[Music]
he w
[Music]
all right hey guys welcome back to the live stream it's been a while since we did a video we are working on my
personal van and in a weird change of C circumstances uh I was driving on the
highway uh coming back from Raleigh and a deer ran out and just creamed the side
of my van rolled all the way down it and uh so now this van actually has to go
and get fixed however um something to consider is if
you do get into an accident or something like that on these Ford transits or Sprinter sometimes that involves two
things one it could be needing to remove the exterior panels uh
grinding the welds out taking the shell off putting a new one on that's typically how they're repaired um if you
can imagine if you're like a plumber or electrician or something like that your van is usually bare on the inside so
being able to access the inside of the van um is usually not that big of a deal
uh see make sure I'm in frame here let me back this up just a little
bit
but you have access to the inside of your van and um that makes it a lot
easier to work on for my van
um I already have a roof rack on top of the van so I don't want them to I don't want to have to remove the top of roof
rack uh go through the side of the van grind it down take the spot welds out
and just really get into the van uh the damage is only and I'll show you guys later when I move the camera but the
damage is only like on this section of the van so uh it's above where the panel
like is concave and it's just like a bunch of rolling dents
so the best way or the what I wanted the body shop to do was actually you know go
inside push the dents out and then just do exterior finish work and repaint it
so we don't have to take off all the weather ceiling on the top of the roof we don't have to undo the spot welds I
don't have to remove the roof rack that I just installed um I installed an ABC rig low roof
rack um anyway tonight's video is going
through and taking apart the interior of this van I've been planning to do this I
was going to do this uh in a couple months um I've got a new build that's in the shop so you guys will see that um in
in a week or so but during this time uh my scheduled for the body shop is uh Monday the 9th
so I've got now until then to get this left side out of the van so I'm going to
disassemble this and I'm recording it because I think it'd be cool to show you guys how I built this van U when I built
this van I didn't really do a step step by step uh of how I put this van
together um this is before I ever had Odyssey custom vans before they ever got started this is the van that kind of
started it all so nothing's really been touched since I started to build this
van I mean it's almost been four years but um luckily again that damages
from here to here so I'm going to take out this bed I'm going to take out the
interior but as I take it apart might stir your brain and get you some ideas
going on how I put this together if you want to do just a basic DIY build you
know if you don't have a garage um I built this van you know in the driveway I didn't have a shop or garage or
anything like that so um everything was small pieces that
could be taken apart you know worked inside uh everything was jigsawed uh I
didn't have a tracks saww or anything like that so again it just might be a cool reference to show you that um you
know this type of stuff is possible and um I also have the uh let
me get the chat going
here so I got the chat going if you guys want to ask any questions but pretty much this video tonight's just going to
be me going through the van and um
unbuilding the van and uh what's fun is since I didn't know what I was doing
when I built this uh you might wonder how this even how this layout came to be
so before um I started this van building business uh during
um the pandemic uh that time I was doing a handyman business and I needed to
store my tools for the business but at the same time I was um I had a wedding
company and I had a lot of audio equipment video equipment and so there was two things happening at the same
time uh the weddings were kind of going down and during the pandemic uh home
renovation and stuff like that everybody was home so they were doing a lot of home stuff so I took the opportunity to
end those events and then start this new business during that time and this van was the kind of transition between the
two so this was actually not created to be a bed platform it was created to
house audio equipment subwoofers and speakers down here in the bottom so that in the event of like an accident they
didn't come flying towards the front of the van the toolbox that you guys will see in the front if you've already
watched a video on this F that was to H house the tools pretty straightforward
the refrigerator was um this was in the middle of the summer when I did this so
I was trying to have some like cold drinks and stuff like that the sink was
uh to wash my hands because handyman jobs are kind of dirty kind of going
from job to job um so with all that said those things
actually kind of came together and that's why this van turned into an RV and that's how this whole thing got
going so it was all built out of necessity and then it just happened to be that this platform is exact size of a
full size uh mattress um so the bed worked out perfect uh the
countertop worked out really good laying the countertop uh it's a for mic countertop
