Seems that no matter how hard I've tried to stay clean on trail I'm always covered in dirt at the end of a day on trail (unless it's snowing). A dip in the lake just gets rid of the top layer of dust, and soap doesn't work well with cold water.I looked around online and found a vendor for a hot water shower, but I thought that for the price I could make my own.

Once I understood what I needed, I started looking for a heat exchanger. People told me about various solutions from the junkyard, but I ended up making my own with 2" copper tubing; 1/4" copper tubing is coiled inside. Each end is capped, and there are 1/5" NPT copper fittins for connecting hoses. Coolant flows through the 2" tube, and fresh water flows through the 1/4" coil.

Inside the heat exchanger:

I made a bracket with some scrap metal and bolted it to the firewall.

I ran heater hose from the thermostat to the exhanger, and then to the heater core. The white hoses in the photo are for the shower. Through trial-and-error, I found that the shower gets hottest (almost too hot) when the cold water for the shower enters the exchanger through the 'cool' side of the exchanger (closer to the heater core).

Heat exhanger and hoses:

Of course the shower won't work at all without some sort of pump. I picked up a Shurflo 3.0gpm pump from Camping World and mounted it on the front left fender next to the welder control box.

Pump and welder control box:

I put together about 20' of 1/2" hose with a sprinkler head on the end to act as weight and filter; this is the intake hose, and can be dropped into any water source for the shower. The output hose is about 6' long and has a water-saving on-off valve built inot the shower head.

Hoses:

I wired a switch off the ignition (engine has to be hot and running), and placed it under the left fender. I also picked up some quick-disconnects for the hose. I can run the shower without having to open the hood.

Switch and connectors:

Some people rig a shower curtain, but I can't see carrying one on trail.

It works great! And in addition to clean-up at the end of the day, I've often used it for clean-up before hitting the road home.