2 Door Jeep JK Sleep System Build

[KevDawg]

Hey everyone since I don’t usually post here is a quick introduction of me and my Jeep. I have a 2017 2 Door Jeep JK Wrangler. I have been a member for a few years now but I haven’t been out on many trips myself. Hopefully this build that I am working on will help make it easier and motivate me to get out and explore more. Right now the build is going to be used more for weekend trips or quick journeys.

I am in the beginning stages of designing and building a sleep system for my 2 door JK. Looking around I haven’t found any other sleep system that quite fits what I am looking for so I figured I would go about trying to design something myself.

The requirements that I am giving myself for the build are:

• Sleep 1-2 people and dog in the back of the Jeep
• Hold necessary items for camping
• Bed can hold the weight of someone while getting into the sleep system
• Drawer system for holding gear underneath sleeping platform
• Way to access area behind seats for extra storage
• Removable
• No body modifications
• Step or ramp to enter
• Low profile so i can sit up and also my dog can stand in back
• Bug netting / Rain Protection

Some wants that I have but I can do without if need by:

• Usable with both the hardtop and softtop
• Manufacturable by me, I have most woodworking tools
• Does not require moving the front seats
• Drawer to fit Dometic CoolMatic CD 30 Fridge
• Built in table
• Folding side cubbies to use extra space around sleep platform
• Lightweight <500lbs

I have started on a design that I think has at least a good starting potential. This is the first sleep system that I have designed so I would like to get people thoughts on my design.



There is still a lot missing that I have not modeled in yet. I am going to be adding wings on the sides to fill in the areas next to the sleep system so I don’t roll over and fall off, that will require more finessing with templates that I will add to my model later. I just want to get the overall design flushed out better before I start with that.

Currently the build is made from ½” plywood and the overall box size is 38.5” x 41” x 11.5” with the passenger side drawer extending past another 2.5” The drawer slides are all the locking open and closed slides each with a weight capacity of 200-500lbs.



The driver side drawer has a 26” slide and the passenger side has a 28” slide. The passenger side can be longer because of how the tailgate is on the Jeep giving me an extra 2.5” of space. This also allows for me to fit the Dometic fridge in that space if I want to upgrade and get a fridge. Driver side drawer has a base footprint of 17” x 27” and the passenger side has a footprint of 15” x 29.5” each having a depth of 9.5”



The area in the back will be on a hinge allowing me access to the space behind the seats for extra storage. This seems to be where my design differs from a lot of other designs because most of them seem blocked off at that point. The cubby in the back will also hold latches to mount this to the existing rear seat locations, seats are obviously removed for this to be possible. The other mounting I am going to add will be brackets on the side to the seat belt mounts at the bottom of the floor. I am also thinking I could add additional brackets so I could prop the cubby up to be used as a backrest too.





Opening up the sleeping platform will give me 77” of space to lay across. I will have the guides holding the platform to the slides slotted so when I extend the platform I can drop the platform to be flush with each other. This will allow me to have a metal bar placed under the platform and help tie in the extended platform to the base of the sleep system, the bar is not shown in the picture yet.






The main parts I am missing are a way to add a surrounding to the system that will attach to the jeep to help keep bugs and such out. I am thinking of something along the lines of what Crewbed Jeep Bed Extender | Crewbed Parts, Sleeper, Storage has as an option to what they make. Mine will hopefully have a zippered door and look much less professional



I will be adding a 2 piece mattress as well that after opening up the platform I can lay across both sides. The wings are also still missing on the sides because currently two people would not be able to fit comfortably on the platform with it only being 38.5” wide. I am going to add that area after the building starts, after the wings are added on the back of the sleep system will be about 58” wide at the max. I will also need to make quick mockups of the drawer sizes so I can see how much I would be able to fit in the drawers and if that will be enough.

There are still many downsides with the design but so far I am liking how it is turning out. I don’t have a lot of storage but I am hoping to stay fairly minimalistic with this design. If I do need more space I am also considering getting an exoskeleton roof rack that I could put extra boxes up there like the ROAM low profile boxes. With that I would also like to add a 270 awning that would also help cover the back of the jeep but those are still a little ways away.

Let me know if you have any suggestions / concerns / want more information on this. I figured this would be a good place to go to help iron out my design and get this underway. I will try and keep updated as I design and build this.

