Capture Colorado 01 TRD Taco - GOAE build

Damn! Nice pics

 

Putting this out there, anyone local interested in the sleeping platform? Looking to change things up a little, specifically being able to stash the Nomad in the bed out of the elements. I don't plan to sleep in the truck, so having the platform seems unnecessary for me.

Want to find a bedrug again, too, if anyone hears of a deal.

 

Can you keep any one setup for more than a month or two?

I'd swap it up if I didn't just build a platform.

 

Apparently not.... This whole thing is just something to keep me busy, anyway

Honestly, if I didn't like having the roof rack, I'd go back to the softopper setup, that was my favorite.

 

After extensive thought, planning, and living without the platform/drawers for about two weeks. I've concluded I'm just going to build a better version of the first setup. I wanted to store my bike in the bed, but with my wide handlebars, the bike could pretty much only sit dead-center in the bed with the topper. Not ideal. Plus, trying to stay organized after having those drawers, but without the drawers, is difficult.

New design is effectively the same thing as the old, just better. I've spent a lot of time studying how TruckVault and Bedslide/Cargoglide build their products to perform as easily and effectively as they do. I don't really feel like building a frame similar to Cargoglide, as it would eat up what little vertical space we have in our beds, so I came up with a solution: drawer slides. Less fabrication, sufficient load capacity.

The complaints with the old:
1) Drawers were difficult to open loaded down.
2) The top was nearly impossible to open loaded with much weight.
3) If the top was opened, as the "cabinet" that housed the drawers was not enclosed on the top, so crap would fall into the back of the drawers when opened. It was frustrating.
4) Top, if opened, and loaded, would not support much weight when extended. It was just a sheet of plywood with the aluminum channel.
5) I don't sleep in my truck, I just want to store and carry gear efficiently. Don't need the edge-to-edge platform to sleep on, but rather would like to be able to pull out whatever is in the bed without losing it into the abyss of nothingness.

Solutions:
1) Bearings, bearings, and more bearings.
2) More bearings. 60" long, lock-in/lock-out drawer slides. Even though the bed is 74" long, and the slider will be 72", I don't need full extension (and a 72" drawer slide doesn't exist, 60" is fine). 60" heavy-duty slides are labeled as 500lb capacity, but in reality that's for 18" slides. The 60" model drops down to 350lb capacity when evenly distributed. Which is plenty for my purposes. I won't extend it with that much weight. Drawer slides also save space, and a lot of time, over building the more commonly used method of roller bearings and square steel (see here).
3) I will be building a full cabinet to house the drawers, with a closed top to prevent crap from falling into the nether regions of the drawers. The platform will also have mini-walls to attach tie-downs to, and to keep stuff on the top.
4) The plywood platform will have an aluminum sub-frame to strengthen the plywood. This will prevent bowing inward under weight, and then also add strength to the platform when extended.
5) The new top slider will be wider (approx. 53" wide edge-to-edge, basically as wide as I can get that will fit through the tailgate opening). The old was about 42" wide, then had fillers on the side to create the full-width platform.

Materials (so far)
- 1 pair 60" locking drawer slides.
- 20, 3/4" drawer rollers.
- 3 sheets 3/4" plywood. (TruckVault uses MDO, which is basically an easily-paintable version of what I have). Might need a fourth, but to get started three will do.
- Giant roll of 2.5mm vinyl diamond-pattern to cover the top.
- 12' 3x3x1/4" angle aluminum.
- 5-6 pieces of 54" long 1" square aluminum 1/8" wall.
- 1, 5' piece of 2" aluminum angle
- Paint
- Two locking compression latches (maybe), or just some bar latches. I like the look of compression latches more, and my dad has some sweet ones for the trailers that are similar to what TruckVault uses, kinda goes with the look I'm after.
- Four recessed spring-loaded grab handles, black.
- Tons of wood glue, biscuits, nails, screws, and clamps.



It's 'uuuuuuuuge.






Front lower rollers, for drawer.


Rear lower, on drawer.


Rear upper, on drawer. As the drawer is closed, less than 50% extension, the drawer will slide on the front lower (fixed) rollers, and the rear lower. Once the drawer extends far enough for the load to require cantilevering itself (greater than 50%ish), the load will transfer from the rear lower rollers, to the rear upper rollers, with the bulk of the weight supported on the forward lower rollers. Furthermore, when the drawer is extended to approximately 75%, I will have a removable stop inside the cabinet that will keep it from just going all the way out. I'm thinking about doing something that just drops down, and then you can push it up and out of the way, but not sure if I feel like doing that just yet.

 

Love the new design man! I'm going to be building a somewhat similar system this weekend, where did you pick up those rollers?

