We Screwed Up | 9 MISTAKES We Made on our VAN Build | Ford Transit Conversion

i am not perfect and neither is this van as much as i hate to admit it mistakes were made in the building of this van so i've just that up we have a problem definitely made a mistake i did actually make a pretty big stuff up the disaster it was a bit of a fail i messed up i don't know so in this episode i'm going to go through all the mistakes that were made during the building of this van and the things that i would change next time around if you've been following along with the van build series on this van you probably want to watch this to see what things i would change in case you would like to do the same alright let's jump into it [Music] so this van is heavy which is fine as it's still under the legal weight limit but with weight comes extra costs in fuel and you're upgrading your suspension which is all fine if you have the money and you want to do it like that but there are definitely a couple of ways i could have saved a little bit of weight in this conversion and the biggest weight saver that springs to mind would probably be my pine paneling on the walls so the whole walls of the van are covered with 12 millimeter pine tongue and groove paneling and although it doesn't seem like a lot of weight when you pick one up when you add the amount that you actually need for something like this it does add up if i were to build this fan again i would have used a much thinner plywood based wall and the reason is that you will never tell the difference if you do it correctly and you can get tongue and groove style plywood and if you can't you can always go down the path of routing in your own v-groove to get that look i think you would save quite a lot of weight doing it like this and putting up the walls might even be a little bit easier as getting these pine panelings to line up especially around the corners can actually be quite tricky it's definitely something to keep in mind if you're doing something like this the pull out deck it is really cool i have to admit it and it is one of the features i really wanted to install on the van when i first started thinking about the design it looks really cool but do we really use it enough for the space it takes and the weight probably not it gets used maybe like once or twice a month it is really cool to show people and the design ingenuity that kind of went into it but it does take up quite a little bit of space under the garage here and the added extra weight not just of the deck but the plywood sheet that i had to run over the top of it to create a false floor it does add up and as much as i hate to say if i built this van again i probably wouldn't be putting this deck in we probably use the rooftop deck a lot more than we do this one if you really just want one or the other i would probably choose a rooftop deck so this is one i've definitely mentioned before and it was the biggest pet peeve i had when i was building this van and that was changing the front passenger seat to a single passenger seat from this double seat i went through a massive rigmarole of trying to source a single passenger seat so i built this walkway and everything around being able to fit a single passenger seat turns out the galadies got in the way it was more or less impossible to find a single passenger seat with the airbag on the correct side putting a driver seat on this side wouldn't work because the airbag would have been on the other side wouldn't have been legal and an engineer would have never certified it it's still quite functional as i've taken out the armrest out of this seat so i can come back and forth quite readily it's good for us because we're kind of young and we still have the mobility and stuff to kind of squeeze through these tight little spots but for some it might not be as functional so it's definitely something to consider before you design your van if you want to have a partition and be able to get from the back to the front with this double passenger seat so this is our 65 liter compressor fridge from bushman's it is so quiet it has an ultra low energy consumption of something like two and a half amps when it's running but it is just not big enough for our needs i've been in the van solo now for the last one and a half months as vendi is off in europe visiting family and for a single person it is fine it holds enough food for about one and a half weeks but with two people it's just probably not big enough you end up going to the supermarket quite a lot more often and if you want to be going on extended camping trips somewhere where there's not a lot of food or if you're going into smaller towns where the grocery shops are a little bit more expensive and you want to stock up a fridge this size is probably not enough the other issue with these fridges is the size of the freezer they're just so small we love our smoothie bowls and smoothies in the morning so we mostly store frozen berries in here and the max you can probably store is about two packets which isn't really enough it doesn't last you very long but a design like this in a small space is all about compromises putting a bigger fridge in here will reduce this drawer size and maybe even eliminate one of them which i didn't want to do so this fridge still suits us the way i would solve this problem though in a future build would be installing a permanent freezer in the back of the van so that would be in the form of a chest fridge style 12 volt compressor fridge the size of about 30 to 40 liters where we can have it as a dedicated freezer for frozen berries ice creams and frozen meals if we overcook something which would be so good to have it in the back i would stall it on its own draw runners so it would be easy to pull out and then we would just restock this freezer with the essentials from the back and i think it would solve the problem nicely so we spent a lot of time at this office setup working opposite each other on our computers and obviously computers need to be charged so where do you charge them from i've installed powerpoints and usb sockets in certain spots around the van but when you think about it long cords are really annoying and i can't stand them i would much rather a short run of cords to somewhere really close so they don't get in the way of each other so the way i normally charge my laptop is with this cupboard there's a power socket in here and i just run it up with my cord through here when vendi sits there there's a cord in the way it's fine it's not the biggest issue but when you get up the cords start getting tangled and everything so what would i do differently i would install power points and usb ports in places that are really close to where you're going to be charging something i know it sounds really obvious but when you're thinking about where you're putting stuff you're like i'll put it on the wall i'll put it here i'll put it there put it really close to where you will be charging your items if i was to design this van again i would probably put a power socket either underneath or on top of the table here so i could easily just plug it in with a short cord and then we wouldn't have this issue of cords running around the whole van over the top of each other when we're both working in a space like this so