RV How To: Lippert Underchassis Storage Compartment

hey guys so we're continuing to work on our Kodiak and make our preparations for a big Hall season three I've got a couple more storage ideas that we're going to be implementing onto the Kodiak and I'm working on the first one now I've already kind of gotten a jump start on it because I wasn't sure how everything was going to line up and how it was going to mount it I wanted to get to that point first and make sure that everything was going to fit right that it was going to work out and then try to get a little video of the install so what we're installing here is this is the Lippert underbelly storage compartment now unfortunately the one that I wanted which was the large size was unavailable it was unavailable to ship by the time that I needed it to get installed on the Kodiak before our big for our big Hall and so I had to settle for the next size down which is their standard size so that's what we've got right here I've got the rail already clamped up to the frame of the Kodiak there and I'm getting ready to transfer the whole locations and drill them and so I thought I would go ahead and get the camera and show you where we're at here but what I would like to do at a later point is probably remove this one and install the Large Size because the compartments for these don't go all the way back to the center of the camper so we've got a big gap in in between the two bins there that's not being used alternatively you can get the same underbelly storage rack with a unit in the middle that actually holds your spare tire but since I already had an idea for a spare Mount behind the axle there I didn't want to utilize that storage compartment space to hold a spare I wanted to have all storage there and then the height of spare behind the rear axle there but we're going to get to that later but I'm going to give you some highlights of how I'm going to install this it's it's uh you know it's never fun getting underneath these things and having to work on your back and everything but it's relatively simple if you can get it clamped up to the frame I'm having to make some spacers because we have a gas line that runs underneath the frame there so we've got to space it out about an inch and get it clamped up with some spacers and drill the four holes and you're pretty much in business at that point so jump in there and we'll show you what we're doing okay so before we get under the frame we'll go ahead and show you the storage compartments here so these are the two storage containers that go one on each side of the frame there they are made out of plastic okay and they said that they'll hold up to 100 pounds I got this little finger hole here so you can lift it up and open it open this guy up and all it does is just give you a nice little storage compartment there now keep in mind these are not sealed to the elements you can see it doesn't seal up or anything so it's not to be used for any kind of like really expensive gear but you can certainly put anything in there that you want just keep in mind that it's it it's not uh they don't like lock up so they could this could be something that somebody steals some of your stuff from but we're going to be putting you know the pieces the parts for the sewage connections water hoses and extension cords and just things like that you know leveling ramps just things that I'm storing in the pass-through is going to be coming in here that aren't so critical all right now unfortunately the shipping aches got us this time on this one when this guy showed up the pallet was absolutely destroyed and this lid right here was basically laying off of it like that not that big of a deal these are just pieces of rubber here and rivets so I'm going to drill these guys off and just find some stainless screws and just screw that just screw them back on there and fix that I can tell that they damaged it with the forklift you know trying to handle this thing so they've got it all scuffed up right here their scratches here there's a big old gouge on the bottom of it right there so people come in here with a forklift and just jamming into it and just absolutely destroyed it that's probably why this got ripped off because it Fork pushed it or something but we're going to end up replacing this later with the large unit hopefully the next unit that comes is going to be in better condition than this but since our trip is coming up in a couple weeks we're going to get this installed and they're going to work pretty good but you can slide them all the way out and they're locked in there's a spring-loaded pin on the side of the frame that you pull and then this locks it in and then whenever you slide it out that pin also locks into that rear hole keeping it from coming all the way out from the the frame there so that you can open it up and get whatever you want out of there all right so there's a little overview of our storage compartments now we'll go check out the frame that they mount in all right so we're over here on the driver's side and I've got a phenolic spacer in there this is some stuff that I had already in a storage bin and I'm using that that's going to be spacing this side off but I've only got three of those so I'm going to use two on the other side I've got this piece of one inch thick nylon that I can cut to length and we'll use this on on probably this side here that way it'll span the entire link there and space it out the reason we're having a space it is because on the other side over there on the other frame the other side of the frame we have the gas line that runs underneath the I-beam so you need to make a one inch spacer in situations like that so you can space It Down but we got this side uh centered measured from that hanger shackle to the side of the sea rail 27 and a half same on the other side we got it clamped up I'm going to transfer the holes and drill them and go ahead and bolt it in and go ahead and cut this and we'll install that there as well okay and here we are we're on the passenger side you can see here's the gas line that I'm talking about that runs underneath the uh this part of the frame all the way to the back so you've got to make some kind of spacer to go in there one inch so we'll suffice on the on the thickness there so since I've got these phenolic blocks I'm going to use those on one side and use that nylon on another side over there that way we don't have to worry about this stuff it's never going to rot or rust or corrode away it'll it'll be there so we've got it all clamped up where we want it the outer holes is what I have lined up with the outside part of the C frame or the the I-beam I'm sorry so we'll drill two holes on each side I'm just going to run up through here with my drill and drill both holes and get it bolted in and then after that all I got to do really is just go ahead and cut one more spacer for the other side we'll use these two phenolic for this side and a nylon on the other and and after that it should be about ready to go foreign [Music] nylocks nylon lock nuts I'm just getting them pulled up close for now so that I can uh get the spacers out and modify those as I need to all right since I've only got one of these phenolic blocks left I'm just going to take this guy and cut it in half and I think that's going to work just fine that's really all we need to do stick it in the saw and cut it foreign [Applause] just kidding we got them both cut the same length right there so what I do what I did on the other side I just go ahead and get this clamped back in between the frame or between the C frame and then the trailer frame clamp it in there and I just run the drill up through the hole to drill a hole in this and then put the bolts back in there pretty simple easy to do foreign I wanted to quickly mention these drill bits that I use these are excellent for doing things like this where you're out here drilling hand drilling on a frame on a trailer or anything where you're just hand drilling these are called The Vortex point the way