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hey guys welcome back to the shop wanted
to give you an update on where our Ford
Transit van build is uh getting excited
we're one week out from Adventure van
Expo Chattanooga Tennessee this van is
going there and so uh it's not complete
yet but we're very very close so we're
going to start at the top and we're
going to go to the bottom show you
everything I've been working on just
give you a little bit of update from the
shop so uh follow
me so I'm going have you guys go up the
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ladder so update on the roof the reason
that the roof is doing well is because
one the dedic RTX 2000 is fully
installed and two we're able to actually
lay everything out because we have our
solar panels in uh I've already mocked
everything up so everything has been
installed and it has been taken back out
uh to have all the brackets uh tightened
up and all that stuff so what we're
going to have up front is we're going to
have two 100 W Renegy panels up
front and one thing that I did was I
created this
modification uh so ignored the zip the
the tie right here that's just to hold
it while everything dries but if you
look this is the 4 in antenna it's
relocated so that is above the solar
panel so the signal is really nice uh
and what I did is actually Co the whole
entire W wire and the gland right there
with Flex
Seal and it's all one nice gasket so
nice and
watertight so our two 100 wat panels
will be set up with one DC todc Renegy
mppt combo charger it's a 50 amp charger
so those are on that one and a second
second I'm going to show you the 220 W
new power system uh or panel what's
really nice about the new power is
uh the width and the length of it is
perfect it took me a long time to find a
panel that would fit this space because
because of
the 100 W panels and the RTX there
really wasn't anywhere to
move so we have this panel that's going
in today so this whole roof system will
have 420 WS of solar charging the
van and that is the roof got our Max fan
here got to clean up some plastic on it
but it's a 7500k deluxe version with a
remote
control so let's hop on
down we'll talk a little bit about the
outside of the
van get on the inside so we have our crl
windows are both of our vent
windows installed a furion 30 amp uh 125
volt Shore
power and before we walk in follow me
back here so this is our 220 W panel and
if any of you guys had the flatl vanco
roof rack you'll know it's uh maybe an
inch uh shorter than most uh some are 60
in flat vanco is like 58 and A4 so
finding a panel like this is pretty
tough so this is 220 wat it's 30 in
wide and the key for this panel the
reason it's so important uh is it's 56
and 3/4 in wide so our long however you
want to we'll put it you're doing this
orientation so 30
by 56 and 3
3/4 you have a Ford Transit with a flatl
vanco roof rack you might want to look
into this panel
because it fits
perfect uh we have our Flatline
vanco and again this is not sponsored I
just like using these products these are
upper cabinets you'll see this update in
later video but I modified them right
here this hole so simple
modification so that it will uh line up
perpendicular to the
roof so if you put these in for Transit
they'll be angled so what I did is I
modified it so it'll be a nice right
angle again you'll see that later but I
just want to show you this little detail
because I may not show it in the future
video um while we're over here we've got
two of our gray water heating pads so
these two pads are going to go under our
20 gallon gray water tank that's under
the
van uh keep it nice and toasty so it
doesn't freeze on
this is our other
one we got a spare tire that's going to
go in the back this is the flat vanco
spare tire rack that's going to be
unboxed pretty
soon our 20-gallon under mount greay
water tank is right under
there we'll move inside the
van uh I've been talking to you guys
about the power
system we have 600 amp hours of lithium
iron F F at in there uh we got the
ventron vron links distributor taking
care of all of our power the front is
going to supply our sub panel to the
kitchen Galley where all the electrical
for the rest of the van will be
controlled we've got our DC todc
Chargers inputs here we've got our
Renegy Rigo so that's the Bluetooth
version 3,000 watt pure sign wave
inverter charger this is what runs the
shore power also inverts us for the
110 last but not least we have our dedic
RTX
2000 air conditioner unit very happy how
I fit the adventure wagon panel around
it uh that's the look I wanted to
achieve like nice and low profile and um
it's
perfect so I'm going to show you this
pullout tray here in just a
second so this is uh from flatlight
vanco it is on 500 lb drawer
slides so one thing I like to show off
