What stuff do you put in your bed drawers? - overlanding-centric

[steffen707]

My bed drawer project has several stages of design, so I'm starting a new thread just about the contents of the drawers.

Due to the tailgate being about 0.5" higher than the floor of the truck when the tailgate is open, if I build my drawers at 7" height, i'll only have 6.25" of usable vertical space in the drawers.

I started thinking more about a suggestion somebody, I think @smlobx made. I can always make the drawers taller and then put a riser on the tailgate when i want to haul stuff on the platform/tailgate in the mid position.

The key is to make the drawers just the right height, while also maximizing the deck to tonneau height. I think its 19.5" to the top of the bed rail, so a 7" deck height would be 12.5" of space above that. If i make it 8", then I only have 11.5" and so forth.


So i started making a table of anything around 5-7" that I might want to carry in the drawers of the bed. There are a lot of smaller toolboxes from milwaukee packout and dewalt tstak/toughsystem that are near the 6-7" height.

Any other items that you would suggest measuring to get into the drawers?

at 7", i get 6.25" usable
7.875" and I get 7.125" usable. I'm thinking of going this height so I can get any of the milwaukee dewalt boxes in there, except the really large tstak 7 compartment thingy. Might also be able to fit my circular saw in there, though that doesn't need to fit in there. I'm usually not worried about space when i'm needing a circular saw.

I can also fit a fire extinguisher in the drawer. I think mine is only 5.5" tall

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[steffen707]

i also need to find a couple travel tool sets like this

and something like this.

I've already got all of those tools, but i don't want to have to think about all the sockets, wrenches, ect. I might need while overlanding. I just want the majority of the tools to already be in the truck. Throw in my impact and be good to go.

I'm just wondering if any "kit" will be complete enough.....I might have to just piece together another set of tools and store em in something not as compact as a blow molded case....

OR.....
Buy new tools for home and put the old craftsman mechanic tools in the JT?

 

[smlobx]

Good topic Steffen.
I guess the first thing you have to decide, as you’ve alluded to, is exactly what you want to put inside your drawers (so to speak!). It sounds like you’re planning on bringing a complete mechanic shop with you!!! In my other rig that I’m taking on a 3 month trip this summer I have two tool rolls with wrenches, pliers, screwdrivers etc. for nuts that are actually on that truck. To me there is no reason to have a 5mm wrench in my tool roll if I don’t have a nut that size on my truck. I think you have to keep an eye on the weight of what you’re putting in your truck or before you know it you literally have a ton of stuff on there...

When we go on long trips we remove the rear seat and I’ll put heavier items, like tools in a bin or set of drawers that I’ve made for that spot.See my drawer system for my other truck here starting at post #23:
https://americanadventurist.com/forum/threads/big-green-my-2016-f-350-build.4405/page-2

In my case the bed space drawer system will be to carry food, pots and pans etc. The drawer will be less than 4 ft. Long as I’ll have a water tank at the front of the bed. On one side at the rear of the bed will hopefully be a 40 L fridge and on the other side will be space for misc tools, tow strap etc.

The ones we’ve used in Africa had an internal height of 8.2” and hopefully I can adapt this system to work in the Gladiator.. We were easily able to load up a couple of weeks worth of food. We just used cardboard boxes from the grocery store to separate the various food groups and didn’t cost or weigh anything.

https://www.frontrunneroutfitters.c...ta-land-cruiser-79-dc-touring-drawer-kit.html

Looking forward to your developments!

EDIT to add I see that you’re planning on keeping your tonneau cover on. As you know we’re getting the Alu-Cab canopy so I’m not too concerned about height as you might be.

 

[steffen707]

To me there is no reason to have a 5mm wrench in my tool roll if I don’t have a nut that size on my truck

totally agree, but I dont' know what the common sizes are that I would need, either need to poke around or ........somebody help!?

EDIT to add I see that you’re planning on keeping your tonneau cover on. As you know we’re getting the Alu-Cab canopy so I’m not too concerned about height as you might be.

I'm 98% sure i'm actually getting an Alu-Cab canopy as well, but I didn't want to get into the future plans/mods, but since you brought it up
Basically I'm going to create a few removable shelves like @Oscar Indy has on his alu cab. I plan to have those at about the same height as the bed rails so that when you put stuff in from the side of the cap, its at the same height.

Essentially I'll have space for roughly 7" items (in drawers), 12" items(on deck below removable shelf) and 20" items(above shelf, and under canopy) or remove the shelf and can get 32" items on top of deck and under canopy.

Realistically I won't be overlanding a ton, but I want to.

Most of the time the truck will be used for home owner projects, hunting trips, hauling bags of garbage and recycling from my office home (we don't pay for commercial pickup

When we go on long trips we remove the rear seat and I’ll put heavier items, like tools in a bin or set of drawers that I’ve made for that spot.See my drawer system for my other truck here starting at post #23:

I've got a 3 and 5 year old, they gotta sit back there. Also taking their car seats out is a PITA, so the space under the rear seat is basically useless for now.

In my case the bed space drawer system will be to carry food, pots and pans etc. The drawer will be less than 4 ft. Long as I’ll have a water tank at the front of the bed. On one side at the rear of the bed will hopefully be a 40 L fridge and on the other side will be space for misc tools, tow strap etc.

That's probably a good idea. Then no matter what's on top, you can still eat.

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