the one thing i did want to talk to you about in this video was the sponsor which is us saltyvanventures.com so saltyvanventures.com is the website we built where you can get all the resources that may help you to build your van you can get the 3d models for this van and both our hiaces from chile and new zealand as well as our super detailed electrical and plumbing diagram complete cost breakdown so that is in epic detail down to the screw all the products we put into this van there's links there and our most exciting thing is our van build consulting service so it's getting quite popular we are basically helping anyone build their van at any stage of their build we'll help you do your electrical diagram models layout basically anything you need help with we can help you with there's packages for everyone go check out the website saltyvanventures.com so something i think that is becoming more and more important these days is having your lights in your roof and around your vm dimmable that's going to make your life a lot easier especially if you're stealth camping because you don't want to light your van up like a christmas tree in the middle of the street trying to convince everyone that there's no one inside it doesn't matter how good your blackout blinds are they can always release a little bit of light and the dimmer those lights are the less chance anyone's going to spot you stealth camping somewhere these are our light switches i haven't installed an inline dimmer for our roof lights basically because i couldn't find a design that i liked the ones i could find online didn't really suit my aesthetics for this kind of display so i didn't end up putting one in i probably would now and i probably wouldn't care about the looks just from the amount of times we would have used it these lights are quite bright which is really amazing when you want bright light but when you want say mood lighting or a slightly dimmer light the only way we do it now is by opening our overhead cabinets and using the led strip lights from the cabinets to illuminate the van in a dull light at night time when we're stealth camping as an engineer that annoys the hell out of me i would really prefer a solution that was permanent that wasn't an ad hoc solution that involves utilizing something that it's not made for that's basically against my engineering religion so i would probably next time install a dimmer switch into the wall to dim the overhead lights okay picture this you've just been to the beach you've gone for a surf you've got a wet pair of board shorts or a wet wetsuit how do you hang it up and dry it the cop-out version is hanging over the wing mirror something like that it'll dry eventually but the engineer in me says this is a cop-out solution and i'm not happy with it i didn't design somewhere where we can dry wet clothes doesn't matter how many clothes we have i don't really have a good solution for it and that bugs the hell out of me because it is actually quite a vital thing especially when you're living in a van in a small space and when things rain you get a lot of wet stuff and you're gonna want to dry it i have rigged line inside the van but that is definitely not a good solution either if i was to do this again i would incorporate a washing line into the roof rack that would come out through the cross members and then i could tie a string to it very similar to our new zealand van where i had it built into the roof rack i love that design it works so well we could hang wetsuits we could hang a whole load of washing off that because it's outside in the sun and it is quite high up it gets a lot of wind it dries so quick it's definitely something i would look at if i was to design this roof rack again so yeah so one thing i definitely made a mistake on when building this van was how i treated the pine timber that i put in there a lot of the paneling i bought was actually pre-primed and that's what i would definitely recommend at this point in time if you're going to be building a van because you can buy the raw pint or you can buy the pre-primed pine so the mistake i made was not treating the raw pine correctly pine resin will actually seep through paint especially around the knots so every bit of timber i painted i did undercoat but i did not use the correct undercoat okay i've just put the first coat on of my undercoat if you don't use the correct undercoat what you get are these kind of brown stains all over the wood and it's really noticeable on the white wood it's where the resin is actually seeping through the undercoat of paint and doesn't matter how many times you try and paint it over it'll just keep coming so to solve that problem you need to paint it with a undercoat which is specifically got a stain blocker in there so a stain blocker will prevent these resin stains from penetrating through and really ruining your aesthetics of the van so what i'm going to do is paint this stain blocker on the knots everywhere where it's come through and then just repaint over the top of it with the top coat hiding all these knot stains everywhere so in a bit of an ironic twist of trying to save weight in the conversion i made these overhead cabinet doors quite thin i made the frame by stripping down two by fours into ten millimeter thick pieces and then made the frame array and glued seven mil plywood onto the back what's been my downfall in this it was quite tricky to join the 10 millimeter frame together to get a really strong bond because what happens is these gas struts put quite a lot of bit of pressure on the hinge and push one side higher than the other which actually puts quite a lot of stress on the corners here and they have started to crack just because i couldn't get the join strong enough what i would probably do different next time would be make the frames a little bit thicker so maybe i could put a dowel or a biscuit in that joint to make it a little bit stronger so essentially the whole cupboard door wouldn't flex so much when the gas strut pushes on one side all right guys i hope this video was insightful for you to get a bit of an understanding about the things i would probably change if i were to design this van again if you like this video and you want to show a bit of free appreciation all you have to do is just like the video if you want to put a little bit of icing on the cake subscribe to the channel to see more videos like this also i'm loving the comments you guys are leaving about my shirt in touch with the common man i think i am quite in touch living in a van but i will consider getting a out of touch with the common van t-shirt just for you guys alright so until then i'll see you next time bye [Music] you

Channel: Salty Vanventures

Views: 98,791

Keywords: superspring, ford transit, ford transit conversion, sprinter, promaster, crafter, sumo spring, super spring, sumospring, supersprings, campervan conversion, campervan, vanlife, easy, custom, diy, australia, aus, usa, van tour, Caframo, Sirocco, amazing, cedar, full van tour, deck, slide out deck, hat hooks, fixed bed, big kitchen, hot water, electrical, renogy, 4x4, best, simple, saltyvanventures, windows, rooftop deck, projector, oven, mistakes

Id: Hy6mNUyfOfk

Length: 13min 9sec (789 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 11 2022