Ultimate AWD Ford Transit Camper Van Walk-Through - Storyteller Overland MODE LT

This Ford Transit camper van behind me is the Storyteller Overland Mode LT. I'm going to give you a full walkthrough and review of our camper. Thank you to Storyteller Overland for sponsoring this video. In the year and a half that we've owned our Storyteller Overland Mode LT, we've put almost 25,000 miles on it and have had numerous adventures. I'm going to walk you through virtually everything about this camper van and what we think of it. Let's start with the chassis that this camper van is built on. This is the Ford Transit with the all-wheel drive system and the 3.5 liter EcoBoost motor. This thing has the 148 inch wheelbase and it's 19 and a half feet long. The only real modification we've done to the exterior of this van is changing out the front founded on eBay over in Europe and had it shipped over. One of the reasons I like the Ford so much is because it's very easy to service and so far on this I've done all my own service. We've changed the oil multiple times, filters. I haven't had to do anything extensive yet but from what I can tell it's fairly easy. One thing you might notice if you see a stock Storyteller van versus ours are ours are missing the sidesteps. I found with my giant size 14 shoes that when I was getting in and out of the van the steps were a little too narrow for me and sometimes I might slip off. So I removed them and I think the vehicle looks a lot better without them. But that's just a personal opinion. On the side there is a 30 amp smart plug for your shore power and then in the back is the water fill. Here's the ladder for the roof rack and there is a deck up on top. This area is actually big enough for us to put two chairs and we love to come up here in the evening have a drink or just watch what's going on around us at a campsite or tailgating like we did when we went up to Purdue. There is a 90 watt solar panel that comes with the van and these are max tracks that I mounted to this roof rack. It was actually pretty straightforward to do and then the Coleman Mach AC unit. Another modification we did is we put this max air cover over our vent. It's great because when it's raining it doesn't trip the rain sensor and then close the vent. So you can keep the vent open during rain. You can also keep it open while you're driving down the road for some additional ventilation. And then there's this nice large Girard awning. Now this roof rack is made by Front Runner and they have a number of different accessories that slot into these rails along the edges here. So there are a number of ways you can configure this roof rack. But the one addition I want is a handle here because going down the ladder can be a little bit tricky. What I do is I kind of put my foot out put my hand down and then make my way down the ladder. Not the most graceful thing but I don't hurt myself. A couple of things I really like about the Transit. First of which are the rear doors. As you can see they open quite a bit. When the door is open in this position there's actually a lock button so that when you have these doors open in windy conditions they won't blow opened or closed. Unlock them and they open all the way out. The other thing I like about the back of the van is the bumper is also a full step. So it's easy to get in and out of the van. On the passenger side of the van this is where the battery, inverter and all the electrical components are. On the driver's side is where all the water components are which I'm going to go through first. As this is so clearly labeled this is the water control panel. Here's a siphon port so if you hook a hose up here you can put it in a bucket or something like that and siphon water into your fresh water tank. Water pump on off button. This is for the external port that I showed you earlier on the outside of the van. If I want to fill the tank with water I simply move the valve over and now I'm filling the fresh water tank. But if I'm at a campground and I just want to hook up my hose to a spigot I just switch it over and now I'm using city water. If I need to winterize or sanitize move it down like that. All the way up means I'm running off of my fresh water tank. There is an outdoor shower and there's the outlet for that. And then down here is the access port for the water pump along with the drain valve. They've also thought to include an outlet for the furnace back here. The hot air from the furnace comes through this cabinet and helps warm the cabinet to help prevent any freezing of water lines or the water tank itself. Now the water tank is 21 gallons of fresh water. The gray water tank is 24 gallons and speaking of freezing temperatures the gray water tank also has a heating loop to help prevent the gray tank from freezing on you. Back on the passenger side this is where all of the battery and electrical components are housed. Now we have a 12 kilowatt Volta battery system. This is the equivalent of about a thousand amps at 12 volts as well as a 3.6 kilowatt inverter. In here we have a 12 volt outlet and we use this outlet for powering our Truma fridge freezer whenever we have it mounted back here. There is an on-off switch for the cargo lights. Vents for the battery system. Access to your main breaker as well as your other breakers. And then here are two 120 outlets. Now to use these outlets the inverter has to be on but the 12 volt plug is always hot. One thing I really like about this van is how versatile the garage area can be. We currently have it in kind of travel mode to store all the different things we need when we're traveling. Storage tote. This is the GSS by Canyon Adventure Vans and we use this to store a bunch of different things and the cargo lights are visible in there. So you can see your stuff. Now with the garage area and the rest of the van we've installed these inhabit mats which we really like and they add some cushioning to the floor. In the garage itself the bed I currently have this in the up position but this side will go up as well. So you can put these up and clear all this stuff out if you need to use this as a cargo van. You can go down to your local lumber yard and pick up a few sheets of plywood to slide in here or you can turn it into a work area. So if you take this cushion off of the bed you have this kind of table here. So if you need more counter space or you want to