How to Turn Any SUV Into a TINY CAMPER!! (No Permanent Modifications)

greetings this is a project i've been wanting to do for a really long time i love camping but i never really got used to sleeping in a tent so i'm going to convert my rav4 into an overnight car camper stay tuned the first thing i have to do is take the back seats out now i have another video that goes into more specifics on how to do this but suffice it to say i need to take the back seats out so i can build the platform [Music] one of the nice things about the rav4 is that these flaps and panels that are in the back come out pretty easily and i can use this as a pattern to trace the edge onto some three-quarter inch plywood and then i can build the rest of the bed platform off of that i check my work frequently to make sure all the pieces are fitting properly and it looks like they are for the vertical supports i used a couple of one-inch planks an interesting thing i did notice was that the back of my rav is slanted ever so slightly toward the rear end of the car so in order to make the bed platform level i had to taper in the edges of the vertical supports just a little bit then i attached everything to the base with some wood glue and reinforced it with some wood screws and gotta check one more time to make sure it all fits and everything's looking good measure twice cut once words to live by now for the actual sleeping platforms themselves i'm using half inch plywood because it's a little bit lighter weight a little bit easier to work with and then i'm going to cover everything with this really thin area rug i found at the hardware store i think i can cut this up so that it will fit all the pieces and then i can attach it with a staple gun there so this will just make the top of the platform a little softer and looks a little nicer too with the rest of this area rug i cut a piece that should cover the back seat area and just cover all these metal spots so they don't cut up our feet or our legs or whatever and i cut some holes in this so that the legs that hold the bed platforms up and connect to the frame through these holes [Music] so now we're going to try to load in the finished passenger side bed let now that i have all the pieces together i'm realizing it's very big and heavy so this might take a minute oh look at that we're in so now i've made four of these these are the wood legs and these are gonna hold up the front of the bed platform i bought several of these angle connectors which work pretty well for connecting the legs now on this end i attached one and bent it at a very specific angle and that's to match where it connects to the car frame over there and these bolts here these are the actual bolts that were once used to hold the seats in and now they're going to be used to hold the bed frame this is the floor of the car i pointed out these holes that i cut in this rug earlier and these holes line up directly with the holes in the frame where the chairs were attached so i take these legs that i created with this little joint and i'm going to screw them in to these holes now that one's screwed in pretty tight and that's going to hold up the passenger side on the underside of the platform i attached a couple of the u-shaped connectors and the legs slide right up into there and that's what holds up the front of the platform so here's the front of the passenger side platform and i designed it to fold down like this so that we could bring the passenger seat back a bit uh when you fold it out into its full length you need to move the passenger seat up so now that the seat is moved up under here i've attached some metal brackets right here that fold up with this so the idea being you fold this up and then you take this metal post and you stick it through these little eyelets there it is just like that and now this isn't going anywhere once that's folded up you can unfold this piece and now it's a straight flat bed about six foot two inches long so in the very back i built in this little platform that slides out and this is where i can set up my little butane stove this was about thirty dollars it's made by a company called gas one and seems to be working pretty well i'll put a link to it in the description if you wanna check it out for yourself and over on this side i have a storage compartment which is basically just a hole that i cut in the base and then built a lid for it and in there i've got some sheets and the window blacks and some other stuff that i will talk about shortly i got two more of these that i'm gonna connect uh they're just like the ones on the passenger side and these will hold up the driver's side platform and the reason i made these separately as like a passenger side and a driver's side is because a lot of times i can't by myself and in those situations i only need one half of it so i don't even bother putting in this side i can use this space to you know put a cooler and all sorts of other stuff but sometimes i have a lady friend go camping with me so i made a driver's side bed platform so we can both fit [Music] and finally this is the driver's side flap that comes up and then attached up here is the leg it's held on by uh magnets so you just pull that down and there you go now you have a stable driver's side platform so frequently when car camping you're going to want to black out the windows basically for two reasons to keep the sun out and to keep other people from looking in while you're sleeping so i've taken uh basically just a black piece of duvatine cloth uh anything that is non-see-through will work i cut the cloth to the shape of the windows leaving about half an inch extra on all sides and since the door frames are all metal i ordered a stack of really strong but small magnets then with a basic household stapler i created little pockets around the edge to slip the magnets into sewing these pockets would have been a better way to do this but a stapler will work in a pinch once you get all the magnets in and i have i think six around the edge it will just stick to the window frame there you go now nobody can peep on you the rear window was a little bit more difficult to figure out because there's no metal around this edge so i ended up going with a piece of black foam board and this was probably the hardest part tracing the shape of this window and then cutting it out of the foam board but this wedges more or less in here there may also be times that you want to have the windows down but you don't want the bugs to get in for that i just bought a roll of screen used in doors and windows again i cut it to the shape of the window with a little bit extra and stapled magnets around the edge at the bottom i put in this metal bar because there's there's nothing metal here to stick magnets to and again this goes in around the edge just like this and now you basically have a screen window on your car now under here i have something very important this is the energy kodiaq and it's basically a portable generator it makes very little noise it puts out i think 1100 watts or at least 100 watt hours so i can power my computer i can power a fan or some lights at night or even a toaster or a small stove and i keep it under here which works pretty well just have to make sure you leave enough air around the unit so that the fans can keep it cool i also bought a couple of these clip fans you can clip these to anything they're small portable i'll put a link to these in the description as well i highly recommend those one more thing i would recommend is some rain guards make sure you look up the right size you need for your particular vehicle but these are great for keeping the rain out while you have your windows down and yeah highly recommend again all the products i bought are linked in the description you can simply scroll down or if you're on a phone i think you have to click a little twirly down icon and that'll take you straight to the products if you want to buy them yourself also i should probably mention i am not an expert in any of this this is just what i've done if you do the same thing to your car and you blow up your car which i can't imagine how that would happen not my fault so do this at your own risk well the only thing left to do is to try it out so i'm gonna drive up to the mountains tonight and spend my first night camping in the car thanks for watching and i hope to see you on the next video [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: ScapeSketch

Views: 299,804

Keywords: car, camping, camper, suv, rav 4, diy, do it yourself, conversion, van, life, sleeper, bed, platform, toyota, how to, instructional, modifications, low cost, cheap, construction, projects, easy, no, permanent, rv, overnight, nomad, nomadlife, 2021

Id: ehdvwKkvJ3Y

Length: 10min 10sec (610 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 20 2020