Accumulator tank install

I finally got sick of the water pump cycling on and off consantly for low water flow usage, mainly with my 0.5gpm aerator on the galley sink. That can't be good on the pump.

I bought a SHURflo 24oc capacity accumulator tank (part no: 182-200) on Amazon and installed it under the galley sink. It only required buying a 20" supply hose with 1/2" fittings on both end and installing the tank in-line.

Now the water will flow for a good 7-8 seconds before the pump kicks on for about 3 seconds, then shuts off again. Much better!

I went a bit cheaper due and put the lighter weight supply hose from Ace after using all steel braided when I replumbed all the fresh water lines. Oh well. If I find that it doesn't last, it's easy to replace later. My budget is much tighter now than it was when I bought the steel ones.

The tank is just stuck up in the space but it stays put very well. Even if it decides to try to shift, it's on flexible lines so it won't do any harm. This gives easy access if I ever need to adjust the air pressure on the tank and it doesn't waste space. It was also the easiest access place to install without having to thoroughly drain the lines or water heater.

Roof vent cover

We had heavy rain last which informed me of the new roof vent installed last year leaks badly around the seal where it closes. I also have bad leaking by one window at the rear bed, so I think i will have to fill in the gutter with caulk like I did on the other side that used to leak badly. It still leaks a little but not nearly like it did.

Anyhow back to the roof vent - Basically, the foam seal they use on the 9x9 roof vent absorbs the water that splashes against it when it's closed and partly compressed. The water then manages to work it's way inside through the seal, causing drips inside the roof vent. If they had used a rubber seal instead of foam, it might not have this problem.

I had reservations about having to install a 14x14 roof vent over a 9x9 vent but that was cheaper, easier and less risky than having to cut a 14x14 hole and install a 14x14 vent into it. I had to drill into the roof to install it, but I used butyl tape and Dicor self leveling caulk to seal over/around the holes so hopefully that'll do the trick. The edges are raised up due to the butyl tape around the screws holding it down, so excess water that gets inside somehow can drain out with ease.

In a way, I had been wanting a cover over it but I wasn't going to put one if I could help it. But I couldn't. So now I have one and I like it fine. I know this will stop the leaking since I had to throw an empty plastic tote over the roof vent at 4am when it was raining badly and water was dripping in. The box used as a cover stopped the leaking. So a roof vent cover will do the same.

Rear 12v outlets

I finally got around to putting in 12v outlets in the bed area like I have been wanting to for months.

I picked up a double outlet fixture with 12 gauge wires (15amp max it says) at Wal-Mart for about $7.50 with tax. They also sell one that has a single 12v outlet and a USB port or two, but I have plug in USB chargers already so I opted for the double outlet one. The USB one costs a few dollars more anyway.

I got a 12 gauge wire fuse holder from O'Reilly Auto, a package of 1/2" flexible sheath from Harbor Freight and used some good 10 gauge wire I had left over from the solar panel installation. It's on a shared circuit with a single 12V outlet up front that I currently use for a plug-in 3-outlet bar.

The reason I ran the cable far down the way I did is there is space inside the wall around the bathroom sink to drill a hole in the wall without damaging the fiberglass wall inside the bathrooom. Some 1/2" nylon holders with washers work nicely to hold the flexible wire tubing to the wall. I used the existing screws that hold the trim to the wall.

It's not the fanciest setup but I like it fine. It cost about $15 in parts plus the wire I already had.

Closet shelves

I quickly came to realize that I needed to use every inch of the closet. Hanging clothes in it was not practical. A clothes bar made for cars works fine for that purpose. So I put in shelves for other storage purposes.

First I did the right side with some plywood scrap I had... then I ended up chopping up a cheap old particle board bookshelf that fell apart when I was moving it to my mom's house since she said she wanted it. I told her I could put it back together but 2 weeks later she said she didn't want it, so I use part of it for my shelving. That's why one side has white shelves and the other has plain wood.

It has been a HUGE help.

Post about the divider inside here: http://cubey7800.blogspot.com/2013/06/closet-divider.html

Trailer tailgate extended

Due to the leaf springs, new axle and 15" tires being installed to my trailer, the ramp was no longer at a good angle to load my scooter. I paid a welding shop $155 to extend it. Now it's a roughly 8ft tall trailer at the tailgate when raised since it's about a 6ft long tailgate and the trailer's bed is about 23" off of the ground. It's actually a few inches taller than the van (including roof ac) now and it's a very heavy tailgate but I can manage it okay. It looks a bit funny but I don't care. I can load and unload the scooter again myself.