that these guys are made the way they're ground is that they're ground like a step drill on the end so when you're trying to go through thin materials or if you're just hand drilling the way that these are made is that it reduces the tool pressure versus the conditional jobber drill and it makes hand drilling a whole lot easier they come in this nice plastic case that seal up you can just carry them where you need to but highly recommend these and I get these from KBC tools and Machinery excellent set of drills to have in your toolbox all right there we are mounted up that's what the spacers look like only on the other side they're a little bit longer because I use two that worked out pretty good so if you mount this up on your rig it's probably going to have to be something like this you can find whatever material you want you can even use maybe some hardwood but that's what I had that's what we used I went ahead and got the other storage compartment fixed and all I did was just drill out the the four pop rivets I had some quarter inch stainless steel Hardware in the shop I use some bolts flat washers and Nylock nuts so got that fixed up so that our container is going to work the way it's supposed to there this is the one that got a little bit bent so it's got a tight fit there but you can shove it down in there so we're about to the last phase we just need to test fit these guys and see what they're going to look like all right the only thing Luke got left to do is just load them up in there got to pull the pin that'll be the out position right there so once you slide it out it'll lock it it's got a little wiggle there but it's not going to come out all right and then you can lift your compartment your lid up so you can grab your things close the lid up pull the pin slide it in and that pin is going to lock in another hole and there you go perfect storage for all of the stuff that you don't want on your pass-through so I'm going to go ahead and get the com that stuff out start loading it up in here and getting the stuff out of the pasture let's go load up the other side there is your lock out locked in so we want to pull some stuff out pull the pin access your goods you can even use that as a temporary cooler storage if you wanted to can I put shoes in there no I wouldn't put shoes in there this is the kind of stuff you don't want to store things that you really want to take care of because you know it's going to get you're going to get water and moisture in there because they're not sealed up in fact one of the things I forgot to mention is that I thought that they came with holes drilled in but they didn't so I'm actually going to drill a couple of holes in the bottom of this thing so that if water gets in there it can have a way to drain out because you just don't want it filling up with water but this is going to be great for those things like extension cords lights water water hoses all of the hardware and gear that you want to carry with you with your rig this is where it's going to go right here yeah each side is rated to 100 pounds so you can safely carry 200 pounds total of cargo inside this thing right here you can tell it is hot it is muggy I am ready to get further north from here away from all this hot this heat and humidity and get to some cooler temps should be coming real soon I'm really excited about that I've been looking forward to this for a while and this is really going to help us out all right so there's your look at it out from the side what it kind of looks like mounted how far it sticks down I know I'm going to have folks that's concerned about that hanging down too far saying that it's going to scrub I think we're going to be perfectly fine if you if you get back here and draw an imaginary line or you can use a string or a rope from the furthest point on the hitch there down to the bottom of the tires anything below that is possibly will hit I think the bottom of that storage compartment is above that uh invisible line right there I'm happy with it and I think it's going to work great I'm actually looking forward to getting the the larger unit and hopefully that's just going to be a simple unbolt this one Bolt the other one back in and the large unit actually has a much longer storage compartment there that you can use to store even more stuff so you might even be able to use the large one to put like your a couple of your chairs in there if you want to and they also again they make it so that you can mount your spare tire in the center there as well all right we about got these guys loaded up so this was the compartment I was using or a storage container to hold our extra things like this right here the sewer hose connections the little accordions for the for the hose and a couple other things I still got a little bit of room in this for some extra things so we'll fill it out as we need it's gonna be awesome let me pull the pin all right we'll show you what's on the other side all right I emptied out this one with most of the stuff that you see here so we have our two water hoses that we use the filter I've got all of the water hose connections back in there and it I also carry extra ones because I have forgotten them at the uh at the spickets before gotten better about that now but it's just some extra Hardware back there we have our leveling ramps in here we have our chalks in there and that is pretty well filled up this is exactly why I wanted the large version because I wanted to maximize the capacity underneath this thing but this is going to work out really good for here store and those things and bam there it is out of the way now we can take those out of the pass-through and have more room for other things that are a little more important to keep up here in the dry storage all right guys that's going to be the end of this video our install on the Lippert underbilly storage compartment and I'm really happy that we got this and we've got it on the camper it's going to be great having those things that are stored in there out of our pass-through and freeing up some of that space for some other things I'm just I'm real excited about having that on our trips now a little more convenient to get through when we're outside getting ready to hook things up but I am looking forward to upgrading that once we get back from our trip hopefully we're going to get a hold of the large unit and it should be a simple swap out unbolt it Bolt the new one in and give us even more storage capacity because those other ones for the large units are longer and it's like one inch deeper than this guy right here but it worked out pretty good I think the install went fairly simple hopefully that'll help out a few you guys out there too searching YouTube on you know other people that's already installed these things that's usually what I do I try to find other videos and see how other people have installed it and kind of give me some ideas on how difficult it's going to be or things that you may not expect that's going to happen like in our case we had to make those spacers to go into there so that we could clear the gas pipe but it worked out pretty good we do have one more video of another install that's gonna we're gonna be getting at next I have the height of spare that we're going to be mounting behind the rear axle that will uh store our spare tire underneath the Kodiak and out of the way to get it off the back so we'll have a separate video for that and and once I get that done we're going to be pretty much ready to get on their way for the big Hall we've got a few other little things that we're doing inside as well and Abby will probably want to take some video of that whenever we get to those as well so that's it hopefully you enjoyed and we will see you on the next video

Channel: Abom Adventures

Views: 27,496

Keywords: Lippert, Lippert underchassis storage compartment, underbelly storage, storage, RV storage, storage compartment, Kodiak

Id: lF39hy8HFZ8

Length: 16min 30sec (990 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 28 2022