Pylot7

We removed our rear seat in our first jeep, an 08. I made a couple of plywood boxes with lids, covered them with outdoor carpet and anchored them to the rear seat mounts. They were ok and useful but it was a poor use of the space.

I was always mildly concerned about the potential for a tool box or our recovery gear coming forward in an accident.

So now we have a 14 and today I started reworking the back to build out secure, easily accessible storage with a cap over the back of the jeep. I want to maximize the use of the available space but I also want to make sure everything that could come forward is either secure or behind a solid wall and unable to come through.

I am building a floor structure, some internal walls and ultimately a secure cap. I am going to do the cap in diamond plate but I am not positive on how I will finish it, i.e. rubberize, powder coat etc. If you have an idea for a non glare useful treatment for diamond plate chime in. The jeep is black.

First I took out the side carpet and floor carpet. The plastic lid, the bin and the plastic trim pieces. This includes the piece that housed the speaker and the aux power. Its connected via plug so it came out easy. I also removed the seat belts. Had to put a torx on the end of my air hammer and power those bolts out. Jeep wants you to make a conscious effort to get them out. There were four of those. The floor anchors came up easily.

When you clear it out this way there is a ton of room. I will post some pics as I go along as this is going to take a few weekends to complete. Getting all of that plastic and carpet out of the way really gives you a lot of room, its quite surprising how much bigger it looks. I thought about Rhino liner or Linex but then thought who cares, its going to get capped anyway so it wont be subject to getting wet.

I did decide to simply remove the soft top completely. We have a mopar bikini with a header and it works great. With a cap nothing is going to get wet.

I have the first two pieces of aluminum which are the floor plate and a piece of L about 36" long. I will cut the L into 1 or 2 inch long L brackets. I have some scrap round stock sitting around that I will use for spacers. I need to buy the main bulkhead that will wall off the stuff in the back from the riders. I also need to buy the cap which I will have to put on in two pieces.

My aluminum source is Alreco in Brighton. Fantastic place. Every kind of aluminum in every form you could ever want. Not cheap but like the proprietor says, aluminum is forever!

I got a piece of 3/16ths aluminum plate that was 43" X 18". I located the floor seat belt studs and drilled the sheets. The studs put the plate on a nice shelf that runs along the inside of the wheel wells. Next I found the center of the two forward seat attach points. I cut a piece of 1" X 1/8" steel strap about 6 inches long, drilled it and and fit four 17 mm bolts and secured them with a nut on the other side. This lets me put the strap under the seat attach points with four studs sticking up so I can just put a nut over a washer on the plate. Using the front seat brackets and the rear seat belt anchor studs gives me a four really strong attach points for my aluminum plate floor. I also cut some disks from some 2" round aluminum stock to make spacers. Drilled them. Drilled the plate then drilled down thru the floor board. Three of those and my aluminum floor is really securely fastened to the floor of the jeep.

Next I have to make a cardboard template of the side wells to make the bulkhead pattern. I have to buy that part so will post some pics in the meantime and show the bulkhead build in the next step.

When done I will access the under cap storage area by opening the rear door. I plan on attaching small shelf's on the front of the bulkhead that I will cover with net for easy access from the driver or passenger seat. I am making a frame for my toolbox and a secured place for my air tank. More to come.

DannyMalkin

Sounds awesome, would love some pictures!

Pylot7

So here is my disclaimer. You could easily kill yourself if you build out anything in the back of your jeep. An unsecured plate could easily cause a fatal injury. If you have a heavy object back there and you get into a wreck that heavy object will come flying forward. This is my best effort to prevent that, however, I have no control over what you do. I don't make any warranty that what I am doing is safe or that it will work. So if you elect to do this for your jeep you are on your own. These pictures of what I am doing are exclusively for entertainment.

Here are the first few pictures. Mobile Uploads Slideshow by Pylot7 | Photobucket

You have to take everything out! Carpet, plastic, the tool tub, everything!

I am using the rear seat belt floor anchor studs to locate the floor plate. The floor plate will be the basis for the rest of the internal structure so this has to be secured to the jeep with several bolt points. I am using the two rear seat belt anchor studs as a convenient starting point. In the next post I will show you how I am taking steel strap and making some hold down points that will be secured under the rear seat mounting points. In addition to these I am creating some aluminum "pucks" that will fit between the bottom of the plate and the floor of the jeep. I intend to drill the plate, the puck and the jeep floorboard and then put a nut and bolt set all the way through. I will have at least three of these, maybe more if the plate does not feel solid enough.

That aluminum plate measures 44 inches by 18 inches and is an alloyed aircraft aluminum. It is 3/16ths of an inch thick. The rear seat belt floor anchor studs are 42 1/2 inches center to center in my jeep. So it was easy enough to figure them out and drill them to match.

More to come.

Pylot7

I added some pics to the post above. Today I completed the mounting of the floor plate to the Jeep floor.

I basically made three 1 1/16" thick spacers and drilled them and the tub so that a bolt can go from the top of the floor thru the spacer and the tub and be secured by a big washer and lock nut on the under side.

Used 1 inch wide 1/8th inch thick steel strap and drilled it to put a nut bolt set on each side of the two forward rear seat connection points. I am going to have a little fun getting them cinched but its not like it will come off for a long time.

I drilled the floor plate to accept the four bolts on each side that latch to the forward seat mounts. I also drilled the floor plate to accept the other three bolts that go thru the spacers and the tub.

So there are 13 bolts holding the floor plate down. I feel like that will take a beating before it comes off.

