How I Camp in My 5’ Truck Bed with a Contractors Cap

it's a thursday morning and i'm headed up into the mountains to hopefully score a campsite before the weekend crowds arrive i've got friends coming later to camp with me but in this video we're going to take a look at the camping setup i've put together in my aluminum contractor canopy all right this is not a bad campsite let's go ahead and take a quick look at how i've got the canopy set up for camping for now this is my aluminum contractor canopy custom built by leer in an earlier video i've already talked at length about why i went in this direction as well as some basic general information about this type of shell but here is how i'm camping in it and again i want to stress this is a temporary just throwing together solution using stuff that i had around the garage down in the basement in the forest or whatever this was just to get me out on the road using the canopy get some trips in so i'll just explain what i've done here and why bearing in mind that the ultimate goal is that this all comes out of here and a nicely built construction with functioning everything is the ultimate goal in order for the canopy to get mounted onto the truck i had to remove the utila tracks that were running along the sides of the bed rails but what i've done is used the bolts and bolt points for the atilla tracks to add some much lower profile tie-downs that i can use to bungee some stuff up here so for example i've got my chair and my little table just bungeed right here so i can grab it when i get to camp these door panels have some hollow space in them and i've added this aluminum here as a spot to hold these these are just pieces of cardboard that i cut out as window coverings i'll eventually make these out of something that's not just scrap cardboard these just fit in there just like that i deliberately left this space at the top so that i would be able to peek out at any point if i need to but this gives me plenty of privacy where i need the privacy it was just purely serendipity that the way i made these turned out to just fit in these door panels i wasn't even thinking about that and just lucked out as long as we're talking about window coverings these are the very very basic curtains that i came up with for now i want something that's really simple also something that i could make myself easily because i don't really have a way to sew and so this is just some sort of heavy duck canvas i think it's called this was on sale at the fabric store and it was nice and heavy i put three grommets in each end of this piece of fabric and there are hooks at the top and bottom when this is down that grommet can hook onto there and onto there and it covers the window just fine i mean i could add another one right in there i suppose might be a little tidier and that gives me adequate privacy from the outdoors when i want to open it the way this works is first i take the bottom grommets and hook them onto the top hooks and then these middle grommets go up on there as well and gets it up out of the way i didn't want something that i would have to stuff into here and and store elsewhere i wanted the curtain to be in place but i didn't want anything too bulky and curtain rods and curtains that were sort of pushed to the side like that so i'm i'm reasonably happy with how this is working so far i mean it would be nice to have hemmed the edges has just got a raw cut edge but this fabric is pretty tough it's not really getting handled except for you know once at night and once in the morning that's probably going to stay like that for a good long while until i really have nothing better to do i've done the same thing over here and what's nice about this is that it's just um loose enough that it fits down over the uh the hardware for the window which sticks out a little bit into the interior of the canopy so i wanted something that was just floppy enough that it would be able to wrap over that with no problem i wanted something that would cover the window but it was also just loose enough that i could easily pull back a corner and peek outside if i need to scope something out if i hear noise in the middle of the night and i know you see that lurking overhead so let's talk about what i've done up there so this underscores perfectly why it's really important to not necessarily build everything out to your original vision 100 and instead get out there and test some stuff do some prototyping do some mock-ups see how things work i had long visualized this small canopy diagonal bed storage underneath like drawers or something like that and i was visualizing that i would store my clothes and stuff that i have along for the trip in a drawer underneath the bed here someplace well what i realized on the very first trip out when i stored my clothes just in a bin under here sort of like a drawer it was just a bin was that it's very awkward to actually get at my clothes if they're down under the bed because i you know i just there's there's not really a good space to move around in there so i had the idea to build some overhead bins here this is sort of a wasted cavity of space up here and this makes my clothes super easily accessible when i'm sitting here on the bed these are stackable shoe bins that have