The Adrian Steel Cargo Box project

Gents,

I've always wanted to build a cargo box to keep things safe and secure when traveling esp with pew pews. Also I've always wanted to build a cargo box that would also be capable of supporting a sleeping platform, securing safety equipment, etc. The design should be simple, relatively theft proof, and removable with some effort (keeping theft proof in mind).

Many years ago I bought a pair of aircraft-grade drawers slides with the intention of building a cargo box. But after doing some math and looking at some other designs, the weight/form factor vs cargo space didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. So I looked into metal. But then the cost of metal shot up like crazy after Trump came into office and started placing duties/tariffs on Chinese steel.

So one day out of the blue I was looking at FB Marketplace and saw a guy in Fremont selling drawers out of his old work van. The price was too good to pass up for all that glorious grey steel, two drawers, and a big box with lock. The top part was a work shelf and that was just extra steel for me too :) Oh, forgot to mention: the day before I saw this a guy posted three shelves from his son's work truck that his son just left in his garage but never came back for. I paid $5 for all that steel. I was my lucky (2) days.

The Adrian Steel boxes are widely used by people with cargo vans. They are a US based company in MI, so that's a good thing. The thing I purchased had two types of inserts in the slide out drawers. One has 2 grey bins and the other has two black bins with cubes for holding small parts. Each drawer has dividers that support the bins. Both are different though as the grey bin drawers have a center support whereas the black parts bin one has two center supports.

The whole thing is bolted together and the boys at the factory or the shop use a ton of blue loctite. I mean a ton. I mangled the threads on the first two before I got wise and loosened the nuts first. Some required using the two box wrench method too and some were next to impossible to reach. It was surprisingly a lot of work and took several nights. I disassembled most of the panels and parts so I could better examine the drawers, how things bolted together, and any other oddities.

Looking at other designs and having slept in the back of my 4runner a few times on a wood platform, I know from experience that you don't want to make this box too high else you feel like you're sleeping in a cofin. So I decided to make this box slightly lower than the height of the right wheel well. So after taking that measurement as well as the measurement of the height of the drawers, I measured out how high I wanted to cut the vertical supports and went to town. I've included some shots of the tools I used as well as the settings on my Bosch jig saw.

After cutting down the metal and deburring the sharp edges, I was ready for the next step.

If you're an old fart like me, you might've had either Lincoln Logs and/or Erector Set growing up. This is just like an Erector Set. Just nuts and bolts. So after cutting my vert supports, I loosely bolted the top to see the height of the box in the 4runner. However what I found is that even though the box height is what I wanted and nothing more, the height of the extra padding that I added as part of my sound deadening mod from 2004 (I believe it was that far back; a great mod but time consuming) was making things a little taller than I'd like. So after removing the Husky liner and the two (this will be key detail) black rubber mats, I removed the carpet padding. Yup, that's the original carpet padding I got from the carpet shop behind our old apartment.

As you can see, its a perfect fit width-wise, but a little bit shorter than full length. The empty space back there is exactly about a foot with some wiggle room for the slanted rear seat. I may utilize that space for something else using the Adrian Steel parts, but for now the plan is to just use the box as-is and modify it later as I get some usage out of this box.

One issue I'll have to resolve though is securing the box to the vehicle. If I want to use the existing tie down points, the ones by the hatch will be somewhat easy to connect. The ones in the back though are quite a distance from the back of the box, so that might require some creativity.

Stopping here for now because this was the easy part!

When you first posted that you purchased the drawers I had no idea what you were building but now it makes sense. I knew you weren't going to put all of the chest in the back but I didn't realize it was going to be what you've shown. I know you used to sleep on a cot in the back. Could you still do that if you place the drawer just right?

Mike,

The main goal is to build a lockable cargo box. I do though have an idea/concept of building sliding arms that are welded to the side of box that will serve as the frame for a sleeping platform. The other thing I have to think about is whether or not to do anything about that 12" of unused space from the interior end of the box to the back of the seat.

Damnit, my whole post got timed out and lost.

Ok so here's the short story:

- I used one of the largest pieces of sheet metal (thinner gauge) as the drawer pan. This required a little cutting, which I'm trying to avoid as much as possible.
- The remaining gap was filled with a piece of sheet metal that had a diamond pattern
- I bent the previous lateral support metal and used it on the inside of the sheet pan bottom. In retrospect, it might've been better on the bottom side, but I'd like to keep the outer dimensions of the drawers as is.

I tacked all the sides down as I didn't feel it was necessary to seam weld the entire pan. It's strong and even stronger w/ the lateral supports. I ended up using some seam sealing tape to cover all the tack welds and exposed holes and seams.

So one thing of note: someone many many years ago gave me their rubber cargo mat. Not sure if it was someone on this forum, but it FINALLY came in handy. I utilized it in the drawer, but I had to cut off every single little freakin' rubber nub off the bottom to make it usable. Took a few nights a half hour at a time but finally got it done.

Here's some shots of the seal sealed drawer and all those darn little rubber nubs that needed to be cut off. I lost count.

Utilizing the stock holes, if I use one set it's too high. If I use a bottom set of holes, the bottom of the shelving system hits the horizontal metal. So what I did was drill new holes in the vert support pieces and tested it out. It's a good compromise. There's not much of a gap up top or bottom between the shelf and the horizontal support pieces. However, it does limit the amount of things you can put into it.

So what I've decided to do is to utilize the bottom pair of holes, but cut down the bottom horizontal piece by about 0.5" at most so that the bottom of the drawer can clear it. Ugggh. But that would allow another 0.5" or so of additional space. I may even do it up on the top horizontal piece to add another (total) 1.0" of drawer space. That might allow me to use those nice grey and black bins too. But that'll be for another weekend.

The other thought I had was to make a front panel that covers the entire front side from being pried open. That would require me either to figure out a way to remove the grab handle front drawer plate and cut/attach a new front face in. I'll figure it out after re-examining it. But as you can see, there's plenty of space to wedge in a thick screw driver or a cat's paw tool and wedge up the metal. But that's for another weekend as well.

Hi team,

I'll be moving out in about 3 weeks. If anyone here in Nor Cal wants to finish this project, please let me know asap @ bobyongkim@gmail.com. I'll give you all the metal and nearly completed cargo box for f-r-e-e. Feel free to pass this page link around.