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Dome light modification for step light VBHQ Live!
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May 3, 2025
Dome light modification for step light VBHQ Live!
View Video Transcript
0:00
hey guys welcome to the live stream we
0:01
are working on John and Susan's van and
0:03
we're there in the last couple days of
0:05
this van build so I'm going to do some
0:07
small live streams on the phone uh but
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the other time is going to be spent
0:10
knocking out this van uh before I cover
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this up so you guys don't see the behind
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the scenes part um I wanted to show you
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this modification on the van that I'm
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doing it's very simple but it's I think
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very powerful if you want to have some
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sort of Step light on the cargo door
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when you come walk into your
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van so over here on the right hand
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side we have uh this piece of plastic so
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I'm actually going to walk onto the
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other side of the van so you can
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see uh what it looks like when it's put
0:47
into
0:48
place um so essentially what we're doing
0:51
is we are putting back in the interior
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Plastics on the
0:55
front and just wrapping that off so we
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can continue progress on the van
1:01
so when you open your door your
1:03
van you have this light right here so
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this light lights up your step so that
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when you get into the van you can you
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know see how you're getting into the
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van now what I wanted to do is I wanted
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to Branch off of this circuit and create
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a uh step light off of that
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circuit um the challenges with this
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circuit is it's pretty
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finicky in that uh if you blow blow the
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fuse on this circuit it's it's pretty
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hard to go into the dash and find the
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fuse to actually replace to repair it so
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a couple things that I do um when I'm
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working in the van is one let's just
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look up here in the ceiling really quick
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so in the ceiling of a Ford Transit
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you've got a power cable that runs the
2:00
length of the van supplies power to the
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rear tail lights and all that stuff well
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that power
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wire also controls all your dome lights
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on top of the van now you need to
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disconnect that wire up top and you need
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to safely move it away of any screws or
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anything in the ceiling because what
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you're going to do is you're going to
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short it out and not only is it going to
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short the cargo lights in the top but
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back here in the back
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we have our um ignore this this is my
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little testing battery for their
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circuitry but right here this is the
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grounding
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wire
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for uh all of the rear cargo lights so
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the ceiling lights the rear cargo lights
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the tail lights the backup lights all
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that good stuff so this thing right here
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it's actually three wires
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and they're individually drilled into
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the van so if I came over here this is
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an easier way to explain it right
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underneath this piece of metal there are
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three holes and they are the three
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grounding
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straps hey thanks so much for uh
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stopping by on the live stream um so
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these three
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holes uh are the grounding holes and you
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got to bolt to them so once you bolt to
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them the whole circuit comes alive but
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if you disconnect this
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one without grounding it
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um the cargo lights won't work so you
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just got to make sure you do
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that um so this needs to be your only
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ground in the rear of the van and then
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anything that you've done in the ceiling
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I would suggest terminating in the
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ceiling so that you
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don't have loose ends essentially so
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that brings us to the last three pieces
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which are these two dome lights
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here and then our door light and
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then this door light um so actually
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think I ran out of time I'm try to see
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if I can turn this back on really
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quick all right so I'm going to have to
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open some more
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doors so let's talk while we are closing
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some doors
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here take all this stuff apart you guys
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can check out the van while I'm doing
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this okay let's see
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here got that one
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shut all right let's see if I can get
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these lights turned back
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on
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there we go okay so here we go we've got
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all those wires in the cly terminated
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and now we get to the whole point of
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this video so this is the step light for
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this part of the floor and what we're
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going to do is we're going to tap into
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this little circuit board right
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here and so this circuit board um hello
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how are you
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doing uh this circuit board right here
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is got the positive and the ground
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labeled on the circuit board and that's
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important because this is a pain in the
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butt to find the fuse if you do blow
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this it's up underneath the dash
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extremely difficult to to get to so what
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we want to do here is we take this
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circuit board and we've got the ground I
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know that's hard to focus on just trust
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me this bottom one is the positive so it
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says
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B+ this top one is the ground so the
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ground is a black wire the positive is
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this blue
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wire with this little uh this white wire
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with this blue line and so what we're
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doing is we're taking that uh the power
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supply wire with the blue wire white
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line and then we're taking a red wire
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and we're jumping off of that um the
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Third position is just continuing that
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circuit that we cut into so we're taking
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the positive and then over here we're
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taking the ground and this is the cool
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part so check this out so this connects
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to this aluminum housing LED it's this
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thing is so awesome so not only is it
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fully metal but what this will do is you
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can see how it's providing light but it
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won't shine in your
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face so this little cargo light I'm
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using this and all kinds of parts in the
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vans that I build but this is actually
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going to come over
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here and it is going
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to we have our uh ABC rig floor
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trim and what we're going to do with
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that floor trim is we're going to uh
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drill a hole and mount this light into
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that floor
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trim so that when we actually
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uh if I get this to sit
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here so when we come into the van this
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foot well will be lit up uh cuz some
