While washing your hair in the sink does work, yes we tried it!, an outdoor shower has always been in the plan. I was originally going to use a standard “RV” shower, but the cutout needed was huge, and it really wasn’t very nicely made.
So I had seen a “shower port” before at some point so I went googling. The one I wanted was a Bullfinch unit. Its really slick, the hose plugs into the unit, and then it is used to adjust the temperature as well. It only requires a 2 3/8″ hole, and has a tiny mixing valve built in. The shower head is also a dish washer style where when you release the button the water stops. Should help with water usage!
Bullfinch Shower point
The shower was installed right above the intake/exhaust for the water heater, not ideal location, but it was about the only spot it fit nicely. With the cover closed it sticks out about 1/2″, the cover has a gasket to keep road grime out too.
Shower installed and closed
When you hook the hose up, the water is automatically connected. just adjust the temperature and its ready to go.
Hooked up
And it works! It actually shoots water a long ways….
It works!
I teed into the water lines near the sink, it is supplied both hot and cold. Eventually I will likely add valves to be able to turn it off and drain it for the winter. I’m still a little worried it might freeze, the valve is in the wall basically. One thing to note is that the Bullfinch uses metric fittings! They are Whale fittings, a common push to connect fitting used in Europe. I found them locally at a marine supply store, not hard to find.
Interior connections.
And that’s it for the shower! I need to make a mat to stand on, but it should work nicely for upcoming trips.
Well as we are packing up in the rain for a long weekend, I see what looks like a window leaking…. Its dripping from inside the frame. I looked at the caulk all around the window, nothing seems out of place. Maybe it was running down the body lines, so I smeared more goop on those spots. Didn’t seem to do much but nothing else I could find.
So off we went, we spent the weekend at the Northwest Overland Rally, great fun, lots of friends we don’t see too often and a nice weekend away. Even if camping in a grass field with 1500 other people isn’t our norm.
Our spotFriday morning before all the people showed up.
It rained a bit thursday night and Friday morning, but no real leaks.
After we got home I climbed on the roof to look up there. Sure enough the factory sealant had cracked right along the joint from the corner extrusion to the roof sheet metal. Damn. It was actually leaking down inside the body channels and just coming out where it hit the window!
Cracks!
You can just see the dark colored straight lines in the picture above, those are the cracks. They are all the way around…. Luckily there is some butyl in between the corner and roof that has seemed to keep it sealed in most places.
Bad.
It was cracked very badly across the front, luckily there is a large strip of butyl here, so no leaks I could find. But it was not adhered at all, this whole section peeled up.
Peeled and sanded.
I ended up taking a grinder and going all the way around, grinding the middle of the existing sealant to expose fresh stuff to bond to, and to get the cracks out.
Ground down
I will be adding a second layer of polyurethane caulking, Sikaflex 1a specifically, over the existing stuff. It doesn’t bond well to bare aluminum, so a coat of Sika 260 primer was brushed over it. Before that, a scrub brush, acetone and lots of rags were used to get everything as clean as possible.
Not many pics, its sticky messy work, but 8 tubes were used to cover the seams. It was troweled and finger smooshed around. Hopefully sealing and thick and flexible enough to last a few more years.
Sika smeared on
This will take a few days to cure, but I think it should work well. Hopefully it bonds to the existing stuff and gives me a long life flexible seal.
We had been thinking of a live edge slab for our table, but coming up wiht small pieces was difficult. We went to a local guy a couple weekends ago, and found a piece that should work!
Its a cedar or Lebanon, a local 98 year old tree that was taken out when the opera house was remodeled.
Raw slab
It will be finished with a satin polyurethane, lots of coats and lots of sanding…..
I made a leg out of a piece of steel, this will be at the outside edge. A piece of aluminum angle iron is attached to the wall to support that side. I drilled and tapped the floor for the table leg.
Supports
Then the top gets set in place and screwed in! It turned out very nice. It’s a little skinny, but makes getting in and out of the benches easier.
Finished
I will give it a couple coats of paste wax once the poly has set for awhile. That will give it a good wear layer.
Because we are leaving on a longer trip, we should probably have the water done right? Starting two days before we leave is the vest time right?
Well it was a TON of work but it got done, and we only left two hours late.
To start I had a 30 gallon tank, it just barely fit under the larger bench at the dinette. It was so tight that I had to take the ledges that hold the top up off…. But it just fit. We laid down 2″ of foam insulation under the tank. Hopefully this will keep it from freezing when outside temperatures drop to -15 (that’s as cold as we have stayed!).
Insulation under the tankTank dropped in
With the tank in place, there is just barely enough room to make the connections. I almost got a slightly longer tank, and I am really glad I didn’t.
With the tank dropped in I had to secure it in place. I used a ratchet strap to hold it vertically, and its pinned in by the bench to hold it horizontally.
Tank held down in place
With the tank in place I could start the plumbing. I used pex pipe everywhere I could. Its great stuff, connections don’t leak, its ok with freezing, and a little bit flexible. On the outlet from the tank, I put a T, one side will go to the water pump, the other side has a valve so the tank can be dumped if needed.
