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4WD History

After my recent purchase of a new Tent & Fridge, I realized my old set-up with the steel frame shelving no longer suited what I was doing & there was alot of wasted space in the back, while I had to put the fridge somewhere else (back seat) as it did not fit in the rear cargo area.

So after having many long planning sessions, I decided I would go for a set-up with the fridge on a slide on the floor of the vehicle on the passenger side & would install 2 drawers on the drivers side, while still retaining my fold down table. Also as the single bottle of water was an uneven weight over the driver corner of the vehicle, I decided to relocate this & at the same time increase my water carrying capacity to 40l. These were relocated to just behind the rear seat, to more or less simulate 2*20kg passengers in the back seat. These I also wanted to have their own control taps, so I could use one bottle at a time, giving me the option of having one in reserve.

Once these were located, I decided to start on the fridge slide.

Off I went to Metal Land at Lisarow & purchased 4.8m of angle & a metre of flat strapping for the frame & as I had recently acquired some runners from a server cabinet recently, I decided to use these so it will slide freely.

What I did first was to work out what size I needed  by measuring the fridge & allowing an inch extra for mounting. Then I also made the floor frame to be 10mm wider (each slide was 5mm thick) to allow free movement.

As you can see in the above pic, I did not have enough strapping in the steel I purchased, but I had some gal scrap laying around, so I used that to make up the extra bracing.

Once welded together, I pre drilled all of the mounting holes ready before it was to be painted (originally only in etch primer, but decided at the last minute to paint it black)

Once this was done I painted it

Then I decided to paint it black & mount it in the vehicle.

Once this was done, I started on making the drawers.

The material chosen for this was 15mm ply, as it is quite strong & is not too heavy.

Unfortunately, I did not get many pics of this being made up, but it was a case of making a box for the drawers to sit in, then make the drawers. When I made the box I used an extended top, so it would go over the top of the fridge.

Once completed, I put on an exterior cover of carpet to make it look more professional and some recessed marine handles to open the drawers.