Inspecting, cleaning, & reviewing the pieces of my custom camper van after 2 years of adventure

This past September marked the second anniversary of me moving into my van. Dora and man, what two

years

we've had together. Dora and I have traveled a whopping 41,000 miles round trip across the United States so many times that I've gotten lost. Mind you, we've driven through all sorts of landscapes and plenty of country roads along the way, we've camped in some pretty spectacular places and a fair number of not-so-glamorous places too, we've even taken our first international trip together while crossing the northern border and headed to Whistler BC. We haven't been alone on this trip either thanks to Dora's spacious interior.

We have had the pleasure of sharing the excitement of our

adventure

s with friends and family along the way. I'm very happy. to announce that I have teamed up with a rad company called omaze to offer you an even better giveaway for a chance to win your own

custom

camper

van built by professionals not built by me and also to help support a really cool cause check out omaze . com forward slash sampler Today we're gearing up for yet another

adventure

with my friend Chance as we prepare to head west in search of respite from the winner, but before we head out we need to give Dora some much-needed TLC because, well, she's been a little neglected.

Recently, okay, I have my friend chance here and the first order of operations of chance and I is to completely clean dora so that she looks perfect and spacious and then we need to organize the organizer so that we can fit the chants, but what do you care? to you it's me. I'm going to take that opportunity to review the truck because it's been two

years

since we did this build and I get asked a lot about how things have gone, so I'll explain a lot of things. the main parts of the build and talk about how it held up what I think about the parts we used and how they are working today if I would recommend them but we have a lot of work ahead of us before that because I'm not going to lie it's pretty gross in here look This, I haven't done anything to keep

cleaning

this place in a long time, transplant a damn noodle here, I don't know where this came from or how long it lasts.

I've been there, but it looks like something is growing on it, so I think the water situation is going to be particularly bad. I still have to look at that and then another thing that's particularly disgusting is this fan back here. I didn't realize but there's the dead bug on this thing it's really gross dude you're going to be disgusted did you just hit your head on the chance? You have to be careful, brother, this truck is designed for short people and you are not a short person, no. what you signed up for when you showed up, uh, okay, so I think the first order of operations is we need to empty the entire van, we need to get everything out of the van and then we can give it a full vacuum, a full

cleaning

and then We can worry about organizing that, so thanks, okay, this is a very rare look at a completely naked Dora, there's nothing inside that can be seen directly and it's cool to see him naked because I can't see him. so I can walk right through it I think we're ready to start working on cleaning now that we have everything dismantled and clear of clutter.

I guess a good starting point for today would be to talk. about the dora itself and how it has performed over the last two years dora is a ram promaster 2500 with a tall hood and a 159 inch wheelbase. She is a pretty big girl, a fact that becomes very evident when washing her. I chose this particular model for a number. Of the reasons, the first was that I felt this was the goldilocks size for me, big enough to fit my bikes inside and still have plenty of living space and small enough to be able to park in a parking space normal, in addition to this general form.

The Promaster is one of the most DIY-friendly vans thanks to its boxy nature in straight lines. Okay, we got out of the top layer of dirt, now we go for the bottom one. In the first round it didn't look any cleaner. Not at all, Dora is a front wheel drive truck and has averaged 15-16 miles per gallon with the full build. Overall, Dora is still in great shape mechanically and the only maintenance I've had to do outside of standard oil changes is two factory recalls that were taken care of quickly and without issue. I think Dora, you already liked me, like brushing my grandfather's teeth.

I get asked this question all the time and yes, I am still very happy with my choice. For the first truck build, I think if I had to do it all over again, I would have to make a tough decision between another promaster or investing more money in a beefier 4 by sprinter platform, but I'll stop there so as not to take any chances. hurt little Dora's feelings luckily you don't have to worry about hurting little Dora's feelings and it's a good thing because as I mentioned before I'm teaming up with omaze to give away a new

custom

4x4 sprinter rig with 80,000 customizations for those .