so laying that on top of the uh tool chest we'll move the camera
here in just a second the tool chest and then over here on the left hand side I just have a kitchen cabinet uh from
Lowe's that I bought and I just chopped off the the bottom token kick and it fits perfect and then the top ceiling um
is/ qu in Cedar and there is uh I had a
little Sound Studio in my basement and I had um rock wool instulation for like
the sound ding uh material and so I repurposed that for all the insulation in this B van so you can use rock wool
um the Havelock wool is what I would recommend uh and if you have the budget
3M thelate is what I would recommend as kind of the top insulation um I didn't know about those
items uh so I used the rock wool for the ceiling which is still okay I use this
uh silver duck wrap for AC hbac ducks
and that's what I use for the sound Dam dampening and a little bit of insulation on the ceiling and then on the walls
here which I'm not going to remove but the walls are four-way stretch uh fabric
it's a charcoal color I got it off of Amazon and uh that's just spray adhesive
and just contoured on so yeah that's pretty much that
um again if you have any questions put those in the chat I know it's been a
minute since we've done a video but tonight is just going to be disassembling and hopefully I can
disassemble this uh pretty swiftly so um and this whole entire van is uh
was built out of 2x4s essentially where the bed platform is
uh maybe one by twos one by ones that sort of thing try to find
my drill
and I'd say 90% of the van was built from part from uh Lowe's and Home
Depot so all this uh carpeting is all from Lowe's it's just a
it's kind of the carpeting that they use on bass boats you might be familiar with it just like an outdoor carpet
essentially and then the goal when I get back to it is to uh just do a much
simpler uh reinstall of this V in uh so there's a so Rec pro has a flip
out it's a bench and bed system um very
basic uh very practical so we'll be do using
that uh then just doing like a normal floor
[Music]
yeah but I think if I just take the the bed out if I take the bed bed
countertop uh kitchen cabinet fridge and toolbox out the body shop
should be able to get to everything else
[Music] um and I guess technically if you pay
this play this video In Reverse you can see the van get built but yeah we're going to take all
that out um if you guys are just now joining us um this is my personal van
and I had a deer whacked me on the left side driver's side of the van and it
just put a crazy Dent all the way across from the driver's door all the way to
the back um of the van and that is getting repaired starting
Monday um but unfortunately I'm having to remove the
interior um and again like I said earlier I had planned to do that uh ear
earlier during this process um I I plan to
uh redo my Vans interior after this current customer that I have um
however the deer got me before I could get there so this is kind
of what we're doing right now um and also uh current customer that I
have they accidentally hit a uh or nicked a like a street sign and put like
a gash on their new van and uh it's just coincidence but I
took this to the body shop to get an estimate and they said hey you know we're going to have to get to the
interior van to actually get it fixed so I advised my current customer I said hey
before we start to put your interior in let's go ahead and get your van fixed
bodywise in case they have to take care of it that way you're not messing up your brand new van interior that way
when your van build's done you don't have to worry about anything you get a nice van it's ready to go you don't have
to after I build it take it to somewhere and get it fixed um you can just be
ready ready when we're done building it so that was the advice that I gave them
and so we're working on that so while we're working on that I'm going
to work on this um but like I said earlier this will give you guys an idea
of how I put this whole van together uh the chat's open if you guys
want to ask questions
now I'm ripping off this carpet because I have
screws that are under the carpet that are holding the this wood
down so I'll have to get access to them
and I didn't plan on taking this apart obviously
so I think I put like must have put a million different
uh St Staples in here so I may need to change up how I'm
dismantling this thing
[Music]
[Applause] [Music]
okay with those brackets taking off hopefully I can just rip this
2x4 thing off think that'd be
cool but it's possible that I I also drilled this into
place see we get the Crowbar out
yeah nothing in this van is going back the way is coming out
um okay so basically this was just a thing to hold in
uh equipment actually this was not actually meant for a bed I was saying earlier that this I used to carry
speakers subwoofers and stuff doing uh wedding
audio before I did the van business okay so that is this piece
we got a million Staples in
here okay so over here on the right we've got
a Amazon diesel heater um this is just the water tank I mean the diesel
tank and uh got this really nice custom cover but it looks like we're going to
have to take that out
[Music]
we might put it back in I just need to get this uh carpet off of here
yeah believe it or not this is just Staples just staple regular Staples
I can leverage this to pull that out
[Music]
