I'm toying with the idea of building shelves in the load bay of my Puma in order to store bulky/light items (pillows, blankets, etc) during trips.
Basically the idea entails 2 shelves the width of the seats, running from just behind the seats to the rear frame. These would be situated above the top of the rear window frames - see attached pic, red lines indicate what I have in mind.
Has anyone done something similar, and if so, can you provide pics/details?
Suggestions/ideas/tips would be most welcome, thanks
I just finished a top shelf above window height before heading off recently and it made a huge difference to storage space whilst not affecting rear vision.
I used exsisting grabrail holes above the backdoor and made new bracket to combine the cargo barrier and shelf with the one bracket. This used the existing grabrail holes plus a new bolt to make it stonger. I thought I took a photo of that bracket but cant find it.
One of the best and cheapest space saving things to do.
The shelf is made from aluminium security door mesh which is lite and easy to cut but also lets light through. The edges were housed in aluminum channel to protect any sharp or obtrusive bits. I found I could store camping chairs, sleeping bags, thermarests, shoes, clothes etc. So much so, compared to my last trip I thought I forgotten a whole heap of gear as I had so much space.
I may line the top of the mesh with a lightweight clear plastic to protect the stored products from rubbing and abrasion on the aluminium for long extended trips but 7000km so far and no problems.
Looks great. How many cm's do you have between the roof lining and the shelf? Am interested to see the bracket you mentioned as well if you ever find the photo. Again, looks great. Well done.
A suggestion for lighting... I made a cargo net that performs the same duty as your shelf. It always has two tents, a tarp and sleeping bags held against the roof and as you can imagine the roof light gets totally blocked out. To beat this I attached (3m double sided tape) 30cm LED strips to the upper edge of both side windows and wired it back to the door switch. I find the clear bright white to be perfect for a cargo area and is perfect for illuminating all your gear in a drawer if you have one.
I just went out and took a picture of the bracket. Not as clear due to the cargo barrier and shelf but you can see it goes in the gap where the middle grab rail was. I didnt even remove the linings. I first used the four screws from the original hand rail then to add strength drilled two bigger holes for some bolts.
The material is 5mm aluminium angle with another welded at the front only, to create a U channel to bolt the cargo barrier to it.
The available height above the rack is 22.5cm but you can see it sits exactly at the height of the top window, that way not blocking any vision but large enough for the gear I wanted to store there. The most important measurement is probably the distance to allow from the door to the start of the rack as this needs to be large enough to allow gear to be placed on the rack easily. This distance is 18cm.
So far the rack is just held on with cable ties, which have held up well but will get around to something better one day. P8290002.jpg
Thanks for that. A cheap, simple and elegant solution. I think cable ties are fine. I use heavy duty quick release cable ties to mount brackets, the cargo net and a bunch of other things to the cargo barrier and they work great.
Thanks for the 18mm measurment; that was my next question.
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