In message , Adrian writes
Snippy...
Also make sure you know the distance between ply and bodywork, having seen an alarm fitter's mistake on a brand new Transit which meant there was a very unpleasant 'sharp' hazard on the nearside bodywork. He'd used two one inch self tappers to attach the alarm to what he thought was a double skinned panel.
Yes, don't bother. Get a decent screwbox[1], they do them on screwfix's site, steel with a foam inner lid to prevent sizes mixing up during transit, get a couple if you use a lot of nuts and bolts and other fiddly bits, then you want a steel lockable trunk for power tools, these are quite expensive but will protect your precious things from the smackheads. The screwboxes can be topped up from stock at home as and when required....a racking system is useful only in certain proffesions; telecoms, CCTV & data etc, where lots of small components are required every single day, I'll wager that you've used 5 or 6 different sized screws in the past week or two? - likewise with nails, and the space used by something like this is largely wasted.
The problem is you have (I guess: I know I have) various toolboxes, loose tools and materials you need to take in to particular jobs, and other stuff - stock - that you need to have accessible in the van. By the time you've got the van tevoed (or whatever) out with storage for the stock you've even less space for the toolboxes etc which end up stacked on top of each other - and in front of your storage drawers! My van has one sliding side door which I use to get at most of my stuff and there's just too much depth of room from the door opening to the far side. The best I've managed is to make a chest of drawers about 700mm deep and about 300 wide by 250 high (out of 18mm ply) which give me plenty of storage for stock, with least used stuff in the bottom drawers which tend to have toolboxes sitting in front of them. Then my most used toolboxes sit in front of the drawers so that hopefully they're out of the way when I need to open them. I also have open shelves on the far side wall which take other toolboxes and storage crates, and various tubes and hooks fixes up to store things in and hang them from. Plus the obligatory soil pipes on the roof for pipe storage! It could be better, but improvement is as much a matter of thought (planning & design) as money.
And yes, stuff falling out when you corner is a problem, though even the shallowest lip stops that - certainly the screwfix boxes would be OK unless you pile stuff up high in them. It's loose stuff on a horizontal surface that has nothing to stop it sliding that's the problem.
The heated handwash is lovely this time of year!!
Problem with this is that everything slides around on the floor!
What I've done in the past is to carpet the floor (courtesy of Allied Carpets skip!)
Fasten the rear edge with thin timber/metal to clamp it. (Stops fraying and gives a slippery edge to slide your containers in and out.) Assuming you've got plywood on the floor, use a staple gun to tack the carpet down at intervals.
Stacking containers usually have a thin, but strong, vertical projection around the base to locate with the container below. This bites into the carpet and will not move, no matter how hard you brake or how difficult a slalom course you try!
My experience is that, given a reasonable weight in each, that containers are stable when stacked two high (but never more!)
However, as you only have rear access, this can be a bit restrictive, as it makes access to all of the load space difficult without removing the crates every time you want to get to what is in front of them (or vice-versa, depending how you load it.)
An alternative is to put a retaining bar on the floor, fore and aft, which holds the same 2-high configuration along one side as a stop/ runner with a second, offset from the side, as the slope of the van side will require slightly more clearance for the upper crate. This setup will hold pairs of crates up to the limit of the length of the load area. You will want a 'buffer' at the forward end - pads of scrap carpet work well! - to deaden the noise of any movement - and a simple, easily removable, back stop, such as a wooden bar slotted into the runners.
With the back stop removed, the crates will run back and forwards smoothly and easily for loading and unloading - the most regularly used being at the back, of course, and leave the rest of the load space available for any other stuff you need to carry (and do remember the carpet - it's surprising what it stops moving about!)
Something like this is quick, easy (and cheap) to implement. You can vary it to suit what is available and you'll have a working system from day one. You can then evaluate it, see if it works for you and, if you then decide to go for some fancy, expensive, commercial solution after all, you haven't lost much!
Terry
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