AWD Transit DIY Stealth Teched Out Van Tour

hey guys what's going on i'm here with micah did i say that right you said it right thank you yes i got inside sam she's taking some photos this helps when you're traveling with a photographer that's your slash assistant it's really nice actually thank you sam anyways we're gonna tour uh micah's 2020 ford transit that you self-built right 100 100 diy yeah but we're going to get into all of that right now here we go [Music] michael what's up man what do you have what kind of van is this this is a 20 20 uh transit all-wheel drive and it's the uh extended 148 wheelbase but nothing's in it i think it's like six eight or six six nine something like that yeah yeah before we step in what what how tall are you because you're taller than me i'm six foot you're six foot so just for everybody for reference when he does step in it's it's ridiculous how long did it take you to build this uh so i got i think uh january of 2020 and then um i was ready to go for a road trip that we did like 8 000 miles um august august so about eight months very impressive for all the work that you did why don't we step in and you can kind of walk me through everything if you want to start on the front that would be great you went with a full-on fully loaded 2020 transit yeah so it's got all the features it's got radar crews it's got um radar cruise yeah so you can set the radar and it'll follow the car in front of you so you don't have to vary and brake or anything like that so it'll go all the way to stop so if the car in front of you stops it'll stop the van completely does this have like the autopilot too i know it's not the full auto violet but it'll keep you in your lane it'll steer for you really things in the road it'll actually kind of steer around it a little bit i see that your rear view river mirrors that what they're called yeah the rear view mirrors is not a rear-view mirror what the heck is that so this is like an android unit that i found um came from china i think i got an ally express yeah like that is 300 bucks but it runs android and actually has a 4g modem in there too so you can put a sim card in it and not even have wi-fi or anything to power it so you could power it with that it runs ways so i got waze on there so it has a dash cam on the front that's always recording and uh it has a sd card in there and i think it also goes up to the cloud so there's an app for it you can view the front camera from anywhere okay any other cool features that you got in the van itself because you got it fully freaking loaded yeah um the blind spot monitoring is really good just okay with something that you don't have windows on the side and it's so long and big like that alone i was looking at a 2019 or looking at a used like 2015 that kind of thing yeah i was sold on the 2020 just for that alone like i need black spots and did we say this was all-wheel drive i think we did yeah but it is all-wheel drive and it's the ecoboost motor so it actually has a fair amount of power like the two swivels is that factory or aftermarket this is aftermarket there's a guy like sprinter swivels or something like that they're super cheap he's actually like right here in seattle area it was like 20 minutes from here i messaged him and went bottom yeah they don't rattle so that's what i was really worried about i heard some of them are really rattly and that kind of thing and like they don't rattle like they're just perfect it has like a big teflon block in there nice where it spins also what's under the seat if you can't see that vent on there guys is this is a will boston heater and it's the air top uh 2000 stc yeah like that the one that's like in russia or something like that the heaters for you or something like that but this is fully four season equipped oh yeah yeah so we got the heater there and then actually put together uh air conditioning which we'll get through i will get to i'm not we're not gonna rush over there right away talk to me a little bit about your ceiling kind of design here because i really actually like it a lot and then i'll switch places with it yeah i really wanted to keep the weight down and just keep everything as simple as possible with the ribs here instead of building on top of that and then building down and wood and everything that's going to creak and all that kind of thing that's what i was really worried about extra noises while we're on the road i found these foamed pvc panels wedge them in between these ribs so the panel itself goes you know about that much more on either side there what i did was shoshugi bond on the cedar for anybody that doesn't know what that is it's a it's an old i believe japanese method of burning wood yes and then using a wire brush right big uh propane torch you use for weeds yeah kind of thing or melting snow yeah so i used that and just blasted it and then you use a brush and you kind of brush it like that and then it kind of makes this really cool so this was like a red cedar originally oh okay and then it it looks like this and that actually will treat it so you don't need to stain it you don't need to paint it you don't want to do anything for people who can't see this is actually has a contour to it how did you bend that yeah so um i got some longer bolts here and i looked at some ship building forms and like how do they do those extreme bins and they were saying that it's actually more so heat so i used a heat gun and a wrench and i just really as i was going and it would bend up so just a heat gun not the torch that you bought yeah yeah just the heat gun so it's in here with a heat gun did you have a glove on because that would get hot on your hand i would say no i think it just burped myself nice nice dude we'll go to this guy right here which is your bench and then i'll switch yeah i wanted to keep everything