Amazing Ford Transit Stealth Campervan Conversion Tour

how's it going guys my name is charlie i've got my girlfriend lauren behind the camera and today we're going to give you a tour of our ford transit mark 7 stealth camper van [Music] so as you can see there's a few nicks and bumps in the side of the van it is an old work van gives it that stealth look no one can notice us hopefully when we're outside camping it's a bit of a windy day in the uk we haven't picked the best day today so let's jump inside welcome to the crib the semi-crib we float between this van and our narrowboat we've had the van for about a year and a half now been doing plenty of trips around the uk that you can head back and watch i will confess right now this is a very basic build it was semi-converted from the guy i bought it from so he'd done a lot of the woodwork but there was no electricity there was no heater it was pretty bare minimum but the main thing was the frame and the bed that you can see was already in place so starting off with our mini kitchen we've got two gas hogs i'll open up the bottom and you can see exactly what it looks like underneath so we've got two 3.9 kilogram gas bottles that we switch over when they run out we've got our fresh water that needs topping up at the minute our little fold down bin dustbanning brush and the grey water i've got no outlet or water tanks underneath so we carry a three of these and the gray water we have to keep an eye on that as we're traveling and keep emptying that as we go we've got our cutlery drawer we have to squeeze everything into this but we're pretty organized it's probably going to be one of the most ocd well organized vans that you'll find we've got all the basic utensils in there and lauren cooks up some pretty tasty meals i think our subscribers will agree we've got a little sink and i would have liked to expand it even more but it's just something we didn't get around to when we bought the van the guide installed a steel tap with a foot pump which wasn't great for us so we installed a water pump we've got the main switchboard there which i'll explain all the electrics in a minute but we've got our lights our pump and our heater and lauren is going to demonstrate hopefully the water's working there we go what we've done is we've ran the lines all the way back along drilled a hole in the back of the cupboard the water pump has been bolted to the back there so we've got that inlet pulling out of this fresh water it goes up through the pipes and straight up into the tap so that's the kitchen set up as i mentioned very basic but it works for us we're used to the similar setup in the narrow boat just a little bit bigger so we're very minimalistic overhead storage we've got our kettle we normally keep our dry foods up here playing some bowls typical camper and a little tip we put this rubber matting in so that it doesn't slide around too much when we're on the move we've got a little clip on the side stops it from opening as we go so to finish off the kitchen as if we've got separate rooms in the van we've got a little spice rack a towel holder and up here apart from lauren's makeup mirror is our overhead storage so we've got our pots and pans our washing up stuff we've got a couple of sleeping bags and our bathroom box of course a first aid kit is always a necessity and again little tip carpeted this it was bare metal one to insulate it a tiny bit but mainly to stop it sliding around and making a racket while we're driving oh and almost forgot our little bean shelf our big bean shelf which is normally full of baked beans tinned goods we're a bit empty in a minute but we've got a couple of tins of soup just in case we need something so behind this big wooden door that we leave our veg bag on is where you will find the isolation switch to our leisure battery so the main battery sits underneath the driver's seat and we installed an isolation switch to a leisure battery that is strapped in and this connects all the electrics to the back of the switchboard and when we want to charge it we connect them drive it charges up the leisure battery and when we pull up to camp for the night we disconnect it so that when that runs out if it runs out it hasn't run out yet it's not draining off our main battery and as you can imagine that is pretty crucial so it's one thing we have to remember every time okay moving up into the main living quarters first up we've got our chinese diesel heater controls the diesel heater is located in the boot which i'll show you in a little while but the air pumps out of here and it does get very very warm so that's crucial all the wires are hidden away but it's uh it's been a big upgrade to our van experience this is just my nan's old poof when she passed away is the one thing i wanted to keep is a little memory of where i used to sit with her when i was a child so we got the whole thing reconstructed put a new zip on it and bolt out the fillings and that's just a little memoir when we want to put our feet up or somewhere to sit but to be honest it normally just gets in the way sorry now so before i show you the full extent of the seating area it was an l shape the guy had previously installed that kind of setup but we chopped it down the middle purely because we wanted an extendable table and then we also built it so that when the table's not in use it drops down sits on this ledge and we've still got the l-shaped sofa while i'm at it you might as well come and see what happens in the boot it's a bit of a an organized mess we've got our two electric bikes let me chuck them out the way we actually only just got these recently took them for a little test ride last week and they're actually so good they fold out clipped together and the handlebars just pop up like that so not only are they foldable they're electric they're from a company called michael yeah nice little addition to the van i'll come back to the boot and talk you through that in a minute as you can see huge storage space thanks to the lifted height of the bed but what we need is the table leg and the table top itself so obviously this was a bit of a when we were laying the floor in but it was all worth it to have somewhere to sit and eat our dinners come evening time and also somewhere to work when we're on the road if we're having a work day we often set this