so now we're getting to the floor pieces you actually start Expo
we'll start exposing the uh bed
platform and you could definitely do it this way if you wanted to uh build a bed platform it's been really
good question is if I did I okay did not I glue it good very good
[Applause]
this stuff is probably terrible to breathe just four years
of sand dirt all kinds of stuff okay one panel I'm very proud of is this one it
was the first contoured panel that I did and um as far as getting this piece
right here and what's nice is uh taught me how to do like a
styrofoam template it's like
uh and you know it's it was very satisfying because like if you do it
really neat you can see it's almost seamless um I made all these panels
removable so I could have access to all the wiring I had a lot of plans with this
layout um before this happened
so let's see what are we
snacking oh yeah okay so looks
like so obviously I don't do this on my customers vans so I can sleep at night
but on my personal van uh as you can see here I kind of cheated and I bolted this
afterthought shelf up here I bolted it to this removable board
so wouldn't suggest doing that um so let's go ahead and take this shelf
out
all right so this is pretty cool very minimal shelf slam latches we'll just take a
look at it really quick so we can also I can teach you
guys some stuff as I'm dismantling my van so right here this is
a super light uh shelf and I put paper towels
toilet paper stuff like that just light items in here and what I did is just a simple
frame it's uh we got these were future light holes that I obviously or didn't
finish um but we got some 90° brackets uh wooden frame here's that
foam uh duct insulation stuff that I
used and then up here in the front I upholstered uh a thing with some slam
latches and a big piano hinge so you got this big piano
hinge these slam latches and so this is the first time I ever did that
um what's weird about a low roof for Transit is there's this curve of the
ceiling that you have to match it kind of moves down and so you have
to make make uh use of that be aware of that that but yeah this is uh I mean
this is very light and this is like a little shelf that I use
so okay so as we move in now we can take off this
panel um yep I missed one screw
[Music] so now this panel just kind of is going to come
backwards and then lean out we do a little
talk we'll talk about this panel so this one again is that one that
was very proud of at this really nice perfectly contoured corner
fits up there nice and neat they don't make this anymore you can kind of find it but this is
a smoke alarm um that expired in
2019 well oh wait I guess 2019 is that must have been when I bought it yeah so 2019 is when I bought
that so this um I just liked it because it was nice nice and
minimal uh smoke alarm looks pretty
cool Nova hates all dogs hate the
beep so that panel was wrapped so now we're getting into more of the
uh let's move the camera in as we get in
closer uh the bed platform that's pretty self-explanatory but this will allow you guys to
see much more uh of the van give me a little bit of working
room so you can see we've got the uh kitchen Galler over
there reposition the camera a little bit yes so the kitchen Galley we got
that four-way stretch carpet that is um
glued to the side of the van uh but now as I hit that after I
just fixed
that that's still F that's okay all right so this um you hop in
here this is the countertop I didn't even have to cut it it's exactly six feet from the driver's side all the way
to here um something that's really cool as you can see from my faucet this is before I
was getting into installing water pumps or anything this
is a plastic uh diesel heater ad vent
adapter happens to fit perfectly on this uh water
jug like office water jug uh battery powered
pump they all you do you just have this uh line right here
and this goes into your water source then you've got a water
faucet that was really cool this is a simple I Ikea sink
um then we've got these uh soft clo hinges
here I hate to take all this because it took me forever
to get this thing dialed in but we are not using it anymore
so it's got to
go so my goal with this I mean what I was going to do here is there's a bunch of stickers and I was going to have all
my Electrical uh my heater switch my battery monitor fan speed control Inver
remote it's going to have a little panel here so when I opened this it was going to be all hidden I could use all my
controls and then I can close it so that was the idea behind
this I'm much more practical now I used to try to do a bunch of fancy things
um and now I'm more for reliability
practicality if you do want something custom done um this current van cust
customer we're doing uh some exterior cameras and some rooftop lighting and
stuff like that so not that we can't do it it's
uh we want the stuff that we want the power system work really reliably we
want you know solar all that stuff so all this fancy stuff you can do you can
do later fan speed controls
so I got to be careful I've got all these wirings um I'm going to reuse my diesel heater and all this other stuff
so I don't want to tear it up too much I've got a flip up
table so this flip up table has to come off um
um it's just a big big old puzzle it's got to
come CU this table is on this panel right here and this panel hides all the
uh electrical wire
