I've been looking for a box for my boot for many months. I'm a golfer and always had stuff rattling around in the back, and I found it hard to sit in the back to change shoes. So I started looking for boxes. I never quite found one I liked until a friend said that if I designed it, he would build it. So I did (with hints and ideas from from him along the way). I'll admit, without his skill this never would have happened...I was pretty much along for the ride.

So, my idea was to:

1) Completely seal off the boot, making it flush from the plastic trim piece at the very back to the back of the seats in the folded down position and cover it with carpet. This necessitated a sloped box as the seat backs are higher than the trim piece.
2) It also had to fit if the seats were upright...this posed a challenge because as the seats come up, they move backwards.
3) It also had to be removable as the battery compartment would be under this contraption.
4) Finally, it had to have a lid so that the contents could be easily reached

First obstacle was that the box couldn't reach side to side because (1) the boot is wider than the hatch and (2) there were internal obstacles that would have blocked the lid as it were raised. So the box was restricted to the width of the hatch. This presented an unexpected advantage. I elected to use the space to the left of the box to hide the jack (the door partially covers the hole) because if I left the jack in the box I'm the type to yank the box and forget and drive off without it. Second, I used the space on the right to add a caddy for my Prima cleaning bottles that I liked to carry for any unforeseen crisis.

One choice I had to make was whether to make the forward side of the box vertical for ease of construction or to slope it forward to match the contour of the cavity. I went with vertical, the downside being that when the seats were upright there would be a gap. So my carpenter (Steve "Elroy" Colby by the way...he deserves mention as the brains and hands of this outfit) fixed this by extending the lid forward to reach the seat backs. As you open the lid, the extension simply folds down into the gap (you can see this in the first two pictures on the left side). I cut the carpet covering the lid long so when the seats were folded down (thus extending the gap), the carpet would cover it (It's still too long though, raising the seats means I have to squish the excess carpeting down into the hole...need to work on that).

The Prima Caddie stretches all the way in to the inner wall of the boot cavity and has soft foam installed to keep the bottles from rattling or buzzing. I added 3/8" weather stripping around the edge to keep from marking up the plastic from the inevitable rubbing.

After it was halfway done I drove a few days with it and discovered the lid bounced (with a very substantial thunk) to I installed a couple of cabinet magnets to hold the hid closed (almost too much...hard to get open). I also added a magnet-controlled LED light the lights up when the lid is raised.

Only thing left is to find an easier way to overcome the resistance of the magnets (straps from under the lid?) and to find a way to lift it out easier (more straps, this time attached to the bottom of the box?)

So, with no further ado...


I bought some grippy rubber mat for tool boxes to line the bottom. This and the previous picture also show how the back end of the lid was rounded to perfectly fit the contour of the rear of the boot cavity (better seen before painting)



The box was made from 12mm birch plywood. very strong, even without the partitions.

Here you can see where the jack goes...clearing the 12v plug determined how wide the hinged lid could be.


You can see that the jack is well hidden. I may yet attach some carpet to some foam and jam in in the hole to completely hide it.

 

Very Nice! Looks very functional too!

 

Not to Shabby!!

 

Nice job

Especially like the Prima carrier

 

very cool! you could run a mobile detailing company out of there! ha. very cool indeed

 

that is awesome. i'm sure i don't need to tell you how annoying the glass cleaner and spray wax is rolling around the boot!

 

thats cool! NEAT

 

thta a very kewl.. .. is it a lot of wokr?

 

Took about two evenings in Elroy's garage to construct. That is of course after I spent months visualizing how I wanted it to look in my head and deosn't include the day after painting. It was about $60 bucks worth of materials, the birch plywood sheet being 75% of that cost.

 

Looking good Sin. I could definitely use something like that, but in the seat area instead of the boot. Thanks for the inspiration.