Of you who haven't heard of omaze, they're a really cool company that partners with creators like me to make giveaways like this while raising money for charity. It's great, many of you on the channel sent me messages telling me how. It's amazing that I have such an amazing truck that I can go out and have such radical adventures in and well, now is your chance and you don't even have to go through all the hassle I went through to buy it. They build it going through the whole installation crisis, you don't have to do any of that, the event will come to you already built if you visit omaze.com forge sampler and donate 10 you will receive a response for your chance to win your own custom

camper

van.

The best part about all of this is that we will also help raise money for a really valuable charity called Access Fund, whose mission is to preserve public lands, protect climbing areas, and restore impacted trails around the country is a mission, I think. Many of us in the community can get behind it, so if you have the chance to win your own custom camper van and help support a truly worthwhile cause, visit omaze.com. Front bar sample with its shiny new exterior, now it's time to turn our attention to the interior, let's take a look back and one of my favorite mistakes I made when purchasing my truck was going ahead with one that came with the option of factory floor even though I didn't want to pay the extra money for it, although I almost removed this floor completely when we started building, luckily we came to our senses and left it in the van.

This floor has been an absolute dream in the truck, not only has it held up incredibly well through the heavy. use and abuse over the last two years with just a couple of chips here and there to show for it, but as you can see here, it also makes cleaning up any spills or sweeping up debris a breeze. The only downside, like any other hard floor, is how cold it can get, but that was easily fixed by adding a rug which, unsurprisingly, also needed a good cleaning. What do you think, friend? It looks good, it feels good, but most importantly it smells good exactly with the overall cleanliness of the truck.

There, now it's time to get down to the nitty-gritty, taking a look at specific parts of the truck's build that need a thorough cleaning, starting with a particularly nasty find we made earlier in the day, oh my goodness, look at this ready, that's so gross. oh, take it away, so this tank right here is the gray water tank, what does it look like down there, man, gray, that would be nice, that's right, it's a vintage 84. I'm a little nervous about what we're going to find in those. where our drinking water comes from it's pretty clean like below look there's still water here let's see what it looks like I think I drink it this is disgusting there's something in the drain so this could be what it smells like I mean, I don't know what that is, but it's disgusting, we have to clean this up while Chance and I continue to deal with this mess.

Let's talk about my thoughts on this newest addition to Dora. Two big decisions I faced when adding the sink. The first thing was what size to choose and second what drive method to personally use. I thought going bigger was a no-brainer. My sink is 15 by 20 by 10, which gives me more than enough room to wash dishes without spilling water everywhere or the most common route is to simply leave the dirty dishes in the sink to do it later. As for the pump, I decided to go mechanical to have one less thing draining my battery and opted for the foot pump so I could pump water while still using both hands, both the foot pump and the sink have held up incredibly well without a just problem along the way and so if I were to do this all over again I would still go for the same setup if you thought that.

The worst is over, well you would be wrong because next we are going to take a look at my Max Air Deluxe fan, which has not received a single cleaning since it was installed two years ago. Oh, it's so gross, holy cow, right now. I should come out right away, look at this, that's so gross, oh, there are two dead bugs so I'm going to open it, oh, everything is so gross, oh my god, there are certain people you know who you are and this is like Los kills a little inside for those of you who don't know I have the Max Air Deluxe fan and I'm a big fan of this fan.

It has worked perfectly for me. I found out it was recommended online when I was. doing my build and it has kept me very cool or cool enough on hot nights and keeps the airflow working very well. It's been working fantastic. I haven't had any problems with this, it doesn't use a lot of power and I really like the fact that the hood is adjustable so when it's raining I can drop it and make sure no water gets in because you know my head is directly under it , so yeah, I'm a big fan of this. I would buy it again.

I highly recommend getting the adapter. that goes at the top I found, if you are installing one of these it is a huge help, this band was a lot dirtier than I thought, who knew you needed to clean it more often than every couple of years? come here and look, let's come here and look at the solar panel and clean this up so that Dora will be powered by this single 300 watt residential solar panel. Thank you so much, Todd, my friend who gave this to me during construction. It's been phenomenal over the last two years. This, combined with the car alternator that recharges the batteries when I drive, has really helped me a lot.

