arb fridge under tonneau cover in titan?

[riverbum]

Anyone running a fridge in their truck bed under a tonneau cover?

I have an ARB 50qt I keep in an old land cruiser that I want to use in my titan. I need to mount the fridge in the bed for space concerns and I want to install a tonneau cover for a little more security. My concern is the cover clearing the top of the fridge.

 

[Big mike]

Just get a slider to pull it out . Then absolutely no issue with cover.
Mike

 

[Lucky j]

Try a take mesure.

Tonneau cover should be at the same hight of the side panels.

 

[riverbum]

If cover is same height as side walls of bed I lack clearance. Anyone know of a hard folding cover that rests on top of the bed rails?

 

[Lucky j]

If you go with hard cover like fiberglass, would you be able to loft to cover just a bit to pull the fridge out? But hard cover are not always funny for dd use.

 

[Camelfilter]

The 50qts are pretty big. If you don't find yourself using the space on your trips, maybe consider downsizing? Or buy a smaller unit for your Titan?

I have a Dometic 35 in my Titan that could easily clear under about any Tonnneu I can think of, commercial or homemade.

My fridge also has a home-made insulated cover, which adds a bit of height/width (similar to a store bought cover). Still would clear fine.

My bed setup consists of a 1/2" ply board bolted to the bottom 2 utili -trac rails. To that I installed a home made slide out for my fridge (plus another for my chuck box).

On top of my fridge I have a metal shelf/table loosely attached to that bedsides' utili-trac rail. The shelf can swing up if I need to access the fridge from inside my Flippac.

All that said, I figure if I didn't have the ply board & slide-out draw, I imagine I'd have around 1-2" clearance from the top of my fridge to the bottom of the bedside utili-trac rails. Likely a bit more.

AFAIK the ARB 35qt & Dometic 35qt I have are the exact same, just different badges. -- my Dometic has a flip up door & the round handles at the end, with led display low power cut-out & quick chill. I mention that only because Dometic tends to change models a bunch from what I've seen. Newer 35's may have different dimensions...

 

[Camelfilter]

On the hard cover subject, you could also always make your own. I made one for my first Titan out of 3/4" press-board. The 3/4" slides into the Utili-trac slots perfect.

I'd say to use regular ply, as the press board is very heavy. You also will need to reinforce each leave to keep the from bowing/warping. I used a 2x4 screwed into 2 of the 3 leaves so that they would overlap the next leaf adding reinforcement at each end of each leaf except for the tailgate end.

I had it in 3 sections to make it easier to instal/remove as need be, with some rubber/foam stripping stuck to the edges of each slide piece. Offered pretty decent weather protection.

I sprayed the leaves with bedliner, looked pretty decent.

I've read of folks making similar home-made covers that rest on top of the utilitrac rails, having some type of sliding bracket system into the rails.


---and lastly ( sorry for droning on!), I have a tri-fold soft tonneu I'll be putting back up for sale once I get my "pod" & un pack it in a few weeks. It's in pretty decent shape, uses the utilitrac rails. I figure $150-local Salem OR area.

 

[Camelfilter]

Looks as I have 15 1/2" clearance from the bottom of my slide-out to the bottom of the utili-trac rail.



And 18" clearance from the bed to the bottom of the utili-trac rail.



My table/bench is a re-purposed metal computer shelf they were going to discard at my previous hospital. It attaches to the utilitrac via brackets you can buy at home-depot/lowes that fit utilitrac perfect. The brackets themselves attach to the utilitrac via "spring nuts" which you can get in the same section as the brackets themselves. I also attached the 1/2" ply to the bottom of the bed using those "spring nuts" with fender washers as reinforcing on the ply wood.

The 2 legs of the table/bench are just cut ?2" dowel- (resourced closet rod dowel). The dowel fits into closet rod holders, with one of the dowel legs drilled for quick release pins sourced from harbor freight or tractor supply. The table/bench is super stable & strong, yet flips up with ease when the quick release pin is removed.

Hinge/bracket & dowel pin pictures. Sorry the pictures are oriented goofy (iPad), can't fix them until I have a desktop setup in several weeks.

 

[riverbum]

Thanks Camelfilter for the good info. The fridge sits fairly even with the top rail so I think I will have to find a raised cover.

 

[Camelfilter]

Thanks Camelfilter for the good info. The fridge sits fairly even with the top rail so I think I will have to find a raised cover.

Bummer, makes it a bit more of a challenge. Even more so if you'd like to run a RTT on top of your bed in the future.

If you find that you don't use your truck bed a lot for hauling, you could always get a topper/cap. I ran a used one from an earlier model year on my current '13 Titan. Just had to modify the bottom rear window sill to have it fit well. That modification consisted of removing the bottom window moulding, as earlier Titans had that bowed out tailgate. Then added in some rubber moulding for a tighter seal.

With the cap on it, I thought it looked pretty sharp. Handy for me & what I needed to haul at the time as well. Plus I lucked out as it was white, same as my truck, and only cost $400 off the Craigslist.

Ended up selling it for $500 when I got my Flippac.

 

[Camelfilter]

Here's a pic of my '13 when it had the topper on there. Again, kinda sharp looking IMO. I honestly forget if I had upgraded the suspension at that time, but I'm thinking it was with just rear Firestone bags.



Here's a pic of the bottom of that rear window after taking the moulding off & putting some rubber garage door gasket on.

 

[Evolve_Per_Factum]

Take a look at Diamondback Covers.
http://www.diamondbackcovers.com