Van Life's Ultimate Hack: Using a Diesel Heater in Your DIY Camper Conversion

Straighter. Yeah, that's good. Nice and straight. Today we are going to be talking about heat. So when I first started in van life, I was in an old Dodge conversion van and when I had just finished building it out at the end of summer 2020, just in time for winter, and I hit the road and the first place that I stopped to stay at was in Texas. As luck would have it, it snowed in Texas on my first trip. My goal had been to head west, but because of that, I immediately, I also had two cats in there with me, so I immediately ordered a diesel heater, sent it to my mom's house over in Tennessee, and then I shot back over to Tennessee, and my wonderful friend Samantha helped me install that diesel heater. These diesel heaters, this was a couple of years or a few years ago, so the instructions are usually pretty terrible. I was terrified. I was like, I don't know how to install this thing, and the instructions were like not even readable, so I was really grateful to have had Samantha's help. She had just done one. Her grandpa helped her in her van, and so I am super grateful that she was able to come out and help me. We literally have been very, very close friends ever since, and so today I'm going to be installing a Chinese diesel heater into this van, and so a lot of times in sprinters, you see them installed in the front cab area underneath the passenger seat, and that is where I plan to install this one. So first things first, I gotta figure out how to take the seat off of the mount that it's on, and I just watched a video on it. Seems pretty easy. It seemed like it was just bolted down, and then they had to take the seat belt, or they had to disconnect the seat belt from it, and then it just comes off. So let's hope and pray that it is that easy. Okay, so there's a bolt here on either side, and I'm assuming if we push this up, yep, there's one there. So essentially we're just going to take those out, and then the seat belt is connected to the seat. I'm going to unbolt it, take the seat belt off, get that seat out of there so we can take a look at how much room we under there, and then we'll open up the diesel heater and take a look at that. I don't know if this is the right size. It's not. It's too big. I'm gonna switch it out. Got a smaller one here. Too small. Okay, we're back with some hopefully better options here. So far I'm already a little frustrated and weary. Okay, if one of these don't fit, I literally don't know what I'm gonna do. So let's hope that one does. Okay, here we go. Oh dang it, I wasn't filming. I got these two bolts out. These ones I'm gonna, I don't know, I'm gonna get to. Okay, we are problem solving here. Not even moving. I'm going to make a very long story short here and just tell you that we could not get those middle bolts out. They were bolted from the bottom and our tools just weren't cutting it. We wound up breaking one of our ratchets and we could not get it out. So after recruiting the help from Isaac and us not being able to get it out, we wound up putting some blaster on it which is supposed to help like with penetration and like getting the like any stuck bolts to move. So I sprayed it on there. We let that sit for a little while and even after that we still were not able to get the bolts out. I was at a stopping point and I wasn't quite sure what to do and then I figure I'm taking this burner in to the mechanics anyways. So while it's at the mechanic I had asked them if they could take the seat out for me and they could no problem. So they were able to remove the seat and we were able to install the diesel heater and then I can just put the seat back on myself. So that's what happened. Now let's get into the So I just got back from the mechanic and I took it in for the... let me make sure that I say this right. So I took it in for the drive belts. I needed to get the drive belts replaced. So they replaced the drive belt, the belt tensioner, the micro v belt and the premium oe automatic belt tensioner. So that's what I took it in for and they basically said that I took it in just in the nick of time because if I hadn't it basically would have come apart. She said that wouldn't have necessarily been like that big of a deal. I just would have been left stranded. So really happy that I was able to get that done and then I also replaced my brake lights because those were out and they were able to take out the passenger seat. So obviously like we couldn't take it out ourselves. They said it took them about 30 minutes but they were able to take it out. So it's just chilling back here. Now that we have the seat out that means that the diesel heater is going to go underneath the passenger seat in this area here. So before I get into installing the diesel heater I'm going to clean all of this up really good in vacuum and probably take that out. So let's go ahead and get that done. So now that we're clean let's go check out the diesel heater. So we have the heater itself, the plate that it sits on, the pump, some duct, this is the controller that is for the duct, we have our user manual, all the things. So I do have this tank but I am not going to be using the tank that comes with the diesel heater. I'm actually going to be connecting the diesel heater fuel line directly to my fuel tank in the van so that I don't ever have to worry about filling this up. It'll just be connected to that. As long as I keep my fuel pretty full I won't ever have to you know worry about it which is going to be really nice. Now that being said I did have to order an extra part for that and usually these diesel heaters, at least any other ones that I've ever used, come with the part you need to do that and I don't know if this one does. So I'm going to go through it and we're going to find out. This diesel heater did not come with the like, it usually comes with like a rubber piece of tubing that you cut up and you stick that on like the ends of everything that you need to connect together and you clamp it. I'm