Ford Transit conversion to camper MKII

My order partially came from CosyCampers today. It seems as though FastWay misdirected one of the boxes to cork, but the other's came. Anyhoo that's not my moan, shit happens.

I'm really annoyed about the way the lining carpet was shipped. It was cut to size and rolled into a ball and stuffed into some bubble wrap and shipped. I get that they might be busy but this isn't good enough. It's all covered in wrinkles now and looks like it was dragged out from behind the couch. It wouldn't have taken much effort to fold it a bit before wrapping. This stuff isn't cheap bloody cheap. Come to think of it, nothing is cheap in that place

/rant

You mean this one?
https://solartricity.ie/module-amerisolar-320w/

Not sure if I mentioned but I bought this water pump on amazon on a whim, figuring that I could make use of it, and given it wasn't overly expensive.

As with everything else water related nothing is standard on this pump. The threads are 18mm, and that nipple inside it is for some odd sized pipe. Topping all that nonsense off there's no manual to give you any sort of information as to what you might do with it. So in order to make it fit, I took matters into my own hands.

Got two 10mm hydraulic hose fittings who's threads are a match for the pump. I"m aware that this may come to bite me later, since my water pipe is 12mm.



Clearly these won't fit into the pump as they are, so I went all mygyver on it

I cut the nipples off the pump fittings as they were in the way



I then cut the inner end out of the hydraulic fitting to allow the fitting to thread up enough



Added in a washer to seal the two ends together



Bish bash bosh - job's a good'un

Tackled installing the water tanks under the van.

Fresh water first:



Thought I took other photos of this one, but I guess not. I added a 1/2 inch tank fitting at the bottom of the tank for draining / pumping and wrapped it in the 2mm foam I head left over from lining the roof. Extended the cables for the water meter while I was at it.

Waste Water





My theory on this one is to use it as an indicator for the tank being full. When it is full it'll close the contact between the two bolts and I'll attach it to an led or something similar.....



Added the 19mm plastic inlet to the tank and also a 3/4 inch tank fitting to drain the tank. I figure this may have some particles and other stuff that you don't want clogging up the drain when you're trying to empty it. Wrapped it the same as the other one.


Some pipe lagging, galvo-band and some bolts later, they're in







Think I'll give it the stonechip treatment. The gold is a bit much under the van.

Next up will be pluming the drain valves etc...

Dug this bad boy out. Took a while - I'm convinced that it was glued in as it wouldn't shift at all. Eventually the heat gun was the job for it, just needed a little encouragement.



New valve arrived




I'm a terrible person for procrastinating. I do it far more often than I should and sometimes I find myself standing looking at something thinking about it rather than getting on with it. I'm actively trying to avoid doing that so I fitted the new valve and tested the water heater for leaks. One way valve does the job and no leakey leakey so I got stuck in to fitting the heater on the side of the van

chop chop



Bit of primer for the edges and job's a good-un



I've sealed it with silcone for a few reasons. Firstly being that it's simple to remove as the heater may need to come out every now and again. Secondly it'll not be letting in much water, moreso just that it'll keep the water out from when it's on the road. It should be adequate.


Speaking of leaks. I noticed a drip on the inside of the driver side window. The frame at the top of the drip (in the middle of the window that opens) is wet.
I've thought about it some and I've concluded that the window seal isn't the problem here. I made doubly sure after the last time that it wasn't leaking and it's only materialised now and not any time after the rain.

One of the kids was messing with the window so I'll check that that's not the issue of being slightly open but I'm doubtful. I think it's the skylight and the water is running down the vapour barrier and down the side of the van, though I need to do some more investigations to find the root cause. Suspicion is the skylight at the moment though.

Been a while, so I though I'd post an update. I've been doing bits and pieces on and off, some things not worth taking photo's of.

Installed sockets in the kitchen and light switches. Had to run more cables. One of the switches controls the lights in the bed, and there's another switch in the bed to control them too. Other switch controls the lights in the front of the van, although at the minute there's only the one over the seats..



Ordered a fridge for the van. It's a domestic countertop fridge but larger than the standard ones there are so that's a plus. Also has a mini freezer. As a plus the appliance is also A+ rated and the ones I was looking at before were G rated.

Needed to do some fettling to get it to fit. One of the adjustable legs that was part of the door bracket was too far forward and wouldn't allow the fridge to slide forward enough so that had to go. I added a bolt further back to act as a leg and it's the job. I had to raise the fridge up by 9mm for the door to clear the conduit that's holding the cables. As a result I had to raise the rails for the bed by an inch and a half which is no big deal really.

Not permanently fixed yet but you can see how it's sitting together.






Started making the doors for the kitchen cupboards. Ran out of time today so hopefully I'll get more finished tomorrow

Added the control panel in the shelf above the kitchen will all my needed toys and accoutrements and wired them all in. I've not physically tested the water meter by filling the tank, but when I press the button on it, there is an additional power draw on the batteries. Minimal but around 300MA, so It's doing something anyway. I'll need to get some push button switch with an led or something like that for the waste water switch idea that I came up with.





I like the power meter very much (Cheers for the tip Sir Liam). Incidentally I was digging at the back of the alternator and I found a broken wire that goes into it. Not the main power one no, but could've been what the dash was getting sent. I repaired it and started the van and the meter is showing about 35A of a charge going into the batteries. Originally the batter light would come on when you were driving. I've not had it on the road again to verify this as of yet.
I know I said I was getting 12.something volts at the battery with the van running, but checking again now and I'm getting 14V at the alternator and the starter battery.

With all the lights on at the minute, it shows a draw of about 4.5A, going up to 5 when the inverter is on. At that, it increases slightly again but the number escapes me when the fridge is plugged in. (It's an A+ rated fridge)

Went to town with the black paint. Also notice that I added a door to the gas holder with some rubber seal around the doors.

All the kitchen doors are being varnished at the moment, with yacht varnish. Should last the lifecycle of the van.

Water is also quite slow to drain from the sink. I think this is for 2 reasons. The outlet and pipe is only 19mm, so it would be reasonably slow to drain a half to full sink of water. The other reason is that there's no vent in the waste water tank. As water fills it builds air pressure in the tank as it cannot escape. If I open the drain outside it speeds up, marginally but it gets to a crawl when the pressure builds. I'll need to add a vent / hole in the top of the tank. Its only grey water so not that big of a deal.