is this is bolted to the chassis of the
van so you don't have to
worry about this messing up anything in
the floor um it's three bolted with six
grade8 bolts I see some people bolted
into the floor of the van you're not
going to be able to do this you'll it'll
be a bad day so if you put grade eight
bolts through the chassis of the van
this thing is going to allow you to have
fun easily put all your gear in the
van um and I think it's built really
well
too we'll talk about this later but this
is our Webasto uh air toop 40 uh
gasoline fired heater so it's connected
Direct IR ly to the auxiliary port on
the Ford fuel tank so you don't have to
have an exterior tank or anything like
that and this vent is actually going to
come out right here it'll be just like
that and we've got plenty of clearance
between here and underneath the
batteries we got about 2 in on the top
and then we got plenty of room on the
sides um we actually did an additional
RTV ceant around the gaskets from masto
just to make sure just that extra step
to seal it from the outside so we're
going to swing around but before we do
this is our uh 40G Northwest conversions
water
tank and uh it's the over the wheel
version but it's 40 gallons most FS are
going to have 20 gallon tanks so you can
take your showers wash your dogs off
your bikes and still have tons of water
to uh use for
cooking um also you may see that we have
the uh coin floor from lawn
seal so this is the uh Marine vinyl
flooring uh very popular in the van life
world
uh completely
waterproof as it is it's used in the
Marine industry uh the best part about
it is the expanding and Contracting
you're not going to have to worry about
it buckling or anything like that where
if you had a floating floor system you
may have to worry about the humidity and
stuff like that this is uh it can can
breathe so um the van you know may get
up to 150 plus degrees inside all the
way down to below freezing so you need
some type of resilient floor that's able
to expand and contract and the laale
Marine vinyl does just
that uh back here in the back before we
go look at the electrical in the front
we have our 220 wat breaker and we we
have our 200 W breaker these are dual
pole Breakers specifically for uh wiring
solar so it's important that you use
dual pole so that you not only shut off
the positive but the negative as well
this is good for maintenance we have our
main battery power switch and here we
have our uh this is just temporary but
this is going to be uh the exhaust fans
and these fans are going to be connected
to
a
CC board right here we
go might have to show another video I
think I moved it anyway we have a uh
thermostat uh thermostatically
controlled circuit board you can dial in
what temperature you want the fans to
come on so we're going to have a
temperature probe underneath the exhaust
fan of the inverter so if it gets above
you know 80° in that chamber those fans
will kick on and I've already tested it
it'll lower the temperature of that
cabinet about 20 to 25 degrees which is
excellent all right guys we have the van
right here where we entrance to the
inside uh right here to my left is going
to be this kitchen Galley so this is
from Flatline vanco we're going to have
a rot sink inside we're going to have
tons of storage in here we're going to
have our uh interi your gray water tank
for the inside of the van the 20-gallon
gray tank under the van is for the
shower this is our we're calling it like
our Flex space you can use it for a
microwave you can use it for putting a
porta potty in it's just a space that
you can customize to put whatever you
want we're going to have two drawers
right here so got a silver drawer a
drawer to keep all your you know your
induction stove stuff like
that still got to wire up all the main
electrical so all the main electrical
comes to this one Port underneath the
sink and that way it's easy to maintain
check fuses stuff like
that uh as we walk in we got a handle
here we will have a a lagoon table Mount
here and here so if you are in then
you'll be able to get on a table here um
we are using a scopa swivel seats so we
did that for the driver's seat as well
as the passenger seat and uh I'm I'm
pretty impressed rest I they went
together really well they're nice and
smooth they don't make it a lot of
sound uh we added rooftop shelf uh our
front headliner
shelf we have the uh fredman seating
flip and fold
seat so you guys can hang out we've got
seat belts for four people so you can
bring four people have them seated uh
but one thing I like about the Freeman
flip and fold is most additional seing
van you can't move it's stationary this
is a flipping fold as it says it's
really simple you just flip this down
this is actually a Stow andgo table so
this table will come out and I will tell