 

[SquishBang]

Wow, nice project.
I myself, love 2 door vehicles. My co-worker just bought a 2020 Rubicon 2 door, and I love it. I also am liking the new Bronco 2 door.
I have always wondered how to fit these with a sleeping arrangement. Looking forward to seeing how this goes!

 

[Built By Fluffy]

Is there any requirement to keep your passenger seat stock? I was planning a similar build to this for a buddy of mine, rather than have the platform extend backwards outside of the Jeep we were going to replace the passenger seat with a fold down seat from a minivan. That would've allowed us to extend the cot forward and get a full length sleeping arrangement for 1 person while "maintaining" a passenger seat for when you need it

 

[KevDawg]

Wow, nice project.
I myself, love 2 door vehicles. My co-worker just bought a 2020 Rubicon 2 door, and I love it. I also am liking the new Bronco 2 door.
I have always wondered how to fit these with a sleeping arrangement. Looking forward to seeing how this goes!

Thanks SquishBang! I do really like to the look of most 2 door vehicles as well. I haven't seen the Bronco 2 door on the road yet but some of the 4 door ones look nice. Although as much as I like 2 door vehicles I do find myself looking at the new Tacomas with longing. It would give me way more room to carry things around and probably be a more practical car.

Is there any requirement to keep your passenger seat stock? I was planning a similar build to this for a buddy of mine, rather than have the platform extend backwards outside of the Jeep we were going to replace the passenger seat with a fold down seat from a minivan. That would've allowed us to extend the cot forward and get a full length sleeping arrangement for 1 person while "maintaining" a passenger seat for when you need it

Fluffy, that would be an interesting way to keep the passenger seat while still having a full size enclosed sleeping for 1 person. When I first started thinking about designing and building the sleep system I was thinking that I would just remove the passenger seat and do something very similar to that because most of the time it is just me or me and my dog in the car. I am planning on this build being able to fit two people so the long cot style bed wont fit 2 people. Did you ever find out how easily it would be to swap a minivan seat in to replace the passenger seat? If this doesn't work out and I switch my ideas I would probably like to try that.

Another quick update on the design, I am now considering removing the locking open and closed slides for the two drawers at the bottom and just having full boxes for that area. I will then add a stop on the top so the drawers can still be contained if I need to leave them extended but small enough that I can lift the boxes up to remove them from the system. This might also allow me to remove one of the drawers and use it as the step up to get into the back easier, still not positive on that yet. I have the stops circled in green.



The main reason I had the slides in there was from a pervious design I was thinking of. Instead of having the sperate platform on a slide I was going to just extend the two drawers at the bottom and place a flat board across them giving me the extra room to lay down. I got rid of that idea because it would require to much weight for me to be comfortable having the drawer slides hold. I would also loose more space in the drawers because to counteract the force on the extended platform the slides would need to be mounted on top and I wouldn't want the bottom of the drawer to be wider then the top so nothing gets trapped down there. The other issue is there isn't enough space to have the drawers extend far enough to reach the end of the platform.

I am hoping that I will start cutting the pieces to build the main structure for the sleep system this weekend. I will also need to order the latches I'm planning on using for this at the same time. I did make a quick mockup of the overall size of the main system to test fit in the jeep. This also allowed me to get some better measurements of where some of the mounting will be.



The usable space fills up quickly in this car.

 

[Built By Fluffy]

I am planning on this build being able to fit two people so the long cot style bed wont fit 2 people. Did you ever find out how easily it would be to swap a minivan seat in to replace the passenger seat? If this doesn't work out and I switch my ideas I would probably like to try that.

If you're looking to fit two, may be able to squish it if the center consul is included as part of the cot/platform and how close you are to that person. As far as the seat goes, you can purchase seat bases from Mopar. My plan was to make an adapter between whatever minivan seat we found and the new seat base (utilizing 4 door JK pass seat base to rid of the unnecessary fold forward function)

I don't remember how the JK seats attach to the base (I used to wheel a 2 door JK as well) but I just went through this exercise with my van. The old Econoline seats and the newer style have a different bolt pattern to the seat base but they're all on the same plane, so cutting and drilling an adapter isn't hard. Could find a SUV or minivan seat that has a similar enough mounting to make a simple adapter. Or weld the two together, thats my new go-to. A professional welder shouldn't cost too much for a small job like seat-adaption