close to the battery because the battery's under the seat on these the battery like the van battery itself yeah not the battery for the house batteries because i wanted to do as much alternating charger as i could so i have that in here and um i got all my battery stuff under here i've actually built the battery for which is a 560 amp hour uh lithium iron phosphate you built your own battery yeah which is a 560 amp hour yep that is a massive batter for a single person to build yeah and it's pretty small i know it's pretty small because you showed it to me but how the heck did you fit 560s that was something yeah 500 how'd you fit 560 amps in that little guy so they're eve cells and they're about like this and about that tall okay and i just stacked uh just eight of them together there and wired it up made a bms for it and set everything up and it's funny you said it made a bms system for it number one thing that i know not to build a battery is because of bms yes so how i was going to say how important is a bms and how the heck do you know how to do that uh it's super important uh you need low uh temperature disconnect because if you try to charge in freezing temperatures you'll ruin your batteries so like even if you don't really realize that the battery's a little bit below freezing that kind of thing and you try to charge put it in there without a bms you'll ruin it and a bms is battery management software or system better system okay so what you're doing is all those cells are tied together to make one big battery and you need to make sure those cells stay balanced because each one is three-point you know whatever volts where it's at right according to the charge my point is you have this background yeah okay yeah you have a background in tech everybody if you know this stuff by all means do it but for those who don't know this tech please don't try to attempt this it's not the easiest thing to do because you built like a you built your own motherboard oh yeah i mean i built the battery system tied everything together put the bms on top and yeah yeah i find it also interesting that right there is your only window only window you didn't go full south but you went uh and you have enough lighting for this beautiful i like it all right you wanna switch sides with me yeah really nice countertops by the way i wanted to mention that before yeah this is acacia wood acacia acacia oh yeah okay yeah yeah uh expensive wood i just you said the name and now i know the weird thing is i found it at home depot for a huge slab i think oh yes this one and this one and it was actually a little bit wider so i cut it down three hundred and fifty dollars yeah they just started selling these i want to say mid last year yeah yeah yeah so they're the really the the i thought it was just beautiful you know like for that price this would you can't beat it and then your floor is different than everybody else's yeah i i a lot of people use fake wood and i just try to think of the future of like that's probably not going to be cool forever like you know i try to think of the future if i'm going to have wood i want to just be real wood okay fair enough so it's a vinyl sheet and it's from lowe's and it was like one of the cheapest ones they saw so i mean it looks cool i like it i mean it's different you know yeah i like the hexagon sure why not yeah and then you have these upper cabinets that are aluminum framed yeah so these are open yeah i think it's inch and a half aluminum tubing when i was starting this i didn't really know what i was going to do with cabaret cabinetry and that kind of thing and um a motorcycle guy friend of mine who built my motorcycle said hey you know i'd really be interested in doing that i bought the tubing and he welded everything together wow that was nice of him yeah i mean did you pay him i paid oh okay uh very nice that was that's nice of you so did he do all the welding uh for all the cabinetry yeah he did everything so i just kind of gave him a rough idea and this is what he came up with and he kind of changed some things that i'm gonna make it this way instead of the way he's very nice what's interesting is a very simple layout you've got going on here yeah uh do you have a toilet and a shower which is a lot of people are worried about and things like that so i don't have a shower but the weird the weird thing is this actually comes out and it comes out about three feet so if you really wanted to you could go right outside the door here and this is it works just fine shower often portable toilet i think it's um i don't know which brand it is yeah the portable toilet man that's all you need guys come on it's got a bag and if it was an emergency situation you know you're covered your backsplash actually aesthetically fits your entire van yep uh stainless steel stainless steel very nice i had the um the wood up here and i was looking at a lot of people who use those like fake tiles and that kind of thing yeah i did man come on don't don't make fun of me i'm just kidding a lot of money amazon i was like all right i'm gonna put these things up and they were like foam tile yeah i'm gonna ruin these things man yeah i don't want to put these up i wanted everything to be kind of like hard wearing you know that kind of thing because you're gonna be rough with this yeah yeah i like it and we have two dogs and you know it's gonna get messy in here and rough and that kind of thing how big is the bed oh okay yeah so this is a full and it goes the full distance here so in between here is um six foot six foot three okay and i actually built this out there could have been a little bit more room but i just wanted some insulation and something that was soft behind here nice i built these what is that is that like a leather yeah so this is like a fake leather that's like they make marine seats