Removable bed/ sofa for Chevy Express

[tradklime]

Thought I would share the bed/ sofa system I recently built for my Chevy Express van. After lurking for a bit, I got the idea for the Ikea Exarby sofabed from saabman. I built a subframe for it out of superstrut (home depot unistrut). It secures in the van via the oem pin system for the rear bench seat. The subframe allows for additional storage space underneath the bed and allows for it to be removable. Two castors at the rear of the frame help to level it and makes it easier to get it in and out of the garage.



The following shows how the bed is attached to the strut. They are brackets designed for attaching conduit to the strut, looks like they were designed for my purpose. The bed frame slides on the subframe to allow for clearance at the side of the van when the bed is flat.



The following shows the connection for the oem seat system. I used two superstrut angles that had 1/2 holes (same size as the oem pins). I had to grind the angles a bit to allow the holes to line up (shortened them). The sofa bed is fairly well secured, I think it would stay put in an accident, but comes out easily by pulling the two pins.



Hopes that helps someone if they are looking to do something similar.

Chad

[saabman]

Does look similar

[jage]

Originally Posted by tradklime

I think it would stay put in an accident, but comes out easily by pulling the two pins.

I would tie the caster end to the wall or floor. It should only takes one point to keep it from being able to rotate the caster end towards the passenger wall- even though it is light weight there is a lot of leverage and could tweak your front mounts fairly easily considering all the stress of driving.

Looks great!

[tradklime]

Thanks for the feedback.

I designed it thinking I would use the front hook slots for the oem seat, as well as the pin slots. With minor adjustments I can install two additional angles/ brackets, for a total of 4 connection points to the floor. I'll do this if it seems like there is much movement or side to side torque, right now everything went together tight so there is almost no movement at all, other than I can lift the castor end of the bed up about an inch.

Forgot to add in the original post that the total cost was about $250.

Thanks again.