[Vanpackr]

What is the thickness of the actual beams on the harbor freight parts? Their site says 2.5", but that seems high.

 

[njvagabond]

I picked a queen sized Ikea Lonset for $40 on CL At 9cm it's a bit on thick side. Need to figure out a way to add structural within existing or reduced frame height. My hope is that with adjustable slat flex a 4" mattress will be sufficient.

 

[Vanpackr]

Cool thing about the ATV ramps is they flex a bit under pressure. I'm 6'5" almost 300lbs. We have a 4" memory foam folding mattress. We're happy with it,

 

[AIRAKULA]

2" height: 1/2" Baltic Birch on 1.5" x 1.5" x 0.090" wall steel box tube supported by 3/16" wall aluminum angle anchored to the body.

PDub, many ways to knock this out😀 as this thread shows. Good luck!

 

[Janus9]

This is Wayfarer Vans 148" Transit set up. They specialize in basic conversions that are pre made. You purchase, set an appointment, show up and in 4 hours they do your conversion.

They use a unistrut bed platform. If you watch the whole video you can get a pretty good idea how they do it. Watch when he gets on the bed, it is rock solid.

 

[surly Bill]

Unistrut is under rated. It's cheap, strong, and rust resistant. And no need to go to a specialty metal shop to get it, just pop down to the Home Depot or Lowe's.

 

[Janus9]

I need about 36" minimum for my XC bike, front wheel off, dropper completely lowered. For road bikes I'll need to take the seat post / mast off (I have long legs, so the saddle is about 39 or 40" high with the front wheel off). I can also pitch to my wife that I just need to buy another longer dropper post.

But, the higher the bed is, the less room I have for my head in the bump out, so the lower the better. I'll check out the Harbor Freight site as well. Thanks!

Thanks.

About how much length will you need? Would the bike fit in 54" of length, or would it take more?

 

[Tijoe]

I always search for coupons with harbor freight and I couldn't believe it when I saw that $79 one come up. I have some time so I'll watch for a deal on it and buy a couple.

I've become and acquaintance to our HF store manager and have chatted with him about the reduction of "free Coupons" and 20% off coupons. He said that 2 things have hit HF really hard. The Trump tariffs , and Covid 19. Double whammy for them. 20% off coupons are still available, typically in magazine inserts, and newspaper circular inserts. The only free-bee I find is the blue LED flashlight. Had close to 20 of them, then gave a bunch of them away to our local homeless shelter. Regarding the ramps, in mid 2020 they went from $99 to $125. Only a 20% increase.

 

[Tijoe]

Back to the original thread. The wood platform bed frame I made sits a couple inches below the bottom of the van's windows. With the matress pad I put on top, the level ends up about an inch above the bottom of the windows. I often travel with my road bike, gravel bike, and mountain bike. None of them fit under the bed frame. These days, since I have the extended body. I fit the 3 bikes standing up leaning against the back of the bed frame and the back doors. I fit all my gear beneath the bed, and access most of the stuff from the front side. If I need more room inside, and have to put in a couple rows of seats,I put on the bike racks and carry/lock the bikes outside.

 

[dwippy]

I bought 1.5"x1.5" 0.060/16 gauge steel tubing and put 5.2mm ply over it for a thickness of about 1.75" The steel tubing was about $1.88 a foot, I used 72 ft building a folding bed including the legs that go to the floor. I bought 80ft of tubing at the local steel supply for $150 all in. I used about 80 pounds of steel pounds in the bed frame, including the uprights.

You could probably get away with 60ft or less going non-folding and wall mounted, similar to what AIRAKULA has done above. (you wouldn't need the center locking bar I put in below)

 

[Checkswrecks]

While mine is slightly too short for use as a bed, the HF or similar ramps also make a good ladder for roof access.

 

[Hein]

We built the bed frame for our previous 130MR Transit out of 8020 15 series LS. Worked great and was plenty sturdy with minimal deflection mid span. The frame has legs that sit on the cargo tie-down points so no rails were needed on the walls. Photo and design shows 3 legs on each side but we later took out the center legs after we found that they weren't needed for the structure.

All the best,
Hein
DIYvan

Also have another design for the 148 van.

