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Van Builder HQ is live! Ford E-150 Conversion Van
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May 3, 2025
Van Builder HQ is live! Ford E-150 Conversion Van
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0:00
got a 2000 E150 van in here and uh yeah
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little conversion van um it was made by
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a company called Custom
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Creations
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s what do you think
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Nova you like it anyway what we're doing
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today is we are fixing the door latch
0:24
which we've already done I'm just going
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to I'm kind of just doing a recap of
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this van I thought it would be a cool
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thing to show you guys just an you know
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an odd thing in the shop that is uh
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getting worked
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on doesn't always have to be Adventure
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Vans but this one has a rooftop
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AC and it has a uh a DIY bed system
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that's installed so the current owner
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didn't do this um when they bought it
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they just wanted to uh get some things
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fixed
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um this is uh an older van owner so the
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shocks are these struts here these gas
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struts that lift the bed up um the ones
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prior did not hold the bed up so you can
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see here I took off the little kickstand
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that they've been
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using
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um and what we have here is now the
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these uh shocks or struts um airs
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Springs I guess you would call it they
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can now make sure that the bed doesn't
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fall down
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when she is going in and out of the van
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to get items so for example there's a a
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chair
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table plug stuff like that and um yeah
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so all that goes under here so I just
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wanted to make it to
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where she could come in here and get to
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it without having this whole entire bed
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fall down um so all we did is went on
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Amazon I just copied the part number and
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I just got a replacement spring
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so when you let go it sits about right
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here this mattress is pretty heavy so
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they're two 40
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lb
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um Springs and uh yeah about 80 lbs of
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force holding that up what's nice is see
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you can
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actually just intermittently push this
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down um and what I wanted to happen was
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when you push it down I did want it to
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kind of come up a little
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bit cuz there is going to be some
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mattresses I mean a a bed sheet pillows
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stuff like
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that so this pushes down and then
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there's just a simple
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latch and I didn't make this I'm just
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kind of uh getting this back up
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to spec for for her so she can go on her
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travels it's got a battery an inverter
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some fuses and that is just to make sure
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that the uh AC unit
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operates but yeah just a nice
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simple little DIY build that somebody
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did now Custom Creations that's the
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conversion conversion part of the van so
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that is going to be uh for example
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that's going to be this the the
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headliner these storage shelves so not
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this not the
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bed um these kind of plush
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sheets
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so uh I know you guys watch a lot of
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Adventure van conversions from my
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channel
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but um you know a lot of Vans like this
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are doing the van life but conversion
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van just has these kind of upgrades for
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you know traveling long road trips
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family stuff like that there's typically
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in these Vans they'll have uh two
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Captain chairs here and then a bench
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seat in the back that actually folds
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down flat um this was added later so
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this wouldn't been a part of the
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original conversion
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van um typically but
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yeah um so someone built this uh little
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kitchen Galley here it's got a
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refrigerator
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shelves um there is electrical outlets
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uh kind of hidden there's one right
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there for the
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fridge there's one back there in the
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back of the
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van um and and over here there
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is nothing
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okay so yeah just a good
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old simple conversion van so what we've
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done besides the bed
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is this
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panel imagine that there's one over here
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so this was the Big
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Fix uh so what happened was this handle
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on the outside
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uh broke so the the outside handle
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didn't break so this is the
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handle um the factory one so what
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happened is there's a bunch there's
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a there's a post right
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here and this post uh holds a bunch of
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stuff so it's
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got um something like that the spring
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so you can imagine all these guts just
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kind of just blew apart they just broke
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so I originally thought that this was
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fine because this mechanism is here um I
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haven't replaced one of these before so
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I didn't I didn't know anything was
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actually missing until I found this in
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the bottom of the
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door so luckily um so I bought this this
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is the
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assembly that you can buy off of Amazon
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it's super cheap I think it's like $25
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or something like that for an
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aftermarket part now that is going to
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replace this this and all the other
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mechanisms but they're they're separate
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so this is completely separate so what I
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did is I went to Ford and I
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got the part so if you guys are
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wondering this is the part
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number for that door handle
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and these were some additional struts if
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I needed them to help the bed open up
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more
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um yeah gas strut I don't know why I'm
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calling it shock Gast
