Here some final photos of the "system". It is in to stay a while and I think it turned out ok for a first try. First photo of the open back and the storage trays. Heavy plastic with wheels and a hinged locking top
Insid the back. I have a nice piece of carpet to cut to size but I'm waiting a week or so till the spar varnish cures a bit more. Sorry bout the band width, I still need lessons on loading photos. Comments welcome!.
Trays with wheels at Wally Mart, trays with no wheels and 5" longer at Targeto. Jack, what jack? Kidding, yes, I have a little moer than 1/4 on the side to just be able to remove the jack door.
Versus the sliding drawers, I like that you can fully remove your containers. Would work very well in many of my uses, which would include camping where simply putting the wheeled tubs either right in the tent, or next to it. Well done. You going to add some tie downs to the floor, or try to keep it smooth for sleeping, etc? If so, you might consider some strap sections attached to the factory floor rings and up to the edges of the false floor, which you could then attach to if you were carrying stuff in transit on a trip. Or thin slots with strap through the false floor to allow use of the factory tie downs below. In a crash, that's the kind of stuff that will save your life, especially with the items up higher on your false floor that will rocket right at your back.
Yeah, on the griz thing you must have missed my griz post last year. I literally felt my bowels loosen - strange feeling to actually understand the saying "scared the .... out of me" in a situation that was real. Seeing a large grizzly when you have absolutely nothing at all was sobering to me after it was all over.
Great idea Doug. I was looking for a feason to use the seatbelt bolts and there it is. I removed the very rear seat belts and tucked them into the facia pannel and I can do the same for the rear seats and use some of my river running straps for the secure tiedowns. Brilliant!
Too funny. Just came to this forum to find out what you thought of that and you posted as I arrived.
Also, Lowe's or Home Depot sells this 1/2 inch anti-fatigue mat cheap on rolls that I made a rear cargo mat with for $12 or so. It would look great atop your false floor to keep every day crap from rattling or sliding around. Could be secured with some of that aerosal adhesive after trimming to shape. Trimming precisely to the cargo area size was a breeze with a carpet knife.
That's a really great project and I love that you essentially now have a gigantic sleeping platform that's flat as a board. I've been toying with a roof tent but it has always bugged me that the truck is easily large enough to sleep inside...
I have a roll of rubber backed thick outdoor carpet that I got to cut to fit the back. I am going to screw it down in six places with the raised washers to hold it down to protect teh wood. I have 5 coats of varnish on it so I dont want to stick anything to it. I like the look of wood. Good thought about the anti slip though.
They make these spring steel simple clamps that hold documents together - you know what I mean? Well, at any office supply store you can find them in some really large sizes that would easily hold the carpet in place if you installed 6 of them around the edges clamping that rubber backing to the varnished wood. That way, you could decide to remove the carpet spontaneously while traveling if you needed to, or to clean up a nasty spill, etc. And the clamps could even hold the carpet hanging from your roof rack while you hosed it down at a carwash.
Hope you don't mind me copyin' your style. I picked up the steel for the frame from Garelick today, but I want to keep my second row in. So i'm devising a way to have an extension slider come out from the 1" tube to support the deck extension. Catch my drift?
It should be fun, or something.
I have a week to get this thing built before I need to use it for 2 weeks straight. I love teaching!
Hope you don't mind me copyin' your style. I picked up the steel for the frame from Garelick today, but I want to keep my second row in. So i'm devising a way to have an extension slider come out from the 1" tube to support the deck extension. Catch my drift?
It should be fun, or something.
I have a week to get this thing built before I need to use it for 2 weeks straight. I love teaching!
;p . Thank goodness for CAD.
