hidesertwheelin
Explorer
Any pictures of the platform in Suburban without the foam on it? Or from the back? I'm building mine this weekend.
My 1989 Suburban with a Westfalia top grafted into it... also dual 360 swivel seats
- Thread starter dbreid
- Start date
dbreid
Adventurer
I'll get more pictures soon. I have some pictures of my older, less fancy one here: http://www.reid.org/~dreid/89suburban/platform/platform.htm
hidesertwheelin
Explorer
Cool. Thanks.
dbreid
Adventurer
The platform is made of mostly 3/4 inch Birch plywood, with the exception of the "base". That is 1/2 inch plywood. The height of the platform (the vertical plywood pieces painted in grey) are 10 inches tall. The Foam (the white foam) is 4 inches tall.
You are right about headroom. When I built the older (in the link) platform, I made that about 7-8 inches tall, and that was designed so I could sit up. But with this new version, I put the middle row of seats back in, so I figured I needed to raise the height of the platform to fit more underneath in order to optimize. I figured if I am sitting up, I'll be in the middle seats anyway. I went with fancy 4 inch foam to make my wife happier.
You are right about headroom. When I built the older (in the link) platform, I made that about 7-8 inches tall, and that was designed so I could sit up. But with this new version, I put the middle row of seats back in, so I figured I needed to raise the height of the platform to fit more underneath in order to optimize. I figured if I am sitting up, I'll be in the middle seats anyway. I went with fancy 4 inch foam to make my wife happier.
dbreid
Adventurer
Also, the holes in the platform are for weight and airflow. The "Square" holes are vents for my Fridge (and hand holes to reach in and tighten turnbuckles and tie downs. But in general, I wanted to have the whole platform easy to lift in and out myself. The old one I made with 2x8's was pretty heavy, and a little overbuilt.
I used 3/4 on the top, because it let me overhang a little on the "corners" without losing structural integrity. The 1/2 inch on the bottom was used to keep weight down.
I used 3/4 on the top, because it let me overhang a little on the "corners" without losing structural integrity. The 1/2 inch on the bottom was used to keep weight down.
dbreid
Adventurer
I also (older version) had a middle platform. In the one I just built, I put the seats back, but in my old (pre-child) incarnation of the truck, I had a middle platform. Some pictures here:
http://www.reid.org/~dreid/89suburban/fridge_platform_middle/middle_platform.htm
http://www.reid.org/~dreid/89suburban/fridge_platform_middle/middle_platform.htm
rayra
Expedition Leader
happy wife happy life. The cordless drills are a lot smaller than I thought they were.
We're more ground tent palace and double air mattress campers. My sleeping on the platform would only happen on solo desert runs or overnights in the mountains at the astronomy club site. I can make do without 2nd row platform support, or pile luggage to make it level enough to support a single air mattress.
I'm also planning to heavily skeletonize the vertical panels and the bottom flat of my drawer setup and have also figured a setup for the sides of the drawers that will be full height for a few inches at the front and rear to support the drawer latches / locks and to help support the drawers when extended (no slider design) but will lower the rest of the drawer sides a few inches also to shave weight and to accommodate a tabletop of sorts on top of one drawer, which also folds up like an A-frame easel / map board. two large drawers side by side, extending from hatch to the backs of the 2nd row seats, with a skinny module on the driver side of the cargo area from hatch to the back of the third row seat, which will house some extra battery and power conversion outlets in many flavors. The power unit will be 'permanent', remain fixed whatever the seat config and have the full suite of power options on both front and back ends. The separate drawer modules will be normally mounted unless I have to install the 3rd row seat. One drawer for firearms and related gear, on desert shooting trips, the other drawer with all the roadside / recovery gear, bagged by task. If I have to pull the drawers I just throw the basic roadside emergency, 1st aid bags back in the cargo area.
Just designing out loud, maybe the ideas will spark something for someone else. I hope to get busy building the thing in the coming month, I'll start a build thread then.
We're more ground tent palace and double air mattress campers. My sleeping on the platform would only happen on solo desert runs or overnights in the mountains at the astronomy club site. I can make do without 2nd row platform support, or pile luggage to make it level enough to support a single air mattress.
I'm also planning to heavily skeletonize the vertical panels and the bottom flat of my drawer setup and have also figured a setup for the sides of the drawers that will be full height for a few inches at the front and rear to support the drawer latches / locks and to help support the drawers when extended (no slider design) but will lower the rest of the drawer sides a few inches also to shave weight and to accommodate a tabletop of sorts on top of one drawer, which also folds up like an A-frame easel / map board. two large drawers side by side, extending from hatch to the backs of the 2nd row seats, with a skinny module on the driver side of the cargo area from hatch to the back of the third row seat, which will house some extra battery and power conversion outlets in many flavors. The power unit will be 'permanent', remain fixed whatever the seat config and have the full suite of power options on both front and back ends. The separate drawer modules will be normally mounted unless I have to install the 3rd row seat. One drawer for firearms and related gear, on desert shooting trips, the other drawer with all the roadside / recovery gear, bagged by task. If I have to pull the drawers I just throw the basic roadside emergency, 1st aid bags back in the cargo area.