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other vans that I built there's no light
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here because you've taken out the cardio
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lights so even though you have a switch
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to turn your ceiling lights on to get in
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the van you usually have to step into
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the van to make that happen whereas if
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you just open the door this light will
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come on and um yeah it'll be a nice
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little feature to your
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van
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um since everybody's watching really
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quick what I'm going to do is I'm going
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to do a like a 60-second walk through of
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where we're at so far with with the
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build so as you guys can see here we
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have uh our wall panels are
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in the left and the right hand
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side we've got the window pills all
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upholstered and trimmed out we've got
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our bolts here for our Shelf that we're
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going to bolt
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in we've got our reading lights right
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there and then I still have to bolt that
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in but I need that special drill bit
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um to uh drill the bottom
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holes next we have the really cool part
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of the van which is this
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uh this IKEA bed rail system that I
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devised into the
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van and there's a lot of stuff happening
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behind the scenes so basically what we
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have is there's a/2 in piece of Baltic
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Birch ply that is Riv nutted and bolted
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into the structure of the van two places
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there two places there and then behind
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this panel you have a quar inch piece of
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plywood and that is what these top bolts
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are tagging
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into um so once those are bolted into
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this structure is extremely strong
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so one of these rails can actually hold
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two people but we did five the fifth
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one's not in yet and we did that so that
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we could
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um actually you know span across the van
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and then give us a nice a lot of room
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underneath the van for uh the bikes that
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they would like to haul in this
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van so the Baltic Birch panels are
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extremely strong now coming over here to
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the Eco flow
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we've got a bolt going into the
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structure of the van there and then we
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got a bolt going into the structure van
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up over here so you see these two
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provide a really good foundation for
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keeping this nice and strong for the uh
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the power hub
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itself then we got our ecoflow battery
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over there and uh the good news is all
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the wires are run they're all labeled
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that's finished so all we have to do is
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strip them put them into the
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connectors Strip This connect it into
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this box and then we pop it into a box
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we're building this
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week um so that's pretty much it is as
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it is for the
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interior uh this is the
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trolino uh medium or M toilet I think
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this is the size of it so this is what
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they're going to be using uh I think
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it's
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excellent it even has a uh soft closed
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lid
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which is pretty
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fancy and it's very lightweight so we'll
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talk about more of that later we did
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finish the floor so we put in uh the
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lawn
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seal uh black lava I think is
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the is what we have for it it looks
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fantastic and then we are finishing it
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off with the um
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ABC rig trim
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pieces uh so this is finished the last
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thing we need to do here is we're going
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to do Marine adhesive on these little
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corrugations and then we're just going
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to push straight down the floor
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step um so here is the step
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itself and what's really nice about this
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is I was standing at event it was
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pouring down rain at the door open open
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showing off my other van outside and
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this had about a/ inch of water in it
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and that's just a good piece of mind
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because this can hold water it can drain
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out here um as long as the water is not
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getting Above This section
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which you would be pretty much flooded
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at that point um it just make sure that
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your van doesn't get all messed up
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inside but back to the Marine adhesive
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we use that to put the step in because
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it's slightly flexible and so that way
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it doesn't crack if you used a
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construction adhesive for
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example uh it would crack over time
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because the van actually does flex when
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it drives so again that's something to
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think about your
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floor using something like that Marine
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adhesive is going to help the van be a
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van because this is a a vehicle so
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believe it or not you are going to have
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some torsion and flex in the floor as
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you're riding and all that
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needs to be taken in
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consideration
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but um let's see what else we've got
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some LTR over here that we're going to
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be putting by the jump seat this is our
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microwave fridge stack
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area and then we will also be cutting
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out our templates for the kitchen
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galy and uh yeah I think that's pretty
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much an update but I just wanted to show
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you this really cool Cold Light and how
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that gets into the
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uh makes it way into the van van step so
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that light will actually be drilled
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into this area right here and bolted
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straight in so I think it's going to be
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really
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cool all right guys that's going to do
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it for our live stream thank you so much
13:53
for watching this quick one we'll have
13:55
some more coming through uh throughout
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the week as we get this build knocked
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out and uh make sure you guys are
14:01
subscribed hit that notification Bell so
14:03
you don't miss when I'm going live in
14:05
the shop as we work on this van um also
14:08
comments are always welcome if you guys
14:10
have any questions on Van builds or DIY
14:13
uh topics um if you want to there is a
14:16
DIY van build cheat sheet that I have
14:19
designed it is completely free it is the
14:22
last three years of all of my Amazon
14:23
purchases basically put into an Excel
14:25
sheet that is easy to download
14:28
completely free and it might help you
14:29
get a jump start on your van conversion
14:31
by looking at some products that you uh
14:34
need to look at so like solar panels
14:36
fuses wires uh water pumps batteries
14:40
stuff like that so check it out it's on
14:42
Van Builder hq.com there's a link to the
14:45
DIY van build cheat sheet just click on
14:47
it put your name and email address it'll
14:49
come straight to your inbox and I really
14:51
think it'll help you out on your custom
14:53
van build all right guys that is going
14:54
to do it for the shop today um I might
14:58
do another one later this afternoon so
15:00
stay tuned thank you guys so much for
15:02
watching and we'll see you in the next
15:04
one
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