Water feed connection
The water runs across the wall/floor and into the other bench, this is where the water pump goes. The water pump being in with the heater should give it lots of heat to keep it warm in the winter. Valves were used both sides of the water pump so it can easily be removed if needed. Reinforced vinyl hose was used either side of the pump to try to keep noise down. Its still quite loud.
Water pump installed
The hot water heater was installed next. It needs one hole for intake and exhaust, its a concentric vent. Also a propane connection, and an electrical connection.
Intake and exhaust
So out come the hole saw and one more hole is added. Some careful measuring and drilling a hole from the outside and inside, and I go them to line up!
Heater sitting in place on the interior
The intake/exhaust was glued and screwed into place, and I could then run the propane line.
Outside buttoned up
Propane was connected and it was back to water. Again I used valves so the heater could be drained if needed. I am hopeful that it wont be needed! I still need to run the drain though the floor.
Almost done!
Next up I had to drill the hole for the faucet. Using a diamond bit usually works well, but needs to be kept wet. The trick is kids modeling clay, it works great to make a dam around the hole so it can be kept full of water. Use towels, it will make a mess…
DamDrilling
Hole!
Wohoo it didn’t break! The bit walked a little so its not perfectly centered, but oh well, it didn’t break! So a hot and cold line was run up and a threaded adapter was used to connect to the faucet connections. You can also see the hose barb adapter used for the sink drain in the next picture.
Sink connections
The grey water is simply a six gallon jug that sits under the sink. I think this will work well, it also helps track water usage some.
Grey tank is the blue jug
And put it all together and we get hot water coming out of the tap! Now I didn’t get to installing the outdoor shower yet, but the pex pipe can be cut and modified easily.
Hot water!
That brings us to the end of the water part one. It worked great, being able to just wash hands etc was so nice, we never used the water in our old truck at all. We also found out that the sink pull out can go out the kitchen window for showers 😀
Electrical never ends. So many little things that take soooooo much time.
But I got to installing the inverter/charger. Its a 1250w inverter and a 55 amp charger. The inverter is a little smaller than I would have liked, but it was cheap and used, and the charge is well size for my generator and keeping wire size down. The charger should only draw about 5 amps at 120V Ac, so that means I can use a standard 15amp cord and plug, easy.
The inverter charger gets installed. It will have a 1/0 cable running through a 200 amp breaker and then to the battery bank. Making 120V AC takes a ton of amps at 12V DC.
Inverter charger installed.
For my shore power connection, I had planned to use the drivers side tool box. So I needed to run a power cable from there to the inverter. I used flextite electrical conduit for this. It protects the wire and keeps it dry.
Conduit for the wire
I ran the power cable through the conduit, its the male end of the same extension cord I used to wire the truck, I have about 25′ left, that should be enough to hook up to most hookups or get the generator a ways away. I also pulled a pair of 8 gauge wires for my solar connection.
Inside the tool box
It all rolls up nicely inside the tool box.
Solar! Yes I am excited. I have two panels and a PWM charger on the roof of our old truck. They always topped the batteries up a little, but never charged all the way. They were always dirty too…
For the new truck I am going to try a portable panel. I can park in the shade and have the panels in the sun, throw it on the hood etc. I went with a folding 100W panel, its very thin and light weight, it should be easy to store, this was one of my concerns with a portable one.
Thin!Opened
I opted to spend the little extra money for the MPPT controller, I went with a Victron, having only the one panel I wanted the extra efficiency I could get using it. I will do some tests to see how the panel actually puts out compared to its ratings.
Now that we are using the truck, we really should have a way to monitor the batteries. Now I know most people just use voltage gauges, but it’s really not a very good gauge of whats really happening. A much better solution is to use a shunt.
A shunt is basically a large bus bar, with a known voltage drop across it. You connect all the negative sides of your loads and charger to one side, and your battery negative to the other, and it can measure the amps drawn into and out of the batteries because of the tiny voltage drop across the shunt. They use the negative side simply because its safe to have exposed negative posts, the exact same could be done with the positive side.
Shunt is the big brass piece
I had to make up some cables, I am using 2/0 marine cabling, its tinned thin stranded wire, crimp lugs on the ends and adhesive heat shrink tubing. It makes for very nice cables!
Battery cable
Meter Head
The meter is quite nice. You tell it how many amp hours your battery bank is and it tells you your percentage left. It can also show current amp draw, high lowest, deepest discharge etc. Its a nice unit. It all hook up with a piece of cat5 cable and RJ 45 jacks.
Installed
I installed it in the end of our tall cabinet, next to the thermostat. I’m really happy with this product. I originally was going to use a Xantrex unit, but this one is far simpler to set up and was less money as well!
After a few trips of driving the truck, it was obvious the rear shocks were not doing what they were supposed to. It bounced after every whoop and bump in the road, even just on pavement. To the point of launching things off horizontal surfaces. The truck does have 107k on it now, and the shocks do look original.
So a new set was ordered. I settled on Bilstein 5100 series shocks. They are a good quality monotube, that don’t cost a fortune.
