DIY Drawer and cargo barrier

I'm off to the Cape (Cape York, Australias most Northern tip) in September and since the XJ doesn't have the biggest cargo capacity I decided I needed a cargo barrier and a drawer. I did have a false floor with the fridge on it but an XJ with 35's and 5" of lift and then the fridge on the false floor just meant it was too high for my wife to reach into and not easy to see what cold drink I was grabbing

Anyway, first I mounted a free cargo barrier I was given, its from a 98 Mitsubishi Magna Wagon (think this was Aus only) and was new old stock from a mate that worked at the dealer.

Also made a base for the fridge slide to mount to and as a base for the drawer, also makes it easy to bolt the whole thing down to the jeeps floor.



Next I made the basic drawer, it's all hardwood ply, the top, base and supports are 15mm the drawer is 12mm. The slides are 100kg slides.



Mounted the front, this pic also gives you an idea of the drawer size.



And then carpeted and put the handle on. Just need to put on a locking latch and a spring loaded latch for when it is open to hold it open. I could have used locking slides but I didn't like the way you had to ba able to access the front of them,





I have some tiedown track to put on the top and will mount the compressor behind the fridge and it's pretty much done

Cheers
Steve

Very nice. Jealous of the headrests in the back seat. Actually, I'm pretty jealous of your rig all together!

Mounted the lock and tiedown track (after I gave it a clean up)



Still need to line the drawer, looking at some thin rubber



Also test fitted the compressor, it fits behind the fridge, just, it'll be an easier fit once the sand tray comes off as that will drop it down a little and let it go further back. Tonight I'll pull it apart around the switch and see if I can rotate the hose output so it points up, should be able to. I'll also wire in a remote switch and then mount it and hardwire it into the power I've run to the back for the fridge. I'll also mount a short hose to the rear of the jeep that terminates at a quick connect below the tail light.



Cheers
Steve

Very nice! I need to do something similar. I also really like that roof rack.

Nice work dude!

Me and my son made a frame for a shelf above the fridge, just need to weld some brackets on it to attach it to the cargo barrier and then put a plywood carpeted floor on it. Mostly for light weight stuff so the space above the fridge can be used as well.





Cheers
Steve

VERY NICE WORK!, thanks for posting this!

Looks good, I take it you still have carpet in your Jeep right? My jeep gets dunked often so I'm trying to figure out something to build that allows water to drain towards the drain plugs easily under all the stuff. Like something easily removable after trips.

Beautiful work man. Just out of curiosity - what fridge is that? I've got an Engel MT35 that was housed similarly in my cargo arrangement but heat seemed to be an issue (they advise a minimum of 6" of space on all sides). Does the transit bag help offset those thermal requirements?

Yep still have carpet, it gets dunked but not normally long enough to worry about water getting in and the 35's and 5" left help keep it dry.

The fridge is a Waeco CF50 (50lt), it just says to allow adequate ventilation. The transit bag means it doesn't work as hard and I normally have it on a pretty low setting so it's never been an issue. Prior to the drawer I had stuff piled up against the fridge anyway on long trips. This was built to help keep it tidier

Cheers
Steve

And the compressor is mounted, uses an Anderson plug for the power switched with a 60A relay via the switch you can see at the rear with the missle switch cover on it (didn't want it to get knocked on and kill the second battery), the hose wasn't run in the pic below.



Ran a hose to the rear, no tank as I dont need one. Also used an open connector so I cant accidentally pressurize the lines.

I used the blue anodized connector as I already had it



Also made a table top that stores under the drawer (the drawer needs to be raised slightly to clear the plastic around the tailgate latch). I made it half the size of the drawer so it can be slid to access the drawer when being used. It holds the drawer open so it cant shut and knock all the stuff off the table, its really just somewhere to put the stuff that I grab out of the fridge.





And here it is stored. It has some low trim under the drawer to stop the table top going back to far and to hold it securley when travelling.



Cheers
Steve