these little doors on the front and so that's really nice i can access my clothes right out of the front of them i've left the lids off of these bins so that it's also easier for me to load clean clothes in just from the top but i love that i can open these and get what i need out of there it's it's fantastic it's super handy to support these i just built a framework out of aluminum just aluminum just some aluminum pieces that i bought at the store i didn't really have experience working with aluminum before but the nice thing about it is it's very very easy to work with it's easy to cut it's easy to drill through it's lightweight but once you get it like bolted down it is astonishingly strong so what i've used here is some angle aluminum to create this bottom piece and these are bolted together and they are also bolted onto the framework of the canopy and then i've got another aluminum strap that's bolted onto that and bolted up here to provide some additional support there the bins themselves are bolted onto the canopy frame and this framework right here so they can't go anywhere and this is i mean this is just some clothes it's very lightweight there's really no stress in fact this is probably over built for what it needs to be but uh i'm really happy with how this turned out these were like each at one of the big box stores and um i don't know it was maybe fifteen dollars worth of aluminum pieces from the from the hardware store we'll see how this works out over the coming months this this may simply remain uh a permanent part of the final build or something very similar to it you've already seen this a little bit i've got the jackery 1500 built into the corner here and it's sort of supported by some extra framework so that it can't really move around or flop out of there and i created a little space here where my chargers can sit and they're sort of i've got them sort of mounted in there um so far this is working out great because i can access it from the window here without getting into the canopy but i can also access it when i'm in the canopy for the night and as i mentioned before i will eventually wire the fridge up to the 12 volt here so this is just managing all of my power by the way coming up for um prime day jackery is having another sale and they'll have some pretty nice discounts off of some of their popular units i'll put the specifics such as the dates the sales running and what some of the discounts are in the description below so let's talk about the bed real quick because it sort of impacts a bunch of what else ended up happening in here so the sleeping platform which runs diagonally through the truck bed was the first thing that i threw in here very very quickly right after getting the canopy and rushing out to get onto a little camping trip i just used stuff that i had on hand some of it was used in the forester some of it was other wood i had sitting around from other projects that was no longer being used this is like three different pieces of plywood making up this platform because of that i had to support it in a number of sort of odd random ways and because of that uh it sort of impedes the the flow of putting some stuff underneath there i want to worry about that for now because like i said this is temporary the simplest way for me to get this attached in here was to attach it to the utility track in the front of the bed of the truck so this platform is actually bolted into the truck bed and it's not necessarily very simple or easy or accessible to take them out so for the time being this is definitely staying in here until i'm ready to do something else for the bed i want to rebuild this with different materials and in a way that can more easily be removed the foam on the bed for the moment these made up the forester bed back when i used to sleep in the forester and even then these were just scraps of foam that i had around the house now this is not going to stay this way these aren't quite the right shape and size i trim them to sort of fit in there but it's not perfect i ordered a piece of high quality high density foam that is four inches thick so that'll be about to there and that is bigger than this whole space so i can cut it to fit exactly in there and uh it should provide even a more comfortable mattress than these my new foam is on its way it didn't get here in time for this trip but hopefully i'll have it in place for the big overland trip that i have coming up in a couple of weeks if you're a long time viewer of my channel you know that i had a sort of pull out kitchen built into the back of my forester and i really really really loved that i loved having my stove and pans and dry goods and everything built into a drawer that i could pull out boom kitchen was set up could cook in it and when i was done boom put it away i i loved it i absolutely want to recreate that same sort of functionality in this because as i mentioned the way the sleeping platform is put together there wasn't a good way for me to build an actual functioning slide out here i just didn't quite have the clearance and a good way to secure anything in there so i initially thought to myself well you know what i'll just get a little fold out table that i can slide in there then i can just pull that out set it up