Finally got round to fitting an external shower tonight and thought I'd share... We are regular beach-goers and have often pondered about fitting an external shower head to wash off the kids and me outside the van. Previously I'd thought about replacing the tap with a combined tap/pull out shower like on a T4 Westfalia; ....but they are kind of bulky, not to mention expensive and hard to come by! I'd also looked at external shower points, but these seemed over engineered and I only have cold water so were a bit of an over kill. When I bought my Westy Continental a PO had replaced the manual pump with a grotty old tap, an external pump and a doorbell switch. This was removed pronto! They had however over sized the tap hole so I had to rivet a piece over to fix this. Future plans are to find a better match for the Stainless sink material and use this instead....well, one day! I fitted a micro-switched tap I had kicking around along with a Whale submersible pump. The pump fitted exactly down the hole where the water filler pipe fits on the westfalia. I drilled one extra hole at the opposite side, shaped the water pipe into a curve and eventually managed to push the pipe into the hole, round to the filler where I fitted the pump and pushed it back into the water container. After some wiring I had running water. The tap in the photo is tap number 3....the inlet on number one snapped off last week. I bought another but the micro switch was set so the tap was half open before the pump came on. Tap number 3 arrived at the weekend off ebay and does the job perfectly. When you first turn the tap on the pump starts before the valve opens. You could just fit an extra switch I suppose! Next I needed a shower head and flexible pipe. It needed to have its own valve fitted. After a bit of searching I discovered that these existed for 'personal hygiene' purposes and sometimes go by the name of a 'Muslim shower' or (more amusingly) a 'Shattaf' (to wash your shat aff). These are available on Ebay and I found a UK supplier. It arrived complete with a mounting bracket. If you are feeling bling you can get chrome ones.... The connection end was a standard shower type BSP fitting. I asked around at a couple of caravan places and drew a blank for a T piece which included a male BSP fitting. Again ebay same up trumps with a fitting designed for plant irrigation; Now I had all the bits, tonight it was easy to plumb them all together. T'd off the pipe under the tap and fitted the shower pipe; My unit is next to the door. If it was under the window you could extend the pipework easily. The hose and shower head sits behind the front seat or beside the spice rack...I might even fit the bracket to keep it tidy. To use the shower I just click the tap to start the pump and then use the valve on the shower head to use it. Voila! Perfect for sandy feet, rinsing children and washing the nearside front wheel.
