Systainer Transport in a Tundra

[Tom the Remodeler]

Hi everybody! I was taking a bunch of photographs the other day for insurance reasons, and happened to take some pics of the drawers I made for my truck and thought I'd post them. The drawers are the full length of the bed (8'), the two outer drawers will fit a Sys 3 the long way, and the center drawer will fit a Sys 3 the wide way, or it will hold a Maxi Systainer. Right now I don't actually have many systainers in my drawers. Most of my systainers I keep in a "wall" on the passenger side, where they are still pretty easily accessible, while my drawers are currently housing tools that have not yet found a home in a systainer. Eventually I'd like to store all of my Sys 3, Sys 2, Sys 1, Sortainers and Maxi Systainers in the drawers, and keep the larger Sys 4 and Sys 5 kits above. So, please, keep in mind this project is very much a work in progress!

 

[honeydoman]

thanks for sharing,  I bet everytime you need something from a syatainer it is on the bottom in the middle of the stack!

 

[gkeas]

I am working on designs for my "SysTundra".  I plan on having shelves accessible from the side windows (windoors) of my topper.  I measured that I can have 4 sortainer 3's with room to remove them on either side.  I'll also have some shelving along the sides below the bedrails that will store 4 or 5 additional Sys(Sort)tainers.  The bulk of my storage is for parts and non-Festool items (I don't use the Festools for work) associtated with my profession.  I like the bed drawer, but I need to haul TV's upright, so that's not an option for me.

 

[Lancashire Fusilier]

They are the longest drawers I have ever seen. If my wife saw them should would want them installed in her walk in robe for sure!

 

[Frank-Jan]

Those drawers remind me of the movie "Bruce Allmighty", when they open the drawer of the file cabinet which holds all the events in his life.

 

[robtonya]

Hey those drawers are nice. I paint the Tundra at work. I hope you love your truck.

 

[semenza]

Hey those drawers are nice. I paint the Tundra at work. I hope you love your truck.

Hi,

  Say now could you paint Tundra VIN #xxxxxxxxxxxx, black and green?  On its way down the line.  ;D

Seth

 

[robtonya]

That would be neat to paint it black and green, until i got fired, it would look cool though!!!

 

[Texastutt]

Well, he's a finish carpenter cause he's got a Sawhelper. My question is what did you do with your drill index? I'm trying to come up with a solution for all my drill stuff.

 

[Tom the Remodeler]

Hey Robtonya, that's cool that you paint the Tundras, and YES, I very much love my Tundra! Mine is still relatively new (approx. 45,000 miles), but my dad has a Sequoia, which is the SUV derivative, and other than a rusted-out tailgate latch, he has enjoyed over 150,000 miles of trouble-free travel. Oh, and the dash-board light indicating that the high-beam is on never worked, but if that's the biggest problem you deal with in that span of miles, I think you're still ahead of the game.

Texastutt, good eyes for spotting the Sawhelper!! You're a touch off though saying that I'm just a finish carpenter though...  I was actually using the Sawhelper today to build a deck! To be more specific, I was using my 12" Makita SCMS in conjunction with the Sawhelper to cut 6x6 ACQ posts. Just set the flip stop to my desired length, cut halfway through the 6x6, flip it over, slide it into the stop again, cut the other side, done! I am sort of the classic "Jack of all trades, master of none". I am involved in almost every phase of remodeling, from digging and pouring footings to rough framing, demolition, roof framing, deck framing, roofing, siding, insulation, sheetrocking, a little plumbing and electrical, cabinet installation, trimming, hardwood floor installation, heck, I even find myself painting and staining from time to time! 

Garry, I like your idea of accessing the Sys 3 and Sortainers from the side windows. That system would work with my topper, but for what I do my current configuration was a little more efficient.

Honeydokreg, you're not too far off the mark when you said that the one systainer I'm looking for is on the bottom of the pile! I just reorganized my system, so that now anything that's a Sys 3 or smaller will go in the drawers, and anything Sys 4 or larger will go up on the plywood deck. This way, there should be less digging (I hope!).

 

[Ned]

Tundras are very popular in the woods of Southern California.  Things are tight up here--way too many trees--and the smallest "full-size" pickup is a good choice.

It's great personal transportation.  I like to think of it as an Avalon with a really big trunk.

Remains to be seen how the new model Tundra ("Now with even more truckness!") will be received.  By making it as big as the other North American full-sizes, Toyota's lost a marketing advantage, at least for our strange little demographic.  Fortunately, they've still got build quality and reliability going for them.

Ned

 

[robtonya]

    Yeah,  I paint the Sequoia too, I paint the inside of the doors, the inside of the tailgate, the stuff the robots can't get. I like the new Tundra's size, but i'm kinda tall, so I like all the leg room I can get. I really love the new Sequoia. I love the looks of it. I'm glad both of you like your Toyotas. I know I am tired after painting them all night.

 

[greg mann]

Texastutt, good eyes for spotting the Sawhelper!! You're a touch off though saying that I'm just a finish carpenter though...  I was actually using the Sawhelper today to build a deck! To be more specific, I was using my 12" Makita SCMS in conjunction with the Sawhelper to cut 6x6 ACQ posts. Just set the flip stop to my desired length, cut halfway through the 6x6, flip it over, slide it into the stop again, cut the other side, done! I am sort of the classic "Jack of all trades, master of none". I am involved in almost every phase of remodeling, from digging and pouring footings to rough framing, demolition, roof framing, deck framing, roofing, siding, insulation, sheetrocking, a little plumbing and electrical, cabinet installation, trimming, hardwood floor installation, heck, I even find myself painting and staining from time to time! 