yeah so if you had a boat or that kind of thing they sell this where you can make your seating and benches and that kind of thing and i'm going to ask actually sam to do us a favor do you mind shutting those back doors so we can kind of see what that looks like thank you sam and while sam's doing that can you talk to me about this thing down here and then we're going to talk about what's up there which is kind of cool absolutely but you built your own one of these i was super impressed on how you did all this so i wanted a cruising comfort after our 8 000 mile road trip in the summer it can get unbearable to stay in the van sorry you did a road trip before you put that in yeah oh okay and it was during the summer but after that i was like i gotta do something i was wanting the cruising comfort it seemed like the best option it seems like what everybody's using that actually works well like the roof mounted ones i have so much solar on the top that i can't really fit one up there and well how much solar do you have now that you're there yeah 600 watts okay you have a lot of panels nothing wrong with it yeah no not at all so you wanted to cruise in comfort this is obviously not a cruising comfort so i was cruising on ebay okay and i saw the ves system which is their one of the ones that they sell that's a split system that they make for all kinds of different applications like people use them in big rig trucks and you know all that kind of thing i found just the compressor of that so that obviously it's not going to do anything but it's 500 bucks okay i said i'm gonna buy this and i'm gonna figure it out you bought just the compressor and you built your own mini split i guess yeah i said i'll figure out you know how all this works right what type of tubing i need i figure out you know how to do everything right and i bought the dryer bottle and i bought this uh blower unit which is one that they use in buses and all that kind of thing that's actually made here in seattle so the compressor that we're talking about is the one that's underneath the van that's the one you bought or it's actually right here oh okay so i haven't mounted under the bed so that's like the oh yeah the little yeah yeah yeah so it's just you know about like this i think it's 10 by 10. the the double fan uh underneath yeah so i actually did a different um condenser yeah um the one from cruising comfort's rather thin and you have to mount it at an angle i really didn't want it to be at an angle because it's going to be lower i'm just afraid of it catching on something or that kind of thing one that's made by pro air and it has yeah yeah it can be mounded fully flat made to be under mounted completely under or on the roof so you frankenstein an air conditioning unit yeah okay i get it now i get it and it works well i mean this is like the inside blower unit this is what would be uh like a little box or something like that the cruising comfort sells but i bought this big thing instead what do you think the total price of the all the all the air conditioning components put together oh i saved a lot i think i spent 1500 bucks all together all together yeah and i wanted to figure out i was on it for like a week and a half really yeah again he has a tech background he probably figured out a lot quicker than most of us could definitely faster than i could yeah and then you have this really cool tv behind you yeah i got a samsung q-led tv back here which uh it's one of my favorite shows uh you're you're showing netflix right now thank you it's on the netflix app yeah you're connected to wi-fi right now if you're showing netflix i am so how the heck are you connected to wi-fi and all that good stuff so i have a cradle point router and you can go use all different sorts of mobile routers but you know this is one of the better ones i was gonna say why'd you go with cradle point um just it just seemed like the most robust one that they make yeah so i went with that i was able to use two different cell phone plans in it so i have a t and t plan in there and a verizon plan as well okay just because i don't want to ever not have internet okay how important it is to me and awesome and what was it yeah go ahead continue it has both modems activated all the time and it'll load balance between the two of them do you mind sharing i ask you all uh what do you pay monthly on these plans uh so the 18t plans uh ipad plan it's supposed to be the sim cards in an ipad okay put it in there no problem i mean it probably works yeah and it's 20 bucks a month unlimited it's crazy you do not get throttled you can use a terabyte in a month and you'll be fine and same thing with the verizon and the verizon ones visible and that's like there are we allowed to talk about this one it's a prepaid network okay and you get it you set it up in a phone and you can put the sim card in anything are you kidding me yeah oh wow i got a friend that has like an overland uh tacoma and he set it up in a little verizon jet pack and it works and he's been using it why am i not doing this i appreciate that that just helped me out a lot because i have a jet pack that i gets throttled before i move to the back i can see a little bit uh un uncovered metal right there uh of the frame of the van you used uh what insulation in there so i'm using havelock wool and then the that's just everywhere within the walls and that kind of thing and then in the ceiling i have uh poly iso and then i have wool on top of that oh wow so one layer of that and then just the wall underneath and everything's smashed up pushed in between the panels here the floor i think i have uh an inch oh so yeah can we move to the back you show me kind of the back situation or do you want to show me anything else in here this is a 4.2 cubic feet vitro figure 12 volt and it can also run off 120 you don't have