2003 Honda Odyssey camper van build

this is my 2003 honda odyssey it's got about 255 000 miles on it at the time of this video this van has been in my family for its entire life my parents bought it new in 2004 and it was passed down to me in 2015. initially i used the van pretty rarely it was my secondary vehicle at that time my primary vehicle up until 2019 was one of two miatas i had a red n a from 2015 to 2017 and a black nb from 2016 to 2019. so during those times i mostly just used the van when i needed to move furniture for example if i was changing apartments or to move tires or move other big items like that i also used it to pick up my nieces and nephew from school occasionally and in 2017 i use this van to move from north carolina to california i fit all my stuff into the van and made the drive the only item of mine that didn't fit into the back of the van was the nb which i shipped to california a couple months later and as for the n a i sold it shortly before that move and once i came to california i started going snowboarding in tahoe in the winter of course i was taking the van there not the nb so this is when the van started to get more use and when the 2018 ski season came around i thought i should try to sleep in the van for overnight trips so that i could easily spend weekends there in tahoe without having to pay for a room every time and tahoe was about a four hour drive from santa cruz where i was living at the time so it made the most sense to go for two days at a time instead of just doing a day trip and so around that time when that ski season was starting in 2018 i ended up getting a twin bed frame for free on craigslist i kind of just picked it up on a whim deciding to see how it would how it would work in the van and it actually ended up working pretty well for my needs at that time my needs at that time just basically being overnight trips uh the only issue is that it took up a lot of space so there wasn't much room for anything else uh but i had enough room for all my snowboarding gear etc so that's what i used the first few times i tried sleeping in the van and again that was just doing overnights in tahoe in 2019 i decided i wanted to try full timing it in the van so it made the most sense to sell the nb at that time which is what i did and then july 1st of 2019 is when i started full timing in the van and i did this until april of 2020 soon after covet hit and i ended up getting a place at that time and since then as far as sleeping in it or camping in it i've mostly just done trips of two to three nights at a time although i've had a few instances of about two weeks at a time as well but i haven't full-timed it since 2020 and as far as just driving uh versus sleeping in it the car is my daily driver and it's the only vehicle i own currently so i've been daily driving it since 2019. i built out the van around september or october of 2019 i drove the van up to my friend's place outside of seattle and hung out there for a few weeks and he let me use his garage and all his tools and it was awesome hanging out up there our other friend joined us as well which was cool and i was able to finish all of the woodwork in the van before i had to leave so that worked out well that was a pretty awesome trip so here i'm just gonna post whatever pictures or videos i have from building the van and i didn't really prioritize taking pictures or videos during the actual build process i think i did more so earlier on so most of the pictures are from stripping the van out and putting the floor in and there's a couple pictures of the cabinets and things like that and some pictures of the bed set up but then as it got closer to the end of the build i was kind of just rushing to get it done and didn't really take any pictures later on but i'm just going to put whatever i do have here [Music] [Music] do [Music] so as far as the actual build itself you guys have been kind of seeing what's going on in there it's pretty much just woodwork there's no electric the only other thing that there is is a sink on the far end with a manual foot pump and two two and a half gallon tanks in the cabinet below the sink i use one of those tanks as a freshwater and one of them has grey water and then of course the bed slides out into a twin size bed when you have it extended you can also hinge the bed upwards to access storage underneath [Music] [Music] so here's the storage compartment in the back that goes under the floor just lifts up like that and that's where the third row seat used to be that folds into the floor i just removed that seat and this stretches uh from one end actually all the way over here all the way to underneath the bed on the other side so there's quite a bit of space in there which is great that's probably the biggest storage compartment in here under the bed is a pretty long and wide storage compartment but it's short this one has more height here for sure and then there's also this little compartment right here where i can put a skateboard just pulls out of there and that's that all right so here we have more storage uh the main cabinets i still have to uh finish burning this pattern that i drew on here but i haven't had a chance to do it yet so these are you know pretty simple i just have magnetic catches uh one in each corner on these four and on these two back here as well i have one on each of these two doors back here so just the metal piece and then the magnetic catch and then i have these little handles that i just got off amazon what's cool is that with this strip in the front here that sticks out it actually catches the door when it comes down so you can use it as like a table it's like decently sturdy um it'll definitely hold stuff