As a whitewater kayaker, I camp most weekends between April and October. I love sleeping in the back of the 4runner and, up until now, have just dropped the seats and thrown an air mattress in there. However, it's kind of a hassle to deflate the air mattress every morning and shuffle all the gear around before I can drive to the river. I wanted a simple sleeping platform that would allow me to keep my bed ready to go, but would be easy to collapse or remove for additional cargo space.

I decided to spend some extra money on baltic birch plywood, because of its stiffness; I wanted to have minimal supports for weight savings and unobstructed cargo space underneath. Also, I admit, I like that it just looks really nice. I did some half-assed sanding and finished it with Minwax Polycrylic.

The legs fold up and lock in both up and down positions. They also have leveling feet for when I can't park on level ground.

I have the 2/3 portion of the seat removed, and have left in the 1/3 seatback for now. I may leave it as-is, put in the seat bottom, or remove it entirely. Not sure yet. Finally, I made a magnetic bug screen for the liftgate window.

Going forward, I'd like to make a slide-out table under the sleeping platform. I have some leftover plywood for that. I also still need to attach something to the underside of the platform as a tie-down to the cargo rings on the floor.

My first test will be this weekend at the Beaver River Rendezvous in upsate NY! I will update this thread as I make changes.

Attached Images

               

Looks good.

Sleeping in the truck is very convenient vs a tent. I've been itching to make one too, but I keep putting it on the back burner.

Nice looking set up.

Now that is awesome. As a sea kayaker/camper I do appreciate the need for utilizing space for gear(2 seven day trips to Isle Royale) and you my friend have done that. Well done. I want to see any upgrades you may come up with too.

Neat setup, I assume you can't really sit up in there. What is on the ceiling?

That's a cargo net I made a couple years ago. I'm on mobile now, but I have another thread about it if you want details. I'll probably take it down now that I have more storage under the bed, to increase headroom a bit. But, no, can't really sit up with the new platform. That was the biggest sacrifice vs the air mattress.

Thank you! I've seen much cooler, more elaborate builds, but I wanted to start real simple and do it in a way that I could add to and modify over time according to my needs.

One thing I definitely will do soon is figure out a small awning over the liftgate window, so I can still have the window down when it's raining.

That's cool, I was just curious what it was. Are you generally alone? Camping like this often by myself would make me contemplate removal of the passenger seat so there's somewhere to easily move to for sitting up.

Yup, usually on my own, but it's nice to have at least one back seat for shuttling people between river take-out and put-in. Easy enough to take it out in the future though.

First outing was a success!




However, headroom was indeed a bit tight, so I decided to make a cut out for the wheel hump and lower the platform a couple inches. It made a world of difference.



Drive mode:


Sleep mode:

Love it, looks awesome but do you still have room for your buddies and their boat and gear? How many can you carry?

In its current configuration, I carpooled with another person a couple of weeks ago no problem. A shuttle with three people was...a bit tight.

One of my priorities in designing this has been versatility and ease of changes. Right now, the back seats are removed, but I sized the platform so that the 1/3 back seat can fit without changes. At some point, I might cut and hinge the front part of the platform so I can fold it back and have the other back seats in as well. And, of course, the whole platform is very easy to remove; putting the seats back in is a bit of a hassle, but can be done in maybe 15 minutes. That said, it's pretty rare that I carpool with more than one other person, so most of the time it will be set up as pictured.

Here's the latest!

First, a Slumberjack Roadhouse canopy:

Initial impressions: Pretty easy to set up, especially with 2 people. I haven't tried the single pole set up yet, but I'm thinking that will be easier when solo. I also haven't tried the freestanding configuration either. Nice and compact when all packed up. I'll play with it some more, but I think it will be very nice to have on rainy weekends, especially for the 90 bucks I paid. Of course, I immediately spent another $20 on reflective line to replace the line it came with...but that doesn't count, right?

Next, table storage:




I'm pretty proud of this one! Initially, I'd thought about using the same plywood as the sleeping platform to make a table top that slides out from underneath, but this will be a lot more versatile at the cost of a couple inches of under-bed storage space. The table is adjustable height for cooking and eating. Just by luck, when I have it partially pulled out, I can swing one leg down and one of the adjustment notches puts the leg at the perfect height to support that end. I do have to rotate the table just slightly to slide it into place past the front leg and the wheel hump, but not so much that I have to remove my bins or other gear.

I think this will probably be the last of the "construction" part of the project. The next thing I'm looking for are some bins that fit nicely under the remaining space beneath the platform/table. I'm planning on using those mostly for cooking gear.

Looks like you were also lucky the table was not any wider.

It wasn't really luck so much as I chose a table that would fit.