anything in here because you actually only do part-time living i believe right yeah that's right okay yeah i'm going right now i just got leftover stuff that was from last time okay you're like oh wait there's stuff in there and also i wanted to show this this guy off right here you got the amp research step that is a game changer that is so nice right there this has the van compass lift it's the for the all-wheel drive they just developed it i basically got the very first one this is so big on the inside like i don't know if you guys saw the head room that that he had and what i had like i think i had like nine inches in there and i'm five eight yeah five nine maybe i doubt that but five eight i was thinking about doing flares but with this you really don't need them like on a transit to have that much yeah i'm six foot and that gives me six four which is plenty of room like it would be nice to have a couple more inches but it's not really necessary now these panels here are they're the same panels on your roof are they different um these are different they actually sell these for like commercial vehicles that you might want to have uh the temperature controlled inside so they're insulated on the back with foam it shoved a bunch of wool and behind that and then screwed it all on there it works yeah at some point maybe i'll have them covered in some material or something like that uh you also went with uh a lower bed which i found which is kind of cool yeah uh you complete pass through yep i just wanted to have the ability to if i had long things to be able to put them through like if i was ever going to haul something i still could do that and the bed actually comes out really easily oh it's on the things that you pop off yeah these are the ikea rails eight bucks each or something like that for this nice steel that yeah make any distance that you want so i mean it's perfect and i use steel actually bolted if you want to look under here yeah uh it just loops on the edge there oh wow so all i had to do is install that piece of steel yeah bolt it to the van and then it just sits right on top of that so this is uh the temperature monitoring it's called uh netapp mo i think so what's it called netapp netapp yeah so they sell these things that is uh um like a weather system for your house so you can see what the temperature is inside and outside and you can see it on your phone anywhere you are there's a 12 volt yeah it runs on usb yeah so yeah you can plug it into any usb source and on the phone here you can actually see the temperature outside you can see the temperature inside you can see the co2 it'll tell you the decibels so if it's loud really yeah and the humidity so you know what the humidity is inside the van and outside the van and this was just awesome for our trip because we had two dogs yes during the summer and we'd want to go out to eat okay but is it too hot in the van like wi-fi so it connects up to my wi-fi and you have plenty of that we all know this now and then the app here it'll connect anywhere that you have internet on your phone it's just it's a little silver thing and all you gotta do is plug it in with usb i'm gonna try and zoom in on that guy over there it's literally that that guy right there guys yep you want more of those under the van so i just have it screwed under the van there yeah and it takes all the readings and you got it right there and you can actually remote start the transit with an app on the phone yep so if it ever got to that's through ford yeah yeah yeah so i could start it up and start the air conditioning up and cool it back down in there that's pretty cool yeah so you're bent your van is very like minimalist uh really aesthetically cool i think and you did not spend a lot yeah i think i maybe spent 10 000 before we were looking at the air conditioning and that kind of thing yeah so you put a little bit more in there yeah but that's it like not that much it did help that you built your own system i'll give you that much yeah if you can build your own battery that's going to save you a lot doing all the work yourself too like yeah you know you can save a lot there too really stressless enough that eight months was a good good amount of time and then you you working full time i presume yeah so you know i mean it was a you know durian yeah during certain situations i get it and i've never been like a woodworker or anything like that really i just figured i gotta got saws and i figured everything out on my own it's impressive it really is plug anything i definitely i'm always down for having people plug their stuff oh yeah right on the company that did the the uh aluminum work is basan metalworks the saw metal works it's funny you i said plug yourself you're plugging other people but go right ahead you're cool i'll give you some credit for you you know i'd probably be open to be doing batteries for people or mobile internet solutions well how can we find you uh you can look at me on instagram i don't really have a business but maybe i will it's been really passionate about it and this is a huge fun thing and just getting into the community and going to these events and all that sort of things thank you so much for showing us your rig and i really do like it a lot man it's really really nicely done appreciate you i think that's it all right cool [Music] you

Channel: Jarrod Tocci

Views: 242,293

Keywords: van build tour, stealth van, stealth van build, stealth van conversion, stealth van life, stealth van tour, diy van build, diy van tour, how to build a cheap van, ghost tours, ford transit conversion, transit van, transit van build, transit van tour, ford transit awd camper van, ford transit awd conversion, jarrod tocci, 12v air conditioner

Id: 1gzY0iRj7f8

Length: 19min 48sec (1188 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 01 2021