although it's not it's not super stiff but i haven't had any issues with it not holding anything so this one same thing maybe a little more sturdier um and then if you're kind of sitting back in here with the door closed i'll have these cushions lined up and i'll kind of sit back sometimes and you can just have them uh both down and it's like a longer table that you can use which is cool that was actually by accident that that happened i put these on these strips because these screws were actually a little bit longer than the thickness of this plywood here so they would have been sticking out the front so i put this strip on just so that i don't have screws sticking out of the front and then it was a nice surprise that when i opened it i was like oh these strips actually catch uh against the wood on the bottom and hold it in place instead of having it flop all the way down so that was pretty cool there were a number of things that were kind of kind of accidentally happened like that which turned out well and then these bottom cabinets are just same as the top ones and then on top of the sofa area there's this uh kind of wooden panel that that i tried to cut to shape around the windows and the pillars and there's two storage compartments here this one's a little bit wider and deeper and this one's shallower and just a little bit smaller overall and let me see if i can show that so this first one goes down that deep the second one is quite a bit deeper yeah you can see so a good amount of space in that one this is what the passenger side looks like we've got four cubbies here on the side they're probably like 14 inches deep going to the end of the box there and pretty simple you could put shoes in there for example and then here is the other under the floor compartment i showed the one in the back that's a big one this one is a smaller one here up front um basically it's just this uh box that i put underneath the floor there and it goes kind of deeper back so the size of the rectangle is a little bigger than this opening so there's some space in the back and then a little bit of space in the front as well so it's pretty shallow but um but it's uh decent uh the actual rectangle is a decent size oops that's that and then i've got uh the foot pump here for the water um which runs into the cabinet right here i do have a wall a little panel on this side of the cabinet but at the bottom i cut it off so that i could put the hoses inside and um can open this up as well so this is what looks like underneath the sink so you have the foot pump with one hose going to the uh the fresh water tank over here then you have the grey water tank next to it so the fresh water it pulls the the pump pulls it from there and then pushes it up uh to the faucet there and obviously from the sink it drains drains down into this gray water tank right here my stove here on the side but um you know there's room i thought about putting a little uh shelves in here maybe one shelf on each at least on this side or going across to the other side but i didn't end up doing any of that and then i put these these little one by twos on the sides just so that these things don't you know move around when you're driving they're pretty solid so that works out well now on the driver's side there's also access to area underneath the sink and identical to the the other side as far as the door setup and this way you can just uh you can pull these out from this side so you're not trying to pull them out through the van over there you can just walk up and pull them out easily so you just you know unscrew this thing pull the hose out and you can take uh you can take each tank out either dump it the gray water or to fill fill fresh water in there as well and actually you can see my skateboard here uh where it sits i showed how you can put it in from the other side the cabinet over on that side or the cabinet door over on that side and when you put it in that's that's where it ends up everything that's kind of cool is with this setup you can just like open them up and just see all the way through the van which is kind of interesting i'll show the front of the van as well just because why not uh not much up here i try to keep it pretty tidy i do keep a jug of oil in here because the car consumes a little bit of oil so sometimes i have to top it off so i always try to make sure i have some oil in the car i keep this snow brush scraper in here usually just right there it kind of fits nicely and the door closes fine with it kind of sitting right there especially if i'm in a snowy area in the winter i'll make sure i have that brush uh the only other thing up here is the actual the original rear view mirror got a crack in it a long time ago so we put this convex mirror on here that just kind of uh latches on the top and bottom but uh it's worked out well i actually love it it gives me a wider field of view and and it looks great so that works out it's been on there a long time that's pretty much it um pretty happy with how the interior looks for a car with 250 000 plus miles um looks pretty good up here no cracking in the in the seats surprisingly uh no cracking on the dash or anything like that either which is great so yeah pretty happy with that there's plenty of room for me to sit in here i can sit up straight my head doesn't hit the ceiling probably got like three quarters of an inch above my head half an inch maybe so it's pretty close but um but i'm able to sit comfortably in here i can you know use one of these tables for you know if i'm trying to cook something chop something up like i usually just end up using this countertop here i can i can work here if i need to do whatever i'll oftentimes put the stove up