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On-Board Fresh Water System with Shower
 Brooke and Chloe demonstrate a valueable benefit of the shower / on-board fresh water system: shooting water at unsuspecting fools |
| Benefits of On-Board fresh water system | ||||||
 What's not fantastic about a little running water? And on an overland vehicle to boot? Bliss in the outback. Bliss in the wilderness.Cleaning camp dishes, washing hands, hosing down a baby who's diaper exploded with gooey green poo, and taking showers are just the main points. It also happens to be hilariously damned fun to shoot water at campmates. For camping on Mexican beaches, the water system is invaluable for hosing off our feet before crawling in the tent. Showering off the saltwater feels like a dream, too. The Sonora, Mexico coastline on the Sea of Cortés is blisteringly hot in summer and well into September, making a quick shower at the end of the day a dream. This carries over to camping just 100 miles from home - a shower is always welcome. Hell, everything's easier. Most importantly, it makes my wife extremely happy. And if the whole family can go out for three weeks, or three days, living out of the truck . . . that's fun. When camping is comfortable, it's more fun for everybody. That's the whole point. Downsides? The current water system does not have controlled heat, either. This is a problem in Winter, or when we get out of the desert. However, even on a 70-degree day, ambient heat from the road keeps the water surprisingly warm. Showers are best taken at the end of the day then. This brings up another point: we have to carry around a changing/privacy/shower tent - this means a few pounds added to payload, space taken up in cargo, and additional cost. The first tent I bought was a Paha-Que from Adventure Trailers for about $200. It's a very nice tent, but after losing it in a wind storm, I've moved to a $50 thing from Bass Pro Shops. The on-board freshwater system is a solution for vehicle-based backcountry traveling (outback touring as they say down under), and improves our level of comfort while camping. It's the sort of modification that's not for everybody. However, a few other choices are listed at the bottom. Project Cost
System Components: Tank- 14 gallons, 24" x 14" x 10". Poly tank is IAPMO approved, food grade, and UV stabilized. Comes with 4 fittings (fill, drain, supply, and breather), 3/8" pipe thread. |
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| First impression | ||||||
Overall Concept:
Poly Tank: Shurflo Pump: Deck Shower: Kitchen Sprayer: Deck Fill: Quick-Connect spray port: |
 This woman expresses it all: a camp shower is wonderful.
There are a number of ways to skin this cat of on-board water and/or a camp shower, and I chose a fully custom set up on the grounds that it seemed like a fun and moderately challenging project to tackle. Even though the whole project cost more than I anticipated, I was pleased with the initial result, and quality of most products used. Thus, five stars overall. It's really a pretty simple thing to add on to the truck. Helton, Zodi, and a few other companies provide turnkey systems with controlled hot water and are worth checking out if you are looking to do a similar addition to your Frontier (or any vehicle, really). While this on-board water system is fully custom, it's quite basic: tank, pump, and sprayer. Bada bing. Tank, Pump, Dispenser: The natural white color tank is food-grade and UV stabilized. It also features a wall thickness of 1/8" and comes with four fittings in place: one 1.25" barb for the fill line, and three 3/8" female pipe threaded fittings for your drain, supply, and breather lines. This kind of tank should be kept out of direct sunlight to prevent algae growth or possible breakdown (even though it is UV stabilized).
The pump also self-primes up to 6 vertical feet, so it doesn't need to be submersed in the tank or near the tank. It's also small, 7" long on the largest dimension. I knew this would be easy to mount. Paperwork indicated that the pump has a 40 PSI shut off pressure, which means you can close off the supply valve and the pump will also turn off when the line fills with water, creating 40 PSI of back pressure. Nice feature. Definitely a five star product.