Closet divider

I decided to add a divider into the tiny closet to make better use of the space. Now it's half for hanging clothes, half for food and other items. I can stack up the food items without them falling all over the place into the rest of the closet when driving.

The board I used for the divider was the old built in sofa drawer's bottom surface. That's why it matches on one side. I put the smooth side toward clothes so the rough side wouldn't rick catching on my clothes when putting them in and taking them out.

I am tempted to further modify the left side and build in a couple of shelves so I can sort and organize the food better. It wouldn't cost much or be much more work. Perhaps also remove the old clothes bar that wastes space.

Update here: http://cubey7800.blogspot.com/2013/07/closet-shelves.html

Tailpipe fix

Due to extending the sewer drains further out and having the tailpipe slightly at an angle, it ended up melting the new grey water cap and bayonet fitting I just installed. A muffler shop installed a new tip that extends it out a bit past the drain pipes. Cost? $30! Heck I figured the tip was going to cost that much!

Once that was done, I went back and replaced the drain outlet and cap with new ones. After about 150 miles of driving since the new drain was put on, no melting. :)

Compact refrigetator insall

Sadly, the old Dometic 211 RV fridge is not working properly. It would drop to 42 at night but jump to 50 during the day, promising spoiled food if I used it.

I priced compact refrigerators (aka: dorm fridges) and found one for $90 from Lowes. With tax and a 2 year extended warranty, it cost me just under $110. I drilled 2 small holes in the rear frame on either side and drove in screws to hold it down to the wood decking. A bungee cord over the front will hold the door shut which is how I was going to have to do the Dometic fridge anyhow.

I am hoping to be able to run it on my solar panels and batteries with an inverter. Failing that, I may just use it only when on the grid.

I retrofitted the vents outside with old scrap sheet metal I had laying around on the INSIDES of the vents, so it's almost impossible to see that it's been blocked off. Should I ever decide to sink $600-$700 into another RV fridge, I can easily remove the sheet metal and put it back to venting the space behind the fridge.

30A hookup modification

The original design of the 30A electrical hookup left something to be desired. It had a hard wired 25ft(?) cable that had to be pulled out through the floor of the storage compartment. This made for a hard time trying to handle the cord when hooking and unhooking from power.

My solution is as follows. I cut the cable so that enough was left between the male 30A plug and the end so that it could be hard wired into the gang box. I used a ratcheting tubing cutter and it worked awesome on the very thick cable, giving a very clean cut. It's now just long enough to plug into the generator's outlet right next to it. I removed the original cable out of the gang box and fed in the "new" shorter cable and wired it up.

Using a female end extension cable, it can be plugged into the short mail pigtail I created without having to wrangle the entire length of a 25ft cable through the hole in the compartment floor as was the design.

An advantage to this is I can now get a non-hard wired surge protector and plug it in between the 30A extension cord and the short cable that is hard wired to the van, and it'll be protected from the elements, and out of sight from thieves.

I went on Amazon and bought an Arcon 18206 30-Amp Replacement Generator Power Receptacle and a Camco 55245 RV 30 AMP PowerGrip Replacement Plug so I can reuse the original cable.

It's comes out considerably cheaper than buying the special lock box for the surge protectors ($40) and a 25ft prefrab 30A extension cable ($55+) and makes everything easier, so I am happy with the mod.

Wall carpet installed

I finally got around to getting the tan automotive carpet I bought some time ago cut and installed on the wall. I used craft aerosol adhesive I got a few years ago at a yard sale or someplace and it works great.

I tried to make it one piece not screwed it up around the window so I had to end up making it two pieces with a seam that doesn't look perfect but it could be worse. Overall I think it looks pretty good. It certainly looks better with the seam than it did with too much cut off around the window. I had enough slack at the left edge I was able to fix it and make it look good.

Most important of all, it looks MUCH better than it did with the messed up old wallpaper it had when I got it.

I am probably going to get some new curtain tracks since the old ones are broken into several pieces being 34 year old plastic. They are still usable.. but I may as well just get new ones since they aren't too awfully expensive.

Heater exhaust wind deflector

The van has an Empire T-10 model 10,000 BTU (input) / 7,000 BTU (output) furnace. About 10 months ago, I was able to get it working by blowing compressed air through it to clear out dirt or whatever it had in it that was causing the pilot not to stay lit when released (per lighting protocol). Too bad I already bought an extra, rare pilot thermocoupler for it. But at least I have a spare now since they are really scarce.

