Continuing on with my "master plan" for making this little truck more convenient for camping and fitting stuff correctly. For the last year I've been using two footlockers for various gear, and a mix-match of different storage bins, toolboxes, etc. that never quite fit. FItting stuff in a truck this small is basically Tetris, so things need to fit better to maximize space.
So usually I have a box with some small spare suspension parts, my big bottle jack (I hate hi-lifts), spare belts, and some other stuff. This box is about 3-4" wider than it needs to be to fit well, and just too tall to stack my nuts+bolts+small parts bin on it and get it under the sleepign platform. So after measuring and scouring Amazon, I got this pretty cheap DeWalt box that was the right dimensions for both factors. It came in today, and I'm a bit annoyed that it has a different stacking/lockdown tabs than my other DeWalt bins and stuff - WTF Dewalt, why do you need two different systems when the old one worked great?? Well, improv'ing a bit, I just stacked it and used a ratchet strap to hold the other one on top, fk it. More importantly, together they're a perfect fit in the space i want them to go, at the forward end of the sleeping platform, since I don't need to regularly access this stuff (hopefully)
So that leaves all this space under the other platform (uncarpeted).
I've been stuffing various things in here over the last year, but as I've refined my roof/side storage it's not as useful any more. So I think it's finally time to invest in something that fits that space better:
:)
Most of the guys I camp/wheel with have gotten fridges this year, and while I generally don't have the budget for them I've gotten more and more annoyed to have to get ice, lose a lot of space filling the cooler with ice, and ending up with cold food and drinks sloshing around by day 2 or 3. This is also the case on long road/towing trips in the Sequoia and family trips. So figured I'd pick up a small fridge (this one is 20L) that can do triple-duty. I'm going to run it off car power and also use a Jackery 500 for overnights, etc. The Jackery is expected as a Christmas present, so fingers crossed my wife gets the right one , though if she gets the 600 or 1000 that would be ok too lol.
Obviously with my limited space, I had to do a lot of measuring. So this thing + the Jackery should perfectly fit just behind the tool bin earlier in this post, with about 3" overhead to spare. But dragging this pretty thing in and out seems barbaric, so I ordered a Setpower slider off Amazon. It's slightly larger than this cooler, so I can mount the Jackery on it and slide them in/out together, hopefully. That won't be here until next week, and I'm going to have to figure out the mounting sine the floor of this truck is "ribbed" like a pickup bed, but shouldn't be too hard. So, hopefully this all works out as imagined, and in the space required. I *may* have to chop off the left-side rear leg of my platform for clearance for the slider tray (I can move it outward about 2" by my measurements), but I'll have to wait until I get it to know for sure if my measurements are precise. Unfortuantely the wheel-well side of the rear floor isn't totally straight, so it's hard to tell exactly what the best orientation will be. To be continued......
