Our Ford Transit DIY camper van conversion is built mostly around the mountain bikes, and the platform bed is no exception. We wanted a permanent raised bed above the “garage” (over the bikes and other stuff); no need to fold/unfold the bed at night & it creates a lot of storage room under the bed.
To provide enough clearance for the mountain bikes, there is 40″ height between the floor and the lower frame of the bed (but 36″ is actually probably enough. Check with your own mountain bikes!).
The platform bed is 76″ long x 72″ wide. We have a 5″ thick foam mattress (full size: 74″ x 54″); the unused portion of the platform will be used for storage cabinets (faroutride.com/bedroom-storage).
We were quite aggressive with the width of the platform: it is wider than the floor and the frames above, so we’re up for some challenges when we will build the walls! But this way, the living space is maximized.
To maximize the living space between the bed and the driver & passenger seats, we installed the platform bed the most rearward as possible. It leaves 80″ of usable space for the kitchen and the “living room”.
TIME SPENT ON THE JOB: 16-20 hours
TOTAL COST : $220-300 USD
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MATERIAL:
- 1x 1″ thick, 5’x5′ Baltic birch plywood ($40)
- 1x 5/8″ thick, 4’x8′ Baltic birch plywood ($48)
- 2x 3/8″ thick, 4’x8′ Baltic birch plywood ($70)
- ~60x 1/4 fender washer (Buy from Amazon)
- ~10x 1/4-20, .280 Steel Cross Nut Prebulbed (Buy from Amazon)
- many 1/4-20 bolts, various lengths (Buy from Amazon)
- M8 bolts for existing threaded holes in Transit ($10)
- many #4 wood screw 1″ length ($5)
- Titebond III Wood Glue (Buy from Amazon)
Go Pro (An alternative to DIY)
If you’d rather be assembling and skip the building part, or if you’re in the market for pro-looking aluminum gear, there are a few options to consider:
Disclaimer
We’re not woodworkers. We’re not well equipped in tools. So this is not a “How-To”. This is just how we did it with our limited knowledge & limited access to appropriate tools. There are probably standards, but we’re probably not following them. That being said, we’re very satisfied with the final result, and we are proud of what we accomplished!
First of all, this is what we have in mind
Alright now, let’s install a bed in our van!
Legs
The platform bed legs are made of 1″ thick Baltic birch plywood. The legs are really stiff; there is no flex at all (¾” thick Baltic birch would probably have been enough). Each leg is attached to the van frame by two fasteners that are screwed into Cross Nuts (Buy from Amazon) (see our post about Cross Nuts here).
Squeaks Eliminator 2000
To ensure there will be no squeak at all, wood must never be in contact with metal. We therefore left a gap between the legs and the van walls; the gap is created by the Crossnut flange and two fender washers (Buy from Amazon).
Horizontal Frames
Each pair of legs are connected by an horizontal frame. Horizontal frames will increase “lateral” stiffness (left to right) and provide “vertical” stiffness to support our weight; having a stiff frame allowed us to reduce the platform thickness (we used 3/8″ thick Baltic birch plywood) and shaved some weight.
The horizontal frames are a composition of a 5/8″ x 4″ frame and a 5/8″ x 2″ frame. We found this arrangement to provide plenty of stiffness for our need; there is barely any deflection when we hop on the bed.
There is an additional frame in the back of the van. There is not much load here so we started with one 5/8″ thick x 2″ height, but to get the stiffness we wanted it finally ended with three 5/8″ thick x 2″ height glued together.
Squeaks Eliminator 3000
Relative movement between components produces squeaks. Even where you think there is no movement…
Therefore, we screwed & glued every wood frame together (the platform is not glued to the frames because we want it to be removable). The glue provides the bonding, the screws hold everything together while the glue cures (the screws could be avoided if we had fancy woodworking tools!).
We used #4 screws (1″ length) (Buy from Amazon) and Titebond III Waterproof Wood Glue (Buy from Amazon):
The Platform
We used two 3/8″ thick, 4′ wide x 8′ long, Baltic birch plywood sheets. We trimmed the sheets to get the bed width and length we wanted (72″ x 75″) and fastened them using 1/4″ flat head bolts, nuts, and fender washers that we countersunk.
