actually safer if you kind of have it up against the surface but I'm going to have to go back
18:56
in and vacuum this tank out again like I was saying earlier so you'll see that
19:04
process and while I'm doing this what I'm trying my best to do is not hit the
19:10
threads you do not want to hit the threads that are molded in it's okay if
19:16
you go more inside to the tank um cuz you can go you can go get a
19:24
uh that razor blade is going to be able to you can go back with a razor blade
19:32
and clean that up so now what I'm doing is I'm holding a piece of
19:38
plastic
19:44
again okay so see I held the plastic and so now I got the big chunk and now what I want to do is take
19:53
my knife here and I just want to
20:00
cleanly cut
20:17
the so when I clean this
20:23
up see I'm take this is when I'm cutting
20:34
now do you really need to clean this up for great tank probably not but what I
20:40
think of is I don't know you washed your hair in the sink or you got something
20:46
that went down here or yeah you're taking a shower and if you don't clean up these edges you know that hair or whatever is
20:54
going down the tank is going to catch on this and eventually
20:59
you're going to have to fix a clog created by all that so my
21:06
thought is just do it right now while you're got got the tanks out and easy
21:14
access um if you're trying to do this under the van after everything is put
21:21
together it's probably going to be not too easy
21:37
okay and that last bit fell in there so I'm just going
21:42
to get those shavings pulled to the one
21:53
corner then I'm going to remake this thing that I took apart
22:01
another Pro tip is with this nylon tubing if you can set it in your
22:06
driveway in the sun let it soften up it'll be less of a pain to get it
22:16
uh straight
22:59
okay remember we're going to keep the vacuum cleaner on the whole time that
23:05
we're doing this now I'm going to keep it off while I'm going in just so
23:10
I get a chance to see where it's going
23:20
on okay I don't know this is kind of fun
23:27
too [Applause]
23:46
[Music] okay so we got both of these cut out uh when you get these from Northwest
23:52
conversions these two half inch holes are already cut out so you really just are cutting out uh these
24:11
um and all of this work and talking and I didn't do this one so I need to get this guy
24:38
so just so you know guys know what's coming out of here this is what we're getting out of the tank this is the
24:44
stuff that's going to clog I'll show you why it's going to clog so here this is real life example
24:51
so you see that this getting into this hole
24:58
you can you can see how if that gets in there you're GNA
25:03
have to uh go under the van and try to get that
25:11
out
25:44
okay so looks like I got one just got one piece that fell down
25:50
there
26:17
all right finally we are ready to assemble so let's go ahead and take
26:26
our we'll do let's see I only do two wraps on these if
26:33
you're wondering how many wraps um you can see here it's got the yellow Rector seill on it already that's
26:40
because I installed the whole entire tank and I forgot to cut these out
26:47
um that's something you might do when you're fitting stuff taking it out fitting it again you know just always
26:54
double check everything
27:06
so there's one wrap we're going to go two and it's not critical in this
27:13
application but when you do pipe tape uh rule of thumb is you don't want
27:21
to have that on the uh to where it can roll over so you want it like this
27:28
so you don't want you don't want it to this white part you want that exposed and you want it to start on the threads
27:36
because you don't want this tape to get in the way of like the path of flow of
27:41
the water um this is again this is not a critical application but it's kind of a
27:49
a best practice thing and then we're just going to put
27:55
just a hair of this on here now when I
28:01
do uh the freshwater tank I do put a lot
28:06
um because I I that tank is in the van and if it
28:13
leaks in the van that's really bad but I'm just putting in enough
28:19
amount to I guess I would say go into the channel of one
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thread so that's how much I'm putting on there there and again see how I put it
28:30
slightly back from the valve cuz I'm I'm kind of teaching you this
28:36
now because if I don't get to show you in the freshwater pump you don't want
28:43
this getting into your tank and you don't want the pump sucking this up
28:50
um I saw I saw a a shower year or so ago
28:56
and I used this and I used it uh on the shower fitting and what happened was a
29:02
