Test all your equipment to make sure it works properly
Test all your equipment to make sure it works properly

Test all your equipment to make sure it works properly

Screwing down the top of the drawersIt is very important that you make sure EVERYTHING works before you start to rely on it. And not just that it works, but that it does what you want it to do.

We’ve been looking at drawer systems for the back of my Vitara.

We’ve done this so often, you’d think we’d know what to do by now.

Doc bought drawers for the Cruiser before we went to the Cape a few years ago, and they were brilliant. They made life so much easier when travelling.

I loved them so much that when I went away in the Triton he custom made drawers for the back, and a shelf to go in place of the back seat for the fridge and other equipment.

Now I have the Vitara, so I need drawers for that as well.

MeasuringDoc was going to make some, and we spent hours, over a period of weeks, measuring the space the drawers would go into, measuring what needed to go in them, and then designing the drawers so they would be perfect. But when we went to the local 4WD & camping show, we found some ready made drawers at very reasonable prices.  Then I got on line and found out I could buy them even cheaper, and they would fit my car.

They weren’t exactly what we had designed, but at not much more than it would cost to build ($600), and with installation a fraction of the time it would take to custom make them (so far 3 months and we’ve only just decided on a design), I figured it was worth it.

Filling in holesThey arrived last week, and Doc installed them this weekend.

He measured the back of the car, and measured the drawers. Pulled the carpet back and measured it all again. He sprayed silver paint where new holes would need to be drilled to screw them down, and even remembered to fill in any holes that were in the floor and not being used.

And we tested them all along the way. Pushing and pulling the frame to make sure it was tight, checking that it hadn’t been distorted, opening and closing drawers to make sure they shut properly and didn’t get caught up on anything.

Testing the drawers slide in and out okOnce the drawers were in, I tested it with the fridge. The top of the fridge was a bit high, and it needed to be moved on the slide slightly so it would open properly when pulled out, but that was easy. Removing the collar made the height much better and I can still stand a bottle of wine up, which is the most important thing.

But then I started packing my food and cooking things into the drawer to see how they’d fit. And of course, the last step in installing the drawers, and the only one we hadn’t tested, made them not work for me.

That last step was attaching the rubber stopper to stop them coming all the way out. That sounds very sensible, and a good thing to have. The last thing you want is to pull one of your drawers all the way out and have it, and everything in it, land on your foot. Particularly if you’re a long way from a hospital!

However, the stoppers only allow the drawers to come about 2/3 of the way out. And that means anything stored at the back of the drawers isn’t easy to get in and out.

And what goes at the back of one drawer is my cooking equipment – behind all the food and other utensils. Something I’m going to need every day while I’m travelling, and which needs to be easily accessible.

So now Doc is looking at a fix for the drawers so I can pull them further out and get to the back easily. And hopefully one that won’t involve pulling the drawers out again!

But first, there’s a hole in the car waiting for a snorkel to be fitted. Regrettably, Doc didn’t test that everything worked before he started drilling!

A hole in my car