runs this flip up table I'll show you
goar the shop is so dry this time of year my mouth is so
dry okay what I was trying to say is I'll show you this when I move the camera I show you the
interior all right so a little show and tell here here's that soft clothes it's got like a little
this is more for a towel hanging rack but I use it as a uh bar to open the door it matched the opening for the tool
boxes and then I just matched it here with this uh this panel so you can see this is just a spray
painted panel uh kinchin cabinet
panel yeah Rod the uh the external camera system it's just really basic um
my customer is actually already installed it temporarily we we it's
literally you know double-sided tape that thing we he just did that to get it tested out um it's just a very basic you
know Amazon video monitor with four cameras um but it's just used to be
safer when driving uh you know not not everybody needs to
be truck drivers when they get their van built
so uh you know it's hard to see around the
van and again it's not just hard to see but the Fan's different when you put a
lot of money into it so um so let me back the camera up so here
is is this is a Ikea cabinet door a stainless cabinet door with you see the
back this is uh I found this in the Ika discount area section and then I
repurposed it with these mounts to make it a table so that's pretty cool
all right so how can I get the
camera just trying to figure out how to actually tackle this whole thing let's push the camera in we'll
we'll stay up here let's get the fridge out
so the fridge same thing this is a removable panel
I know it's a no no but I used a I use drywall screws for this whole this whole
thing so this you can see again custom fitted custom fit
to come out got to figure out how did I take
this out so I need to be careful because I want
to repurpose the ceiling all right what am I let's see
what I'm doing here okay I
think this back panel has to come out next all right let's do that
all right I'm put you guys on hold just for one
second e
all right we're
back so I've got a USB outlet right here um um let me zoom in just a little
bit guys can see that hold
on this camera's gonna go crazy for a second there we
go so this is the only outlet that I had the only thing that I wanted to run up here was a espresso
machine so I had an outlet for that and then I had two USB
Outlets these two USB Outlets were not 12 I mean they are 12vt but to have them
run they had to be ran uh the inverter had to be on for that to to
happen which for safety even though my batter is
dead shut the power
off
okay and another no no is I used RX
so always use Marine uh wiring do not use Rox in a
van it's a big no no you guys don't know RX is the solid
copper wire that's used for houses I'm not saying it won't work it's
just not safe because technically the vibrations of the van and the road can weaken in the
copper and it can break and then you don't know where it breaks
at creats is short and bad things happen after that
so don't don't do that this whole panel I'm bolting
it directly to the factory Ford factory uh mounting points inside the
van so all four transits have these threaded uh pre-threaded
places in the van so you can repurpose
in okay so I did that see how else did I have this
uh let's pull this wire out that's the max
fan okay I
think this was just
literally sitting on that panel so
actually quite impressed looking back at how I do
this look at that so this is the
panel okay so I did hear this is a a
Ford this is a they call it a interior protection Panel
System um very floppy but plastic you can add stuff to it
um so that's how I did that um next we will now we can take
this off so you see I got clever and I put like a little bracket
foot here and that kept uh that panel that I just took off from you know falling all
the way off next what you'll see is I've
got the refrigerator which is bolted to this uh 2 by two
and literally just held on with two uh two screws
and then the back of it um it's just plugged in with an extension cord the
accentric or runs goes to the back of the inverter and so this one is hardwired
into the inverter this one is plugged into the inverter again very simple just super
basic uh got some sheet metal screws I not sheet metal these are
actually gutter screws screws so gutter screws are really nice because they're
very short and they won't poke through
uh this uh the fridge got to be very careful with these fridge nowadays
because the coils aren't on the back they integrate the coils on the sides of this so when you are screwing in
technically you can possibly Pierce uh the refrigerant lines which is
kind of dumb that what they way they design design that I don't know uh apparently it was more I don't
know if it was more efficient
um it just I don't know they uh that's what they
did just like a microwave or a fridge if you're trying to bolt it into a van just
be careful because it's not really meant to be pierced
um okay so that is this so now we can take this fridge out
this is Insignia fridge I bought it at Best Buy this is
$99 100 bucks I carpeted the front of
it that's where I and that's where I hold all my patches for all the events that I go to
so Rod yes I will replace the rch RX with marine grade wiring
I I do everything by the book now so anything you see in this
van uh I've never done with my customer vans so
okay all right so next let's see