little bit of this got into uh the mixer valve and when I did
29:09
the test you could actually see this it came out into the water into like the shower pan just like little strings of
29:16
it but it's a sealant so you don't you don't want sealant to be in that place
29:21
cuz that valve is going to restrict the flow if not clog that mixer valve and it's not going to work correctly same
29:29
thing goes for your freshwater tank if this was the inlet for the water pump we don't want this soft set getting sucked
29:36
into your water pump all right so we got this and we're just going
29:42
to um you can start to put this on backwards and you'll kind of feel like a
29:49
bump and then you can start to go back the other direction but be very careful with these
29:56
CU right now see I've already cross threaded it and I know what I'm doing so
30:03
if you've never done this make sure you just put it in uh
30:08
start twisting it in backwards and then feel for that
30:14
uh that that little bump and that's going to let you know that
30:21
um you haven't you haven't cross threaded it
30:30
okay so really we just want to get this hand
30:39
tight and then I'm just going to do like a quarter turn with a pair of
30:48
pliers so I want to go about right here
31:16
let's see maybe I'll go right there so probably hand tighten
31:23
then I did three three quarters of a turn um
31:29
and then also I've got my uh sealant here and if you did put too much on you
31:35
can just take kind of take your finger and go around the outside
31:59
okay so that one's done do the same thing over here same way
32:48
see that's where that Focus that's where the tape
32:55
is
33:16
now I'm not going to put the Rector seal on the inch and a half drain
33:22
plug because that one is uh highly anticip ipated to be
33:31
used so we're just going to use pipe tape on
33:47
it I didn't you I didn't do the backwards method on this one this one actually went in really nice
34:27
for
35:14
oh I forgot to mention you want to go with the thread Direction so we're going
35:20
in a if you're looking at the fitting looking down we're going in a
35:26
clockwise uh wrap
35:37
way so that when we twist it in you know we're going with the direction of the
35:44
tape so this one you know just check it
35:59
now this one's probably going to go in deeper than this one this one has uh the
36:05
height the this one is a smaller diameter I mean a thickness
36:12
and this one has a bigger thickness so this will stand out more than this one will this one will go in more
36:47
uh if any are going to leak for the first time it's going to be this one right
36:52
here so you may have to take it out and double up on your
37:01
tape um but also remember hold on here I'm going to use I'm make a live example
37:07
here so say that you are putting this plug in so let's go ahead and take it out just like you were going to go under
37:15
the van and do a quick drain I'll show you what happens to the
37:23
uh now I know a lot of people know what happens to the tape but when you take it
37:28
out basically the tape is going to uh be cut and so what you're going to want to
37:35
do is take the tape
37:42
off and then you're going to want to resal the tape
38:01
so you can just take the tape like that and just peel it off make sure it's
38:06
clean okay another difference between this plug and this hole
38:14
is this is going to
38:21
uh this plug is just going it's just going to seal faster this one that's why
38:27
I'm taking this back out we're going to put more tape on it but also you can actually technically take
38:33
this and screw it all the way and make it fall into the tank so what we want to do is have enough seal tape so that when
38:40
we screw this in and the this part right here is
38:47
flush with the tank we stop so that means we're going to have
38:52
to wrap this up just a bit so I'm probably going to do like
38:57
four four wraps maybe four or
39:06
five because there the reason it's going to fall into the tank is there's no way to there's no no back space here um you
39:14
could leave a little bit more of the part that you cut out but I that's not
39:22
necessary okay so we got one
39:33
two
39:39
three okay and then that's four so four four feels good and then
39:46
we're just going to we're going to take our fing our hand and just lightly do that so we get
39:54
the can see your threads okay then we're going to take
40:02
this okay that feels much better so it already feels nice and tight off the bat
40:16
um I'm going ahead and do
40:22
this it's got to be the entertainment of this channel is to going to this see my brain think
40:34
live it's okay to change your mind if you're working on something you don't always have to copy everything so for