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strut anyway long story short this is
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the new Ford part um they do want you to
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rivet this into place um I would isn't
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going to do that cuz you know riveting
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is one I don't have these chunky rivets
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two the stainless steel Hardware that I
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have that I use for roof racks and stuff
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fit perfectly as you can
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see so I got that installed and
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then so I'm working my way over
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here got some
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light so if we look inside here we've
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got uh a couple different mechan
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mechanisms U we've got the lock down
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here so that was fine this is an
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electronic door locking mechanism so
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um that was in the way thankfully I was
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able to kind of sneak behind there so I
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don't know if you can see those two
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threaded
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uh Mo this out of the
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way so we've got there you go we've got
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that threaded bolt at the bottom and the
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threaded one at the top those are the
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two stainless steel bolts that I
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added and then this mechanism right here
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that is what pretty much exploded so
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this this right here that plastic
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thing um yeah it just blew up
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completely um but the what's interesting
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is this one from Ford has been
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redesigned I'm assuming maybe to fix
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that issue
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um the only thing I'm concerned with is
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this top plastic piece there's no
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retaining clip or anything like that
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it's not designed with retaining clip um
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so it's possible that could pop out in
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the future it snapped in really
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positively so I think it'll be okay but
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that is uh the part that was messed
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up this part works and
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then that part works
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so yeah it's kind of a wild assembly
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because
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um well that's what it looks
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like uh Pro
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tip they make this this is the part that
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actually goes to the handle and it's
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very long and I was wondering why it was
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so long it's so that you can pull it
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through the door snap it
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onto the door handle itself and then
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feed it back through um I did it the
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hard way and snapped it in on the inside
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so so I don't recommend doing that if
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you redo
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it uh let's see here um it was kind of
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funny somebody put that insulation in
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the
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door so
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uh probably stuff a little bit of the
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hav lock back in there um and
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then this part right here is pretty
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fragile so I'm going to uh
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just be very careful putting it back in
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it's very
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delicate um I think I actually may spray
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a little bit of adhesive on there just
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to help it out a little bit and uh so
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that goes on
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first and then we have this bottom panel
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here and that goes on second but yeah
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you can kind of see how this stuff was
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done I want to say back in the day I
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mean this is like 24 years ago
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but um yeah just upholstery just very
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basic for these little custom vans
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so pretty interesting to see that behind
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the
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scenes um I'm going to box this part up
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and just give that tour just in case in
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the future something messes up uh these
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parts for these Vans are incredibly
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cheap now I say cheap I had to go to
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Ford to buy this online this is about 14
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bucks $19 at Ford it was
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$54 um without tax so uh but they had it
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today which is really cool so but the
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handle and um so I pretty much for a job
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like
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this uh I actually dropped my van off at
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her house and I took the van and drove
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it to my shop cuz she only lives 20
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minutes away so it was very
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convenient um since this is one of their
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vehicles it was just easier to pick them
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up and I mean uh pick the van up and
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then I'm just going to bring it back
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today so uh yeah between the door
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getting the parts uh replacing the rear
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springs and stuff like that in the back
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uh it was about 3 hours that this van
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has been in the shop and um yeah just
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doing a little wrapup
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video they
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do plan on wanting to do some other
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additional storage um I don't have have
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time at the moment to do that I'm just
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kind of knocking this out
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today so I can get back to
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a quote that I'm working on for a
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customer
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but hey guys a 2000 Custom Creations
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s conversion
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van getting some TLC in the
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shop all right guys I hope that was a
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fun video uh don't forget to subscribe
12:33
like on the channel share this video um
12:36
in the comments let me know if you guys
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are interested in more stuff like this I
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don't have this stuff coming in the shop
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often but you know if you guys have a
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question on Parts how to find parts I'd
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be happy to answer that um also the DIY
12:50
van conversion course is available at
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vanb Builder hq.com if you guys want to
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have a DIY van course that I've created
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uh as well as a free DIY van build cheat
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sheet so uh the van build cheat sheet is
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uh an Excel sheet it's got over 250
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items on it um it's free if you guys
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want to look into diving into uh van
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parts so check that out that's on the
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website uh but yes the van build
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conversion blueprint the DIY Vu course
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is now available at V Builder hq.com so
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go ahead and check that out um that's it
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I'm going to wrap this van up and uh
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call it a day here in the shop and uh
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I'll see you guys on the next video
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