you how it's we're set it up right now
but this
table so this is spring
assisted it has a locking mechanism so
that it doesn't rattle when you drive
you me go around and show the the other
side what it looks like up um no we can
just keep going we keep going uh so this
is up out of your way so when you walk
in the van it's it's nice it's very nice
and spacious you get a kitchen Galley
and you have you have all this this room
where this would be in the way now the
table flips and actually locks in right
here
uh let's see
here
I'll show you how easy it is it's it's
crazy easy I mean I I can do this with
one
hand so this
table that you have additional table so
imagine you're in your van The Kitchen
Gallery is going to come about right
here so you could be you can be cooking
here doing dishes you know charging your
phone and devices there's a outlet
that's going to be over here here but I
mean you got a ton of space I mean this
is almost like a standing desk I didn't
even don't even think about that but
this is a really cool
setup uh with the Freeman system I'm
just going to pop this down here so we
can keep the
tour 11 fold seat again locks into place
I think that's one of the best
features uh I'm doing an aluminum trim
on the bottom so I got to set that up
here in just a
minute this is where the isotherm Cruise
130 fridge is going to go it's also in a
flatline vanc
Galley this is going to be hidden with
lawn seal but this is our hidden shower
so kitchen Galley is here refrigerator
is
here as soon as you come into this
you'll be able to just lift this up now
you can put this wherever you want you
can probably just put it in the back
while you're taking a
shower but you have an INF floor shower
that drains to a 20 gallon gray water
tank and mentioned how tall you are yeah
so I'm 6 feet I'm 6 feet tall
and we've got I don't know what what'
you say six Ines almost a foot maybe
almost a
foot this let's see so I'm 6 ft tall was
that 9 10 8 in 8 in pretty good guys 8
in to the fan because this floor does
drop an
inch um and this is not in place so
let's just show you behind the scenes
real
quick so this pan is right here got the
hole drilled out this is going to
connect to our
plumbing and this is a Tetra van shower
pan now it's steel it's not aluminum the
reason it's steel is because you're
going to have a
shower curtain and the shower curtain I
designed it to clip into the L TR so use
one two 3
4 got your shower here and the steel pan
has magnets so it holds the uh shower
curtain
down um come on up come on
up and you just kind of hang on that
seat
probably so the interior van this is our
control
panel uh I wanted it to be very simple
very
clean
um uh it was very exciting making
Thomas's van everything Wireless all uh
iPhone controlled w i mean Bluetooth but
there's a lot of complexity that comes
with that and I know some customers want
something very simple so this is just so
simple this is the new reneg G1 system
it's designed for offgrid homes so like
your Log Cabin cabin Mountain anything
like that so it's designed to have
basically the same kind of setup as a
van batteries inverter stuff like that
so it has all these menus you can go in
these
menus uh and if you want a nerd out I
mean this this gives you way more
information you could ever want cell
voltages all that stuff um it also will
show you when you're plugged into Shore
power how the power's flowing loads in
the van
and if you go down here to slide over
we're going to go to our uh DC to DC
this is going to allow us to see engine
alternator charging solar
charging that sort of thing uh when it's
connected to Wi-Fi or your phone you're
going to be able to go to the uh Renegy
app um and you'll be able to uh do some
more detailed uh
settings it's also going to tell you
your battery percentage and then it has
three three very clean just uh minimal
buttons and these are switches just like
in a home so you have your light switch
which is on it's going to turn in all of
our lighting forgot to mention the
shower in the kitchen is directly placed
underneath the fan so if you're taking a
shower it's all going to be ventilated
out here even got some
lights uh these are Luma coin lights
with the adventure wagon kit they're
very very nice lights so you can change
them to red
if you guys are at
nighttime and you want to you know have
more of
a different mood different mood I don't
know um red is better for at nighttime
like if you're in the bed uh you could
actually you can turn these off
individually or you can uh have them all
on uh but what's nice is if it's night
time and you just want to leave one on
because uh you know you're getting ready
for bed uh maybe like you're reading a
book or or something like that uh and
you don't want the van you know bright
from the outside like the windshield you