going to make another very long story short here and let you know that apparently the diesel heaters have changed since I last installed one and they no longer send you that black rubber tubing that you put on everything. You just basically take your fuel line and connect directly to your fuel line and so I wasted a bunch of time looking for that and right before I almost ordered it online Isaac let me know that they changed that and we don't need it so there's that. So while I can technically get underneath the van without having to lift it, the ground was wet and there isn't a ton of room. So we have these blocks and I wanted to put the van up on the blocks so it would be easier for me to get under there and well before you judge me, no I have never done this before and the traction on my tires are garbage. So this took me probably way longer than it should have because I didn't want to go too fast and like jump over the blocks so I would just back up all the way and kind of go a little faster each time and eventually at some point I made it up on the blocks but it was quite the task and I was a little embarrassed to say the least but I did it once so now I can do it again. And there she blows up on the blocks and so I got out to make sure the front tires honestly weren't on as good as I would have liked but I wasn't about to try and do all that over again. Good enough. I was really nervous about that. All right so I went underneath and I used that to drill a pilot hole to kind of give us a better idea of what we're working with here space-wise. So this hole is basically between the step and whatever thing is under that is floating. I don't know. I don't know if that's gonna work. I don't know how much room I have really and truly. All right so I drilled the holes. Let me show you. I use this for the template because this is how it's gonna sit in here. I do want to stop here and say that this is where the fun really begins because I did not make sure that the diesel heater was gonna fit here before I cut these holes. So I'm over here thinking I've gotten this far. I'm doing great. Turns out I was very very wrong and the diesel heater did not fit there so I actually had to move it back and out of frustration I stopped filming and I cut the correct holes and then I stopped for the day. Good morning. It's been some days since I last filmed and I wasn't even filming that much because well things just weren't weren't going right. So last thing I showed you I believe was the holes I cut for the diesel heater. Then I attempted to put the diesel heater inside said holes only to realize that I I should have should have put the diesel heater in there before I cut to make sure that the holes were lined up enough for the heater itself. Anyways it was too far forward and the diesel heater didn't fit. So your girl cut cut holes in her van that were unnecessary. So they're temporarily sealed up right now and I cut the right holes and in the right place and I checked and the heater fits. So I enlisted the help of Isaac, former bus building professional as you all know is the Filipino. I even got my old bus building gear on got my bus building hat on and I got my bus building drink on. So the main reason why I really wanted Isaac's help on this is because I'm not doing this diesel heater install like I have done in the past. We are tapping into the diesel tank on the Sprinter van itself and Isaac you've done that before right? I've done a Sprinter van before yeah. And you tapped into the tank. Yeah but you're making it sound harder than it is. The cool thing about Sprinter vans is they have an auxiliary fuel port means it's already made for it. So that means it's already tapped you just have to connect your fuel line to it. Okay well that's why I wanted to get his help. So he had me buy this thing. What is this for? That's the connection. So most people think when you're going to tap the tank they're scared because they think they need to drill into the tank blah blah blah blah blah which is normal right? The the reason you would want to build a Sprinter is just for this easy thing. Basically there's already there's already a tube inside the fuel tank with an auxiliary fuel port sticking out and all you have to do is attach your fuel line to this and click boom you're done. That simple. We'll see let's let's get started on this. We'll see how simple it really is. My camera lens is all foggy. This is a little bit. Also I don't know if I mentioned that whole debacle. This is all you need right? We don't need that. Yeah they changed it at some point that yeah. Installing a diesel heater a couple years ago used to be different. There used to be these little rubber things that you put on here and then you stick the tube in it. Now they're cheaping out even cheaper and you just stick this on there and it'll slide on hose clamp. So I'm there and the problem is they're all a little different so you hope that whatever you got going on has all the pieces and you don't know until you get into it. You know what I'm saying? All right let's get into it. So those are the holes that I cut that I'm gonna have to patch which I guess worked out. We're using this for the fuel pump. It came out of that one and then we got these this stuff hooked up. We got the exhaust, the air filter, and the fuel line and it's all attached. This is pretty much the easy part. So now we are going to take a look over here at the fuel tank and see where we can if and where we can tap into that. So it turns out um the 2006 Sprinter is very different than the 2007. And I say that because Isaac was like oh I know how to tap into the fuel tank it's super easy buy this part blah blah blah. It hasn't been easy. I didn't need that part. That was like $50 for that part. That's a lot of money because I had to pay for shipping. Anyways so what we're gonna have to do is tap into the fuel line and just tee it off and do it that way which means we have to take a trip to the hardware store. So that's what happens when you're doing stuff you haven't done