I don't think I'll go for something bigger in the future. I haven't had to do anything about it. Over the past two years, the connections below are generally good. I am very happy with my solar installation on Dora's truck. The final piece of my roof setup is the actual roof bars that my solar system is mounted on. I spent a ton of time researching this and there are tons of options available but I'm actually very happy with these tech vans I ended up with, not only are they one of the most affordable ones out there but they were also very easy to install using the pre-existing mounting points on the van and therefore require no drilling now that we are done with the exterior elements let's head back inside starting with what is possibly my favorite part of our entire build so let's start here on the garage with These sliding trays, which were a very integral part of this build, allow me to get the most out of the garage.

In this tray there are four boxes containing different things. I have a bike box, a camping box, a winner and miscellaneous bump box, and more. For this we staggered three different bikes, used four 500 pound slides. These were expensive and a little hard to find, but so far they have worked great, so it locks both in and out. I was having trouble locking it but apparently it wants to work when it's on camera, I think the main wear I see on these trays is on the wood so you can see the wood has started to splinter on the side but that It's to be expected, the slides themselves still slide. almost exactly the same as when I first put it on very smooth in and out let's see if the other one is as good it still slides on perfectly I'd say that's man they are in almost as good shape as when they were new overall.

I think it was a big win and I'm excited about it. The key to unlocking the full potential of the bike rack is these amazing bike racks. These are the Rocky Mounts driveshaft and it has been an absolute dream to use them thanks to the extra height they provide I was able to fit three bikes in a single 19 inch wide tray and with the super clever clamping mechanism getting the bikes in and out is easy. verysimple. I get a lot of questions about these stands so I moved on. and put a link to them in the description below along with many other

pieces

I talk about today for anyone who wants more information.

Next, let's take a look at the bed. The bed, as many of you know, is simply a two-piece platform that is held together by these piano hinges in the middle, which work totally fine, so the bed folds in half like this and you can see that I have my amazing sample that stands up without the red heart getting stuck on the sticky wall under here the wood. It's wearing out a little. I've noticed that this edge takes a lot of abuse because there's something that happens when I pull on this rope and then push the thing in too soon, I get it stuck in the trim before it can get to the rest stops that are supposed to be activated, like this Yes, I mean definitely taking a little abuse here in the corner, it's not something that's going to affect its functionality.

I'm not really worried here, the high density plastic works phenomenal. I think it was a really good idea, you know, instead of having wood on wood there, which I think would have worn away over time, this plastic really works well here. on the stand and down there so this rope has been used since the beginning and I think this is probably the thing that has seen the most wear on the entire bed setup because you can see it's starting to fray a lot. To change this, I think this solution offers the best of both worlds, giving me the largest bed possible while still having access to the most living space.

I find that I rarely put the bed up when it's just me in the van. He said this feature really shines when I have someone else in the van with me, as I will on this trip, allowing us about an extra foot of floor space to maneuver around it, so this is one of the additions latest to the van 5k. monitor that everyone is so excited about, there was no denying that having a large monitor here would help me with my work, the real question was whether or not we could mount it in a way that would be safe in construction.

In the video, I showed everyone how much time we spent making sure the mount was strong enough, but that was only half the battle as we also spent a lot of time figuring out the optimal way to secure the monitor securely. while we drive, so we need a place. to attach a bungee to secure all of this and I have one of the original tie downs from the truck build so it will go back to the truck to secure a screen. It's come full circle two years later, it's back there so I'm holding We're here monitoring the monitor, we've come up with a prototype to secure it in place and we're on a bumpy gravel road trying to figure out the worst case scenario. to make sure it doesn't vibrate.

