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Liberty’s drawers behind doors, behind doors
The first two bays on our Liberty XLV have a cabinet with a long door along the top of the bay. Behind the door are three drawers on each side. Very thoughtful of Liberty put those drawers in the bays like that.
Our coach came without a tool box which is supposed to go in the heavy steel slideout rack in the first bay, street side. I’ve been looking for a tool box to put in there. What I am finding is that the opening (steel rack to bottom of three drawer cabinet above) is about a quarter inch too short to allow a tool box that would maximize the vertical space. The next smaller box (either a Craftsman or a Snap-On) leaves space wasted (essentially one more drawer) between the top of the box and the bottom of the three drawer cabinet.
Looking at how the three drawer cabinet if fastened to the bottom of the passenger compartment of the coach, I realized that three drawer cabinet could have been mounted 1.75″ higher and the fold down door to the cabinet and the three drawers would have still cleared the bay door mechanism that is above and somewhat in front of the three drawer cabinet.
Please don’t accuse me of having too much time on my hands.
Has anyone tried to remount the three drawer cabinet to gain more room in the bay? The three drawer cabinet is fastened to the bottom of the passenger compartment using C-channel steel. It looks like the channel is glued to the bottom of the passenger compartment with an adhesive (I’ll bet its nearly impossible to separate the C-channel from the wooden bottom of the passenger compartment!) as well as fastened with square drive (Robertson for the Canucks) screws and possibility at least one pop rivet from above.
My thought was that if I could easily drop the three drawer cabinet down, remove the existing C-channel, I could then get C-channel that was 1.75″ less tall (or have some fabbed up) and pick up another 1.75″ of room for the new tool box (which I might have custom made by CTECH Manufacturing of Wausau, WI) as well as another 1.75″ of room in the rest of the bay.
I’m already planning on having a welder modifiy the slide out tool box frame so a longer tool box can be put in (I think now its set up for a 26″ long box). I’m also going to move the tool box from the front of the bay to the rear of the bay (moves that much weight back and off the front axle). I noticed at the Tampa All Prevost show that new Libertys continue to have the tool box mounted forward, anyone have insight into why Liberty puts the box where it is?
Anyone try to do this? Any reasons why this might not be a good idea to try? I’m looking for someone who has been down this road before and maybe has learned something that I can’t readily see at this point.
I’ve attached a picture.
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4 Replies
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It is going to be harder to access the drawers if you raise it up due to the bay door…I like Jons way of mounting the drawer bank on the floor of the bay slide out and then the tool box on top of that..
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Problem solved.
The drawer unit was dropped down. Now you can actually see what is in the drawers without looking behind the open pay door. The tool box is secured to the top of the drawer cabinet and its size is such that I have used all but 1/4″ of the height in the bay. The drawer unit and all above it are on the Joey bed so I can pull that out and behind the tool box and drawers I have various items in cases such as my drill, Nexis reader, pail, towels, etc.
I have a larger fire extinguisher next to the ladder so it is available as soon as I open the bay door.
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The resources available on this Forum are way beyond anything I ever imagined. Well worth what I thought at one time were outrageous membership fees!
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BTW, I needed to get as much depth as possioble and the door pockets for the ZipDee chairs were interfering so I removed them. The space between the bottom of the drawer unit and the floor of the joey bed is perfect for the chairs although you cannot see them easily in the photo.
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