Under Tray Drawer

[Ranga]

Something that I've wanted to do for far too long is now almost completed. Thanks to the kind help from JBoot51 for the ideas, welding, labour, banter, ****-taking etc, I'm very happy with how it turned out.

We used roller bearings inside unistrut instead of drawer slides. Much cheaper, and I reckon much more resilient. The drawer itself is made of 3mm steel angle for the frame, and aluminium sheet for the tub. I've used a combination of eye bolts and anchor track for tie-down points. We used a spring bolt entering through 3 holes at different spacing in the top of the unistrut. This means as you pull the drawer out, it locks in at each stage until you lift the spring bolt. The spring bolt itself has a lever mechanism next to the tail light, making it easy to get to. I'm still exploring options for a locking mechanism and handle (maybe a drop t lock).

I can now easily fit a 235/85R16, recovery gear, tools, shovel, axe, mighty Ryobi 18V chainsaw, spares and crockery/cutlery/cooking kit (in the pelican style cases), and still have a bit of room left for other stuff.

All up, pretty happy with how it turned out.

Closed
137848

Lock latch
137849

Unistrut drawer slide
137850

Roller bearing
137851

Open
137852

[Danjeffery]

Looks good! Is a massive amount of storage space. How far up is your tray? I looked a putting a tyre under mine but wouldn't work with my tray.
Some fine tuning to come!

[Robmacca]

Looking good Ranga :)

Just curious here..... but the unistrut that the bearings are running in, will the collection of dust, etc cause u any issues?

If any water was to get into the unistrut, can it get out?

[Ranga]

Looks good! Is a massive amount of storage space. How far up is your tray? I looked a putting a tyre under mine but wouldn't work with my tray.
Some fine tuning to come!

The tray is fairly high, only to allow the spare to fit. I could take it down a couple of inches, but that would also mean checking out the rear lip of the tray to allow the spare to fit.

[Ranga]

Looking good Ranga :)

Just curious here..... but the unistrut that the bearings are running in, will the collection of dust, etc cause u any issues?

If any water was to get into the unistrut, can it get out?

Dust won;t bother the bearings themselves, as they're sealed. Because the bearings contact the top of the inside of the unistrut it shouldn't be a problem, as dust/dirt shouldn't stick to the top of the inside of the unistrut. When the draw is closed, there's not much chance of anything large enough to cause a problem getting in there.

The unistrut has draining points on each end, so water shouldn't be a problem.

[steveG]

Hey Ranga,
Digging an older thread here, but looking to do something similar and wondering how yours is going. Any issues with it or things you would change in hindsight?

Steve

[Ranga]

Hey Ranga,
Digging an older thread here, but looking to do something similar and wondering how yours is going. Any issues with it or things you would change in hindsight?

Steve

No issues with mine at all, and love the extra space it's created. I think the unistrut/bearings method works really well. About the only thing I might bother doing is adding some way to stop it rattling a bit over bumps. I have a couple of ideas, but it hasn't been bothersome enough to do it yet.