a million times. Building the bus, done it a million times. If I if we were building or if we were doing the diesel heater like just with the tank it comes with, easy. Well if we would have known this already we would already have the parts. It was really hard though to find any information on on doing it this way so. There's not a lot out there. I just heard all the Sprinters were the same and I've done a Sprinter before. A little auxiliary fuel port you just click right onto it. No. Apparently not. That's not the case. Apparently that's not the case. But here we go. Okay so we just got back from Jerry's and let me show you what we came up with. So basically this is four parts and so we're going to tap into the fuel line and so this part will go into the fuel line and then we're going to tap into it through this right here. And I will link a video in the description that will go further into detail about that if you want to view it. But we got that and some tape for that. Some hose clamps for all of that. And then I also got some steel stick to patch up some holes. But we'll see how this goes. You always want to roll the tape on to the right so that when you tighten it it turns it on the threads versus taking it off. Does that make sense? All right here we go. Filipinos knees and toes. We don't want no leaks bruh. You know what I'm saying? All right it's time to party. This is the point of no return right here. Ladies and gentlemen it's all in theory. We hope those clamps are going to work. Here we go. Watch out. Oh by golly. You want to get me a paper towel? Let's work that. Okay here we go. So where's my clamp gonna be at? Boom. Cool. Well let's uh let's work our line over here. So while Isaac finished attaching our small fuel line to our big fuel line I attached the exhaust muffler and I also attached the air filter. Since this is such a small space for the diesel heater to fit into I didn't need much duct at all. So I cut it down and I got the clamps on there ready to be secured. But first we have to cut the hole for the vent to come out of and then we also need to cut another small hole for the remote wire and then attach the remote to the wall of the seat base where the diesel heater is installed. After you cut any holes you're going to want to hit it with a filer and file down any exposed bare metal. We also hit it with some 220 sandpaper. Then you're going to want to vacuum all of those metal shavings from outside of the area and also from the inside of all of the areas and make sure you get it as good as you can. We repeated that process after we drilled out the hole where the remote wire is going to come through. You're going to want to paint any exposed metal with some type of rust prevention paint to protect it and you're also going to want to make sure that you let that dry really good before you start touching it and stuff which you can also take a heat gun to it and that'll help it dry a lot faster. So we have it all hooked up as far as we know right. So since I don't have power yet we are just going to test it to make sure that it works and I have an old Renogy battery that I wound up not using so we're going to hook it up to that and our fingers are crossed that it works. All right let's see. See that? It's sucking fuel coming from the tank. Oh man lighting is terrible under here but it's working. It's sucking fuel. We tap the tank. We put a tee in right there not sure if you can see it but fuel is coming through. That was a mission but I'm glad that we did it. We have I think we have like six minutes before Debbie leaves and we have to go get Ember but we're gonna bring her outside and it's really nice today. She's been cooped up so we'll bring her outside and finish letting this go. This is really cool though. I can completely control the heater from my phone. So you could just download an app and then you can you have your remote right here that you probably have with you at all times. So it's still coming out it's just not pumping. It's gonna take a few times. We'll update you after we let it run for a little while. So it took three times for me to turn it on let it pump and it aired out twice. This is the third. No it aired out three times and this is the last time and I started to like smell that smell that you smell and it's blowing hot hot air. So we officially have our diesel heater set up and installed. Warm air blowing. I'm so happy about that. Ember's out hanging out with us. What? Ember you want to come fill the heater? Yeah? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. You need help? Look at that clean install. Do you need help? Look at that clean install. No you got it all by yourself. You feel it? Is it warm? Yeah bro. Yeah. Wow that feels really good like the accomplishment nothing. So just a quick overview we have our air filter and then we have our fuel pump and our fill filter. Then our exhaust runs out underneath and then we ran our fuel line up and over the heat protector and then we made sure that it wasn't touching anything. We mounted it to the frame and went over to the fuel line and we teed into that fuel line and then it comes out on the smaller tip to our our diesel heater fuel line. So that is the tee that we used and it's working phenomenal. So if you would like to look at this diesel heater if you use my code 10LEAVEHERWILD you can get 10% off but it is only for a limited time so if that's something you're interested in doing like now is the time and I will leave a link for that in the description. So happy that it's all good. So I do still have to actually connect it and run the wires. That's a whole thing in itself and I have to put the seat back on here. So I'm gonna go ahead and clean up and then I'm gonna do all that stuff at a later time but I hope this video helped you. It took a lot of trial and error. This is my third day trying to install this diesel heater and just really grateful that it's done. So I hope this video helped you. Make sure you like and subscribe. We appreciate it and I will see you guys on the next one.