This is a yoga block. For people like me who are not very flexible, but use this when they can't put their hips on the ground and it's going to be very useful here, I think it's good, man, boom, wow, I think it's not going anywhere. That's the best we could come up with, that's the ticket and now you have this D-ring here for no reason. This idea of ​​securing it by simply using friction from the top and bottom has worked perfectly and more importantly the support has worked. very good and yes I see I can watch movies from bed I know I see a lot of you commenting on that you better believe I like it look at this now we need to have the van empty to do the next ones but let's do a quick shot because I know there will be people wondering: I would say the unsung hero of my entire build and the first thing that was installed in the truck is this workbench.

It was never intended to be the focal point of the building, but it has lived here since the beginning and has evolved. I don't know if I would recommend people put workbenches in vans, but for me, someone who can't. building something custom I don't think I could have planned it better Another integral part of the initial build of the truck was this arb cooler. This is the 81-quart version and is known for having one of the lowest battery draws it requires. very little power to keep it running and I can attest that it is extremely reliable as well.

The hanging board. Many people have commented on this in the past. Yes, I have a tuning fork here. No, I can't use my fingers like you. I can see it's tilted, so no matter what you try to do, your fingers come off, I can use the jugs, although I'm happy to have that here, it's fun to be able to do some pull-ups, some you know, hangs. the legs dangle and all that in the swivel seats, something very common in all truck builds. Basically, I chose to do both. I'm really happy that I did it every time there's someone here, as if the possibility is, it's really essential to be able to make both of them spin. and I opened it and they have worked very, very well.

I haven't had to do anything with them, so I started with a 100 amp hour deep cycle battery. I now have double the battery power and so far it's been phenomenal for what it's worth. I thought the 100 was cool that I could get away with it. I'm very happy with the 200 now, so I probably won't add another one. Now let's get to one thing that everyone wants to know about and that I never talk about and that is. and it's down there, we have to go take a look outside the van, so I know everyone was skeptical about this when I added it, everyone wrote in the comments, it's like, oh, you're going to have an accident, you're going to fall. is going to hit the road, you know all those things and you know I have news for you.

The thing is super solid, this thing will never come off for those of you who don't know, I put in a giant piece of PVC. pipe down here I have a big 8x10 outdoor rug that sits here like it's really there because I never use it, I think I've taken it out like three times, but yeah, it's a really convenient way to store a lot of things. People keep fishing rods in something like this, but yeah, so far so good and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I still feel like it was yesterday when my friends and I were looking at this empty van wondering.

What the hell had we just gotten ourselves into, admittedly we had no idea what we were doing but somehow it all worked out and to this day I couldn't be happier with Dora with a few finishing touches our job is finally complete and Dora is searching. She's as good as new after moving again and having the opportunity to get settled, Dora is officially ready to go on a road trip once again, but before we head out, there's one last thing I've been wanting to do for a while. This is a little late, but it's pretty hard for her.

She asked me to get things in the mail, so while I was somewhere this year they finally sent me something really special. I'll be honest, I never planned on receiving this plaque, but during the filming of this video and Thinking of Dora, it's pretty funny. It feels like I've been with Dora for a long time because of all the really cool adventures we've been on, but two years really seems like it's gone by super fast too. I am incredibly grateful to be where I am and to be here living life on the road outside of Dora.

It's my dream. You know, naturally, I think of you a lot when I think about that because this was done through a community project, Dora. It would never have happened without you, my fans, my community, coming together and helping me make all this possible when I am much closer to this hundred thousand mark than the 500,000 we are at now, this will serve as a signpost forever. of you know where we come from boom that's pretty cool one day in the near future we will hit the million subscriber mark mark my words and it will go right there so take note for everyone in the future put stickers on this wall, avoid this area.

Alright, that's all for today guys, thank you all for watching and hanging out with me while we get Dora back as good as new and most importantly, thank you all for being here and being a part of this journey, whether who have been here from the beginning. Come back to Sheila or if you're new to the channel and recently subscribed, I can't tell you how much I appreciate it anyway, I'll see you guys again soon and until then you know what to do, live free, ride hard and get. she revived you