here okay so you guys can
see well I'll probably have to take the countertop out to get that rest of the wire
out so let's continue I'm mounting the
so these are just L
brackets okay looks good now
just like a regular kitchen sink these are held in with
uh countertop little plastic four brackets
okay and then underneath the toolbox this is where
all right I think this is a good time to move the
camera see if I can get a no Nova you're fine you're
fine all right hold on let me redo this camera here
okay so this is just simple toolbox
and kitchen cabinet from Lowe's I mean couldn't get any simpler just super
simple so now what we got to do is lay down here
and I bolted
actually no that's not what I did what did I do
here okay how do I get this thing out
here oh okay so I think I just pull it
out that's funny that was hilarious
all
right all right toolbox so the toolbox is just held in
by three uh take that back
to um of the same bolts I go to the Ford
factory I don't know what you call it the unibody pre threaded
bolts so even when I built this first van I'm always worried about you know
just always got to consider being in a car accident you really need to make sure if you're doing your own DIY you got
to make sure that all this stuff is not going to move and my particular case I had this
whole thing full of tools at one time so who knows how many hundreds of
pounds that was
there's
one and yes I have better tools than a crescent wrench I just I only got four bolts I'm kind of
lazy tonight
I was going to repurpose this toolbox but I got lazy and I threw all the
uh drawers drawers out because before this H deer hit me I
was going to keep the I was going to keep the toolbox in this kitchen cabinet
in here I was going to do a face frame on it and put brand new drawers and Dr
all these uh drawer slides out and not undo everything I'm doing right now
but uh some things changed so all right next we've got
these you can't see this but there's these bolts this partition wall that I
built that's the next thing to
go so there's like these little
screws and these little screws uh they're like pretty much like a drywall anchor
almost and they're just to hold this uh partition panel in place
okay I
think see
here okay um down here at the bottom I've got a piece of trim just to clean
things up I don't know what else
is I don't know what else could be holding this to the
van oh there's two more okay get a small screwdriver for
that
oh so Rod I'm I'm not I'm not going to as soon as my van gets fixed I'm I'm taking everything out so
it'll be fully gutted we're going to put this a nice
clean floor in one thing I wanted to do was be able
to load my one of my uh smaller motorcycles into the back of the van
so I wanted to do that
might have to get a stubby wrench for that one stubby wrench
okay let's see here so now we've got some live
electrical and we got to be aware of okay now we're
disconnected so let's get the crow Crew Bar
yeah one thing if you get electrical bike or like a ebike depending on how heavy is you
might want to think about how you're going to get it in and out of the van I'm going to get this uh it's a
motorcycle ramp um it's pretty long but the length will
help you with
uh you know making it easier to get into the van give you some
leverage so right now I'm just picking up this uh piece of
trim I don't know if it's the technical term is shoe molding
I think that's what it's called I didn't want to crack that because that now I can't grab
it will
okay this thing should just come out
technically I also put I put a a floor down like a stick on vinyl and it was
terrible so there's a/ inch foam half inch plywood vinyl then the vinyl was removed
and then another layer of half inch and then another layer of this quarter inch so I'm trying to get this out of here
but what's holding it is actually the bottom of the floor so I got to lift it up and take it
out if I could do that
the old floor is still in there that's ridiculous watch out
Noah it's like going down Memory Lane Memory
Lane okay so I gotta be careful with that panel that panel has live power
coming from the engine battery but I should should be able
to just take this
out I guess in hindsight I probably should have kept this toolbox but uh
I thre the drawers out well the top drawer is broken
so and all the all the drawer the drawer some of the drawer the Locking pieces were
broken um let's see I need a dolly where is the
dolly there we go
okay there's that
all right guys look look at it that is we're getting to the inside of the van let's see if I can get a
better angle
here not that angle good
Lord hold on I'll get back to the van there we
go so these panels back here
um they're just upholstered paint protection panels I mean interior protection panels
I forgot what they're called something like that uh and they just have these clips on
them so looks like this top one um
let's see all right now I see how this uh this kitchen cabinet how did I do
this I think it's just bolted to the back
okay
so I've got all these little small panels just like these little uh finishing
panels they go around this back side over here
I did put some seat belts back in
here see if I got the right drill bit
seat belt okay so I had to do all that because I got to get to this
uh this back
panel okay so it would be really cool for you guys to see this this is a cool part of the van build so hold on
