County / Defender rear storage drawer build

[rijidij]

I'm looking at building a new rear storage / drawer unit in my County.

Has anyone built a unit from the modular nylon / aluminium connectors ? If so, have you carried a lot of weight in them, for example, a large drawer full of tools etc.
How has it handled severe corrugations and other rough driving conditions ?

The Expedition Centre is using them, so I'm assuming they are of reasonable quality.

These use a 1.2mm tube.

146980

There's another type that uses a 1.6mm tube and the nylon connectors have a welded steel internal core.
I expect these would be a lot more expensive, also quite a bit stronger, but is the extra strength needed over the lighter ones.

146981


Obviously there are other options for construction materials and I'm open to all ideas, so if you have pictures of your County / Defender rear fit out, please feel free to share them here for inspiration.



Cheers

[MLD]

I bought and used the bunnings kit , no internal bracing. You need to rivet the joints. 5 weeks in the outback taught that lesson.

I had 2x 800mm x 600mm draws (wood) on one side and 600mm x 600mm on the other (tray ute) full of heavy stuff and they survived. The frame was more than adequate.

[karlz]

I made a rear cargo box in my 110 about 3 years ago.
I bought the aluminium and connectors from Ulrich Alumininium.
The alu rails were bolted to the floor using rivnuts.
I also installed some heavy duty drawer sliders ($100+), made a draw out of the same alu and plywood.
The deck was heavier plywood, from memory 12mm.

The drawers hold all the tools and bits ans bobs, guess about 25kg.
On top I have had my fridge full of beer plus boxes etc and into heavy 4wd areas and nothing has broken.
Its probably a tad overengineered (like your spare wheel carrier - which I also have).
Happy to show you what I have done, if your interested PM me.

I think the alu and connectors are fantastic.

If I were to do the project again, I would omit the drawers, although they look nice and function properly, you loose flexibility, storage space and there is extra weight.
I think boxes are a better idea.

[DieselDan]

Hi Murray,

Can't remember if you had a look at the drawer in the back of my 110 when I picked up the gullwing the other week?

Anyway, here's a couple of pics.
I bought the alu square tube from Capral Aluminium in Laverton North, then any of the joiners from Bunnings when I decided what configuration I was going to do. I haven't riveted the joins in, just used a few blobs of contact cement which seems to have worked.

The tube frame is held down with turnbuckles to the standard tie down points in the back.

One side has a set of roller bearing slides screwed to the alu, the other side is accessed by a lift up top. The top part is 15mm ply from memory and is screwed into rivnuts in the alu.

It doesn't carry a huge amount of weight most of the time, but it's had all my spares, recovery gear, food, camping stuff crammed in/on it for a 6000km round trip up through Flinders, Mt Dare, Alice and back to Melbourne a couple of years ago and held up ok.

Hmmmm, can't access my pics on my phone! I'll find them and post separately!!

[DieselDan]

Hopefully this works....https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20181225/1ca5baccf9b4050ccb9950dcaaed18c5.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20181225/ca0a68a6abbbeab9dd442b7fa60c0af3.jpg

[rijidij]

Hi Murray,

Can't remember if you had a look at the drawer in the back of my 110 when I picked up the gullwing the other week?

Anyway, here's a couple of pics.
I bought the alu square tube from Capral Aluminium in Laverton North, then any of the joiners from Bunnings when I decided what configuration I was going to do. I haven't riveted the joins in, just used a few blobs of contact cement which seems to have worked.

The tube frame is held down with turnbuckles to the standard tie down points in the back.

One side has a set of roller bearing slides screwed to the alu, the other side is accessed by a lift up top. The top part is 15mm ply from memory and is screwed into rivnuts in the alu.

It doesn't carry a huge amount of weight most of the time, but it's had all my spares, recovery gear, food, camping stuff crammed in/on it for a 6000km round trip up through Flinders, Mt Dare, Alice and back to Melbourne a couple of years ago and held up ok.

Hmmmm, can't access my pics on my phone! I'll find them and post separately!!

Thanks Dan,
That looks like a simple but effective setup.
Just one question, is the track on the drawer a 'proper drawer track', or is it some sort of steel section or aluminium extrusion that the bearings fit in. It's a little hard to tell from the pics.