I crawled under, wiggled my way into a sitting position and got to work. Luckily the old ones came right out (one upside of having an oil leak I guess, not much rust). They collapsed completely by hand and didn’t rebound at all. Definitely garbage at this point.
Dead ShocksNew goodies!
The new ones went in fine, they were much harder to get in place, as what do you know they had a gas charge and wanted to extend themselves with much force! But with a little help from my wife and a floor jack both sides were in place.
Driving is MUCH better, so much so I want to do the fronts too, as you can feel them bounce a little now that the rear end is controlled. A good upgrade, especially to old worn out shocks.
With the tank in place it was direction in front of the tires, meaning everything the tires pick up would get thrown at it. It needed some protection.
So I set about doing just that. I started with a very thick coat of car undercoating. It’s a soft rubber than covers the bottom/wheel wells of most cars to keep road debris from denting and chipping things. Its nasty stuff, almost tar like when you get it on you, which you inevitably will do….
Undercoated
So that is the first step, and really probably all it needs, but stuff could still get over the top of the tank. We drive in the snow a lot and I didn’t want that to pack in there and get down to the valves on the other side. So I picked up a giant mud flap. Its heavy and thick and should take impacts very very well, that is kinda what it’s designed for. Turns out it’s really hard to cut too.
Big ass mud flap
The mud flap gets bolted to the same bolts that hold the propane tank brackets. Then to the bottom corner of the body just in front of the tire. I need to hold it from flying back into the tire in the wind.
Bottom Bolt
This worked pretty well, but the inside corner was pretty “flappy” even after cutting it shorter. So I added a piece of cable to pull it forward. I used an existing slot in the spring hangar to tie it to, hopefully that is enough.
Cable to hold the inside cornerFinished product!
That should keep things off the tank pretty well!
One other thing needed to be addressed, I had to climb under the truck to turn the propane on and off, as the valve was hidden against the side of the tool box. Not fun in mud or snow…. So a 4″ deck plate was added to the side of the box, much easier access, but still not able to fill sadly.
Valve Access
That is the end of the propane install, until the tank is empty and the water heater goes in any way.
Propane tank time! I had originally planned on using two 20# BBQ style tanks on the back door. But since we went to diesel for heat, I didn’t think that much was needed. Also running lines all the way to the back, as all the propane needs were at the very front seemed silly (and expensive, and maintenance) so I tried to figure out where else I could fit one.
There was a pretty large gap in front of the wheel on the passenger side, but it was just not the right size for a BBQ tank, so I started to look at other options. I settled on trying to find an ASME tank. They are made for permanent mounting on cars/RV’s and as such have very thick walls, and also do not require hydro testing like BBQ tanks. Win win. They are also many designed for horizontal mounting, unlike BBQ tanks.
Location of choice
Now that I knew what I wanted I had to try to find one. They are stupid expensive new. Some CL scouring later I found one, It was in decent shape, used, but not rusty. But its was BIG, like 50 pounds of propane big, but with a little coaxing and cursing it looked like it would fit, but only sideways…..
CL Tank
But that was ok, the valves would be protected well, but inaccessible….. The good news about using an ASME tank is that you can set them up for a remote filling station! So I did some googling and a few fittings, some high pressure line and a few AN fittings and we have all the goodies to fill it remotely. But wait, I have to install the fittings and the used tank came 2/3 full. UGH.
Remote fill parts
Well I guess we will just mount the tank and deal with the fill later when its empty. To mount the tank I had to make brackets as of course nothing lined up with nothing to bolt it into place. So brackets were made, they had to bolt through the side of one of the floor cross members since that was in the door way and you can’t just bolt through the floor there, and the front side had to help support the back and be spaced down from the floor 2″, but that one could get bolted up through the floor (well once the fridge was un-installed).
Brackets
After wrestling the tank in and out numerous times I had all the measurements needed to make the brackets. They were simple enough.
Then it was time to loosely bolt the brackets to the tank, wresting it in one more time and try to bolt everything together!
It fits!
And it fit, thank God. Well almost, I had to trim the forward spring hanger a little bit…. The tank and it wanted to occupy the same space. I only removed about 1/4″ of material, I think it should effect the structure.
Clearance!
While the fridge was pulled out I ran the 3/8″ line up to the stove and Wohoo! We have gas.
It works!
I decided to use rubber 3/8″ flare lines for all the connections. The regulator and a T were all there was space for. I was hoping to have a high pressure line also for an outdoor stove. But I just don’t have the room. It may be something I can try to work in later on.
Needed to get away, so we headed to one of my favorite areas, Blewett pass. It’s on the east side, but still has big trees, just without all the thick underbrush you would get on the wet side.
It’s a great spot to come in the winter, they keep Swauk Campground (review here!) plowed in the winter, it’s a sno-park and is free to camp with a snopark pass.
Occasionally someone will stop by to use the bathroom or stop by the main picnic shelter, but it’s usually very quiet in the winter. The lot was a sheet of ice, we ended up shoveling snow around the truck just so we could walk.
Tucked into the back corner
I added a folding had rail next to the stairs while we were here, just a quick project.
Handrail
We had a nice little fire and a quiet dinner. It’s nice to get away.