40:42
example I'm like you know what I don't want to bother with this so I'm going to
40:47
go ahead and put some sealant on
40:53
here might as well okay
41:01
there we go see also makes it easier to screw
41:08
in all right so there we got that so let's go ahead and I'm going to screw this
41:18
in till it's just right about flush now what we've done is we've
41:25
added um that tape and
41:33
so you'll be able to stop sooner you don't have to sink this thing all the way in and then we're not going to smear
41:39
that it looks nice we're just going to leave it I'm going to hop over
41:48
here this valve is already done kind of see the the sealant drips here um so let's actually let's do this
42:03
actually already did this
42:10
one all right let's talk about this this is the vent Port of your water tank uh this will this allows your gray
42:18
tank to function properly if you're taking a shower all the water in the shower is going to it needs to displace
42:24
or it will displace the air in the tank and if the air in tank is sealed and there's nowhere for it to go your drain
42:31
will not drain quickly um and sometimes if it gets like a like a vacuum lock or
42:37
that type of phenomenon it's going to it might not drain at all it might like
42:43
like bubble up uh in your shower pan so having a vent like this lets that water
42:51
I mean let that air go in and out it lets it Go in when you drain it so it
42:57
drains quickly and then it lets it go out when you're filling it um and then also it allows you to not
43:05
get bugs into your tank and for this one we're just going
43:11
to wrap it twice because the taper on this one is
43:18
pretty good
43:36
um and really this actually also acts as an overflow Port so if you're taking a
43:41
shower you start hearing a drip outside your Tank's your Tank's
43:52
full okay so this one we just
43:58
hand
44:11
tightening then I'm just going to do just the slightest turns to kind of get
44:17
that valve even or vent even and so this tank is finished this
44:23
is a finished everything so when this goes underneath the
44:29
van the only thing we have to do is just connect that and bolt it in with our
44:34
three straps um we won't cover the riv nuts
44:39
but these you're going to you're going to take a 1732 bit you're going to drill holes
44:47
underneath your van you're going to take something called a Riv nut adapter tool that
44:53
compresses these Riv nuts and then this bag will you'll get this
44:59
bag of Hardware from Northwest conversions and this is going to allow you to put that Riv nut under your van
45:06
compress it and it gives you an additional place to bolt uh a hanger to
45:13
underneath your van um I saw in the PDFs and the photos on
45:19
their website that they're repurposing the uh fuel tank bolts um I I know how I
45:27
feel about that uh because what you get into is uh
45:34
I'm not saying I might not use one of them um but in this on this van
45:39
particular I've already pre-drilled them and I'm not using the fuel tank bolts the thing with the fuel tank bolts uh
45:46
using them is if you do need to get your fuel tank dropped at a four dealership now they're
45:52
actually starting to affect your your water tanks so that
45:58
that that's you're you're creating a uh potential for those two things to mix I
46:04
I don't think you should do that so make the hanger holes that you drill independent of already pre-existing
46:11
bolts on the transit um it may be convenient but again your F fuel pump
46:16
goes out you got to take it to a dealership they're also messing with your plumbing so I I don't
46:24
yeah not the best idea all right this one's done let's push this to the
46:30
side let's finish this up now obviously if I wasn't talking and
46:36
I was just knocking this out this would take I don't know maybe 10 minutes
46:42
but we're in learning mode right
46:48
now yeah so if you guys have any thoughts or opinions on this I'm happy
46:53
to uh hear your questions
47:02
now this is not only just for Ford Transit you know Sprinter has their own custom
47:08
tanks um so but the same the same process
47:17
applies or I would use the same process if I was doing a a a sprinter
47:23
um tank install
47:53
by the way this stuff it does kind of dry out um so if you go to the store and Lowe's
48:00
and you buy this and it seems a little dry it's not liquidy this a new one of
48:06
these is more liquid than dry so if yours is really
48:13
pasty um you may want to grab another one uh unfortunately
48:19
you're not going to find out until you get home because this this end if you open it up at the store it's it's a
48:24
sealed shut you have to cut it with a or pierce it with a pair of
