Got Shower?

marc olivares

Adventurer
so since Sinuhe let the cat out of the bag, i thought i'd give you a teaser of a mod i did recently.
i'm currently working on a tech article for Discoweb on how to put one of these kits together, but it's not quite finished yet.
the tech will include how to build the heat exchanger, and where to buy all of the goodies.
total cost for me was just under $200
enjoy :D



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the installed custom heat exchanger, side view

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front view

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the partially installed pump and filter

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how water anyone? (photo by sinuhe xavier)

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Sinuhe getting some hot water love :) (photo by steve rupp)
 

marc olivares

Adventurer
LOL.. you've obviously never seen my disco

you can eat off the engine, but the interior is filled with cheerios and juice box stains :D
 

stevenmd

Expedition Leader
marc olivares said:
LOL.. you've obviously never seen my disco

you can eat off the engine, but the interior is filled with cheerios and juice box stains :D
...and you only have two kids... I have 4 and 1 on the way and most days you can eat off the interior in my rangie - and, no, I don't mean cheerios off the floor. I clean my interior religiously.

What process do you go through to clean your engine? (Sorry if this is a thread hijack - nice shower, yada yada yada, could have done without the shower action pic burned into my brain...:ylsmoke: ).
 

michaelgroves

Explorer
I installed a very similar setup into our Defender-based expedition vehicle, and it was a terrific benefit to have hot water on demand. If I were doing it again (and I had on-board air), I would use air-pressure to run both the hot and the cold water systems.

I also fitted an Eberspacher 5kW diesel-powered engine pre-heater, so we could run that instead of the engine if we wanted hot water in the mornings!

As you can see from the second pic, I had a hot and a cold tap, and a cold-water pick-up all mounted to the side of the truck. The output hoses could be attached to a shower head or just used to fill basins etc., and the input could either be a water container of any sort, or a garden hose (on low pressure) if available. As shown in the pic, we would sometimes have the input hose coming from a container, and the hot water hose going back into the same container to heat the whole lot in a minute or so.

View attachment 19157

View attachment 19158
 

TeriAnn

Explorer
marc olivares said:
2517556758_0eb7680cef.jpg


Sinuhe getting some hot water love :) (photo by steve rupp)

Marc, the conversion looks nice, the photos look good but ask Steve to use a wider angle lens whilst photographing Sinuhe showering. Err, It helps to provide a sense of location. ;)

3 questions:

1. Is there a handy switch that allows you to turn on & off the water flow to conserve water as you wash?

2. It would be interesting to get a shower time per gallon of gas number. Say empty the fuel tank, pour in a gallon of fuel. Start the engine from cold measure the time it takes for the system to get from cold (noting ambient outside air temp) to shower temp (how hot a shower do you get anyway?) then measure how long can you run the shower, including engine warm up, before you go through your gallon of gas.

3. It would be interesting to get a number of minutes shower per gallon of shower water. It helps determine if you can afford a shower water wise.
 

ntsqd

Heretic Car Camper
I am very interested in the heat exchanger build. Would you please post in this thread when the article is posted?

Also, have you had a chance to characterize the HE's delta T?
 

Lynn

Expedition Leader
TeriAnn said:
1. Is there a handy switch that allows you to turn on & off the water flow to conserve water as you wash?

From the first pic I beleive he used a standard sink sprayer type nozzle, with a built-in valve.
 

cruiseroutfit

Supporting Sponsor: Cruiser Outfitters
Very clean install :cool:

As prissy as it sounds, the on board shower has been one of the best mods I've installed as far as increasing the comfort level for my wife and I.
 

marc olivares

Adventurer
Michael Slade said:
My 2nd battery is where you mounted your pump. :(

mike- the pump can be mounted where ever you want, it doesnt take up much space. ;)

teriann- Hmm, i'll do my best to answer what you query...

1) yes there is a switch for the pump, it's mounted just behind the blinker, and the pump is "on-demand", meaning once it's powered on, it only pumps if there is a pressure loss.
there is also a lever on the shower wand to activate the spray.

2) i honestly have no idea how much "fuel to hot water" ratio is involved in making "hot water" with this setup. from cold startup in the morning, to operating temp i would say it would take about 3 minutes to heat the engine up. once the engine is warm, it takes about a minute to cycle the water through the exchanger to pre-heat your water tank then it's constant heat.
the water, if you let it, will literally "steam" out of the end. yes it can get that hot. so if one were frugal, i'd say shower only after a long drive, then the coolant is already hot :)

3) this i actually did, i filled a 5 gallon jerry up with water, did a 1 imnute pre-heat through the can, and held the wand open with a stop watch until the jerry was empty. it took 3:25 to empty a 5 gallon can. but that's constant stream. when we used it on this recent trip. 5 guys showered with just over 5 gallons water. and my shower was super wasteful :D


oh and steve did use a wide lens, i had to do some serious photochopping to keep this thread PG13...if ya know what i mean
we dont want no naked photos of the tundra wookie :yikes:
 

Series1Rangie

Adventurer
Marc

Very nice install. I don't think any part of my rover is that clean. You do nice work.
marc olivares said:
oh and steve did use a wide lens, i had to do some serious photochopping to keep this thread PG13...if ya know what i mean
we dont want no naked photos of the tundra wookie :yikes:
THANK YOU!! (sorry TerriAnn) :)

Mike
 

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