While roller draws technically give you less square inches of storage capacity in the rear of your wagon or ute, they do transform how you can organise and ultimately easily access your gear. In a brilliant way.

A way to think about it is to look at your bedside table. Go to your bottom draw any pull something out. Easy.  Now pull everything out of all draws and pull something from the bottom. Not so easy.  It’s exactly the same deal with draws in your 4×4 …

  • Having your recovery gear accessible no matter what’s stacked up
  • Keeping your dirty gear away from your sleeping gear and clothes
  • Being able to slide out your fridge without emptying your entire boot

But draws are not all beer and skittles, and there’s a reason they don’t ship from the factory floor – even as an option

  • They limit your flexibility to carry bigger stuff
  • They add extra weight to the rear and GMV of your car
  • They take away the ability to have seats (and people) in the rear
  • They don’t work as well when you fold down the rear seats

While that’s a whole lot of downside; nevertheless, I’m pretty sold on them

However, ever since I grabbed some marine ply, a set of rollers from häfele , some Clark rubber carpet, latches and hinges from Bunnings and set about making my own for the back of the old 60 series Landcruiser, I’ve never owned and offroader without them.

But before you run and put a set on your own there’re few things to consider.

Configuration and layout of your drawshomemade4x4draws

Today there’s a heap of variation in the setups you can buy, and if you’re building your own, it’s limited only by your imagination. But let’s cover the two most common approaches.

Full width vs. half

Most of the draw systems I’ve owned have been the full width, typically two draws side-by-side. Your fridge and slide then sit up top. Sometimes this can make your fridge hard to reach.

The upside is you still have some freedom on top of your drawers for some larger items (handy day-to-day). There’s new aweome drop down slides to lower your fridge as well (albeit with a scary price tag).

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The other option is to have two draws stacked on top on one side allowing the fridge and slide on the other side. This lowers the fridge and makes it easier for the vertically challenged to grab a cold one. But it will render the back of your car pretty useless for anything large. If I didn’t do anything but travel with my 4×4, I’d go this option, but I need a bit of flexibility with mine.

Removing your draws

Some setups come with removability in mind. This means you can remove the extra weight when you don’t need it and give yourself full boot or tray space back when you need it. These removable options through won’t fit as snuggly, and you’ll probably lose some drawer storage. Also even if ‘removable’ by the 10th time you might think the effort required is a little more epic. But sometimes you won’t have any choice :(.

Height

This is a more important consideration if you are going for full-width setup. The gap between the top of your draws and the top of your roof opening needs to be big enough to slide out your fridge. My old faithful lion tools fridge is wide over tall so I have plenty of room, but I have known a few that put in $3K worth of draws in, to then realise they can’t slide out their fridge.

Fixed accessories and flexibilities

When you’re putting in draws, you have an opportunity add in some fixed accessories like auxiliary batteries, water storage, power outlets, lights — the list goes on! These can be handy, but in particular, if you’re building your own, be sure to include some flexibility. That battery that fits perfectly now, when it craps out in a couple of years time, you might struggle to find one in the same dimensions.

Or consider that you might want a bigger fridge at some point. It’s hard sometimes to think ahead, but try put in some wiggle room for the accessories you know won’t last forever.

Weight of just the draws

One of the downsides of draws is the extra weight that it adds, just in the material of the draws alone. The first set I built for my 60 series was made of our marine ply and weighed a lot. But it was strong. The 60 had a 350 chev in front, and some serious suspension, so, in this case, it didn’t matter.

Use steel and it will be even stronger but will weigh even more! The perfect balance is to use a lightweight but strong material like aluminum but the price goes up, and it’s harder to work with. It’s a real case of the more expensive the setup is, the less a tradeoff you need to make over strength vs. weight. Your circumstance will drive the best answer to where you should go.

Build your own draws or buy premade

As someone who’s not an expert, but handy with the tools this is going to be your biggest dilemma. If cash is tight, then this might be a decision that makes itself, but with distance between the cost of DIY and some of the cheaper units on the market, then it’s getting even tougher

Pro’s to build:

  • Cost (excluding your time)
  • Suitability: All the sizing and configuration can be created to exactly what you need.
  • Quality and reliability: That’s going be dependent on how good a craftsman you are
  • Repairability: You build then yourself so your the best person to fix them

Pros to buying (the cheapies)

  • Cost
  • Time. They’re ready to go now
  • Suitability: there’s becoming more and more options with your cheap draws

Pros to buying (the expensive ones)

  • Time: ready to go now (you might have to wait for custom build to order
  • Suitability – there’s a bunch of different options if you’re pockets are deep enough.
  • Quality and reliability – there’s a reason they’re expensive. Sometimes it’s because people a greedy, most because there is more invested in material and build quality.

You can probably figure out the cons.

Legalities or draws (or removing seats)

This is seldom covered by the creators of these draws, but you have some legalities to cover if you’re removing the rear seats to put in your draws. For example, you may have to change the registration of your car from 7 to 5. No hard in most cases just something you need to do.

There’s some weirdness to this, and different rules state to state, so might be worth calling your local roads authority to make sure you’re covered.

It’s always going to be about taste and your personal circumstances.

I’ve never regretted having draws in my 4×4. It means I’ve always got my basic recovery gear with me and can store more that you probably realise.

Regardless if you’re looking to buy or build, remember that this is a pretty decent modification to you rig, so take the time to look around at what others are doing. Look at an expensive model before you jump on a cheapie so you know the sort of sacrifices you are making.

The more informed you are walking in, the better outcome you will end up with.