Any thoughts on this guys design? He used skateboard bearings to make a channel and just ran a wood dimensional s4s down the sides, I was considering it because I am cheap and basically could do it for free, vs. having to buy sliders. But after seeing Those sliders you have, I gotta say they look burly man!! It's kind of making me reconsider. Though, my design has drawers coming out only about have the bed so they wouldn't need as much support as a full length bed drawer.

 

The rollers are from McMaster Carr LINK, they're inexpensive, and I hope they'll be strong enough.... They usually publish weight ratings, but these don't have anything listed. I'm hopeful that they'll be strong enough, I figure if nothing else, I can always just add more to distribute the pressure. I also don't expect the drawers will be super loaded down ever. Fingers crossed!

The drawer slides are $180 a pair for locking, I have heard some complaints about the locking mechanism on these particular slides--apparently they don't like to slam shut, so I might be filing away some material to help it slam shut. check out truck-hardware.orrorr.com for those. I've heard great things about their load capacity, and I figure if worst comes to worst and the lock gets all screwed up, I can just remove the latch and come up with a different latching system...

I like the bearing thing, a lot of people do it with great success! (See here). The problem with this, is that if you do it, you eat up effectively 2" of potential drawer space with bearing/strut. I would recommend using light gauge steel or aluminum (probably about 1/8" or so) 1" square for that, it'll support loads better and roll smoother than wood--the wood will groove out over time on the bearings. My original intention with the first drawers was to do that, but I was convinced not to pursue that path... If you're only doing partial-extension, you can get 36-48" slides for a pretty solid price without the lock-in function, I'd be using drawer slides on the actual drawers if I had enough cash. But 48" slides are $120 a set, 60" non-locking are $160... I don't really want to spend that much money. I figured those rollers might be a reasonable compromise.

Worst case scenario, if the rollers suck, and adding more doesn't improve anything, I can always do drawer slides at a later time. Or the roller bearing method. It's not necessary to space the bearings super far out from the plywood, so you could keep those closer to the side of the frame, then just use like 3/4x1-1/2" tube steel/aluminum or something. Maybe even 1/2", depends on the hardware...

 

very good points for sure.. i was originally thinking of making the rollers out of a 3/4"x1" hard maple or something like that, like you said, im hopefuly im going to just have minimal weight in these drawers, so im not constantly lugging around useless crap, but i cant imagine the load going over 100#
this is kind of my shitty notebook drawing of my set up.. that back part is just genna be a deep storage sort of hatch. for spare parts and oil and such, the front drawers is just for random camping gear, then the right drawer will be for cooking material and have a cutting board and a 2 burner stove up front.

 

I've never seen anyone doing hard maple for the sliding part for those bearings, I'm sure it'd work, but I kind of think I'd personally prefer to have them roll on metal of some sort. 1" square aluminum is actually pretty inexpensive, internet price is only like $17 for a 6' long piece of 1x1x1/8", and you don't have to cut/machine any wood for that. Plus, bolting metal to the wood will be stronger than screwing/gluing wood to wood if you use enough fasteners & use machine screws with nuts and washers to attach the metal to the drawer.

I say do the bearing thing, just toss some metal in there and you'll be golden!

 

thats not bad at all, im going to the metal shop to price out some angel 3/4"x3/4" aluminum to pretty up some of the edging, im just wondering how you go about finishing the corners? is there splice things u can buy? or just cut them at a 45 degree angle and just match them up?

 

That's what I did. 3/4" x 3/4" angle aluminum cut to 45* on a miter saw then fastened to the plywood with some polyurethane adhesive.

 

That looks very nice man, thanks for the response.

 

Awesome. Thanks for the ideas guys. I can't believe I never thought of this, it'll be a welcome addition.

I followed another's build (I forgot who, some 3rd gen guy in the overland thread), who suggested using VHMW-PE due to the very low cost compared to UHMW and PTFE. It worked out decently well for me using 6' drawers. Still requires some force to move the drawers although significantly less (you still have to move the mass, you just aren't fighting friction as much), 1/8" is definitely too thin, there is no good way to bond the plastic to pretty much anything else (i had to use countersunk screws), and the VHMW has a pretty high CTE. Despite all those sucks it's still worth considering, I'm happy with it cause it's FAR more simple, less costly, and lighter than most other systems. My conclusion is that bearings/slides provide a much better finished product, but that it's worth considering low friction plastic.

 

Started today by driving around and spending a bunch of money. My retrofit HIDs crapped out on me again, I'm giving up on that setup and just going back to stock, so I bought new housings. There goes $100.

Then I drove to the aluminum yard and bought 30' of 1x1/8" square, 14' of 3x3x1/4 angle, and 5' of 2x2x1/8" angle. Much dollars gone.