get you in the
van okay so over here on the left hold the cameras
I think I disconnected the camera hold on
hold
on okay it's is it possible I broke the camera it's possible
I on know guys I think I the webcam might have been
broken all right hold on I'm restarting the camera give me one second
Jesus well here we
go okay I don't think I fully broke the camera I think the camera is coming back okay
all right I didn't break it it fell over and ripped the cable out
but apparently it is still working right now so okay this so this is the cool part
this is what I wanted to show you this is um
um on the left hand side we've got the power system battery
inverter all that good stuff um and the center panel behind that is
where we've got all the uh wires going from the left side the right side it's kind of backwards from
what I do nowadays I use I do everything on the driver's side and that's just to
uh it just makes more sense you got the power coming
from uh
that power com from the under the driver's seat where the batteries
are over here we've got a vent port and then we've got a uh carbon monoxide
detector that this thing has lasted 2020 so it's
still still working don't know if I put screws in
the bottom or not I can't remember
okay how did I do this one screw here
so this would be like an access panel you'd have to do Cable Management stuff like
that and so you see the wires they go from left
to right um just nice and neat going through there but now we need
to okay so this you see how this is reinforced uh this was going to be a
door either to access like a portable toilet or something like that in the future um so I just kind of defined that
area but we're not going to be doing that anymore so first thing we going to do is
disconnect the heater diesel
heater controller so let's get that out of here
we've got
the
Renegy okay okay the crappy part about this
is battery monitor it can be
unplugged uh
the other stuff cannot
okay so this this guy right here this is the this is the problem
see can I there some
way okay that's not bad I got
it I about to be worried about that okay good that
was yeah cuz this thing you it's it's only one run for this whole entire
cable and I shouldn't be piling it up on the bed here
because I'm just got to take it right back
out so this cabinet that I'm taking it right now this had the water
tanks so fresh and gray water tank housed in here so there's some
extra reinforcement clamps uh I even have a
uh a cloth
hanger so what else is holding in here maybe one more
screw nope so I think this just the van
yeah there we
go okay so this is pretty neat um what can you guys see
here so inside here I have this post and I had some shirts that I like a shirts
and and jackets so the sink was right here and there's this little Nook where you could I could put some clothes so I
had the two water tanks the sink and then this is post you know you could hold some shirts and clothes and stuff like
that
so now you've got this section over here on the right side
and this is interior
panels so this was the original for that I had this stuff uh this vinyl stick on
vinyl is terrible so I never never get that um IT contract it looked really
cool when I first put it in but then it expanded and contracted and it just look
terrible after the fact all right so now we have these uh little
Ford Clips here I may be repurposing this so I'm
not going to try to destroy
this and I might not be able to uh take this out completely because I need
to disconnect the power from the driver's seat which is live right now
I might do that tomorrow
okay I still got Clips in there so I was hoping could show you guys where this
Dent is but might not be able to do that
tonight yeah so tomorrow what I'll do is uh
we'll get the bed taken out and get these panels out so the bed this uh wall over
here partition behind the driver's seat and these three panels that's all I got
to take out and they should be able to access to to work on everything get the van
fixed and then we'll we'll get it back
and I guess do the uh the next part of this
build all right guys that is it for tonight um I'll see
you guys in the next video if you have any questions put those in the comments below make sure you guys are subscribe share this video if anybody's working on
their own DIY van conversion need some helps helps yeah it's late um there's a
new van course on Van Builder hq.com you guys should check it out uh there's a
link uh in the description below to check out the van build course um if you guys are looking for
some free help I have a DIY van build cheat sheet it's the last three years of all my van purchases from Amazon and
it's just a quick way to get started put your email address in there I'll send it out to your inbox and it's just a quick
way to look at some products when you're getting into the van building DIY World um you can actually see some stuff that
I've purchased um in my account and uh hopefully that will help you out but if
you're looking for more comprehensive course on or information on how to do a van build you can check out my DIY
vaning course the DIY van building blueprint it's available today check it
out um yeah I'll see you guys tomorrow and we'll get the rest of this uh van
cleaned up and ready for the body shop to do their fixes and then we'll get the
uh next van in here as well so until then I'll see you guys in the next video