here pull my stove out it's almost as good problem i ran into there was that i could not find a folding table that would fit into the space it doesn't happen i had a piece of plywood that was just the perfect size originally i was just going to make it as a folding table that i would put out and set up and then it occurred to me that i could just simply put legs on half of it and let it rest on the bumper you can see the bottom of this these legs are just this is some steel that i had left over from another project and so i welded these legs and rolled them onto a piece of electrical conduit which is just attached with conduit mounts so it swivels freely and this little spacer gets the table up to level that wedges it in there and so that it just doesn't go anywhere with the legs all the way out like that it pretty much sits nice and even with the height of the bumper with that piece of wood wedged in there the ground were uneven i can back this up a ways like that and gain a little extra lift i know those steel legs look kind of skinny but they're plenty strong so the table just rides on top of the stove here once they pull that out the stove can come out and it's just sitting in there and it sits right there on the end this is admittedly a little low for a work surface it is a really nice height for on the stove again this is a temporary solution having cooked on it a couple of times it hasn't really bothered me significantly as it happens the height is really good for these little camp chairs that i use this can also simply double as a desk work surface place to eat whatever so i really threw this little table together very very quickly as an interim solution because my goal was to eventually create a real pull out kitchen a nicely built thing it would take full advantage of the space under there and slide out have the stove have a work surface have storage for some of my cookware in the process of using this though i made a little discovery i can close this door that means i can go to bed and leave my stove set up at night with the slide out that i had in the forester i would always have to disconnect the gas bottle sort of stow it under the car and get everything folded up and put away so that i could close the car up being able to leave the stove set up when i go to bed so it's ready to go in the morning is one more little time saving detail that i kind of like and so it's actually got me rethinking what my kitchen pullout will be do i want to come up with something that in fact does come all the way out rather than being sort of bolted in incorporated into the bed build again this underscores why uh you know you think okay here's how this is going to work and in the process of testing some things you realize oh maybe that's not how i want to do it after all because i i really kind of like this it's it's funny the things that you stumble upon when you start actually just getting out there and using your stuff because uh it did not even occur to me that i would maybe not do a pull-out kitchen like i had in the forester so here i've got a not very convincing looking shelf that is holding this bin this bin is funny i had to cut it down to fit it in there but this was actually a part of the very very first original forester kitchen and this would hold my dry goods and pots and pans and it would sit at the va at the bottom of my kitchen in the forester i've got my pots and pans in there my coffee maker some silverware and utensils and i made some little compartments for my cup coffee and uh soy sauce and balsamic vinegar which i use a lot this is very temporary um but it works just fine and with the door closed it actually it's it's captive in there it doesn't go any place and i can easily just get what i need out of there and get back to what i'm doing so you know good enough for now back behind there i've got a couple more bins just sort of pantry good so dry goods i got tortillas and oatmeal just other non-refrigerated foods ideally this would be you know maybe all some sort of one sort of big drawer that goes all the way back um but then you know maybe you run into the stove there so i don't know i don't know yet it's going to stay like this for a while and then we'll see what ideas develop so i use the cavity in this door to incorporate some kitchen items again this is just a piece of angle aluminum that i bolted on here to support these spices and this just some aluminum strip that i bent to create the the spice rack here down here i've just got a couple of more aluminum strips to capture my cutting board and some other utensils i'm not really happy with how these utensils are going i got to figure out some way to to support them individually or something i i don't like the way that looks but um for now they're there they're handy at some point i'll have the vision of how i want to to make this work and i've mounted my paper towel dispenser up here and i've just got a couple of pieces of aluminum strip that are bridging this gap and that this is mounted onto and uh again that's another spot where working with the aluminum has just been super nice and easy i mean it's been fun being able to weld with steel but it's also really nice to use this aluminum it's very easy to work with drill through bolt onto things and