set up a standing desk or something like that you can do it back here in the van. Let me put the other side of the bed down and talk about what I think of the bed. Now the bed itself I find to be quite hard. I have bad shoulders and it's difficult for me when I'm laying on my side. The nice thing is with the bump outs on the Ford Transit it's wide enough for me to sleep side to side without hitting my head or my feet and I'm 5'11". The bump out doesn't go the full width of the bed. As you can see it kind of ends here. So Kate and I our pillows are kind of scrunched together and then you have all this space here that really is not that useful because I can't stretch my feet out or I hit the wall. Now in terms of the mattress there are plenty of companies that make aftermarket replacements or you can just run down to the store and get a mattress topper and call it a day. One last feature back here are the bug screens. We've actually used these to sleep with the door open at night or just hang out in the van when there are a lot of bugs out and it's fairly easy to deploy. The other side comes down and then there are magnets that hold the two ends together. On the passenger side of the van as I showed you from up top we have this really nice large Girard awning and there are LED lights. So at night we can put those on and have a little dance party under here. It's a good time. In terms of outdoor power there are two more 120 outlets here and we actually used those recently to help charge a fellow camper because their batteries had died so we just plugged them directly into the van. And this is an input for exterior solar. So we have two extra solar panels that we'll put out in the sun when we're camping to help power our battery back up and this is where we plug in. The Mode LT has aftermarket wheels and tires. So these come from the factory from Storyteller. I really like the color. I wasn't a big fan at first but they've really grown on me. It also comes with larger all-terrain tires. To accommodate the larger tires Storyteller has also added a two-inch lift to the transit to give you more ground clearance and better off-road capability. Folding outdoor table which we also use as our outdoor kitchen because there are two more 120 outlets right here and we bring out the induction stove that comes with the camper. We set it out here and do all of our cooking so we don't get the smoke and all the smells inside of our van. The refrigerator is right here. I can open it from outside the van and it swings all the way out so I can grab beverages or food without having to go inside. And there is a bug screen on this door as well that still allows you to use the outdoor kitchen when it's deployed. These screens do a good job of keeping the bugs out. I'm going to put these back up and then we can go inside the van. In the driver's compartment both of the front seats flip around but when we get to camp we move this one forward because it does pivot which is nice. And we flip this one around this is where I typically sit. Now these are aftermarket seats. I found the Ford seats to be extremely uncomfortable and put these Shielmans in which has made a world of difference in the comfort of driving this vehicle. Now this seat forward it offers a lot more room for us and it makes the van feel a little bit more open but when we do have people over we can flip this around. There's a lagoon table that sits right in here so we can have dinner, play games, or just hang out. And then up here there are two 120 outlets along with two USB outlets to charge your devices. As you can see the inhabit mats that I mentioned earlier go from all the way in the back of the van to the front driving compartment. This bench seat has two seat belts so you can put two children here or maybe one adult. I found that aside from short trips putting two adults here is a little uncomfortable. This bench seat does convert into a bed or a lounge so when we get to camp what we typically do is we put this in lounge mode. Kate is the one who usually sits back here. She really enjoys it and then you can have a couple other people sitting here. You have your two seats up front so you can host quite a few people in a small van. If you bring someone else along or you just want a different sleeping option this converts into a bed. There are companies that make pads that fold across here or you could just get a piece of foam and lay it down. One thing we really like about the Ford Transit is the tall ceiling height. I'm 5'11 and there is plenty of headroom in here for me. Above the sliding door are the control panels. On the Storyteller control panel it shows you your current interior temperature, the status of your tanks, you can turn on your water pump, your hot water heater and turn your HVAC system on and off. So vent, AC, you can control the fan speed, compressor on and off and then here is the heater. You can also control all of the lighting in here. There is a master dimmer switch and you can turn all the lights on and off with one switch. You can also control the individual lights themselves and the dimmers. This is the control panel for the Volta system along with the on off button. With the AC unit above the bed it's a standard Coleman Mach system but what's interesting about it is with our big battery bank we have 12 kilowatts of power. We can run that AC unit all night long and still have energy left over in the morning. With the heating system it's a Rixon unit and what this is is the heater uses the fuel off of our gas tank to fire it. This is also our water heater so it's a water heater furnace in one unit. What's nice with the water heater is once you get that water hot it stays hot and it'll run continuously. The van also has a circulating system where you can take that hot water, circulate it through the pipe so that when you turn the hot water on it's almost instant hot which is very nice and it saves you water when you're camping because you only have a 21 gallon fresh water tank. Now we're in the kitchen. There is a sink. This is where our induction cooktop is. Multiple drawers with the bottom one being the largest. Now one thing that's difficult in this van is that there is a narrow walkway here so I kind of have to shimmy back and forth and if I need to get something out of the drawers I either need to be standing off to the side or kind of like do this game where I'm