Campervanman

I didn't give a whole lot of thought to a toilet when I was building it because first I figured there just wasn't room for it in a TC, and second I figured I could find toilets on the road. After taking it on trips all over the country, I realized that sometimes it is important to have a toilet when there just isn't another one available. I was able to find one cassette toilet short enough to slide under the cabinet on the right side. So if I'm going on a big trip, I take that.

If you have the time and knowledge, I really recommend building an electrical system from parts as opposed to buying a self contained power unit for a few reasons. First, with separate parts, if one breaks, you can easily replace just that part. Second, wiring a system directly to the vehicle's charging system gives you much faster charging than the very small charging plugs that come with the self contained units. Lastly, having a system broken into multiple parts allows you to find places to tuck each one into a small vehicle like the TC as opposed to having one giant unit you have to find a place for. Only downside is that you can't really remove it and use it outside of the vehicle.

So people do do this frequently? With Focus parts?

Well yeah I'm sure a conversion would require swapping out part of the e-brake cable like he talks about in the video. Not a huge deal. But obviously for a swap that is from one Focus trim level to another it's easier because you know parts are out there that will fit. In our case, I'm just wondering if there are even parts in existence that will bolt up to the TC axle. Seems like maybe I'm hearing some Euro TCs came with rear discs? Would probably be a hassle to chase down all the parts in the US, or ever replace parts if something broke. Also it's worth noting that we may not be talking about exactly the same thing because my TC is the old gen (2011). So I assume the Focus I might get parts from would be the 2008-2011 Focus, whereas with the newer TC, if there are any parts that would fit, they would probably come from the 2012+ Focus.

There might be another tool out there that can set plus nuts, but I have not found another one. There are a lot of tools that will set rivnuts, but you need a tool with the extra long shanks like that Astro tool to do plus nuts. I don't know of any others that have that aside from that Astro tool.

Too bad. I'm in the midst of working on my rear brakes so right now I'm particularly frustrated by them. Hopefully once I replace pretty much every part of the brakes aside from the drums and backing plates I can just forget they exist for the foreseeable future. I was really hoping it might be an easy/direct replacement with some parts from a Focus, but I guess the rear end of the TC is significantly different from the Focus.

Hello, thought I would share my 2011 TC camper van. I built this over the winter of 2020-2021. I did a lot of research online when building this, but I also went my own direction with a lot of aspects of it, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Mainly, you'll notice the cladding on the walls/ceiling is all 1/8" plywood, and it's probably significantly lighter than shiplap. I think it ended up looking very clean. I also used all LED tape lighting recessed into various fixtures I made as well as the natural crevices along the body lines on the walls. I really, really love how this lighting turned out. Not only does it look great, but having all indirect recessed lighting makes a very nice illumination inside as opposed to having glaring direct lights in the ceiling. It also features: -16 gallons of fresh water stored in an RV style tank underneath the bed -1000W inverter underneath the passenger seat, with remotely positioned 110V outlets in the back -Sink (made from a stainless steel cake pan) that has a folding faucet so it can be stowed underneath a little more counter space -Webasto gasoline heater tapped into the vehicle's fuel tank. There is a fuel tap made specifically for this type of installation that I used. I drilled the tap hole into the top of the fuel pump/sender assembly to avoid drilling holes in the plastic fuel tank itself. Also, after a lot of thought, I determined that the best place in these vans to mount this heater is just behind the driver's seat in the small area of floor just before it steps up to the cargo floor level. (This requires removing the cargo floor extension if your TC is a cargo van.) -1200W/hr lithium battery mounted behind the passenger seat -12V refrigerator/freezer -The electrical system charges from the alternator and from 200W of solar panels on the roof The system I'm most proud of is the hot water system that I custom made for the van. There is kind of a makeshift way to shower in the van with a foldable basin and a shower curtain that sticks with magnets to the ceiling. But I did not want a cold shower. All of the commercial RV water heaters take up way too much space. So, I made a system where there is a plate heat exchanger mounted underneath the floor just in front of the spare tire. Engine coolant and fresh water are pumped through this heat exchanger, and the flow of the coolant is controlled by an Arduino that monitors the water temperature coming out of the heat exchanger, and regulates the coolant flow through the exchanger to keep the water temperature at a set point that can be adjusted. There is also an electrical coolant circulation pump I added in the system so that the system can generate hot water any time the engine is warm, even if the engine is not currently running. (The last photo is the heat exchanger for this system. The blue PEX tube going down to a valve to nowhere is the drain for the water lines.)

Should I assume based on this post and no replies that there's no way to add rear discs to a 2010-2013 TC? I hate drum brakes with a passion. No way to swap over any parts from a Focus or anything?