I've gone through the two dispensers above: the deck shower was the first item, but required a lot of space to mount it and also to make adequate space behind it for the 6' hose to retract. On the Nissan Frontier (inside the crossover tool box), the deck shower was just too large. I knew that going into this project but didn't have any other ideas. Three stars only because I knew it was not appropriate for my needs. However, it's a nice shower. This too comes with 3/8" pipe fittings, a 7' hose, adjustable spray pattern, and a hot/cold valve control. It took some time to realize that a dispenser with a trigger control was what I really needed. A six-dollar kitchen sprayer made a hell of a lot of sense. It's cheap, common, and takes up very little space. One problem: doesn't fit well to the 1/2" ID hose that was being used with the 3/8" pipe fittings. An adaptor or two solved the problem. Being flimsy plastic, I suspect that this will need repacing from time to time. But it's inexpensive.
And it also features a 1.5" barb, so it doesn't mate with one piece of hose to the tank's 1.25" barb. I needed two lengths of differing diameter hose and a reducer. More money in fittings, and more time on the project. (This project is filled with similar mishaps). Down the road, when I elected to change to the trigger spray, I found this awesome spray quick connect port from dwincorp.com:
Damned cool, right? Hot and cold twist valves and a chuck similar to an air chuck. The box is about 6" square, and 5" deep with a nice little hatch door and hasp. I modified this for my own purposes, by removing the good stuff from the box; but as usual, I should have used it as it came. More below. |
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| Installation | ||||||
Overall System:
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 (Click for full size) Putting the water system onto the Nissan Frontier went in this order:
That's the quick and dirty version of a process that took me about a full weekend including numerous trips to the hardware store. * * * Notes * * * Plastic (hdpe) pipe fittings do not require plumbing tape on the threads like brass fittings do. That's nice. Custom fabrication of the water tank mounts/brackets and skid plate made the most difficult portion of the install. Tank is mounted with two 1" steel cross bars across the bottom of the tank, with long threaded rods going the the bed. The skid plate, then, is simply bolted to the bottom of the threaded rods poking through the steel cross bars. Photo of the tank after install without the plate. Click it for a larger one: I've mounted the pump to the inside of the custom bumper, then the supply line runs form the pump upward through the bottom of the truck bed to the custom bed cover. The spray port is situated in the corner of the cap, almost under the Eezi-Awn tent but not quite so it's accessible. Close up of the quick connect spray port:
I thought that was clever. Now I have second thoughts about that. It's over with now, eh? The filler is at least clean and high quality, but there may be a better place for it. |
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| Performance | ||||||
| Overall System: |
 (click for full size) All dialed in and rockin', the water system is fantastic with the trigger sprayer. Prior, with the deck shower, I wasn't happy with not having control of the water flow at my finger tips. The shower head was great for showering but it moved alot of water. We'd only get 3 (fast) showers out of 14 gallons. Now we get 6 plus basic camp washing. The trigger spray helps control the flow and makes it easy to clean dishes, wash hands, etc. Since installing this in the summer of 2006, I've never had a leak or pump failure. However, the deck shower handle seams did start to break down at the time I was swapping it out. Water would leak out when pressurized. More importantly, though, a quick shower while camping on the beach or rolling into camp after a day on the trail is worth every smile it creates. My wife simply loved having running water available at any time while we were on the road for several weeks in Mexico. Since then, camping and multi-day off highway trips are a lot more fun and relaxing. |
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| Value | ||||||
| Overall System: |
 I'd do this mod again, definitely. It works better than I'd planned, and works flawlessly.My eagerness to complete the water system on our Nissan Frontier did make me foggy headed at times. For instance, the boat deck shower wasn't a smart buy. And those things cost about $150 retail. Even thought this cost more than I anticipated, making backcountry travel more comfortable for my wife is worth it. And I fully expect this to pay off with our daughter, too. Bottom line: everyone loves running water. |
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| Evaluation | ||||||
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So, how does it work? Switch: spend the money (about $20 with a rubber boot) on a weatherproof switch if it will be exposed. I fried a general automotive switch (plastic, unsealed casing) already, thinking I could get away with it. Since the switch is next to the spray port, it simply got wet a few times and fried. Lasted about two weeks there. Here is something you need with an on-board shower: Shower/Privacy Tent: The tent above is made by Paha Que - $200.00 retail. It's a very nice unit; spacious, a floor that separates, zippered openings in each side to pass your towel and shower hose, decent set up, etc. I made a grave mistake while camping at Goosenecks State Park in Utah, overlooking the San Juan River gorge. I set up the Paha Que, the left to go tour Monument Valley (about a half hour away).