spreading my legs trying to get the drawer open to grab whatever I need. That's kind of one of the trade-offs with having this bench seat and the bed. Above the kitchen is a microwave and then reading light. We also mount our water filtration system here which is a Berkey. It sits on the countertop and then we have this L-track that we put in with bungee cords to keep it stable while we're driving. Let me put this back up so I can show you the toilet and shower. Down here is the shower basin. We use this as a step up into the bed but when you're ready to use a toilet this lifts up and we have a portable toilet in here with two and a half gallon capacity. When we use it we typically pull it out and set it on top of here so it's at a better height for both Kate and myself. We also use it to store various things like our hose to the outdoor shower, the toilet chemicals and sometimes even our solar panel. The shower basin does have a drain into the 24 gallon gray water tank and this is where the shower resides. So I unscrew this, the bottom part falls out, take the shower wand, put it off to the side, pull this out. Shower wand goes back into the shower and then Joe goes into the shower. So here's the knob for the hot and cold water. You can leave the shower wand up here and there is an on-off button so you don't have to continually turn this water on and off. And then there's a nice little shower caddy here where you can put soap, shampoo, other things. I have no idea what shampoo is because I've never had to use it. There are magnets that keep this opening closed and then you shower. Hot, cold water, we use this quite a bit when we're camping and don't have access to real showers. These are more like what you might call a navy shower. So it's get wet, turn the water off, soap up and then rinse. So you're not using up all of your water. When we're camping for about four or five days, each of us can take two showers during those five days with the amount of water that we use. How do you keep water from going out into the van? Well, the shower curtain stays in the basin and all the water stays in there unless for some reason you happen to shoot the water out of the opening which does happen from time to time. When you're done with the shower, how do you clean or dry it? So basically, this just folds in and after we're done with our shower, we just let this air out. We put the exhaust fan on, open that little window behind there and there's enough air that in maybe 45 minutes or so in a dry climate, this will dry out enough for us to put it back in. Speaking of the exhaust fan, which is right here, we found that when we first got our van, the wind going over the roof rack was actually making quite a bit of noise. So what I did was I took a piece of foam that came in some packaging, cut it out, took this bandana and glued it on and this now becomes our little sound barrier when we're going down the road and when I want to open the vent, all I have to do is pull that down and the control panel is where I showed you earlier. So I think the storytellers really do live up to their name modes. You don't have a fixed bathroom, but you have the toilet and shower when you need it. When you don't need it, you can get it up out of the way and now this is an open space. You can use it for a bed, extra seating, a step up into the bed. So there are all different modes you can set the van up for whatever the adventure is that you want to take. And what's fun is on some of the Facebook groups and that with other owners, you can see how they've set their vans up for the adventures that they plan to take. And we're all different. Now the windows in here do have screens. This one, for example, rolls up and there are magnets that holds it in place. And the nice thing about these screens is they went with a puffy jacket idea. So you can see it looks like kind of like a puffy jacket and provide some insulation from the outdoor elements. Another feature that started in some of the newer storyteller vans or all of the newer storyteller vans is the fact that you can now remove your back cabinets if you want to. There's this L-track system that they bolt into. They're easy to take off. And we did it because we put our heads on this side of the bed and it makes it feel much more open, not having that cabinet directly above your heads. With the L-track, you can mount other things up here if you want to. And let's say, for example, you want to use this as a standing desk. This is that table I showed you earlier. Well, you could mount your monitor up here or have a couple monitors mounted and make this your office area and sleep on the lounge. On this side, you can see what that cabinet looks like. Now, there are reading lights under both cabinets that you can push off, push on. And then to open, all the cabinets and drawers in here have these push-button locks. So it's locked now, unlock, pull. And inside the cabinet, it's padded so things don't rattle around as much. And then these have a pass-through so you can put longer items in there if needed. That is our Storyteller Overland Mode LT. Pretty much all the features, the additions we've done to it. And if you're looking for videos about how we camp or just live out of the van, check out the playlists above or in the description below. And you can learn a lot more about how we travel around in this. We'll also link to a video about seven ways to use your van besides using it as a camper. There are all different ways you can use it on a daily basis. And we know people who use it as their daily driver because it's small enough to fit into a standard parking spot, but it has all the features of home. So for example, if you go to the grocery store and you buy that pint of ice cream, you can throw it right in the freezer and not have to worry about it melting before you get home. I also want to ask your opinions on our van and what features you like or dislike about it. Because no van is perfect. They're all compromises. You just have to find the perfect van for you. Thank you so much for watching. If you want to get more fun content, head on over to our website ortherussos.com and we'll see you next time. Bye. My second book, Tales from the Open Road, The Adventures and Misadventures of RV Living is now available for sale on Amazon. Read all about the ups and downs of our first year and a half living on the road full time.