48:34
scissors um we're going to get to the metal part in a second but a lot of people ask me you know what
48:41
do you think about Metal fittings in a plastic tank and my answer is you know just be careful um even be care like
48:48
what I'm doing right now it's possible that you can expand it enough to where you uh
48:56
slightly crack the plastic so just it's kind of like using your own judgment
49:02
just do it by hand and then maybe a quarter turn or a half a turn after that and then just just leave it um if it
49:09
does leak you know this is not it if this is not an expensive process to
49:15
just take off and do over again all right last piece and then
49:21
we're done so if you guys have any questions go ahead and ask them because we're going to be wrapping this up in a minute
49:28
so now we are putting on the this tape is getting a little wild
49:37
here so now we're putting on the brass of
49:46
valve now with the brass the reason you got to be careful is it's going to give you more leverage with this fitting and you're
49:54
going to be able to uh put this into the threads much easier so
50:02
it's you have the tendency to overtighten it not only that once I put this uh
50:09
sealant on here it's like a lubricant it actually makes it
50:14
um easier as well to turn
50:37
okay so I'll show you how much I put on here I probably put too much but I do
50:43
that and notice the whole goal is to not have
50:49
it we don't want it on the tip here where the metal is we want everything
50:56
back a thread and that's going to keep it from it's just good practice again
51:03
not critical for gray tanks but it's good practice for fresh water so this way you can kind
51:11
of use these uh got a little bit of plastic here I
51:18
can't get off yeah you just use these install
51:24
principles I guess I'll call them for both
51:31
things so see this one is just much easier to twist it in here because this is
51:39
uh not plastic so this one I turn it
51:44
until I kind of feel that uh you know maybe so maybe I'm going to get one more
51:50
turn and that's then I'm going to leave it
51:56
okay so that that's going to be my final turn and then with the soft set it will
52:02
set up over time so you're not going to have to worry about it
52:09
um moving on
52:16
you okay last piece is this
52:25
vent all right here here we go so my fellow neck beards any recommendation
52:31
for pro M proom Masters started my own uh van and looking into gray water
52:37
options and if I do a underneath tank should I have a inside gray tank
52:43
too uh that's a good question
52:48
so uh should you have an additional gray tank inside too let me ask answer that one first that's always good it's always
52:55
good to have a backup because say you want to start camping in the
53:01
winter um you don't want to deal with the tank freezing up on you uh or
53:07
winterizing it you just don't want to mess with that so you can have a gray tank under your van for summer and then
53:13
you could have a uh gray a smaller gray tank in your van for
53:20
winter um I'll be honest with you you the way that I travel
53:27
I I don't really use my gray tank too much um I've got a seven gallon Jerry
53:32
can that's plumbed into my uh like an Ikea sink that I have in the
53:38
van and the reason that I keep it at that is it's more I I just don't want to
53:45
deal with uh lifting up a heavy
53:50
tank um in and out of the van all the time so it's more just convenience
53:58
so that is the second part so the first part of your question Let's uh let's wrap this up and
54:04
let let me go check online to see what we got okay here are here is the
54:12
two setups for the tank and I'm going to
54:27
I need to take a little thumbnail photo for the YouTube Okay so this
54:35
one this one is going to go up here and so I need this one was the most important today in the shop because I've
54:43
already this one's when this one goes in in 5 seconds I've already planned where this goes it's already got the brackets
54:48
bolts everything this one stall in literally 15 seconds this one however uh this is the
54:57
critical because the center line right here is where I need to find jural up through the
55:03
floor um but yeah I'm going to make a little photo give me one second here
55:34
okay all right got that done now let's check out uh let's check
55:39
out some tanks for my fellow neck
55:51
beards that's the username if you're wondering for somebody that's asking
55:56
question pull this back up there we go okay let's hop
56:02
on I don't think I want I see if Northwest conversion has
56:17
that okay exterior water tanks again this is not a sponsored
56:23
