Popping my top

[E350]

The quality of your work is simply outstanding. I wouldn't be surprised if you were doing the cabinets for the Optima SEMA van.

But when it is 100 degrees F or more outside, should you be concerned about the relief valve popping on the propane tank in the vicinity of the muffler?

We would really miss you around here...

[boywonder]

Originally Posted by E350

But when it is 100 degrees F or more outside, should you be concerned about the relief valve popping on the propane tank in the vicinity of the muffler?

We would really miss you around here...

Good question........it's perhaps not as close to the muffler as the pics may suggest. I'll snap a few more.

[boywonder]

...got the water tank and plumbing completed......well.....almost....still need a hose and shower nozzle out of the back door.

I bought a 9 gallon tank from plastic-mart.com, and, as it turns out, this tank is made by a company called Ronco in Tustin, CA. Since I'm local I did a will call and forum member 1der (thanks Ray!) picked the tank up for me a few days ago when he came by with his rig.

I specified the tank with a 3/4" NPT fitting for the fill port, a 1/2" NPT fitting for the supply port and a 1/4" NPT fitting for the vent port on the top of the tank. The vent is 1/4" tubing routed through the floor. The fill port has a 3/4" NPT to garden hose thread adapter and a male-female garden hose ball valve and washing machine hose attached for filling; all three items picked up at Lowes.

For stealth reasons, I did not want a city water inlet on the side of the van, so to fill the tank, I connect the house garden hose to the washing machine hose (which extends past the rear doors about 2 feet) and turn on the ball valve at the tank and fill until water runs out of the vent line under the van, then close the ball valve. The tank feeds a Shur-Flo water pump which outputs to a 2 gallon accumulator tank and a 2 1/2 gallon electric water heater that's been converted to 12V.

The entire setup lives under the new upper cabinet recently built. So far, everything works great with no leaks......just have to find a decent sprayer for the outdoor rear shower. I'm plumbed for hot water only, and I've set up up the hot water heater to output at a temp that is pleasant to take a shower.

[Viva]

Ronco tanks have a good rep in the boating world.

One thought on your vent. Typically, whenever you run water (drawn from the tank), air will be sucked in through the vent. Hence it's a good idea to have the vent in a "clean" place. I don't know how clean under the van would be, but it's something to think about.

Some boats have (had) the vents exiting into an anchor locker or other less-than-wonderful-air type place, and after a while the vent tube will be *black* with mold and bio stuff inside. I'm sure some of it gets into the tank.

I like to put my vents inside and at least cover them with gauze (a real filter would be better). OTOH, plenty of folks have the vent going outside and live through it, so not saying it's dire to change. But it might be something to think about.

[boywonder]

Thanks Viva: I have a few 1/4 NPT mufflers that have membranes I may fit one of them to the vent. I need the vent outside when filling to know when the tank is full.....

[ohpyramids]

What about doing two vents, one run high for air and another run outside for filling with a shutoff valve?

Love this thread btw.

[rockbender]

Stealing your filler hose idea! That is a perfect way to keep the dribbles away from the interior. I was trying to figure out how and where to mount some sort of bulk style fill fixture but this is such a cleaner solution.

You may have mentioned it before, but is the expansion tank necessary? I assume you are using this because of your hot water tank type, is that correct?

Once again, nice job minimizing your wasted space on the install. Having hot water out the back of the van is awesome!

[boywonder]

I'll post a few pics of the filler hose....but not much to see really....

1der suggested that I loop the vent hose to minimize water loss when driving....I plan on doing that.

I used the expansion tank to minimize the cycling of the water pump. Without it, the pump cycles every time water is drawn. With the expansion tank, I can use about a gallon of water before the pump cycles.

[ert01]

Here's an idea... For your vent line, put a T fitting in it and use some one way check valves. One on each branch off the T... One end of the T would run under the vehicle and the other end of the T would stay inside the cab, somewhere clean.

When filling the tank, the overflowing water would pass through the check valve on the drain line that is under the van and give you the visual cue to stop filling but it wouldn't go out the other branch of the T due to the check valve there.

Then, when using the tank (draining it) the interior vent line allows air in from inside the vehicle, but the check valve stops the crud from being drawn in via the under-van line.

Make sense? That would solve your visual cue issue and the dirty vent line issue.

[boywonder]

Good idea ert01. I actually have a small qty of check valves, and I've been toying with using them. Your "T" idea allows bi-directionality where it's needed, as long as you can live with the cracking pressure of the valves, which shouldn't be a problem.