Many asked me about the shower system, and I posted it on the camp shower forum, but, I'll add it here as well.
We have solved the shower issue in a relative inexpensive way. It is an outdoor shower and has 2 tanks of 9 gallons each in the location of the spare of the 80 series Land Cruiser. The tanks are made of 8" schedule 40 PVC pipes with caps. There is a pressure reducer from the air tank with a one way valve that pressurizes the tanks. The rear heater was removed from under the passenger seat and the plumbing was used to heat a heat exchanger. It heats up 9 gallons to 125F in 20 minutes when the engine is warm.
The water system looks like this...
The fittings are standard. The exception is the fitting on the bottom right of the pic. It is drilled and tapped so the pipe that goes up feeds the hot water from the pump and the outlet that goes to the left comes from the bottom of the tank to the pump and the shower. I was trying to drill as little number of holes as possible on the PVC.
They tanks support up to 140F. The frame for the tanks was welded from $15 worth of steel.
The circulating
pump is a 12VDC, but the key is self priming and sustain 140F. The pump was inserted into a 4” PVC for protection, and mounted inside the rear bumper. It is controlled by a
thermostat that costs $5 which is mounted middle right of the panel.
The
Shower Head is available on Amazon, but requires
fittings from West Marin. We mounted the shower head inside the rig by the rear right sliding window. Some cut the fender and mount it outside.
The
Pressure Reducer is also available on Amazon.
The rear heater that resides under the passenger seat was removed, and the two pipes that connect to it were used to connect to the heat
exchange unit. If I had to do it again, I would have used
this unit which is more compact and will take 40 minutes to heat the water instead of 20 min, but we always have time. :)
—o