video for Northwest conversions uh they just been very easy to work with
56:28
and they have tanks in stock and that's pretty much my two things that I that's
56:36
important can I actually buy it from you can I call you on the phone and talk to a human all right so these are
56:45
Sprinter Transit so I don't see one for a
56:52
ProMaster um let me let me pop out here and check
56:57
this
57:06
out all right so we've got Pro
57:19
Master yeah I'll see what's on here really quick um
57:30
okay I'm going into Uncharted Territory right now so if I click on something that's wild
57:38
um I haven't told you that I'm recommending it yet I'm just I'm searching just like you would but I'm giving my two cents opinion
57:46
on here we go so this was a random click ProMaster graywater tank
57:57
um on this website oal campers uh it is this in America yeah no
58:06
Canada okay so this is from Canada and this is a custom fit this
58:13
prices so these prices are good these tanks should be around you know
58:20
299 350 to 400 those are decent prices for these type of Tanks
58:29
um a white tank versus a blast black tank as far as the plastic or whatever goes uh to me the black thats more like
58:36
a traditional RV material that they use but I don't see any issue with it um so
58:43
this is for a promas and looks it don't look bad uh again I've never used this
58:50
um 66 lit capacity I'm guessing that's like uh
58:58
let's see
59:06
here yeah so 66 lers is 17.4
59:15
gallons okay there's one option um there's a bunch of inside
59:22
tanks
59:33
uh Gusto Vans I've never heard of them but apparently they have a 15-gallon
59:39
undermount tank and they've got some dimensions on
59:45
here and this is for 159 only for 159 and 159 extended
59:52
wheelbases so sometimes that's important to uh
59:57
to do or to to know okay there's two
1:00:05
options they got some uh Plumbing add-ons that's kind of
1:00:10
nice and if I'm if I were you uh this kind of shopping section of uh Google
1:00:18
tends to be this right here these like sponsored ones or these down here um
1:00:27
like this that typically means it's something that you can actually see if it's like in stock or not
1:00:35
uh if that makes sense all right that is uh there you go you got two options for
1:00:42
Pras tanks all right let's see what else
1:00:51
here all right guys I wanted to uh tell you about the DIY V build cheat sheet um
1:00:57
this is in Link in the description below but if you don't know what the DIY van build cheat sheet is or you haven't heard me talk about it this is a Excel
1:01:04
sheet that I put together and organized um to help you with your van build it's the last three years of all of my Amazon
1:01:11
purchases that have come to the shop uh it's organized from Plumbing electrical fuses fittings water pumps uh solar
1:01:20
panels um some of the reny components I used uh back in the day are on there
1:01:26
um and it's always going to be upgraded so it's got 250 items on it right now
1:01:32
and I probably have another 150 that need to be put on there that I just haven't got on the list but once you uh
1:01:40
put your name and email address click download now it'll be sent right to your inbox it's completely free it's there to
1:01:45
help you out with your DIY van build and um yeah I think it'll really help you
1:01:52
guys out and we'll be updating that soon to a 2.0 version and you'll if you sign
1:02:00
up for it you'll get that update as well all right let's uh we got another so
1:02:06
Cathy's got a question did you put any thing over the metal ribs before you put
1:02:12
uh the quarter inch Pion the metal ribs um soor you talking
1:02:18
about the metal ribs of the roof of the van are you talking on the uh the ribs
1:02:24
on the top roof of the van
1:02:31
um yeah so let me know if you're talking about the inside of the van or if you're talking about when I mount the water
1:02:37
tanks under the van yeah let me know what what you mean by uh over the metal
1:02:44
ribs I'm assuming you're talking about the roof of the van so if you're talking about
1:02:50
the roof of the van uh I don't put anything over the metal I just take the
1:02:55
wood and I bolt it up there now I will paint the back of the wood with a some
1:03:03
type of like exterior paint just like a cheap exterior paint so if you look at all my past videos there's like a green
1:03:11
paint that I have or like a blue or something like that um and the exterior
1:03:17
paint typically has a mold inhibitor that is mixed into the paint so when you
1:03:23
paint it if you keep your van well ventilated there are hundreds or thousands of Vans
1:03:29
out there that uh DIY that built them they just took wood and sheet metal
1:03:34
