Stinky Whale's rear drawers
Posted: Mon, 13 Jul 2015 2:18 +0000
Hi all,
Long time lurker, first time poster (I think!)
I'm not sure if anyone is interested but I'm currently making a rear compartment for my 2009 SR5 extracab.
I tend to really like to see what other people have done so I thought I'd throw it up here in case someone wants to have a look.
Why is my car called the Stinky Whale? Well, it involved my recently purchased hilux, a trip to the South West of Western Australia, my hatred for rust, and a can of liberally applied rust inhibitor that, unbeknownst to me, had a key ingredient of fish oil.
Anyway! I've searched far and wide, considered different materials, and we finally decided on steel. I know a lot of people shy away from steel because of rust, and weight, but after doing some calculations, the weight is not an issue. I also intend to get the steel either painted of powder coated, so rust shouldn't be a major concern. The last drawers we made were made out of 12mm ply. They were excellent, and are now used in my friend's Dad's prado. Having just purchased a canopy for my extracab, the decision was made to redo the back properly.
Rough calculations were that the steel required for the frame would be betweeen 18-24m, and 20x20x1.6 works out to be between 900-1000g per meter. I picked up 4x6.6m length steel for $100 (normally around $120, but a friend knows a friend). We got to work.
please excuse the poor image quality, I tried to keep them nice and small for forum users with poor internet. The pictures also seem to be retarded unless you click on them.
Here you can see (on the right) the plans I made up on Sketchup for the wood drawers (how I was originally going to do it), but after a friend of mine and I discussed things and ran some numbers, we decided on steel, and I drew up a rough concept on Sketchup (on the left).
So rethinking the drawer itself, it's basically going to be a galley, with a cooker, 3.3kg gas bottle, all cooking utensils and probably a sink.
Practicing our welds first, (neither of us are welders or anything by trade, we just like to give things a go) and my buddy and I are putting the frame together. Welding, grinding, welding, grinding....cutting....welding, grinding
So far so good
Support uprights are welded in, and they are positioned for the mounting holes on the runners I bought. I am using 2 x 1.4 m 227kg non-locking runners. They are bloody heavy and quite expensive (around $220) but at an extension of 1.4m, they will give us a really nice usable drawer.
Testing things, just making sure we're planning correctly with the fridge in mind. We've decided to pick up some smaller, cheaper runners (probably 100kg locking runners) to build a platform for the fridge to slide out.
Sliders lightly mounted to get exact drawer measurements. The steel frame was so surprisingly light and strong, we were very happy. The runners add a lot of weight, they're probably 10kg each. You can see the back storage compartment behind the fridge starting to take shape. The idea is to have a flat L shaped surface to sleep on, with storage compartments to the right and the back left of the main drawer.
Here you can see how far we are after 1 weekend. The 40L water tank will be mounted at the rear of the drawer/fridge. The drawer itself is going to be around 1400ish long by 500ish wide, by 300ish tall.
That's all I've got to share at the moment, if people are interested I'll keep throwing pictures and progress up.
Thanks everyone.
Long time lurker, first time poster (I think!)
I'm not sure if anyone is interested but I'm currently making a rear compartment for my 2009 SR5 extracab.
I tend to really like to see what other people have done so I thought I'd throw it up here in case someone wants to have a look.
Why is my car called the Stinky Whale? Well, it involved my recently purchased hilux, a trip to the South West of Western Australia, my hatred for rust, and a can of liberally applied rust inhibitor that, unbeknownst to me, had a key ingredient of fish oil.
Anyway! I've searched far and wide, considered different materials, and we finally decided on steel. I know a lot of people shy away from steel because of rust, and weight, but after doing some calculations, the weight is not an issue. I also intend to get the steel either painted of powder coated, so rust shouldn't be a major concern. The last drawers we made were made out of 12mm ply. They were excellent, and are now used in my friend's Dad's prado. Having just purchased a canopy for my extracab, the decision was made to redo the back properly.
Rough calculations were that the steel required for the frame would be betweeen 18-24m, and 20x20x1.6 works out to be between 900-1000g per meter. I picked up 4x6.6m length steel for $100 (normally around $120, but a friend knows a friend). We got to work.
please excuse the poor image quality, I tried to keep them nice and small for forum users with poor internet. The pictures also seem to be retarded unless you click on them.
Here you can see (on the right) the plans I made up on Sketchup for the wood drawers (how I was originally going to do it), but after a friend of mine and I discussed things and ran some numbers, we decided on steel, and I drew up a rough concept on Sketchup (on the left).
So rethinking the drawer itself, it's basically going to be a galley, with a cooker, 3.3kg gas bottle, all cooking utensils and probably a sink.
Practicing our welds first, (neither of us are welders or anything by trade, we just like to give things a go) and my buddy and I are putting the frame together. Welding, grinding, welding, grinding....cutting....welding, grinding
So far so good
Support uprights are welded in, and they are positioned for the mounting holes on the runners I bought. I am using 2 x 1.4 m 227kg non-locking runners. They are bloody heavy and quite expensive (around $220) but at an extension of 1.4m, they will give us a really nice usable drawer.
Testing things, just making sure we're planning correctly with the fridge in mind. We've decided to pick up some smaller, cheaper runners (probably 100kg locking runners) to build a platform for the fridge to slide out.
Sliders lightly mounted to get exact drawer measurements. The steel frame was so surprisingly light and strong, we were very happy. The runners add a lot of weight, they're probably 10kg each. You can see the back storage compartment behind the fridge starting to take shape. The idea is to have a flat L shaped surface to sleep on, with storage compartments to the right and the back left of the main drawer.
Here you can see how far we are after 1 weekend. The 40L water tank will be mounted at the rear of the drawer/fridge. The drawer itself is going to be around 1400ish long by 500ish wide, by 300ish tall.
That's all I've got to share at the moment, if people are interested I'll keep throwing pictures and progress up.
Thanks everyone.