up and then underneath what we've done it's a bit of a mess but it does the job and we rarely use this to be honest almost like a little dog bed which slots in there now we're just missing a pomeranian laura keeps hustling me for our pomeranian so maybe that's the secret reason it was built like that and then we've got the extra bit of fabric in the boot so that if we ever do want the l-shaped sofa back or we have our nephews over they need somewhere to sleep we've got this as a setup and then obviously with a tiny space you have to make the most of every little compartment so under here is our main storage we've got a couple of hot water bottles under there from before we had our heater and that is where we normally chuck our cases and clothes if we're going on a short or long adventure and then over this side we have got almighty porta potty we get a lot a lot of questions look at that it just fits obviously measured that precisely we get a lot of questions about this particular porta potty this is the smallest one available on the market it is the set foot porta potty 335 so although it doesn't last long when we're on the road we do have to find campsites and places to empty every few days it is the smallest and most compact one you can find just quickly before we forget we have got the 240 mains as well which we haven't got any type of inverters or solar panels that charge these up uh these only run when we plug in and hook up on a campsite but i'll show you in the cabin in a little while we've got like a little portable inverter that we can charge stuff with while we're driving and finally our adaptable bed one thing i would advise if you're looking at beds is a big mistake we made we bought a ford transit because of the layout because of the size this is a high top mid wheel base the bed is very narrow the walls are narrow so if i'm in a van of my own i can just about fit diagonally and have a restless night's sleep but the beauty with this is the guy that built it made it out of an old bunk bed and the slats pull out using this little cog to make not a full-size double but more or less a proper double bed so we've got our extra bit of material which is not ideal to make up every night when we're on the road but when you extend it and put a bit of effort in it certainly makes for a comfier night's sleep we've got these legs that hook into the bottom of the frame like so and then the step means that we have got plenty of space for chilling in the evenings so that's about it from the inside but as you can imagine [Music] when we shut all the doors and tuck up get the heat on at night time it is completely stealth no one would know we're in air and it's so warm and super cozy one thing i haven't mentioned actually the insulation i think it's a hundred mil thick as well as in the floor and because we've got the front completely guarded off with that main door there's no way really for the cold to creep in and to make it even cozier this was lauren's idea we've got the curtain complete when we tuck it in complete privacy don't know shout out dunham i've taken the camera laura wants to show you a few things excuse the teletubbies sleeping bag a great tip is to get one of these bags for your fruit and veg because it allows it to breathe so it's not going mouldy and if you just put a hook anywhere in your van you've got a hanging fruit bowl one last thing to show you in here aside from the decorations is obviously the roof vent lots of people have electric ones we just got a very basic one that was already installed on the van the old spinny let the wind in one the make of that is a fiama for anyone that's interested we open that up normally when we're cooking or if it gets too hot in here in the summer and before anyone jumps on me we've got our carbon monoxide alarm up here too and this is actually where the guy previously had a wood burner installed it was beautiful but we're not going on any ski holidays anytime soon and it took up quite a lot of space here it also made the van super heavy so we're allowed this up to three and a half ton and the fireplace alone was pretty heavy so the fact that we would probably never use it it would have just dragged the van along and increased the fuel consumption so we played it over the chimney hole and made it look like a little fake air vent and although it's still quite a blank canvas we managed to get a couple of decorations up we've got my favorite photo of the van up there in the lake district we've got a little line art of me and lauren in front of the van there in scotland that someone kindly made for us and sent over through instagram we also stole these from the narrowboat christmas decorations to give a bit of a vibe in here and we've got the complete boho look from another subscriber that very kindly made these macrames to go across the back doors so i'll quickly take you around talk you through the boot so as you saw earlier we've got the table and outside dining set up strapped in here to stop it from wriggling all over the place while we're driving we've got our electric cables our set of chocks our jump start kit just in case and lauren loves a game of bowls we've got our two spare jerry cans full of water normally 25 liters each so 25 50 75 litres we carry in total wellies always a good thing to keep in a campervan and our little 12 volt fridge from halfords which is always good because as you probably noticed in the main part of the van we don't have a fridge we don't eat a lot of dairy anyway so this is handy if we ever do have anything when we're on the road you can plug that into the cigarette lighter in the front we also have a cigarette lighter on our switch panel so we can chuck that on and it kind of just ticks over and keeps things pretty chill overnight we've got our storage box full of goodies priorities lauren's got our wine glasses we've got citronella hat sun cream all that good stuff that you always need to carry when you're traveling around another thing you probably notice is we don't have a place to shower so in here it's literally just broken we were using it the other day and it broke but we had a usb chargeable shower you simply drop the bottom pump in a bucket of water hit the button and it comes out just like a normal shower they're honestly so good and they're charged via usb and the setup we did