screws and put the whole van together and some of them have no mold it's fine
1:03:41
it's really about adequate ventilation when you're in a van so the van's pretty much fine on its own if it's ventilated
1:03:48
but when when a human comes in and starts breathing that is what is affecting the
1:03:54
van on the inside so the amount of time that you're spending in the van um you
1:03:59
know inhaling exhaling sleeping in the van that is uh that's what's bringing
1:04:04
that condensation into the van um I mean weather has a little bit to do with it but really you know you are kind of the
1:04:11
main factor in the van so the peace of mind that using exterior paint on the
1:04:17
back of the panels or uh and again if you look at my other videos there's
1:04:22
portions of this van where I use that exterior your paint on things closer to
1:04:28
the back of the van cuz I'm typically assuming that uh my customers are going to have the doors open on a like a rainy
1:04:34
day and they're going to try to close them but they won't get there in time the door will get a little wet and it's
1:04:40
just it's just something to give peace of mind so that you know you have a Fighting Chance at H not having mold
1:04:47
grow but to be honest um if you uh if you can just paint maybe
1:04:54
like the back surface um and then put it up cuz the metal is what's going to
1:05:00
condense uh condensate the uh the wood surface is not really going to do that
1:05:06
typically so the metal to the wood that is where you would um if you did had
1:05:13
some type of roof leak or something like that that's where that would happen so just Peace of Mind I'd go ahead and get
1:05:20
some just cheap exterior paint just paint it um and uh another Pro tip I would have
1:05:27
is maybe put a little bit of uh Marine adhesive like maybe two or three dollops
1:05:33
of some Marine adhesive before you put that wood up there um that's just going to help secure it more um because it is
1:05:42
possible for screws and your ceiling to get loose over time and vibrate and so that Marine adhesive is just going to uh
1:05:50
help you out I'm going to go over here and grab a tube so you can see what I use and I use
1:05:56
this on everything I use it for all my roof structure and adhesive I use it for
1:06:02
um to install the flooring and the ribs and everything uh Marine adhesive is
1:06:07
great because it works on a variety of surfaces so uh it works with wood
1:06:13
fiberglass vinyl glass uh fiber reinforced plastic F FRP metal gel coat
1:06:20
polycarbonate and most Plastics so it's a very nice Universal um and when it
1:06:26
dries it dries like a hard rubber so it's not a rigid connection uh what I
1:06:32
would not use in a van is a construction adhesive that tends to be brittle um and
1:06:38
fracture and crack over time um so I would I pretty if you're going to use an
1:06:44
adhesive this is expensive but this is what I would recommend using for doing
1:06:51
stuff in your van um
1:06:57
so next question on the topic of air what do you think of some sort of vent holes on the side of the van rather than
1:07:03
a fan on the top um my honest opinion is if you can do a van on the top of your van a I mean
1:07:10
a vent fan on the top of your van uh like a Max vanan it doesn't have to be Max vanan it could be the cheap Max
1:07:17
vanan that just has one speed or it can be a fantastic fan
1:07:22
um that's just going to get you the best circulation in the van not only that is
1:07:30
uh you know you can open up and crack it and which what I what you got to think about is the surface area so that 14x14
1:07:38
hole can move a lot of moisture out of the van and really ventilate it
1:07:46
but uh the Louver vents on the side of your van I've seen people do that um
1:07:51
there's a couple uh YouTube videos where they have like these louvers they're kind of like uh the vents from boats
1:07:57
like Marine like they're like little paddle things and one has them at the
1:08:03
back right of the van and then the another one will go to the front left and you can kind of have some like
1:08:08
passive Circ circulation so you could do that and then if you find that that's not venting the van enough then you
1:08:15
could actually go for committing to actually cutting a hole in the top of your van um but yeah I know cutting a
1:08:23
hole in the top of your van for vent is hard but I've got a great video on that on the channel so uh definitely check
1:08:31
that out um let's see so Pat says uh let's see
1:08:44
here oh yeah we're going off topic it's okay it's completely fine if you guys are here ask questions that's that's
1:08:50
what I'm here for so if you want to ask questions that are non water tank related that's fine we we've already
