Better safe than sorry…

Our general approach to the security of our belongings on this trip has been to 1) not make ourselves an obvious target, 2) make it as inconvenient as possible to take things, and 3) not bring anything we couldn’t bear to lose.

But, even in light of number three above, we will have a laptop and some electronics equipment that we’d really rather not part with. So, taking a tip from number 2, I’ve been doing some thinking about how to bolt some kind of “safe” into the truck.

First research led me to the Sentry and First Alert fire safes but they’re incredibly heavy and their fireproof walls are so thick you lose all your internal storage. A little overkill. My next thought was an ammo can that could be bolted in but dealing with the swing open lid and finding one that would fit both laptops seemed cumbersome.

Finally, a web search led me to the DormVault. Obviously intended for college kids to bolt to their bunks for secure storage of laptops (or more importantly so their roommates don’t bogart their stash), this steel clamshell was just the shape and size I was imagining.

 

What’s in your drawers?

Jeeeeez, I mean your storage drawers! After seeing some great ideas in a thread on The ExPo, I started sketching and listing equipment, taking measurements and before long had a general plan for a unit that would completely fill the cargo area behind the seats of the Xterra. The design was based around two Action Packer storage boxes and the Engel 17 fridge and featured two tables that would slide out from beneath it for food cooking and food prep. Behind the ActionPackers would be an area for our personal gear (clothes, etc) accessible by folding forward the rear seats.

In addition to keeping things organized and accessible, the unit would be fully lockable and keep everything out of sight of curious eyes. As a compromise between weight and strength, I opted to build the unit out of 1/2” plywood but with plenty of support from the various dividers.

Shrock Work

The idea was to add a rear spare tire carrier so we’d have a backup in case of a two flat day. Research on the ClubXterra web site pointed towards two options, the Shrockworks and the Calmini. To me, the Schrock just looked a little more beefy and specifically mentioned a locking latch which I figured would create an extra layer of inconvenience for a would-be thief to work through before they’d get into the back of the truck (swing out tire, rear hatch, and locked storage unit inside).

Ordering an $800, 200 lb item over the internet is a strange feeling. “Okay, I know my card’s gonna be charged and then I guess they have it figured out how to get this huge thing to me.” Sure enough, after 12 weeks, our new bumper and spare tire carrier arrived in two large boxes, each of which I could barely move myself. I set aside an afternoon for the installation and laid all the parts out behind the truck, but the first order of business was removing the factory trailer hitch and bumper. I was worn out after even that step.

[Sorry for the image quality, these are actually screen captures from a video I ran with the idea of putting together a timelapse of the installation]