have if we ever needed to use it i think we used it once in scotland with will is you can hook it on the back here we had a curtain pole that goes across the back bucket of water shower and this was like a little outdoor shower apart from that normally when we're in the van we do like three days on the road if we find rivers or lakes we normally jump in have a swim or we have a little pop-up bucket and give ourselves a strip wash and then after three days we normally jump on a campsite anyway because it's time to empty the toilet refill the water and have a decent hot powered shower last thing in the boot is the diesel heater that i was talking about if you jump on ebay chinese diesel heater i made a whole video where we went up to liverpool and installed it filled this up with diesel the heater is under here that we've actually boxed off just so that we can chuck stuff on top of it but this throws air out the back and obviously pumps all the hot air into the main compartment of the van there's a bit more to it than that there's a little exhaust and a filter that has to go through and under the van and back out but absolute godsend would not be able to live in our van without it now and one of the great things about them as well is they literally use hardly any diesel so if you're watching this you probably already know this information if you're into vans but if you're thinking about heating in your van definitely recommend a chinese diesel heater i should probably mention this is just regular diesel we get it from the petrol station chuck your pump in i think this costs like 10 pound to fill up or you can also run it on red diesel if you know someone that's got a farm and uses tractors nearly forgot our bag of bags we've literally got a bag full of tote bags because when you're on the road you just always need something to carry things with and we collect them yeah we do actually yeah we've got another bag of bags on our narrow boat so if you ever see a tote bag out about grab it and keep it for us and as you can see from the outside i think you'll agree it's pretty stealth the only thing really that would ever give it away which you're never going to notice is our plug-in for the outside so that's where we plug in for the mains if we're ever on site but let's be honest no one's going to take notice of that i'll give you a quick run through in the cabin just in case you're interested as i mentioned it's a very basic van build this is pretty old school but when you're driving this plugs into your cigarette lighter and it gives you 240 power as you're driving so if we ever need to charge our laptops on the go uh camera batteries anything major we rely on that and that also can be used on our little switch panel board in the back there i mean we like the dash it's 10 years old it's a 2012 version of the mark 7 so it's not super up to date it's got no air con it's got no mod cons but it's got a little aux lead up here so we can play our music while we're on the road and in our glove box we've got all sorts we've done scotland and the nc 500 last year so still got our hair neck hair necks or head necks head nets head nets to keep the mosses away torches for campsites at night times what else we've got in there baby wipes always need baby wipes skin's so soft uh for the midges in scotland you should just keep one of these in your van at all times it's the best thing to get rid of midges bugs anything when you're camping avon skin so soft it shouldn't look like that should look like oil because it's so cold it's frozen over hands honey and sunny little book that i made charlie oh a bit ruined oh no charlie that's a spare switch for the isolation switch just in case we have a loose one and we've got an extra little compartment here we just stuck our wires in there oh another thing to mention as you can see this is all carpeted so from the front again for the stealth look it is a complete workman's van if you look in from the front you'll see nothing that gives away uh that it's a camper van on the inside one last thing we've got to show you is hey come on always the joker should we jump in the back and sign out let's do it also under here next to our leisure battery is where i keep our sticker box i know stickers are a big part of the vanlife community we've got three different ones we've got the charlie and lauren aeroplane travel ones charlie and lauren van life which is probably what you guys are going to be interested in and we've got the charlie lauren narrowboat stickers so if you're into the whole sticker collecting game make sure to jump on and grab one from our website or if you just want to support us we really appreciate it and we love seeing where in the world our stickers get to so that about rounds up the van tour hope you've enjoyed it as i mentioned just then if you have any comments any questions drop them down below we'll get back to you uh thanks so much for your help lauren also i know the top question is probably gonna be how much did it cost and how much did the renovation cost i'm gonna break it all down in the next video i've got my notes full of the stuff from when we've done the renovation almost two years ago and i promise the next video goes out after this is gonna be a complete breakdown of the finances also if you're a fan of tiny living van life narrowboats anything of the sort make sure to jump onto our channel check out all the previous playlists we've got heaps of content from the last couple of years like comment subscribe make sure you drop us a like leave us a comment and subscribe to the channel because no doubt we'll be getting out in the ford transit camper this summer hitting a lot of the uk and europe so look forward to seeing you there catch you on the next one guys [Music] you

Channel: Charlie Pauly

Views: 74,458

Keywords: camper, camper conversion, campervan, campervan conversion, camper van conversion, diy campervan, van conversion, van life, living in a van, travelling vans, converted van, van travel, ford transit campervan, ford camper, transit camper, ford camper van, ford transit camper conversion, van food, campervan food, campervan trial, stealth camper, stealth camping, stealth campervan, off grid, off grid camping, van tour

Id: hujNzlkc0JA

Length: 16min 27sec (987 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 10 2022