"Ute" bed on a Nissan Frontier?

[adrenaline503]

I decided to put this in the general mods forum as opposed to the Nissan forum since very little of this is Frontier specific.

While I am pretty green when it comes to vehicle based expedition travel it is something that I know I will love. That being said, I want and need my vehicle to be a multipurpose rig, capable of meeting that following criteria:

-Carry 4 people + 1 dog
-Be capable of hauling various home improvement/construction materials
-Provide secure storage for stints in the city
-Have minimal impact of fuel economy
-Keep the vehicle weight close to stock weight
-Keep gear organized, dry and clean.

This is my current setup, Softopper and custom bumper:

Bins:

Nothing fancy. This is what I want:

I have found a few US suppliers and luckily one is in Seattle (where I live) the other is in Vancouver WA.

www.uteltd.com
www.oztray.com

This would meet all my criteria, and be pretty cool. Assign a bed box a certain task, food, recovery gear, dry goods etc. I would also a smaller underside box for a aux battery an OBA compressor. On top of the bed boxes I would install a length of unistrut:

http://unistrut.com/Browse/cat_detail.php?S=S09&P=A3300

The unistrut would provide a cost effective, secure way to secure a RTT, bicycle mounts and Hi-lift etc. Instead of the bed box against cab I would have the gap at the back of the bed, here I would mount AT can holders for fuel and water.

So, has anyone ever tried this approach? I havent been able to find an expo rig quite like that, but I think the concept is pretty common and straight forward. Comments are welcome.

 

[CoastalDefender]

I HAVE seen one on a Gen2 Frontier. It was a crew cab, and I saw it headed south on I-5 just as you climb the hill into Oly at MM-110.


Looked quite good actually. His rig was setup as a repair truck, and I'm guessing he had a little extra done to the suspension to take the weight.

Who did your bumper, BTW?

 

[ntsqd]

What about a used Service Bed? Granted, those for mini's aren't as common as for a full size, but they're out there. It would have all of the tool boxes plus a bed in one unit. In full sizes they come in two heights, 'normal' (which tends to be taller than the stock bed) and 'tall' (which can be nearly cab roof high). Don't know if this also true in Mini sized beds.
Only downside that I can immediately think of is that they make good use of the volume on the sides below the bed deck, much more so than the typical flatbed's underbed box. Might be a clearence problem.

A friend had one on his 1t CC SRW GM truck. He kept one side loaded with camping gear and the other with tools & spares. Bed was for toys etc, with a rack for the kayaks. 30-45 minutes from the decision to go somewhere they could be on the road. They flat wore that truck out. I'll bet it had 50k on it just from Baja roads.

 

[slooowr6]

Main issue with service bed is they are built very sturdy and usually from steel. The mini trucks don't have much payload to start with, put a service bed on it then you are left with close to nothing. For 1t or 3/4t truck it's not much a problem.

 

[adrenaline503]

Main issue with service bed is they are built very sturdy and usually from steel. The mini trucks don't have much payload to start with, put a service bed on it then you are left with close to nothing. For 1t or 3/4t truck it's not much a problem.

Exactly. Thats why I want a Ute bed.

 

[The BN Guy]

I've always wanted a flatbed for my 2000 Fronty CC but with child here and hopefully one on the way at some point in the future having the bed made more sense. Mainly to Handbrake but that's a different story.

Consider having one made for you. That way it'll be custom built to your specifications and you can put whatever boxes on it you want. May even be able to setup a rollbar arrangement to double as an airtank.

Pick up some space case-style containers (waterproof) and simply tie-strap them down when you need them. When you don't store 'em in the garage.

Could always mount an extra battery or two under the deck as well. Just make sure the hatch has PLENTY of clearance from the top of the terminals! (No, I didn't make that mistake, a friend did and fried three yellow top Optima's!)

BTW, yippee, another bed cutting bumper!

 

[The BN Guy]

Drooling again!

 

[Nullifier]

I have a ute bed in my garage awaiting install. Unfortunetly this year has been kicking my but. Fortunetly things are finally turning around so I am just about ready to finish my motor swap and then on to the Ute bed. The bed and products seem to be very well made. I was bummed to learn that the topper is no longer available. They were made by GemTop and according to Gem top they were prototypes and no follow up quantity orders were made.

I am debating on building my own topper or going with boxes. We will see.

 

[SafariPacific]

I thought this was pretty cool set up.


http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=8168&d=1180475674


http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5937

Great... Just what I need to see, something else cool that I'll want to do....

That is very cool! I've been thinking of doing something along those lines for my truck. Just haven't committed to the idea yet.

 

[adrenaline503]

It appears that most of the US ute tray distributors are unfamiliar with their products. I have gotten a few quotes as low as $1800, but they don’t know if that includes all the mounting hardware, bumpers and wiring.

I'm now in Arctic on my ship, so I am having difficulty tracking down any additional information. If anyone has any specifics or contact information I would appreciate it if you could forward that to me. The internet on here is really slow, it took me 10 minutes just to get to this page.