 

[orton]

I have the same concern as you regarding bikes below vs space above. In terms of a sheet solution that you requested, I'm considering aluminum honeycomb panels, although it appears to be a pricey solution. Check out this site if you're interested. Lots of options in terms of edge enclosure, etc.

Another option is simply sandwiching polyiso board between two 1/4" sheets of plywood using Loctite PL adhesive. I think I first saw this in Orton's build pages, although he did not try to span the full width of the van. I did a test run and made a panel 24"x68" and the result wasn't too bad. When you sit on it there is some deflection if you try to span the fully 68". But it gets alot better if you only span say 44", with the assumption that you will have some intermediate supports set in 12" on either side of the garage for putting water and electric on each side.

What thickness of polyiso did you use? If 1" then try 1 1/2"?

Obviously reducing the span will reduce the deflection. Maybe a couple of posts on side of both wheel wells with a piece of wood on top of the posts between the posts and the panel.?

The advantage of the polyiso is it also provides insulation.

My installation has panels that are 1/2 the bed length. Van wall ends are hinged at the wall and the other end is at the van centerline and sits on a table.

 

[carryingforks]

The bed I built is 1.5" tall, and was surprisingly cheap so far even though I used 8020.

I have vertical L-Track mounted on my walls. I attached 3" x 3" x 1/4" angle aluminum to that as rail sliders for the bed to rest on. I then built two halves that collapse into each other (video below as illustration). I've seen a lot of very complicated takes on this when using 8020, but I couldn't think of a reason to overbuild this.

It expands to a full size bed. The back half is bolted to the angle aluminum. To complete it, I only need to add an extension into the door area and a lock to keep it closed/open.

Right now I only really have two issues:

1. I need to add some supports to the angle aluminum, but it'll work fine for my next trip since I'm going it alone.
2. At first I wanted the slats to touch when the bed was closed, so I added some wood braces to stop the whole thing from skewing. After building it, I realized I did want some space (3rd pic) so those pieces aren't necessary.

Here's what I used:

• 15 Series 8020 for the cross rails (1530-ULS & 1515-ULS)
• 3" Angle Aluminum from 8020 for the rails (8223, attached to L-Track on the walls)
• Keyed Bearing Pad from TNutz where the cross rails touch the sliders
• IKEA LURÖY bed slats, Queen, cut to length and drilled (Needed longer ones than full size since they overlap)
• Low-profile hex head screws from McMaster Carr, t-nuts from TNutz, and some washers I had left over

Total cost was $317.56. That doesn't include shipping since none of that stuff I bought by itself. If I didn't add the wood braces in issue #2 above, it would have cost $295.97.

 

[Boondox]

While mine is slightly too short for use as a bed, the HF or similar ramps also make a good ladder for roof access.

What I did was to take out the ramp tangs and bend them straight, cut them a little shorter then re-install. I made tangs for the other side out of 3/16" steel. This made it long enough. Just today I went and got some 1/2' shop ply and cut it into strips for slats and coated it. Tomorrow is the final install.

 

[OutsideJack]

@dwippy (or anyone else) with this being a folding bed frame, is the only thing preventing the frame from folding while in use is the support that I’ve highlighted / circled in red? Thanks in advance - jack

 

[dwippy]

@dwippy (or anyone else) with this being a folding bed frame, is the only thing preventing the frame from folding while in use is the support that I’ve highlighted / circled in red? Thanks in advance - jack

View attachment 147963

Yes, with the way I currently have this bed set up, that bar in the front, and a matching one in the rear, when unbolted allow the bed to fold up, or down for that matter.

 

[OutsideJack]

Yes

Thank you. I would’ve thought something more substantial would’ve been required. I really like this concept.

 

[dwippy]

Thank you. I would’ve thought something more substantial would’ve been required. I really like this concept.

I'll let you know if I wake up on the floor. Its really quite solid though, and its already in use even there is still some work to do on it (primer, paint, fold up latches, etc.) I really wanted something thin to keep headroom, high enough for the bikes, and I really didn't want a center bar.

 

[Knarfly]

Thank you. I would’ve thought something more substantial would’ve been required. I really like this concept.

I have a similar folding bed out of extrusion and keep it secured with a bar as well. It has been very sturdy so far.