So far the floor plate cost $60. I bought the bulkhead which is 17" X 44" and it was $60. I have $60 in nuts and bolts and $7 for the steel plate. I had some aluminum round stock sitting around that I cut and drilled for the spacers. The L shaped aluminum I will make brackets from was $19. Bob at ALRECO said the 1/8th in diamond plate to cap the tub with would run me about $130. I figure another $30 in nuts and bolts. And I am thinking about a plastidip or rubberized coating or something like that. If you know of a good non slip non glare finish for diamond plate let me know.

Next weekend I am going to install the bulkhead and the cap and take it for a trail ride.

GCONDA

Need pics !!!!

Pylot7

Click the link in post 3. That should go to a photobucket album where there are lots of pics of this project.

Pylot7

From my last post the floor is done and the next step is to install the bulkhead. To make things easier I ended up using JB weld to secure the nuts to the strap that had the four bolts holding the floor on the left and the right at the seat brackets. Worked like a charm and made for a simple final install.

As I am installing these pieces for the last time I am using blue locktite on all of the bolts.

I had a 3/16" piece of aluminum cut at 17" high and an equal width to the floor to make the bulkhead. I had to notch the bulkhead bottom to accommodate the floor profile. You can get a blade made to cut aluminum for a scroll saw at Home Depot or any other hardware store. Easy but noisy! I used earplugs.

I took a piece of 2" L shaped aluminum and cut it into 1 1/2 inch wide brackets. Then I drilled a pilot hole in each side. I made 12 of these. 6 for the lower floor to bulkhead connection and 6 for the upper bulkhead to diamond plate cap at the top of the bulkhead.

I located the center threads for the freedom top and used that as my locating anchor for the diamond plate.

Then I had to fit the bulkhead into place and shim it from the bottom so that it evenly supported the 1/8th diamond plate. Once I got that right with a couple of clamps and some lower shimming I drilled the holes into the diamond plate and secured the L brackets to the lower side of the diamond plate. Then I drilled the bulkhead. By taking this approach I essentially hang the bulkhead from the diamond plate. Worked like a charm and took any sag out of the diamond plate. It also automatically optimally locates the position of the bulkhead for drilling the lower bracket holes.

The final holes in the lower brackets and bulkhead were completed next.

I just eyeballed the holes in the L brackets so I did make a point of numbering them 1 to 6 so that they always went back to the same position. This is a form of "fabricate in place" that lets you proceed quickly with great results.

For the diamond plate cap I added two holes in the tub cap edge. One 9 inches to the front of the center freedom top bolt and another 10 inches to the rear. These each had a washer and a nylock nut so they cannot be undone from the top.

So now I have the basic box completed. There is a well secured floor. A bulkhead that will prevent anything from flying forward and a nice cap of diamond plate over the majority of the back of the Jeep. I will black this out with wheel dip or some other slightly sticky covering that is black. Don't want a shiny chrome glare behind me!!

I took it for a brief test ride and there is no rattling or clunking so everything is pretty tight and secure. I took another ride after I added all of my gear in, tool box, recovery gear, air tank and a bunch of other stuff and it is all very quiet and secure. At this point we can go play. I will add much more in future installments.

In the next steps (in future posts) I will add what I will call the features. I will provide some pictures of the features in my next post. The features will be this; the capping using diamond plate around the roll bars, the hinging of the rear plate to the front plate to provide an easy access one foot wide opening that will be lockable, the addition of an L reinforcement to the back edge of the front plate to take out any sag, the addition of two pieces of sheet metal to run vertically along the side of the floor which will essentially create a "cubby hole" over the wheel well and finally the addition of lockable doors to the bulkhead that will let me stash valuables in the cubby holes and access them from the interior of the jeep using a lock. I may create a canvas or leather liner for the cubby holes, we'll see.

My goals for this project were to totally secure my jeep while having quick and easy access to what I needed, when I need it. I am going to put the front freedom tops on and figure out how to make a piece that will secure the opening behind the seats. But that is well after the features are added!

Pylot7

I thought I'd revive this. We modified the original configuration last weekend and really improved the utility of this mod.

I had placed a 1/8th piece of diamond plate over the back of the jeep on the same rails the top sits on. This precluded use of the top. That turned out to be unacceptable.

So last weekend we started by emptying out everything from the jeep, tool box, air tank, recovery gear etc etc etc. Then we removed the diamond plate cap including the corners. I removed the bulkhead and another piece that acts as a divider perpendicular to the bulkhead.

Had to lower the height on the bulkhead and divider by about 7/8 of an inch, make 6 new angle brackets, drill and mount the brackets, reinstall the bulkhead and divider.

Then we trimmed the cap so it would fit under the lip of the tub. We re bolted the cap to the bulkhead and divider then added a couple of pieces of 1" aluminum 90 degree angle and secured the edges of the cap to the inside edge of the tub. I kept the top edge of the aluminum just below the surface of the edge so it would not interfere with the mounting of the stock top.

I trimmed the corner pieces and secured them around the roll bar with a 3 X 6 aluminum plate on each side of the roll bar. This left the hood pins in place and after I trimmed the rear hinged part of the cap in dropped right over the hood pins like it had when on top.

We added a very hard stiff racing roll bar padding to the 3/4" edge at the top of the box so there would be a big padded surface for the back of the seat.

There are two things this gives me. I get a serious bulkhead between me and all the stuff that gets stored in the back of your two seater. We get in a wreck and it will contain everything. I also get excellent secure storage with the top off and the top itself is a sturdy shelf to hold a cooler or luggage or a dog carry.

I will get a pic up soon.