what i love here is that all of the aluminum stuff that i add on here it looks like it was just there out of the factory it looks designed in because it just perfectly matches everything and i don't have to worry about painting it i don't have to worry about corrosion or anything like that it's been kind of fun to work with the aluminum this water container you already saw me using in last week's video this is made by reliance what i like about this is it's a much much sturdier build than the aquatainer the plastic is much thicker it doesn't have those thin spots in the corner like the aquatainer does and it's got a nice spigot built into it so you can effectively have running water the other thing that i liked about this it's fairly compact i can i can tuck it up in here for travel and i just got it bungeed with everything else here it stays put just fine and it's not huge and when i go to bed i can just move it off to the side there and it's out of the way but this thing actually holds four gallons of water that's that's a lot of water i'm surprised it looks small it doesn't look that big but uh it's actually four gallons of water four gallons of water is not enough for like a week-long trip but i've got plenty of space down under there where i've just stashed a bunch of those one gallon jugs that i had been using before so that as this gets depleted i can simply refill this from those jugs and continue having all the water that i need coming out of the spigot here so what else do i have done under here this is my all-purpose bucket my propane bottle rides in there for now it can get used for throwing water on a fire if need be or with the right kind of liner it can be a toilet in a pinch you can turn it over and sit on it stand on it as a stool the mr heater buddy my axe is in there i've got just another little tote that's that had a bunch of extra bungees and some rags and some other stuff that i don't need often but it's nice to have if i do need them tools i've got a tote that's got all my toiletry kind of stuff toothbrush bug spray toilet paper any of that kind of stuff it sits on top of this tote which has my compressor in it for airing the tires back up hopefully eventually some sort of built-in onboard air system but for now i'm just carrying it around like that this other tote just looks like another of the same totes but it's actually it's a chainsaw holder i didn't want to just throw my chainsaw in the back of the truck because like most chainsaws it tends to ooze a little bar oil out of the bottom and make sort of a greasy mess wherever it's sitting i looked at chainsaw cases but they they get expensive really fast i mean 40 50 60 dollars easily for a case for the chainsaw i had this tote sitting around i just did some trimming on the lid and on the and on the box itself so that my chainsaw fits in there the lid fits on there now i'm not getting bar oil in the bottom of the truck one thing i quickly realized on the very first camping trip with the canopy was that walking on the bed of the truck with those deep corrugated ridges is not comfortable with your shoes off this is a scrap of plywood that was cut off of one of the pieces that made up the sleeping platform it was just it was this size and shape i just threw it in there i bolted it to the utila track that's in the bed of the frontier and upholstered it with this indoor outdoor carpet that was on the platform kitchen drawer thing of the forester so this is repurposed also it's much much more comfortable to walk on with my shoes off than the hard floor and on a cold night gives my feet a little bit of insulation from the cold metal now the goal for the final build will be to have this storage space much more practically accessible rather than playing truck bed tetris but for now everything that i need is in there i can get at it it's not terribly impractical to get at everything that i need so that is basically it i am set up i'm ready to camp i will be getting out on a week-long overland adventure uh towards the end of this month that should produce a whole series of episodes that will really put this whole set up to the test and i think will really open my eyes in terms of how i'm going to want to configure the the final build out here so far i am really really happy with this canopy i'm happy with this whole setup i love having this space to sleep in and as much as i love the gazelle tent i'm also happy to no longer be dealing with it so yeah i think that basically covers it uh if you have any questions about any of that put it in the comments below but i think uh it's time to just enjoy this campsite [Music] you

Channel: softroadingthewest

Views: 145,176

Keywords: truck, cap, canopy, topper, shell, camper shell, aluminum, aluminium, contractor, work, pickup, nissan, frontier, pro4x, pro 4x, camper, camping, setup, build, DIY, cheap, inexpensive, affordable, walkthrough, walkaround, kitchen, bed, sleeping platform, storage, slide out, folding table, overland, overlanding, adventure, rig, 4x4, 4WD, softroadingthewest, soft roading, softroading, west, Donald, 5-foot, five foot, 5', foot, feet, shortbed, short bed, midsize, mid size, compact

Id: CuM1M4AbMK4

Length: 23min 29sec (1409 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 19 2021