LC 100 drawer setup

[Chris325i]

Here is my drawer setup in my 2003 Land Cruiser.







The drawers are 11" x 20.75" x 38.25", the fridge drawer is shorter at 36.5" to allow room for the middle row passenger side seat back.
I removed the middle row driver side seat, that area is used for water cans, clothes, tools, basically a pile of duffel bags.

It is all 1/2" Baltic Birch plywood, glued and screwed. The slides are Orr & Orr 500 lb 36" full extension, one locking and one non-locking per drawer.

The fridge is an ARB 37 qt, on top of the double drawer box I have tiedown points for a Renogy 100 watt suitcase style solar panel.

 

[Chris325i]

Some notes on construction:

Here is my workshop, living room of a 3rd floor walkup condo in the heart of Chicago. The balcony outside is 5.5' wide, just enough room to crosscut a 4x8 sheet of plywood. No table saw, just a circular saw, couple of drills, jigsaw and some clamps. I got a Freud Diablo 60 tooth thin kerf blade for all the plywood cutting, well worth the $20. With a homemade panel cutting jig it produced perfect laser like cuts. Just a lot of careful measuring involved.



Not having the luxury of a garage and not wanting to go up and down the stairs all day I decided to build the drawers in two boxes, one large one to hold the two full size drawers and a second shorter one with a single drawer and the fridge drawer on top. I used T nuts and machine screws to install the slides, since the drawers have to come out to move and install everything in the back of the Land Cruiser.

I did make one trip down and up when the two bottom box panels were cut to lay them out in the back and mark holes for bolting through the 3rd row seat bolt holes and also the 3rd row seatbelt bolt holes.

Once everything was done I disassembled it all, lugged down the two boxes and bolted them down to the floor, had to get longer bolts and fender washers, and also bolted the two boxes together with short carriage bolts and fender washers. Then installed the drawers and fitted the side wings.

I also ran 10 ga power and ground wires direct from the battery to a fuse block and ground block mounted on a panel towards the front of the fridge box, then wired to a 2 prong receptacle for the fridge and a USB and cigarette lighter receptacle in the wing, so all of those have constant 12V power.

I used a free online panel layout tool http://www.optimalon.com/cutter/Part, it's very nice but you have to know exactly what size all of your parts will be beforehand, no trial fitting. Once you enter everything in you get layouts for all of your panels (I used most of 4 4x8 sheets) then just go to town cutting.

some samples:

 

[Ryanmb21]

Very cool, I'll have to use that site, didn't know it existed

 

[Chris325i]

1 tip...it lets you pick the cut complexity and the default is fairly high and gives the best utilization. For a circular saw I set to the lowest much easier cuts

 

[rayra]

Nice looking build. Nice choice of middlin' height, you can still see over / past things while you are driving. Are you planing any sort of finish / paint / texture?

I'd tried a layout tool like that a few years ago and it was as you mentioned, 'max optimized'. It worked, but the cut lines made a jigsaw puzzle, it was more trouble to cut. I have a large table that works a support with my table saw, so I try to lay out my own cut plans in a way that lets me rip long strips off full sheets. I still go for the least waste, but I want to be able to quickly break down a sheet with as few cuts / passes as possible. And it helps to keep like pieces the same dimension. Something I can't seem to do as well with a circular saw.

 

[Chris325i]

Thanks, I have thought about a finish but not sure yet. Everybody walks by in the campgrounds, sees the raw plywood and screw heads and says "Oh you built those yourself." I was worried about rattling, was going to do grey speaker cloth all over but I have been across the US, Canada, Alaska, up and down the Dalton Highway and no issues. I do have one slider on the fridge drawer that squeaks sometimes, I have to find some of that clear grease and regrease it. I may just put the gray cloth over the drawer fronts and wings and top of the larger box for a more finished look. I also have some leftover plywood, was going to do hinged covers on both sides of the drawers but the left side has some larger stuff in it, mostly MaxTrax, so maybe just the right side.

 

[rayra]

Hoppe's Gun Grease, any Walmart, most sporting goods stores that have firearms. Would work real nice.

Scratch the hoppe's, it's now emulsified, is like a white lithium grease in appearance.



But vaseline / petroleum jelly will work just as well. Pretty much the same thing.

 

[TrekboxX]

Nice work! I don't know about the slides you are using, but the Accurides have a rubber bumper built into them in the rear of the slide. To remove any excess play, you can slightly bend the rearmost tab of the slide housing inward to put a bit more pressure on the slide when closed. I don't know if that will help your issue, but it's worth a shot!

 

[Chris325i]

Thanks, I was pulling up this post standing in the gun aisle at Walmart. .. none of the Hoppes looked like the right one. Went with petroleum jelly and it's all quiet now.