Having another look at it, the risen section at the front end of the track suggests it's a roller bearing type drawer track ????

Cheers, Murray

[DieselDan]

Hi Murray,
Yep they're the 100kg Base Mount Drawer Slide from Dunn & Watson.

Cheers,
Dan

[steveG]

I built a sleeping platform in the back of our D1 using that system. Its good stuff - very light and strong.
From memory I used 10mm ply for the top, and also for a couple of vertical panels in case there was a tendency for the open rectangle with ~600mm for/aft to bend or collapse under load.

You definitely need to make sure the tubes are retained somehow. Pretty sure I relied on the plywood riveted to the top tubes to retain those ones, and riveted the remaining tubes directly to the corner brackets.

Its a while ago, but I likely got the corners and tube from Breakwater Metaland.

Steve

[rijidij]

I built a sleeping platform in the back of our D1 using that system. Its good stuff - very light and strong.
From memory I used 10mm ply for the top, and also for a couple of vertical panels in case there was a tendency for the open rectangle with ~600mm for/aft to bend or collapse under load.

You definitely need to make sure the tubes are retained somehow. Pretty sure I relied on the plywood riveted to the top tubes to retain those ones, and riveted the remaining tubes directly to the corner brackets.

Its a while ago, but I likely got the corners and tube from Breakwater Metaland.

Steve

I like the light weight aspect of this system, so definitely considering it. The 25mm ally tube and joiners is slightly limited when it comes to making the most of the space you have, for example, shaping the frame into a tightish corner, or on a non standard angle.

The thing I like about steel tube is, it's easy to weld mesh panels in, or other bits and pieces like hooks etc, and it's easy to customise the shape away from square. And because of the extra strength, you can get away with a smaller tube size, my current setup is 20x20x1.6 gal tube and it's been really good. I'm thinking I'll probably go with this again.

They both have their pros and cons.

Cheers, Murray

[steveG]

In your case when you're already set up for steel welding/cutting etc the steel tube is definitely more flexible (and likely cheaper). My current setup is also 20mm square RHS.
The Qubelok is a great option for those with who only have minimal tools and just need basic structures.

Steve

[KeithMac]

Interesting thread. Has anyone doe this using Wolf Pack boxes?
147047

[steveG]

Interesting thread. Has anyone doe this using Wolf Pack boxes?
147047

The Defenders we hired in South Africa a couple of years ago were set up with those boxes (local Tentco brand). The setup was just a ply/timber shelf across the top of the rear wheel arch boxes, with 4 boxes in a single layer underneath.
Not sure whether you could still get 4 boxes in with a center support, but that would cure the problem we had with the shelf bending under load and sitting down on the top of the boxes making them difficult to get out.

I think if you could fit in a structure with 2 layers of those boxes on one side and a fridge on the other it would work well.

Steve

[DieselDan]

Interesting thread. Has anyone doe this using Wolf Pack boxes?
147047I originally wanted to, but couldn't make it work.
I ended up using the canvas liners that fit inside the wolf boxes instead. Hannibal Safari used to make them and I think Frontrunner do a version. You can see one of the Hannibal bags in my previous pic.
I can fit 4 bags in my set up, 2 down each side. Stuff I need to use more often gets put in the bags on the drawer slide. Stuff less frequently used goes in the bags on the other side with the lift up top.

I also put plywood 'walls' in to support the horizontal bits of the qubelok tube. You can see it a bit better in this pic.147048

[KeithMac]

I originally wanted to, but couldn't make it work.
I ended up using the canvas liners that fit inside the wolf boxes instead. Hannibal Safari used to make them and I think Frontrunner do a version. You can see one of the Hannibal bags in my previous pic.
I can fit 4 bags in my set up, 2 down each side. Stuff I need to use more often gets put in the bags on the drawer slide. Stuff less frequently used goes in the bags on the other side with the lift up top.

I also put plywood 'walls' in to support the horizontal bits of the qubelok tube. You can see it a bit better in this pic.147048

Thanks Dan, can I ask what the issue was with using the wolf boxes? I love your setup, but I am thinking of using boxes instead of a slide system.

[DieselDan]

It was just a matter of size/space really.
I couldn't get the set up like I have it now to work using the boxes - 4 boxes, a slide and the width needed for the qubelok didn't fit in the space between the wheel arches.