It must not have been windy at all that day, it worked beautifully. It turned on and off as it should automatically depending how the thermostat was set. I tested it for about 10 minutes then shut it off.

Today, it was around 32 out with light but semi-constant wind.. and it was blowing into the furnace and blowing out the flames completely. Even when the heater is actually on and running, not just the pilot.. so wasn't a pilot light issue. I watched through the little window as it was burning fine.. then being beaten with wind and then being blown out as the wind picked up. When I opened the window, I could feel a strong breeze blowing straight through the burner.

I saw a webpage talking about a wind deflector they bought for their water heater: WH Wind Guard

I looked around and found an old desktop PC's side cover from a PC I scrapped about a year ago.I bent it down the middle, drilled a hole, ran down to the hardware store and got about $5 worth of items and came up with what you see attached.

It's not something that can be left when driving but that's ok. The van's factory dash heater works for when I'm driving. With gloved hands it can be removed even when hot and tossed into my utility trailer, so the big bulky metal plate isn't something I have to worry about taking up valuable space. The plate has a hook on it and so does the grill on the van. So I only have to keep from losing the tensioner in the center. If I do, they're about $3 to replace. I may keep a spare in the glove box just in case, or even get a closed hook for the plate instead of an open one like it has now so the tensioner will be tethered to the plate.

The pilot/gas supply has an electrical-type thermocouple (generates power from heat or something, doesn't use 12V) and so it has 2 wires running from the pilot's thermocoupler to another component (gas supply switch) and I think it's getting a bad connection. I bumped one of the wires and it cut off instantly. I had to pull the wire connections off and put them back before the pilot would stay lit again. Then I had it working, I exited the van to get my camera for the following photos, took them,gotent back in the van and the flame was totally off, pilot too.

Thankfully it *does* stop the gas from blowing if the flames go out totally despite being in the "on" position. By the 70's they already had that kind of safety feature. I had to wiggle the wires again before I could get the pilot to stay lit. Then it stayed lit and the heater came on fine.

I think shutting the van door made the bad wire connection vibrate enough to disconnect before. It just uses 2 short wires with female blade connects on each end, so it's very easy to make new ones if the old ones are a bit worn out on the blame connectors. Sometimes you can squish them with pliers to fix them as well, then put them back on the blades.

 Anyhow.. now it's lit again and running and seems to be staying lit now despite repeated door closings.

I am testing how well it heats the van at around 32-33 degrees outside.

I set the thermostat to 5 and it heated the van up about 15 degrees in an hour. That's much faster than the electric heater did at 900w running constantly. The gas heater turned on and off at least once or twice in that time when it felt it was warm enough based on the thermostat setting.

Since then, I have bumped it up to 7 and I'll check back an hour later to see how warm it is. A heater set to 1500w would put out at best 5000 BTU or so.. which would be ok for the most part. The propane heater will be a supplemental heater when I have electric to plug in to.. or use exclusively when I'm stopping someplace without hookups.

Replaced light fixture

My van originally had a 12v dual fluorescent bar light over the sofa (which of course has been removed and a dinette put in it's place). It was no longer working, a replacement is expensive and they use more juice than LEDs, so I bought a new double light fixture on ebay and 6 more warm white 68 LED bulbs on ebay for all the interior light fixtures. I originally bought just one to test it.. and I loved it! I put two of them in the new fixture and it looks great.. puts out lots of light with very little power usage..The fixture can have one or both bulbs on depending on which mode you select on the switch.

Regular blueish LEDs hurt my eyes due to the color temperature. Warm white doesn't seem to strain my eyes the way the blue tint ones do. I had first bought a regular LED one with less on it and I don't like it. I'll keep it as an emergency spare or something.

Dinette almost complete

The dinette bench seats are almost completed. I reused the sofa's plywood for the two seats.. I also made a small hatch to access the drain's check valve in case it needs to be replaced. I just need to get some hinges for the bench seats so the compartments can open for easy access and they'll be done.

For cushions, I will get a local furniture upholstery shop  to make me some.

I did check the wiring I mentioned yesterday and near as I can figure, it's hooked up to the breaker wrong and the wire in question appeared to be going to the water pump. So I will have to switch the connections around some to get them hooked up properly.