Exactly.. 45/45 it, super clean. On that last setup, once it was installed I filed down the corner after beveling them to make it less of a death-edge. If you don't want/need the edging to hold up to bashing from loading crap, Home Depot sells some 1x1x1/16" angle that's marketed as like tread guard or something in the carpet aisle that I used on the first setup to help clean things up a bit, super inexpensive and did the job, but wouldn't hold up to bashing from loading crap all the time. This go 'round I bought some 2x2x1/8" angle that'll cover the front (tailgate side) edge, then I'll use matching steel around the remaining sides, to which I'll weld on some railing for tie downs and other crap. If only I could weld aluminum...

The first setup I did used a ton of HDPE tape, it was pretty smooth, but the cohesive friction was high, so like you mentioned getting the mass moving was a bit of a pig. I've seen some folks do something very similar to the bearing method with sticks of 3/4" thick UHMW or HDPE, about 1" tall, just three layers, two fixed, and one on the drawer. It would probably still be a pig to get to move, but I'm sure it'd be smooth.

 

Thanks man!! I cannot wait to see your set up.

 

Progress n stuff.

Primed & painted all the important surfaces... Then I started painting the top after priming, only to remember it's going to get covered in vinyl, so who cares about paint?


Bolted together the frame. I don't really think any welding is needed, the bolts really just attach one thing to another. I might double up fasteners between the angle and square, not sure if it's needed, but it won't hurt... mostly just a lot of work to remove the top decking now...








Upping my decal game.




Also, did TW disappear from Tapatalk? It's not working for me...

 

looks beefy dude!!

 

I like the decals...especially the expedition colorado one...

 

Last week I used all of my days off to work on the truck, no fun outside of project time and work happened for me all week. So Saturday, after wrapping up the install of the platform and installing new headlights, I grabbed my bike gear and ran up to get a ride in with some friends. About the time we got to the top of the mountain, the thunder and lightning really started to pick up, and we got a few sprinkles as we began our descent...

And then it came.

Rain.

So. Much. Rain. The skies just unleashed upon us, and by the time we were done with the 3-mile descent, we were soaked. We got hailed on, and the water came so fast, that it was flowing down the trail as we rode. Got to the bottom soaked through all of my layers, and it kept raining. When it stopped, I opened up the back of the truck to toss my gear in there, and discovered a puddle on top of the deck.

I've known my topper isn't 100% sealed from rain or snowmelt the whole time I've had it. I also haven't had the opportunity to gather the help needed to remove the topper and tape the junction between it and the truck, which is probably the biggest source of water introduction to the bed. But more importantly for this moment, was the rear door. It leaks. It pours. It's basically there for the good looks, but considering I used tint film on 1/8" plexi to repair the thing, it doesn't even look that good. Security? Sure, let's call it that...

So finally, the other day I came up with a plan to make the rear door leak-free (or so I hope). I decided to tackle this little project before work, since I figured it wouldn't take too long, I just needed to do it. So I grabbed my caulk gun, tube of silicone, and swung by the hardware store on my way to the shop. Turns out, it took me longer to look through all the varieties of weatherseal than it did to actually seal up the door.

I chose two that I would test out. I knew the rubber foam stuff would get the job done, but it was kind of crappy stuff, and I wanted better. Then I saw the "x-treme rubber weatherseal", which was much nicer, tubular, has little flanges, yada yada. Pricier, too. But still only like $5.


No during pictures, since I was trying to get this shit knocked out fast. Removal of topper doors and windows is super super easy, on the windows, just remove all the interior screws, and give it a tug from the outside. For the door, do the same, but you've probably also got a few screws on the exterior that will need to come off.

The old gasket between the window frame and the fiberglass was worthless... so brittle and not even rubbery anymore. I spooged on a hefty bead of silicone on the edge that sits on the fiberglass, reassembled, and replaced the gasket that the door closes on as well.



I've yet to have it tested out, no rain since I did that, and I don't feel like pouring water on my truck.

Enough of leaky shit. Here's what y'all are most interested in.

Weight capacity (theoretically): 350lbs extended.
Tested weight capacity: me. extended. (155lbs, plus a drill)
Locks in. Locks out. Has a sort of intermediate half-way lock that keeps it from closing itself all the way...doesn't always engage, depends on how the slidey bits roll together while opening or closing.





No drawers yet, didn't have time to button those up last week. I'll deal with that later. This top part has been enough of a pig unto itself.


Built some side and rear rails yesterday. 1/2" sch.40, which is about 0.840" OD, which is a good fit for most tie-down hooks. Strong enough to keep things from falling off the deck, and not super heavy. Welds aren't my best, but I kind of threw them together, knowing they didn't have to be perfect to perform their duty, I just wanted to have it done.




The top is covered in 1/8" thick diamond-plate-pattern vinyl, bought a giant roll from Amazon for $60, and it was 5'x9', plenty to trim down for this, and it's waterproof. At first I tried using hot glue to hold it down. That doesn't work, don't bother. So today I peeled it back, scraped the glue off, and applied two good coats of contact cement... hopefully that holds.