1:08:57
covered what we need to for the title of the video um you said uh soat says so many
1:09:04
people frame out the inside of the van walls and ceiling then plywood or t a
1:09:10
Groove why not plywood straight to the metal ribs
1:09:15
um yeah so just like uh Kathy's question you you can plywood straight to the
1:09:20
metal ribs uh you just uh
1:09:28
you just kind of like got to treat it like a house you got you got to make sure there's some type of air movement
1:09:34
ventilation you know um yeah just just think of it like a
1:09:40
house you're you're bringing wood inside of a place and there's elements outside
1:09:47
the van so you want to keep them out but then you also have the moisture and everything inside the van and it's just
1:09:55
a living space the van is just a mobile living space so like all kind of principles apply so if
1:10:02
you're inside the van um you know you just got to it's
1:10:07
just about circulation keeping that uh air out but as far as construction
1:10:12
goes hundreds thousands of vans that uh including my personal one when I did
1:10:18
this you know three or four years ago um it's fine and it's just it's raw wood
1:10:25
wood sheet metal screwed into metal the ribs of the ceiling um in my personal
1:10:30
van the whole entire ceiling is just Cedar strips sheet metal screwed to the
1:10:36
ribs of the van uh the whole bed system is just made out of 2x4s
1:10:42
um and you know zero mold um I actually
1:10:48
don't use the vent van that much um but I am using my van so I have the air conditioning on a lot like when I'm
1:10:54
driving obviously but um yeah uh yeah just kind of think
1:11:02
sensible you know if you had a space that you wanted to keep comfortable what would you do you
1:11:07
would air condition it you would heat it and then if it got you know muggy inside
1:11:15
uh you'd want to air it out so just think of a van as this the same exact
1:11:21
thing um great question Guys these are great questions by the way these questions are
1:11:30
going to be part of the new camp DIY camper van
1:11:36
conversion course that I'm putting together call it the camper van conversion blueprint it comes out
1:11:42
October 1st and if you guys uh pre-order you're going to get a nice discount
1:11:47
before it launches October 1 and let's go over a couple of things that are in
1:11:53
this course so down here um it's got a couple little boxes
1:11:59
uh we're going to talk about getting started in your van so going over planning budgeting uh you know Finding
1:12:08
uh you know what you want to do on your adventure we'll go into covering
1:12:14
choosing your van there's all kinds of makes and models there's you know we'll compare two whe drive to O drive you
1:12:20
know what is the best decision for you to make before you purchase it and then also Al evaluate what are you putting in
1:12:27
the van how heavy of a van heavy duty van do you need you need something that has a lot of capacity like an
1:12:34
extended uh transit or Sprinter and engine size if you're going
1:12:39
to go and uh take some long trips even do Towing um the course is also going to include design and layout so a couple
1:12:47
tips and tricks that I use when I am talking to a customer and designing the layout a little bit of behind the scenes
1:12:52
of how uh I put something together and then help them come to a decision on
1:12:57
what would be the best way to go with their build we'll talk about offgrid Power Systems um and actually show you the
1:13:04
process of Designing one estimating the power needs for your van um and you know
1:13:11
are you driving your van to charge it is it going to be parked plugged in or is
1:13:16
it going to be a combination of all of that with some solar um we'll go through
1:13:22
that whole entire thing again fresh and gry water storage so just kind of like what I did today um
1:13:29
we'll have a deep dive on some more uh methods and stuff like that for the van
1:13:36
we'll talk about insulation and sound dampening making the van nice and comfortable when you're driving it on the road as well as believe it or not
1:13:43
the insulation sound dampening helps a big it makes a big difference at a campground for keeping the outside
1:13:50
noise uh outside and not so you can have a nice uh nice sleep um we'll talk about
1:13:57
exterior upgrades mainly talking about the roof roof layout solar air
1:14:03
conditioning ventilation um awnings and storage if you want to go there and uh you know
1:14:11
also talk about keeping the the van safe we'll uh finalize with some uh you know
1:14:17
safety items like I just said the legal requirements Insurance financing um all