Battery box

I built the wooden battery box today. It needs some minor fixes here and there but overall it's done. I used a piece of 1-1/2" PVC pipe screwed in and caulked around for the vent. The floor vent is going to end up half way covered up so I will see about adding some hose vents down through the floor where the bathroom shower & sink drain goes through. It will house two group 27 batteries with plenty of elbow room so getting them in and out will be easy. There is a lid (not pictured) that will be screwed down to seal it up.

I also changed two wires to a heavier gauge from the batteries to the 30A breaker and from the breaker to the fuse panel. The short red wire is actually smaller now for the larger black wire on the same terminal of the breaker so I will go back and change it. It's meant to feed everything 12V from the batteries, so it needs to be heavier gauge than 12. I think the larger black wire on the same terminal is 10g. It's some old wire I had laying around from when I had an extra battery hookup in the Ford conversion van I once had.

The 30A breaker may also be wired up backwards.. I gotta try to figure out what that wire is coming from the other side of the breaker is, It's pretty small gauge and seems to be spliced in or has something spliced to it. I haven't examined it closely enough to see yet.

Interior remodeling

The one feature I instantly disliked about this van was that it had a sofa instead of a dinette. This provides no good desk-like place to sit. After much debate over the idea, I decided to put a dinette in place of the sofa.

But I am only going to put one seat which will house the batteries, fuse panel, and converter. I quickly realized that there would be ample space for 2 batteries in the compartment so I pulled the original metal battery box which was badly eaten out from acid in one bottom corner. Thankfully it didn't eat through the carpet or floor.

I am going to build a wooden battery box that is sealed off from the interior by a screwed down lid with weatherstripping and a host using the orginal battery vent on the side of the van. The lower vent is a hole in the floor which I will allow for in the wooden box for cross ventilation.

The space where normally another dinette seat would go is going to be cabinets for a microwave and other storage over the hot water heater.

It's going to take many weeks to build it since I am building it on the fly without much of any plans other than in my head. I took me two days to do what you see below due to taking out the old stuff, reworking it here and there, measuring a lot, cutting a lot (by hand with a mitre box and hand saw).

For the table I will likely be using a pedestal table post and mount and getting a local place that makes cabinet doors to make a custom size table top with rounded edges.

I had to relocate the fuse panel and a 12V 30A auto circuit breaker that was located where the feet area will be. I have to fix a couple wires going to the circuit breaker that are a bit messed up at the ring terminal and one is now too short so I will be replacing it.

Doghouse swap

I was dreading the dog house cover that the van offered up. Worthless cup holders, no storage at all. I went to a local you-pull-it salvage yard and saw my salvation. A 1990 Dodge extended van (old church van) had a dog house with lots of storage and even a fold out table on the top!

I pulled that sucker and paid the $50 for it.. even though I did feel it was a little too high. Took it home, snapped a few pics of it next to the old one and put it in. Fits perfectly from what I can tell.

Folks online have said they were surprised it fit and sealed properly. From what I can tell, it is a perfect fit.

Fixed the toilet outlet

The toilet that the Xplorers have (at least the older ones) is a Thetford recirculating toilet. The toilet itself is it's own holding tank, so no extra tank is needed for it. Thetford actually still makes the toilet.. presumably the design hasn't changed much since the ones I have seen online look identical to the one in my van. That's a good thing.. if I ever need any parts, they should be available.

When this van was made, Thetford sewer hose connections must have been common. Now a days they aren't. I first tried a Thetford to Valeterra adapter I bought at an RV store but I didn't like how loose it felt on the connector. So I returned it and bought the Valterra pipe fittings, a short piece of ABS pipe, two 22.5 degree elbkiw and ABS cement from Lowes. The reason for the elbows is that the running boards were added to the van, making it very difficult to reach the toilet outlet. I found myself havign to get on my hands and knees in order to look under the van to reach the cap when I was trying the Thetford adapter. Nasty prospect.. having to get down on the ground and put my face so close to a toilet outlet pipe. ICK!!

So I extended the pipe down and under the running board, just enough to clear it. After I let the ABS cement sit a few days, I went back and added some plumbers tape (metal strapping) to the running board to secure the pipe from bouncing around. I also secured the tether for the cap so it won't get lost.

Now it has a modern Valterra hose hookup!

The short piece of pipe on the ground is what was cut off. If you look to the right, you see the old section of pipe as it enters the first elbow. That's how far back the pipe was before... which is why I had to extend it out so much. It sticks out past the running board by about 1/2" with the cap on, no big deal. There is still ample ground clearance in my opinion. Plus it's between the two axles.