I replaced it with a TravelJohn privacy tent, and two joints in the poles failed during her maiden voyage (Baja Mexico). A short phone call to TravelJohn, and they indicated that they had a bad batch of tents and offered to send me a replacement tent after sending them my broken unit. Nearly a year later, I still don't have the replacement. Bummer #2. Now? Naked behind the rear cab door and stand on a rubber Weathertech floor mat. Works every time and doesn't cost much. But if it's windy, semi-populated, or a little cold . . . watch out. Try the Outback Porta-Privy shower/privacy tent for $50, as seen on the left here. Rapid set-up and take-down, inexpensive, and all around decent. Sometimes, you just don't need the several-hundred-dollar uber-quality unit. It folds into a 24" diameter round shape, so it may be difficult to store. Problems/failures Once, the pump ceased to operate in the middle of a washing session. I checked the fuse and voltage (which were fine), then decided to unscrew the inbound water hose from the pump. Somehow, that flushed out something that was clogging the hose and/or motor. I don't exactly know what it was. Maybe a little dirt or calcium build up. Maintenance? In case the information ever goes away, here is what the page says:
Is this for drinking water and washing water, and what about re-filling on the road? Nevertheless, you can refill water tanks at RV camps or by siphoning from a jug. In North America, you can even get it filled witih reverse osmosis water at a store that - holy cow! - sells water.
Other shower / water options: Vehicle mounted and heated, take your pick from: These all use a heat exchanger spliced into your vehicle's heating system so you can actually control the water temperature with the knobs on your dash. Pretty slick. Most (maybe all three) come with a 12 volt pump and a shower head as demonstrated by the Glind girl on the right. You still have to come up with a water source, but that could be a 5 gallon bucket, and poly tank, or a nearby lake or river. Very cool, but the initial install is obviously a little bit involved. For something less permanent, try the Zodi Extreme camp shower, as pictured on the left. The photo probably says it all: metal canister that you manually pump to acheive working pressure. And it heats with a small canister of propane. And if you want to get even more low-key, get a metal bug sprayer from the home improvement store and heat it on your stove. Same concept, maybe less money invested.
Another viable choice. |
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The freshwater poly tank - a standard rectangular 14-gallon tank for fresh water as used in RVs - is widely available in dozens of sizes, often in peculiar shapes, too. You can also have a custom tank made and specify where you want each fitting. RV stores, boat stores, and some online outlets can help.
Shurflo Classic Water Pump is a 2.8 GPM (gallons per minute) unit, 12VDC power with draw of 7 amps. Part number 2088-422-144. The intermittent duty pump comes with rubber mounting feet/harness to help isolate the vibration - an excellet feature. The connections for inbound and outbound water use 3/8" pipe thread (and come with barbs for connecting the hoses)so no adapters are needed to connect the pump to the supply line.
My trip to the boat store cost me quite a few dollars, and one of those items that cost dearly was the stainless steel deck fill. Very cool indeed. Very overkill, too. The cap uses a spring loaded catch: when depressed, it pops out and allows you to unscrew the cap, which is leashed to the entire device with a stainless chain. Screw the cap on again, then press in the catch and it rests flush with the rest of the assembly. It's a very nice piece of hardware, but required a large hole for mounting - I foolishly elected to put it in the fender. 
A wind storm blew in. When I came back to camp, the tent had been yanked from the stakes and launched in the heavy winds. There went $200. Bummer.