can turn to Red anyway you can also
touch and hold these and they will dim
they have a memory so they'll remember
your last dim
setting and then you can just hold it
and it does a little flash that just
tells you it's
full next is our remote control for our
max air fan now this is the deluxe so
this is going to have the auto
temperature function
right here so you t hold this it'll
automatically open the fan at 78° and
above it'll automatically close it as
soon as it gets lower than 78° nice
feature if you're away from your van
right here is our uh manual control and
I'll say that one more time manual
control for the inverter so instead of
getting the app getting ready to cook
you want to get your induction stove on
you just push the button it's on you
don't have to go to your app or over
here simple just very
simple very uh right side we have the
new wabaso 3.0 smart temp Bluetooth
controller for the gasoline
heater this is nice because you're you
can be in bed you know you wake up in
the morning the van's cold and turn on
the heater get the van nice and warm all
from your bed you can with aery app
control all these light switches via the
app do that again via the Renegy
app the second button is over here this
is going to be controlling uh our
cabinet lighting so this is a switch
circuit in the back we're going to have
an auxiliary 12volt port with a a high
current quick charge for USBC and USB
type a uh so if you want a quick charge
function this is actually designed with
the appropriate amps and current to
actually quick charge a device which is
uh not always the case if you're using a
standard USB
outlet um this also has an app connect
to your phone so you can uh turn this on
and these three functions from your
phone um let's talk about the adventure
wagon we'll talk about this light and
then we'll kind of wrap this up so this
is the adventure wagon interior system
so everything you see here the L track
all the upholster panels are from
Adventure wagon we went with a a bamboo
ceiling and then from Flatline vanco
we're doing a bamboo cabinet doors so
it's going to look really nice we've got
our insulated covers for our our Windows
where's that from that is from Van
Essentials uh we also have one for here
and I actually custom installed these
buttons
because uh I covered the metal frame for
Aesthetics and for uh you know keep that
cold out and at the same time I did
these butt butons because the magnets
don't work so I needed a way to attach
it and these actually work much better
they seal really close and I think are
pretty good
deal um yeah but this is the adventure
wagon kit so it's nice it comes out in
one kit with the L track you can do a
couple of options and I really enjoy
it um again we're going to clean this up
kitchen Galley is right over here and
then let's uh turn this light on and
we'll end the
in the update with that so we've got a
rigid Industries amber light Amber's
better for bugs the white light attracts
more bugs the Amber does they're still
bugs but it's less uh and it's also a
little more calming at night
time uh we just finished installing our
F f45s
awning and
uh that's pretty much it that's a pretty
long update but um hope you guys enjoyed
also make sure you guys check out the
DIY van build cheat sheet so the DIY van
build cheat sheet is an Excel sheet over
the last three years of my Amazon
purchases and uh I think it's a really
nice way to help you guys with your DIY
build there's all kinds of stuff from
the max air fan the tools I use in the
shop which are probably the best thing
on the list all my tools are on that
list you can find them on Amazon really
easy um to get that list it's completely
free go to Van Builder hq.com click on
the uh just type in your email hit send
it's going to come straight to inbox and
you're going to get that whole entire uh
list for free to help you out with your
van builds also check out van Builder HQ
for our blog post we got a lot of great
articles there to uh go through stuff
van related we talk about solar we talk
about um different lighting inside the
van and uh you're going to be at
Adventure van Expo next week that's
right next week I'm going to be at
Adventure van Expo Chattanooga Tennessee
so the 7th and e8th that's the SE yep
7th and e8th OCT and uh 7th and 8th of
October so if you guys are there come by
say hi you'll see the the van in its
final form um really excited not
everything's in there but trust me we're
going to get the kitchen gallies and
stuff like that in there um but yeah if
you're at Adventure man Expo ched
Tennessee next
weekend feel free to come by say hi
check out the van I'd love to meet you
uh also if you're not subscribed to this
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you guys in the next
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video