Truckbed Box - $200 OBO - Southern Louisiana/Miss/East Texas

I'm selling my DIY truckbed box I made in 2018. Two drawers ~40" deep, 2x forward side hatches, and 2x side flip-up compartments for extra space between wheel wells and tailgate. This fits a 3rd Gen Shortbed.

Originally made it for my old Colorado, reformed the forward section for the Taco. Made out of 3/4" plywood, heavy duty drawer slides, rubber mat on top, and 4x cargo tie-down points on the corners of the larger box proper. I took some weight out of the sides and rear last year. It's served me very well over the years. I'm moving on to a DIY aluminum frame system that is in the works. I live on Northshore Louisiana, but can make it to South Mississippi, Louisiana, and East Texas if needed. Maybe can meet halfway for those locations.

I'm asking $250, the drawer slides alone were $150, plus $150 of plywood, $50 in rubber mat, etc. I used Kills Waterproof primer and waterproof black paint, but I've kept it under a softopper for the entire time I had it in my truck. Softopper started leaking this winter, but never saw any moisture inside the drawers themselves. Theoretically could be water tight, but I wouldn't chance it without a tonneau or shell of some kind.

 

BUMP - reduced price

 

Aluminum frame is definitely the way to go! GLWS!

 

Damn, a shame you're not local to me...GLWS!

 

That's pretty slick, and ultimately sort of what I'm working towards. A few questions:

1. Do your drawers disconnect? How far out do they extend?
2. I'm almost finished with the extruded aluminum portion, can you link how you attached panel to the sides and tops? I'm using these panel hangers https://www.mcmaster.com/3136N117/ for the (4) top panels.
3. If you used panel on the sides and rear, did you slip them into the t-slotted channels, or bolt them directly?

Would love to see any plans you had, to see if I'm missing anything. I'm 99% there, I'm going to pick up my Okoume plywood tomorrow or Saturday to start on the paneling and drawers. Or any advice you have. Cutting the extrusion was the biggest pain as my miter saw was off-kilter for the first half a dozen cuts or so.. Other than that, straightforward, just time consuming.

 

If I can't move it in the next few weeks, it's probably going to be deconstructed and used as a miter saw table of some sort. I've put it on Craigslist for NOLA three weeks ago, but not one bite.. Guess there's just no market for it here.

 

I hope you do sell it honestly; seems like you put a lot of effort into building it and would hate to see it relegated to being a table lol. For me, it would have worked great since I have a diamondback and it's a pain to reach towards the bulkhead sometimes. I might eventually get a decked system but who knows...

 

My drawers are 54” long and are mounted to 48” long drawer slides. So I have 6” that still sits in the bed but it’s not much. Still easy to get to. Drawers disconnect by taking out 8 bolts per drawer. So not super convenient but not terrible. My sides and back are not covered as I couldn’t find a perfect size wood to fit nicely inside the aluminum track. To mount my top panels, I used these https://www.tnutz.com/product/jp-010-t/ to mount my top panels to the aluminum t track. That way it was secured to the extrusion and then the top panels are screwed into these. Hopefully it all makes sense!

 

Nice! This thread has devolved into me questioning you about your box, but I'm ok with that!

I'm not 100% how you attached the T-Plates to the extrusion, but it's all good. I may have to order more of the attachment points I have, I only have 4 per top panels I'll have. The longest drawer slides I could find online that still detach are 36," so there's going to be some space at the back (18" or so) that I'll have to reach back for. I'm either going to live with it, or make access hatches towards the front of the top.

Question about the drawers: what width wood did you use, and how did you construct them? You should just make a post about this box if you haven't already!

 

Well, your previous comment made me think, so I found my original sketchup file from when I originally built them for my Colorado, and deconstructed them a bit. I'm thinking some sort of toolbox for sockets, wrenches, etc etc and maybe a fold-up table or something for a work space:

 

Ha! ya, sorry about that lol. let me take some more pictures in a bit and ill explain the t plates. I also built in some hatches that fold up towards the front of the bed in case anything ever falls out. Give me a bit and ill post some pictures for you here if thats cool. And yes, I do need to make a thread for these lol

 

Perfect, I'm getting more use out of this thread as a discussion point about the extruded box than my old one!

 

So my T plates are mounted to each side of each drawer box. So each drawer box has 4 per side, 8 total per box. My setup is a little different than yours as I have a box for each drawer while it looks like yours is one box for both. I used the t plates to hold the tops in, you can kind of see from picture 1. Picture 2 shows my hatch at the front of each box, so closest to the cab, closed and opened (picture 3). Once open, you can see how I mount the t plates to the bottom sides of the top track (picture 4). I used I believe 1/4” plywood. I nailed and glued them together, and then used a clear coat varnish to help seal everything. To mount the drawers to the slides, I put a paint stir stick underneath the drawer, then drilled my holes as this gave me a good gap between the bottom of the drawer box and the drawer. To mount my drawers to the slides, I used Tee nuts from Home Depot. If you go on their website and type in Tee nut, you can see why these will work best in wood. Hope this helps!

 

AH! I see what you mean now. Yeah those t-brackets are about half the price of the panel retainers I went for. I didn't consider that option.. Oh well, you live you learn! Although, I'm curious if that would have worked with my design, since I'm using 1/2" plywood, with 1/8" rubber mat on top. I don't know if that would have been flush with the tops of the t-slot. I'm using that channel as the cargo tiedown points (may can see the eyebolts in my photo of the box so far.) I have some black seat-track like you have, but I attached some of it to my truck bed with some plus-nuts from McMaster. I do have two 48" tracks leftover, not sure what I'll do with them just yet..

I may wind up putting some forward hatches, now that I think of it. Sometimes I have some bulkier items that won't fit in the drawers. We'll see.

On the drawers, yep, for sure on the tee nuts from HD. Already have some of those. Another question on the drawers, can you upload a photo of the front of the drawer faces with them fully closed? Curious how close you cut it to the aluminum frame up there.

 

Possibly interested. If the drawers are 40” deep, what is under the front part of the platform near the cab?

 

I made two port and starboard-facing hatches that lift up on simple hinges. Did have pneumatic glides but took them off over the summer and haven’t put them back on. Can see them here sort of.

 

Do you have a parts list for your build? Looking to do something similar for my bed.

 

Wow Mason. This is exactly what I want to do. Do you mind making a build thread on your drawers? I’m about to build them out of plywood but most of my #vanlife buddies are telling me to go with 80/20. I have no clue where to start but your build is exactly what I want to do.

thanks!
-M

 

I will make a build thread with all the specs over the next day or two. I’ll let you guys know once it’s up!

 

A thousand thank you’s



-M