My wife and I just returned from a 21 month trip in our TC through South America and Mexico. One the modifications we made was to take out the 60% part of our rear seat - we have a 2011 GMC Sierra 2500, extended cab - and install a fairly crude home built storage box, the second part of this post shows what we built.
My question to the forum is: Where can I buy a nicely made, safe, functional, durable, drawer storage system for the rear seat of our truck?
What I'm looking for is something like a truckvault, but the drawers would come out sideways from the extended / crew portion of the truck, and the drawers would be stacked on top of each other, instead of side by side. I would prefer a system that requires that the back seat is taken out, in order to maximize the storage space.
Before we left for our trip, I did a fair amount of searching, but couldn't find anything that would work. For the benefit of others who may be looking for the same type of storage, here are the links that I found, but I would much appreciate if someone can point me in the right direction.
From RV.net
http://www.rv.net/forum/Index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/18596845.cfm
From Expedition portall. This is a huge thread, but is all about home built drawer systems for the rear of SUVs / Landrovers / Jeeps et al, I couldn't find anything that fit our needs.
http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/th......../9034-Post-up-your-drawer-storage-system
Vendors, all of these provide drawer systems for pickup beds and/or SUVs, but nothing for the rear seats of pickups.
http://www.truckvault.com/
http://www.mobilestrong.net/
http://www.adventuretrailers.com/drawer.html
http://www.4wdinteriors.com/roller_drawers.html
http://suvcargocaddy.com/index.html
http://www.orvis.com/store/product_search_tnail.aspx?dir_id=1089&group_id=25569
http://www.tuffyproducts.com/p-305-exten........d-cab-tactical-gear-security-drawer.aspx
http://www.du-ha.com/tote.html (thanks to dubob)
This may be the only site I could found that was offering a product in the right direction, but still not what I am looking for, nor do they offer it for a pickup.
http://www.bwidow.com.au/forward_floor/Forward_Twin_Floor.htm
Below is our box. Ideally I would like to replace our box with a purchased drawer system with a tall drawer on the bottom, and a couple of shallower drawers mounted on top.
Thanks for your help,
Henrik
/----------------------------------/
Until I can buy something better, here's what we installed in our truck for our trip through South America, Mexico, and part os the US. We have a 2011 GMC Sierra, Extended Cab, with an Apex 8 camper.
We took out the 60% part of the rear seat - easy to do. There's a huge amount of usable space there. Although, there is just the two of us, we left the 40%, in case we had friends travel along, or picked up hitchhikers.
We purchased a storage box from the Container Store that fit our dimensions.
We cut a piece of 3/4" plywood to form a platform in the rear seat, added threaded inserts to it, and then added eyelet bolts into the inserts. The eyelet bolts were adjusted to level the plywood floor, while providing enough room underneath for hiking boots and shoes, and then locked in place.
The platform was also attached to a convenient bolt protruding from the floor of the truck, which used to hold the lug wrench. This attachment adds some strength, but mainly prevents the platform from sliding around
A second piece of 3/4" plywood was added inside the storage box, and bolts were run through it, through the storage box, and into the plywood forming the floor. The storage box was thus sandwiched between two pieces of 3/4" plywood.
We used two straps from Rampage.
The straps are attached to the floor mounting bolts for the rear seat assembly, and to the two u-shapes mounted on the rear wall of the cab; the rear seat assembly normally "hangs" from these two u-shapes. The strap are steel-reinforced and very strong.
Given that the storage box, which is not strong in and of itself, is sandwiched between the plywood, and is enclosed by two very strong straps, which in turn are mounted to the points in the truck where the rear seat assembly is mounted, we felt fairly comfortable that it would stay put during a crash.
Total cost of material is around $200
While the storage box has been tremendously useful, and perhaps our pictures will give someone else ideas on what to do, the purpose of this post was to try and find a vendor who can supply what I'm looking for.
Cheers,
Henrik
My question to the forum is: Where can I buy a nicely made, safe, functional, durable, drawer storage system for the rear seat of our truck?
What I'm looking for is something like a truckvault, but the drawers would come out sideways from the extended / crew portion of the truck, and the drawers would be stacked on top of each other, instead of side by side. I would prefer a system that requires that the back seat is taken out, in order to maximize the storage space.
Before we left for our trip, I did a fair amount of searching, but couldn't find anything that would work. For the benefit of others who may be looking for the same type of storage, here are the links that I found, but I would much appreciate if someone can point me in the right direction.
From RV.net
http://www.rv.net/forum/Index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/18596845.cfm
From Expedition portall. This is a huge thread, but is all about home built drawer systems for the rear of SUVs / Landrovers / Jeeps et al, I couldn't find anything that fit our needs.
http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/th......../9034-Post-up-your-drawer-storage-system
Vendors, all of these provide drawer systems for pickup beds and/or SUVs, but nothing for the rear seats of pickups.
http://www.truckvault.com/
http://www.mobilestrong.net/
http://www.adventuretrailers.com/drawer.html
http://www.4wdinteriors.com/roller_drawers.html
http://suvcargocaddy.com/index.html
http://www.orvis.com/store/product_search_tnail.aspx?dir_id=1089&group_id=25569
http://www.tuffyproducts.com/p-305-exten........d-cab-tactical-gear-security-drawer.aspx
http://www.du-ha.com/tote.html (thanks to dubob)
This may be the only site I could found that was offering a product in the right direction, but still not what I am looking for, nor do they offer it for a pickup.
http://www.bwidow.com.au/forward_floor/Forward_Twin_Floor.htm
Below is our box. Ideally I would like to replace our box with a purchased drawer system with a tall drawer on the bottom, and a couple of shallower drawers mounted on top.
Thanks for your help,
Henrik
/----------------------------------/
Until I can buy something better, here's what we installed in our truck for our trip through South America, Mexico, and part os the US. We have a 2011 GMC Sierra, Extended Cab, with an Apex 8 camper.
We took out the 60% part of the rear seat - easy to do. There's a huge amount of usable space there. Although, there is just the two of us, we left the 40%, in case we had friends travel along, or picked up hitchhikers.
We purchased a storage box from the Container Store that fit our dimensions.
We cut a piece of 3/4" plywood to form a platform in the rear seat, added threaded inserts to it, and then added eyelet bolts into the inserts. The eyelet bolts were adjusted to level the plywood floor, while providing enough room underneath for hiking boots and shoes, and then locked in place.
The platform was also attached to a convenient bolt protruding from the floor of the truck, which used to hold the lug wrench. This attachment adds some strength, but mainly prevents the platform from sliding around
A second piece of 3/4" plywood was added inside the storage box, and bolts were run through it, through the storage box, and into the plywood forming the floor. The storage box was thus sandwiched between two pieces of 3/4" plywood.
We used two straps from Rampage.
The straps are attached to the floor mounting bolts for the rear seat assembly, and to the two u-shapes mounted on the rear wall of the cab; the rear seat assembly normally "hangs" from these two u-shapes. The strap are steel-reinforced and very strong.
Given that the storage box, which is not strong in and of itself, is sandwiched between the plywood, and is enclosed by two very strong straps, which in turn are mounted to the points in the truck where the rear seat assembly is mounted, we felt fairly comfortable that it would stay put during a crash.
Total cost of material is around $200
While the storage box has been tremendously useful, and perhaps our pictures will give someone else ideas on what to do, the purpose of this post was to try and find a vendor who can supply what I'm looking for.
Cheers,
Henrik