here in this area and i can cook on that with this door open i haven't cooked too much in this van but when i had or if i needed to boil water for something i usually just put the stove here and most of the time open that door so yeah i can i can be nice and comfortable in here set up nice and straight and not hit my head as i get over towards this side of the van the roof slopes downwards so i can't uh you know here i'm like my head's kind of touching uh but if i want to put my legs out then i can also just come to the end here and kind of lean back and put my legs out and i can use a computer this way or or do do whatever else just kind of chill and even with the door closed this there's enough space to kind of just sit here which is nice so yeah the height the height kind of works out pretty well at least for me so this is how i usually will chill in the van when i have all the doors closed like in the evening before i before going to sleep or something like that if i'm just spending any time in the van hanging out this is usually kind of the position i'll be in i have my three cushions just lined up behind me here a little bit of an angle and i can kind of just lean back on them um and it's actually really comfortable um i also sometimes put uh sometimes put one of these over the side you can have like an arm rest if you want um sometimes do that uh you can be you know working on the computer here pretty easily or you can i'd often times have my phone up here leaning against something and i just watch something on the phone just because it's easier than pulling out the laptop making sure the laptop's charged and whatnot um so i didn't use the laptop too much in here unless i had to do any sort of work but uh if i did then i would oftentimes be in in this sort of position and i can work nice and comfy right here or i would if i wasn't sitting here if i had to do work i would sometimes sit in the front passenger seat and just kind of sit there and work but otherwise this this position is uh super comfy so probably the best uh kind of way to just hang out in the van other than just kind of sitting here with these cushions you know cushions behind me you can even angle them a little bit and kind of lay back a little bit like that and you can kind of chill this way too and actually it's pretty nice uh sitting let's see you guys can see here yeah kind of sitting like back here um is nice because i can i keep this oops i can keep this door open right here and then i have a nice you know nice view out the out the door kind of feels more open and airy um so i can just yeah i can sit right here and just be looking directly out the out the door there which is nice so the last thing i want to show is these window covers these would be what i would put up if i'm sleeping in the van just so you can't see inside all these are is reflectix covered with black felt and then on this side i just glued this pattern fabric on just to look nicer this is this side faces the inside of the van the black belt faces the outside of the van and they they just stick in place with friction so this one for example would be the driver's side rear all the way rear window and you would just kind of put it up and push it all along the edge and it kind of snugs itself in place in there and it doesn't seem to fall out so that works pretty well um some people will use reflectix without any sort of covering on it but i've found that it just doesn't look very good it doesn't look discreet at all you can just see the reflectix through the window reflectix is just a bubble wrap covered in some sort of silver foil type material so it's really obvious that you have something covering your windows if you if you just have the straight reflectix in there so having this black felt in combination with tinted windows looks really good uh really discreet because it just looks like a tinted window when you add this up and you look at it from the outside so that works out pretty well this is this is like the whole stack of all of the window covers and these i just kind of keep a little more organized usually but i'll slide these in place next to the uh to the right of the sink cabinet there's enough of a gap there that these kind of slide in nicely right there and they pretty much stay there all the time unless it's night time and i need to put the uh the covers up all right so for putting these in place i usually just put the bottom in first and then kind of push around the sides and that's in place it's not going anywhere same thing on this one i'll put the bottom in first and then push on the top and the sides a bit and uh there you go so very quick and easy and then you just pull them out and then just for comparison's sake this side i do not have the window covers in you can see how you can kind of see through it's not super sunny out right now either so you might be able to see a little more if it was sunnier but looks pretty black and this side with the window covers in obviously you can't see through but again it kind of just looks like regular tinted windows you can't really tell if there's anything covering them on the inside so you know ends up looking pretty good again this is you know the other side so looks pretty similar especially if you're just kind of glancing at it one thing that i did do for the window covers is that just for the rear windshield cover i put uh because this one is so much bigger and wider than all the other covers i found that it would sometimes start to sag or fall off near the top so i put some velcro along the top here just one just one side i'm not sure what the two sides of velcro are called but this is the more abrasive side so i just used this uh this half of it