my sleeping platform prototype, for long and short trips alike.

[theizzardking]

hey i made this for my 4500 mi road trip i'm taking next week, thought this maybe of some interest, keep in mind this is a prototype and i'm making the complete one next week some time, the only thing missing really is some legs on the front section,some carpet to look nice and a bit of edge guard around the edges to keep it from scratching the interior, i have already used this on 3 camping trips and works great.

set-up time is about 2-10 minutes depending on how comfy you make your self.




step one remove set bottoms

like this, 12MM long socket is best, loosen with ratchet and use fingers and deep socket to finish.

store seat bottoms in front passenger area and move seats to about as far forward as possible.

next fold out bed section.

this is where you would want to flip down the legs to support the over hanging portion, it's not really needed but would make it much more stable for sitting on that one section, but for just supporting your head or feet i find the stiffness of the wood alone is enough.

 

[theizzardking]

add foam and blankets and pillow laptop and ect....i typically leave this stuff here to make set-up time quicker, photo's showing this are at the end.

pic of me laying down with hatch closed to show extra room, i'm 6 foot even and have plenty of room.

what it looks like when stored
(without foam)

stored with foam

i've always used the blue bin as my emergency road kit and when stored it makes a nice shelf to store crap on while traveling

but i'm sure it wouldn't be hard to put a small shelf catcher thing on the inside of the truck to support the weight when it's hanging out.



let me know if you guys see any room for improvement, i didn't have the money to build a complete box and personally i like the small size of this better and stored in my garage with the rest of the plywood no problem.


total cost was around 20-35 bucks so far

plywood $10-12 a sheet

hinges from mc master carr or grainger $8-10

estimated total cost about $50
i'm figuring items above plus 20 for carpet and about 5-10 for edge guard.

 

[Patsawasy]

I like the emergency Jack and Coke kit in the back seat. It's always good in a pinch.

 

[FoneRunner]

I like the emergency Jack and Coke kit in the back seat. It's always good in a pinch.

And what's nice with it is if you forget your foam pad, you won't care....as a matter of fact, if you do it right you will probably just sleep it off beside your truck instead of on the sleeping platform anyway!:sleepy::barf:

But hey! Great looking platform Izzard...

 

[theizzardking]

haha yeah was cleaning the truck out from the other weekends camping trip and decided the jack needed to stay in the truck, lol

anyways i think your spot on just drink till you pass out then who the heck needs a platform in the first place, heck $50 will get you a gallon of the cheap shit that should last for a few nights. or a 1/5th of the goods if your just doing an over nighter, lol

 

[Duhockey]

I think thats a great one.. especially since its the least space restrictive...

it doesnt have the cool pull out drawers/table that some people have, but I think that would prob work the best especially if you could somehow permanently pad/carpet the wood and then just pack a twin size memory foam or something...

I dont know, Ive thought about it, havent gotten that far, but I like your idea as a starting point best probably