1:14:23
the stuff that I've kind of helped my customers with when they were either saving for their van budgeting going
1:14:30
down the road and trying to make sure that they have the right insurance or even getting the money to get financed
1:14:36
for the buildout itself so that will be in there and then to wrap it up you'll
1:14:41
have online access to a private community and that's going to be a forum that we put together and then these
1:14:48
questions just like we're talking about on um the stuff that we talked about with
1:14:55
with uh the questions here so the questions that Kathy asked Pat asked today you
1:15:01
know we're going to grab all that stuff together and um put those as topics in
1:15:07
the online community itself and um yeah and just to thank you
1:15:13
for pre-ordering the course before it launches you're going to get that discount and all you have to do is click
1:15:19
on this link right here on the screen there's also going to be a link in the description below if you want to pre-order that and uh go ahead and get
1:15:26
your spot in line for when it launches on October 1st and uh yeah I'm really
1:15:31
excited about it um you guys have definitely helped out with uh all the great questions over the last uh year or
1:15:39
so that we've been doing the live stream and so it's definitely time for this to come out and uh just be another tool to
1:15:46
help you with your DIY van build um yeah so if there's no more questions today
1:15:52
we're that's going to do it for the live stream thank you you guys so much for watching don't forget to subscribe to
1:15:57
the channel like the video um share this to anybody that needs some help with uh
1:16:03
these tanks and uh I'm going to get this question really quick in a second um but
1:16:08
also click that notification Bell I go live random throughout the week and uh
1:16:13
want to make sure you guys don't miss an episode all right one more question here um says uh one thing I'm very curious
1:16:21
about in some sort uh is some sort of tilting your panel panels when not moving to catch more sunlight um yeah so
1:16:30
the tilting of the solar panels if you can arrange that on your roof with just some simple hinges and maybe like a a
1:16:36
latch system um you're really going to maximize the amount of solar that you
1:16:42
can take in because there's only about 5 hours a day
1:16:48
where the sun is at the optimal range for the solar panel on a flat surface to
1:16:54
actually take in the angle the Sun so if you can tilt it and then position your van you get that many more hours
1:17:02
of uh intake um so even if the sun's out the
1:17:07
this is a great question because even though the sun's out uh the angle and Direction makes a
1:17:14
huge difference and you'll see it in the numbers in your van if you've ever been in a shady spot
1:17:20
um and I don't mean dangerous I mean like a tree limb shading your solar
1:17:25
panel uh that is going to you know might turn your panel 50%
1:17:32
efficient because it's just uh even though it's bright as heck outside it's just it's not going to work so that's a
1:17:38
great question if you can tilt your panels um that's why a lot of people like to do a fixed panel on the roof and
1:17:44
then have a foldable panel that can plug into the side of their van because they can uh put that somewhere where they're
1:17:53
able to um you know catch that extra angle then also just have extra extra
1:18:00
solar so great question um yeah all right guys I'm
1:18:07
going to go end the stream I'm grab some lunch and um if I get to some point
1:18:12
later today that's something on important in the van we'll do another live stream and uh we'll answer some
1:18:19
more questions but once again thank you guys so much for watching make sure you guys subscribe like like hit that
1:18:25
notification Bell so you don't miss when I go live um because it is random I
1:18:30
don't really have a schedule it's really when I'm just working on something getting ready to put it in I'm going to
1:18:36
talk about it um yeah so get those qu questions ready for the next live stream don't forget to uh check out the DIY
1:18:43
camper van conversion course um again the pre-order discount is this link
1:18:48
right here so click on that you can pre-order it right now link is in
1:18:54
descript deson below uh if you don't go to this page you'll go to the link and
1:19:00
yeah look forward to uh finishing this up and putting it together for you um as
1:19:06
always after the live stream's over feel free to add some comments or questions to the video and uh yeah that's going to
1:19:13
do it for this live stream we'll see you guys on the next one [Music]