Sounds like a finish carpenter to me. It kind of reminds me of the kitchen remodel I alluded to in another thread. Part way into the project I asked my BIL if I might be able to borrow his BobCat at some point in time. He said sure but wondered what my project was. I told him I was putting in new kithchen cabinets. Of course an explanation was in order and this is how it went: "Part of the kitchen job will be putting in a new floor and as I looked into that part of the job I realized I had some rot under the French doors that access the deck just outside the kitchen. Well the problem is that whoever built that deck was an idiot, as they fastened it to the house with no provision for drainage and no flashing either. So I really need to redo the deck, which was poorly maintained to boot and is now in need of replacement and pretty much needs to be fully dismantled to make the attachment to the house correct anyway. But before I do that, since the deck extends out over a walkout basement and the basement access doors have pavers leading up to them that were installed as an afterthought and are at the same level as the basement floor and consequently too high and actually covering trim and siding, thereby creating another opportunity for rot, I need to remove the pavers and regrade the access to the basement before I replace the deck and simultaneously fix the poor construction that caused the floor rot under the doors and the floor that is part of the kitchen remodel." He nodded knowingly, having just done a remodel job of his own. Yep. That list of skills sounds like finish carpentry to me.

 

[Texastutt]

O.K. I have had to rip off a rotten roof to save a new kitchen install, then I did all the plastering. the Sawhelper was used to cut the rafters and used to cut the crown molding... I did use a Festool MFT and TS 55 to cut some cabinet parts, both brand new to this job, along with a rail. To keep it relevant.

 

[Eli]

Those are sweet drawers Tom. Rollers or slides underneath? Was there an old thread from you talking about building these or am I remembering things that didn't happen?

 

[gkeas]

I paint the Tundra at work. I hope you love your truck.

Thanks for your hard work, you did a great job on this one:

 

[semenza]

Hi,

    Does the trailer support them when pulled out? Or just the box top leveraging them against the tail gate? Or something else?

Seth

 

[Tom the Remodeler]

Wow Garry, that's a sweet setup you have there!

Eli and Seth: The drawers and cabinet are VERY rudimentary, not a whole lot going on there  The bottom of the cabinet is 5/8" plywood, the top of the cabinet is 3/4" plywood, the supports are 3/4" pine boards dadoed into the top and bottom, then I glued and screwed the whole works together. The drawers are 1/2" ply for the bottoms, and 3/4" pine for the sides. Right now they just ride on those plastic furniture glides that you can buy at the Crepot, I put slides on the cab-end of the drawers and the tailgate-end of the cabinet, so they are easy to replace when they wear-through. If the drawers get too heavy though another option is to install large, fixed casters in the cab-end of the drawers, recessed so that only approx 1/16-1/8" are exposed underneath so you don't sacrifice too much height. As far as the casters go, you should really get the polypropylene casters, because the cheaper plastic casters will square-off over time, and solid steel casters will wear a track right through the bottom of the cabinet!

Approximately 2/3 of my coworkers have similar drawers, ranging in height from just 3-4", all the way up to nearly 12" high drawers (mine are just over 8" tall to accomodate a Sys 3 or Sortainer). My second set of drawers were approximately 4" tall, just tall enough to fit two caulking tubes stacked, also tall enough to fit a framing gun, trim nailers, etc... (The drawers pictured about are my fourth iteration of the drawer concept)

As far as the drawer support goes, the drawers simply cantilever out onto the tailgate, and I made sure to triple my screw pattern for the last two feet of the cabinet closest to the tailgate. I also try to only have one drawer at full extension at any one time to avoid potentially ripping the cabinet apart.

The biggest snag with my current system is that when I'm hooked on to my Buggy (affectionate name I have bestowed upon my undersized trailer) I can't extend my drawers very far. To account for this, my new procedure is to either leave the trailer on-site, or if I'm towing it to simply unhook as soon as I pull onto the jobsite, which serves the complementary purpose of preventing others from parking so close that they prevent full extension of the drawers.

Lastly, the drawers serve an additional purpose as additional tool security. My Tundra came with a locking tailgate, so even if someone were to break into my topper, they would only have access to a relatively small percentage of my tools. And, even if they get past the tailgate, if I'm parked in a parking lot with someone parked behind me they can't extend the drawers very far anyways, so to access the tools closest to the cab they'd have to either have at least 8' clear behind the tailgate to extend the drawers, or they'd have to somehow cut the cabinet apart from above. I have all of my tools insured anyways, but I figure I don't want to make things too easy on the criminal element....

 

[Tom the Remodeler]

By the way, great pics Texastutt, thanks for sharing!!!  ;D It's great to meet another Sawhelper enthusiast, what kid of saw do you have yours attached to, and how long have you had your sawhelper?

 

[Texastutt]

By the way, great pics Texastutt, thanks for sharing!!!  ;D It's great to meet another Sawhelper enthusiast, what kid of saw do you have yours attached to, and how long have you had your sawhelper?

now a makita 12" sliding compound... and I've had the set up for about 12 years, and its been "there" and back... rain storms, etc. I took a photo for the JLC form as the festool table showed up there too.... I just got the chopshop dust hood a couple of weeks ago....