Just designing out loud, maybe the ideas will spark something for someone else. I hope to get busy building the thing in the coming month, I'll start a build thread then.
dbreid
Adventurer
Yeah, the way we use the truck, we don't do a lot of "get there and set up" type stuff. My wife LOVES roadtrips. She Loves the outdoors. But her major kryptonite is being bitten by bugs. She has that blood that bugs seem to love, and things get very un-fun very quickly if we are messing with tents at dusk and she gets eaten alive. So my main goal of most of this is to make sure that if she doesn't want to, we can do all of our camping without opening any doors. This means access from INSIDE the truck for all except the heavy stuff or things that would only be used outside. For example, the Stove, the lawn chairs, the mechanics tools, recovery gear, etc. All that is only accessible from the rear tailgate. But all the comfort stuff is accessible from INSIDE the truck. Very important (for us).
Doing things that way meant a few things for us...
1.) No need for drawers. Drawers add a ton of weight, are difficult to build (especially because trucks aren't very "Square") and are costly. So we skipped drawers completely. As for us, Drawers only make sense if you are pulling the truck up, and camping outside it (which we do not do).
2.) Less need for a heater. We used to use a catalytic heater to keep warm when winter camping. What we found was that if you never open the doors, and you insulate the truck (I tore out the whole interior and lined it all) then the truck stays mighty toasty! That saved us a bunch of space and added comfort as well.
Basically, I spent a lot of time making the truck into a mini-RV. As opposed to the classic "expo" rig with lots of fancy Zarges cases and kitchen box and stuff.
Hope this helps in thinking through things. Suburbans are colossal. And if you use it wisely, there's a LOT of space!
Doing things that way meant a few things for us...
1.) No need for drawers. Drawers add a ton of weight, are difficult to build (especially because trucks aren't very "Square") and are costly. So we skipped drawers completely. As for us, Drawers only make sense if you are pulling the truck up, and camping outside it (which we do not do).
2.) Less need for a heater. We used to use a catalytic heater to keep warm when winter camping. What we found was that if you never open the doors, and you insulate the truck (I tore out the whole interior and lined it all) then the truck stays mighty toasty! That saved us a bunch of space and added comfort as well.
Basically, I spent a lot of time making the truck into a mini-RV. As opposed to the classic "expo" rig with lots of fancy Zarges cases and kitchen box and stuff.
Hope this helps in thinking through things. Suburbans are colossal. And if you use it wisely, there's a LOT of space!
rayra
Expedition Leader
They're 8' from the rear doors / hatch to the back of the front seats. You can literally put a full sheet of plywood in the back of these things. The 2nd row seats in the 2000+ models have the bottom tip forward against the front seat and the backs fold flat level with the cargo deck. There's a small narrow foot well for the 3rd row, whose back side slopes towards the rear slightly.
I'm planning to have an open shallow storage area like a bread box at the front end of my storage drawer housings, that is angled to match that foot well, a place to stuff a few things. IIRC that's about 56" from the rear hatch to the back of the 2nd row seats. I double-checked that when I started sketching ideas because I wanted to use one of the drawers for rifles, typically ~40-48" long.
With the 2nd row folded there's room to accommodate just about anybody.
On the inside access, I hear that, was also considering some sort of topside hatch setup to allow access to at least the front (hatch) end of the gear drawer, so recovery stuff could be reached in the event that I couldn't open the rear or drawer for some reason.
They really are cavernous. There's 30" behind the 3rd row even. x49" wide. 10sq' of floor, empty, clear to the ceiling. I think I recall reading somewhere that there's ~126cu' of space behind the front seats of a Suburban.
I'm planning to have an open shallow storage area like a bread box at the front end of my storage drawer housings, that is angled to match that foot well, a place to stuff a few things. IIRC that's about 56" from the rear hatch to the back of the 2nd row seats. I double-checked that when I started sketching ideas because I wanted to use one of the drawers for rifles, typically ~40-48" long.
With the 2nd row folded there's room to accommodate just about anybody.
On the inside access, I hear that, was also considering some sort of topside hatch setup to allow access to at least the front (hatch) end of the gear drawer, so recovery stuff could be reached in the event that I couldn't open the rear or drawer for some reason.
They really are cavernous. There's 30" behind the 3rd row even. x49" wide. 10sq' of floor, empty, clear to the ceiling. I think I recall reading somewhere that there's ~126cu' of space behind the front seats of a Suburban.