just this kind of abrasive half and that sticks to the uh to the felt pretty nicely um so i didn't have to put you know i guess the other side is pretty much a felt type material anyway so i didn't have to put that on the on the window cover i just had to put this uh this half of the material up and then the cover sticks to it nicely didn't need anything at the bottom just uh just those few strips at the top and i'll mention that i i used some sort of regular velcro initially and when the car would just uh sit uh in the sun it would just bake that it's right here at the top so it would just get completely uh baked and heated up through the window there when it was a hot day and it would start to like melt the adhesive it would start to melt the adhesive on the back of the velcro and the velcro would kind of sag off so i ended up getting this velcro which is intended for automotive use for high heat and uh this adhesive has been has been much better it hasn't uh it hasn't softened up or come off at all i think this on the side is probably some of the old adhesive from the old velcro but yeah once i used this high temp velcro it stayed on perfectly so that is good so this is where i keep the window covers this gap to the right of the sink cabinet it's not ideal because they kind of stick out a bit but it's the best spot i've found in the van for them when i was building out the van i didn't account for these window covers i hadn't made them at the time and didn't really think about um figuring out a spot for them so this spot works out the best it kind of covers up the foot pump a little bit which is a little bit annoying but i mean there's enough uh you can still kind of get to it right there um without much issue so yeah so this spot kind of works out well i wish they were maybe a little bit more contained somewhere and not not just kind of you know hanging out like this but aside from that works out pretty well and i'll also mention that uh i have this this curtain right here also and this is just a piece of this is like a blackout curtain with a couple clips and so if i do need a curtain um i don't usually put one up most of the time but sometimes i will and when i do i'll use this uh just this like bungee cord that goes across um and i'll wrap it i'll wrap it around the end all the way across uh one end of this um this curtain wrap it around there and then i'll use one of these clips and uh and i'll clip it to the [Music] to the bungee cord like at the end or even clip it like way up here um one on each end and uh that usually holds it in place and then sometimes i'll use this one of these pieces of tape this is like gaffer tape so i can just kind of keep reusing it and that way it it kind of draws you know sort of drapes over to here and it'll be taped up and then it'll come down behind these uh behind these headrests so it comes over and then down behind these and the corners are kind of held up you know this this whole spot is kind of covered up by by taping it over here so it kind of drapes across now you might have a little gap up at the top but not really much um i don't even have my piece of tape on this side anymore it looks like but yeah i haven't i haven't put that curtain up in quite a while but i do have that uh if i if i want to put a curtain up and it does um it does provide good coverage too when it's up so that you know in addition to the window covers um will pretty much make this whole space all uh all covered up although most of the time if i'm just sleeping somewhere i'll just put the window covers up and just kind of leave the front open i'll actually put my uh my windshield reflectors up my sun reflectors up in the windshield so then all you have open is the side windows and you know if you're kind of laying way back here um you know it's uh kind of ends up working out fine so that's what what i usually do is just have all these uh these side windows and this rear windshield covered up and then just the uh the front windshield covered up with the sun reflectors and then the two side windows will just kind of be open that's what i do most of the time but sometimes i will put the curtain up as well also here's a little clip of the faucet actually working with the foot pump so there's the foot pump down there you can see if i just push on it so it's like you know you get a bit at a time but with each pump it comes out pretty nicely so you can get like plenty of water so yeah that works out pretty well down here a decent amount of pressure behind it too which is cool and this is just copper tubing from home depot with uh sharkbite connectors which was super easy to use and put together i took the van for its final drive recently i drove it from tahoe to santa cruz and from santa cruz i took a long day driving it down the coast to orange county [Music] uh it's a beautiful drive i think that road highway one is probably my favorite road that i've ever driven on it's just so beautiful and uh i've had the pleasure of driving it multiple times in the van and so it was a great way to kind of uh send off the van by getting to drive down that coast one more time and then on june 2nd 2022 after almost 20 years in the family the band sold and the reason i sold it is because i'm planning on traveling around to other countries for a little while so i won't be needing a vehicle for now so it feels good to let it go and get rid of another possession of mine and to know that somebody else will be continuing to drive it and hopefully get to enjoy it [Music] you

Channel: shevy5000

Views: 139,943

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Id: Q99Dle6FzXE

Length: 38min 56sec (2336 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 06 2022