The Adventures of Ash and Baby Taco

Sooo lets get a discussion going. I know there are a few handy people in here with a creative mind. My space is becoming very limited in my truck. Mainly the truck bed. I have my "tool box" aka throw everything thats heavy and dirty in there, an XL dog kennel that takes up 1/4 of the bed, maxtracs, shovel and co2 etc. Basically, when everthing is loaded I am packed to the gills and resorting to throwing stuff into the front passenger foot area. I also keep my dog inside and stuff the cooler in the kennel . With the tire leaving my bed in a month I want to overhaul my space and have a bit of fun.

The plan is to create a storage box such as this:

My problem is that I don't know how it will do uncovered? A cap and softtopper is out of question. Anything over $500 is out of question . I have two horse stall rubber mats that will be put on the bottom as well on top. I want eyelets installed length wise for tie down points. The idea of this is to create more usable space. So my tool box will go on top of this as well as the dog kennel. I will use this to store clothes, tent, kitchen supplies, fly rod and gear, ect etc. I also don't want it looking like crap. It will sit lower that the picture shown above too.

Am I going to regret this the first rain storm as it fills with water and becomes a temporary fish tank for the brook trout I catch?

 

Get an Access cab

 

What are you wanting to carry in the new storage area?
Have you thought about a side rack system for the maxtracs and the shovel, etc.?

I wonder if a set of bedside mounted tool boxes would help?
Posting this as an idea, you could easily build this.
http://www.carid.com/better-built/w...8012345.html?gclid=CNSluv3S88MCFZSKaQodgBAA-g

 

I've put a bit of thought into something like this. If you're worried about it being uncovered, you can either build it out of polyboard or build it and line-x it.

If you have it in the budget, you could install your drawers with heavy duty drawer slides and trim the fronts out to be recessed with a good weather stripping border. This would make the whole thing weatherproof

 

That's a pretty bad picture of the quality I want haha. That obviously wont keep water out of the drawers .

This is a better view of what I would like


I also found this write up thats pretty cool.
https://simcah.wordpress.com/2013/08/18/diy-truck-vault-for-tacoma-camper/

 

Well not having it slide creates the problem of how to make it easily accessible. I would have to remove whatever is on top of it to get to the bins yeah?

 

Yeah, going the route with drawers on slides is very expensive. You'd have to get stainless slides, which are even more expensive.

 

Doording has a similar platform and nice right up on the last page of his build.
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-builds/238451-doordings-2012-tacoma-build-15.html

 

Hmm, the only thing I hate about bins Timmy is that I just throw stuff in them. Its not easy for me to organize them or keep things orderly. I know you can do a kitchen bin or a clothes bin but I need things to have a spot or I end up making a mess. Or I get to camp and take everything out and have a bunch of bins surrounding me. Personal probs .

It seems like most these guys are skipping slides anyways. One guy said he just lubed it up with a bar of soap and it slid in and out just fine.

 

you could get a pac-rat. they are water proof draw system, mostly for tools but could work nicely for what you want to do. they are heavy and maybe more then your budget. but they are strong and last you as long as you have the truck and longer. might be better to save up and spend a little more.

 

They are really sweet but way to pricey. I think a wood drawer system would hold up fine as long as I took care of it.

 

I built this yesterday, pretty basic but was cheap and does the job. Looked at drawer slides and they were going to be $300 a set to hold this load in the length I needed. Ended up just getting caster wheels that go on the bottom of a fridge, cost $7 a pack of 4 and work great.

 

^Looks good and pretty much what I want. Just fully enclosed to keep dust and weather out as best as possible. Also about half as tall in height

 

Ready for some chemistry

 

One sick taco bro

 

Thanks man!

 

I was cruzing the forum and came across this. I really like the pictures of your pup. Good looking. Then I kind of got excited when I seen your new project of a bed storage box. I will try to take some pictures of mine tomorrow as I built it myself awith the help of a friend. It is the full size of the bed. Then I split the width into 2 drawers. I was going to put rail slides in but decided against it as I would have lost width I want. So when I made the drawers I have wooden slides on the bottoms and they work great. On the passenger side drawer I have 2 full sets of v-grouser chains that I custom built, a few tow straps, a 20 foot heavy chain, a 4" load strap. The drawer is very heavy but still slides real easy. When I was finished building it I covered it with bed liner from Home Depot. Yea it is kinda water proof but this summer I will use some herculiner and waterproof it right. At the moment I don’t have locks but they are in the future. Yes I have a topper but I built this so if I have to remove the topper everything is still out of the weather. I don’t know if your interested but, I have 4 slides with bearings that were used for servers and I believe have about 150 pound rating each slide. If we can get together I will give them to you if you wish

 

Guess I should also say the drawers are only about 4 feet 6 inches long and about 9 inches tall. Then in the front of the box I have a 18 inch long compartment. My plans are to store less used equipment in there and keep the drawers open for a camp stove, pots and pans and paper plates and canned food and cooking stuff. Then the other drawer is for maybe a gun or 2 and clothes along with some fishing stuff or what ever I might need.

 

Nice, this may be pretty much exactly what I want to do. Post up some pictures already . I would be interested in those slides too! Not sure when Ill be up your way but I am sure we can meet up sometime in the summer. Are you going to try and make it to WY to run some trails with us?