Continuing on . . .
The grey, black and fresh water tanks are inside the truck (good to prevent freezing). However, there is also a "city water" hookup that allows you to get water at the taps without using the 12V water pump, and you also get to save some of the water. It turns out, though, that we don't connect it much, since if we are in a campground where there is a water hookup, we probably aren't too worried about rationing our water supply.
The quick connect fitting on the right is for the coiled hose used to connect city water. The valve on the left is for draining grey water. The camper has a switch-controlled electric grey water gate valve inside, but it's not always opened and closed reliably--and it's good-and-buried where it's near impossible to service--so I added this valve and leave the electric valve open. If anything, it's more convenient; after all, you're outside anyway when dumping the grey water.
There are three "ports" at the rear driver's side. The most used by far is the leftmost "shore power" inlet. It's a Marinco twist-lock port, and the port, wiring and inverter/charger are good to 30 amps. When traveling, we use a 15 foot Marinco 30-amp cord either directly or, when appropriate, with a 20-amp RV adapter. When at home, we'll sometimes plug in an extension cord through a 15-amp adapter to top the batteries off.
The middle port has a Marinco combination telephone jack (top) and cable TV F-connector input. I know the telephone connector looks weird, but we carry a Marinco adapter that locks on here and provides a normal RJ-11 style connector. This port would get used more by someone who regularly uses private campgrounds, as they often have cable and phone connections. The right port is kind of weird; it's a network cable port. When the camper's design work was going on in late 2004, wireless wasn't as well developed and I wanted a way to easily transfer media from my home network to the camper's computer. So I had CMI add a port to allow me to plug in an RJ-45 cable. Not really necessary nowadays, though the cabled connection is still way faster than even N wireless.
Just behind the driver's door is this chrome thing; most people can't guess what it is:
It's the exhaust port for the warm gases from the on-demand propane hot water heater. That heater is located under the kitchen counter.
In the rear is the stock Sprinter trailer hitch, good for a 5,000 tow. There's a covered connection for seven-pin trailer wiring; you can also see the Warn quick-connect for when the winch is used at the rear. The thing stuck in the receiver is a locking hitch pin.
The Sprinter is not a full body-on-frame truck, so mounting a receiver hitch has to be done carefully if an aftermarket hitch is used. Also, there's not a lot of places to connect recovery straps, etc. We carry a heavy duty recovery piece that's a ring welded onto 2" square tubing; if we need to recover from the rear, we pin the ring into the receiver and throw the strap around the ring.
With the bigger tires we picked, we were pleased but a little surprised to find that the spare would fit in the stock carrier. It isn't real easy to get it a tire out and in (lots of cranking on the release bolt), but it is a great spot by virture of not using up space somewhere else. It doesn't decrease ground clearance any.
You'll see a lot of serial production Sprinter campers with spare tires on their back doors. This is often because they are carrying a small generator (often a propane-fueled 3.2 Onan MicroLite) in the spare tire location. Fair enough, but the genset hangs down a lot, leaving less than five inches of ground clearance, IIRC. Not cool for off-roading. (Of course, their permanently-mounted propane tanks hang down just about as low, which is just as bad.)
A first modification many people make on the older Sprinters is to have Koni shocks and struts put on to replace the stock dampers. These typically are sourced from Upscale Automotive in Tualatin, OR (which also does installs); John Bendit of Upscale shipped my stuff to CMI in Columbus to put on. Not the most informative picture here, but you can see one of the red Koni shocks:
Upscale also supplies a heavier (1.125 inch) rear sway bar that many find quite helpful in improving a loaded truck's handling. I did not, however, want to possibly constrain rear axle articulation, so I didn't add it. (I don't really knnow that it would have had a noticable negative effect off road, but it theoretically could have.) But not doing the sway bar lead me to add airbags to the rear, which turned out to be a great idea.
The airbags absolutely cut any wallowing from the heavy load, and they are surprisingly "tuneable" in that the amount of air pressure in the shocks can be varied to allow more or less resistance, which is sort of like "handling" vs. "comfort." There's a dedicated compressor under the hood and a separate switch for each side in the driver's compartment, so changing pressures is quick and easy and I do it all the time.
The other underbody modification, and my very favorite thing I did to the whole truck, is the 50+ gallon fuel tank that was swapped in to replace the stock 26 gallon tank. CMI found this for me in France and what with the weak dollar and the cost of shipping the big mutha, it cost a fortune. But it is extremely cool to have a range of a thousand miles--it let us do, say, Portland to Lincoln, NE with only one in-transit fuel stop-- and it lets you pick and choose your fuel stops based on price. (Of course, the $200 fillups are a bit of a downer.)
The tank is close to a bolt on replacement. It is a little deeper than the stock tank, but mostly it gets the extra capacity by sprawling over a bigger area. I am pretty much petrified of holing it on a rock (it's not yet skid-plated, and may not be; there's pros and cons), but I drive off-pavement with that in mind, and the ground clearance under it is still good.
And one final part (also a favorite thing) to mention today:
These are obviously the exterior mirrors, and they are nice, as the support is hinged at the cab attachment, so you can get the glass positioned more to the front or the back as best suits your driving positon. But it's the mirror on top of the main mirror, what MBz terms the "parabolic mirror," that's the cool thing. In combination with the main mirrors, the parabolic mirrors make the truck both easy to drive in traffic and surprisingly easy to place when backing. Sadly, they're an option . . . but highly recommended, and much better looking than sticking on the Kenworth equivalent.
Next, I'll cover the roof and that'll finish up the exterior. Post up any questions.