 

[KevDawg]

If you're looking to fit two, may be able to squish it if the center consul is included as part of the cot/platform and how close you are to that person. As far as the seat goes, you can purchase seat bases from Mopar. My plan was to make an adapter between whatever minivan seat we found and the new seat base (utilizing 4 door JK pass seat base to rid of the unnecessary fold forward function)

I don't remember how the JK seats attach to the base (I used to wheel a 2 door JK as well) but I just went through this exercise with my van. The old Econoline seats and the newer style have a different bolt pattern to the seat base but they're all on the same plane, so cutting and drilling an adapter isn't hard. Could find a SUV or minivan seat that has a similar enough mounting to make a simple adapter. Or weld the two together, thats my new go-to. A professional welder shouldn't cost too much for a small job like seat-adaption

I will look into this some more, I wonder if I would then be able to replace both front seats with something that will fold flat like that. That would allow the entire inside of the Jeep to be usable for a platform. I will probably continue with the current build to try out that design but also start looking more into this idea as well. Off the top of my head one of my concerns is I have a short sitting height and finding a seat that is tall enough for me and being able to fold flat with enough headroom could limit the options. I haven't been in a vehicle with flat fold down seats like that in awhile so I will need to do some research into which seat might be the best to start with.

 

[Built By Fluffy]

I will look into this some more, I wonder if I would then be able to replace both front seats with something that will fold flat like that. That would allow the entire inside of the Jeep to be usable for a platform.

I daily a gladiator now and can't remember on the JK, is the center consul molded into the shifter like on the JL/JT interior?
Finding a fitting 2/3rds bench from a mid/rear row of some vehicle shouldn't be hard (I've seen this done on a TJ), nor adapting the seat mounts, but I'm personally shy of plastic work. Making that look right if you have to cut plastic would be the trick. There's also the parking brake to consider but there are aftermarket levers and electric options you could use for that.

As far as Extending out the rear how did you plan the surround? Considering modifying an existing tent to fit over the bed as it's extended or fabric from scratch?

 

[KevDawg]

I daily a gladiator now and can't remember on the JK, is the center consul molded into the shifter like on the JL/JT interior?
Finding a fitting 2/3rds bench from a mid/rear row of some vehicle shouldn't be hard (I've seen this done on a TJ), nor adapting the seat mounts, but I'm personally shy of plastic work. Making that look right if you have to cut plastic would be the trick. There's also the parking brake to consider but there are aftermarket levers and electric options you could use for that.

As far as Extending out the rear how did you plan the surround? Considering modifying an existing tent to fit over the bed as it's extended or fabric from scratch?

Adding a full bench seat across the front is going against me making this without modifying / drilling into the existing jeep. I am fine changing brackets or using existing mounting, I just don't want to add any more.

Making the enclosure around the extended portion I have not fully fleshed out yet. Initial thoughts right now are add Velcro to the sides of the extended platform and have the surround connect to that. It would then go over the raised glass in the rear and attach on the inside. This design probably would not have the best protection from the rain since part of it will slope inward. I was thinking of making it myself but looking to see if there are sections of tents I could use would probably help speed up the process. After I get the extended platform to hold weight comfortably I will focus more on that.

 

[KevDawg]

Just a quick update on the build right now. Like what seems to be any woodworking project I do I found the "need" to buy some new tools for myself so I now own a Kreg Pocket Hole Jig and the Kreg track saw. Both of these will help me build the system and keep cuts and pannels at proper angles and lengths.

I have not started on the full build yet, I did make a template of what the bottom piece will look like. This allowed me to test the fit of the base, the latch system and see how easily it will be to put in the Jeep. Since building this I have made some more modifications to the design but have not updated the 3D model yet.





After making the template I found out that I will need to increase the height of the box by 1" to allow the sliders for the sleeping platform to clear the latch the rear tailgate latches onto. I will also be latching onto the back (closest to the front of the car) mounting points. This will give me another few inches of drawer space. I am now also thinking of shortening the flaps in the back to access the latches and storage behind the seats so that way I will not need to also add the hinges to the extended sleep platform.

I am hoping to start building the main box for the sleep system this week so hopefully I will have a new update soon.