We then protected the wood with Danish Oil (Buy on Amazon) and added decorative frame at the back & front end (the frame is attached to the platform bed with L corner braces). Here is the final result:
ON SECOND THOUGHT…
Hey, it’s us from the future! After 4 years of Vanlife, the platform bed is doing great; nothing to report! That includes two full winters of chasing the snow for skiing (faroutride.com/winter-vanlife) and we didn’t get mold or anything, thanks to our air heater that keeps us warm and DRY (air moisture is around 35-40% during winter!).
- If there is ONE thing we could change, we would lower the platform to around 36″ (instead of 40″) above the floor, to increase the clearance above the bed.
- We LOVE the platform bed setup, but one downside is that we can’t open the rear doors anymore because the factory handle is too low. That could be an issue in case of an emergency… There’s no aftermarket solution for this, so we went ahead and designed our own kit that solves this problem!
Ford Transit Rear Door Exit Handle Kit
This kit provides an additional exit handle to the rear door of your Ford Transit 36″ to 64″ above the floor. This restores the ability to open the rear doors from an elevated platform bed setup for your safety and convenience. Installs in 30 minutes or less with the preinstalled self-adhesive pad, no screws required!
Hello, ou bonjour! the site is in english, but Antoine and Isabelle is “sa sonne Québec icit”?
My name is Ray 5..year young! I am from Laval. I was a Bbd employee for 25 year in Stl pl#1.
I am looking for VanLife knowledge. Me and my second half are planning for retirement Van travel.
I am french forgive me if I use the wrong words in the wrong way.
1- Thanks for this site and the welt of information. Sorry for the time this is taking you.
2- If there was a “Planning to” section I would write to that section to comply with your directives.
3- I am putting as little informations as I can, for security reasons, for give me if you need more.
4- I am trying to make the goods choices, Transit-Sprinter, 4×4 or not, medium or Hi-roof, extended or not, + and – of those choices. This would also be a good section to add in your site (not just for me).
5- Big expenses bad choices to avoid?
6- How is the day to day live, in a van, can we make our life better?
You ever run into mold/mildew problems with this design? Thinking holes in the plywood to make it more breathable…. But then all the garage smells will find their way into the mattress. Maybe a mattress underlay makes sense.
We never had issue with mold.
Dry heat and good ventilation is the key!
Unreal website, impressed everytime… thanks a lot 🙂
Thank you! 🙂
Hi and THANK YOU for all of this amazing information. I have “donated” to you, which I view as payment for your effort. All of your work takes…. a lot of work.
OK – so I was wondering about the bed beam height of 2.00″. I’m a retired engineer so I took 30 minutes on some simple calculations. I assumed a 200 lb load on a single beam…….
I found out that 2.00″ of beam height is the optimum beam height.
Anything taller infringes on the garage space and the defection benefit does not overcome the intrusion from the taller beam.
Any beam smaller than 2.00″ results in large deflection. So the space saved is not out-weight by the smaller beam.
Very impressed ! I don’t know if this was your intention but well done !
Our bed is still holding strong after years of full-time use, but it’s nice to know it’s also suppose to hold in “theory”. Thanks 😉
We might make a metal frame in our next van, so we can reduce the beam height. We’ll see!
What about using aluminum to safe some weight?
What lengt bolt did you use for crossnut?
Can’t remember to be honest, it’s been a while. Sorry…
Hi Guys – thanks so much for all you do!!
What is your solution for front bike wheels?
They simply sit against the bike. We use a velcro strap and protect the bike with a cloth or something soft!
Hi Isabelle and Antoine! Thanks for the tips.
My buddy and I are building out the bedframe in a 2018 Transit and are trying to mimic your design. However we are encountering difficulty because the rivnuts we installed are not all on the same vertical plane. This makes it really difficult to find exactly where we need to pre drill for our threaded bolts and get a straight vertical support.
Did you run into this issue at all? and any tips? Thanks!
Yeah, you need to install transfer screws into the rivnuts and then apply pressure onto the supports to transfer the rivnuts pattern. Then drill your supports. A bit more about that here: https://faroutride.com/threaded-inserts/#transfer
Cheers,
antoine
Question how did you finish the walls under the garage?
Baltic birch finished with Danish Oil. I don’t remember the thickness of the Baltic Birch specifically, but thick enough so that we can install hooks and stuff like that.
antoine
This is great, we are just starting our build in Canada. This is very helpful.
Hi! Thanks a lot for these amazingly detailed blogs, it is helping us a lot with our own van conversion!
Regarding the squeaks, since you mentioned in this post that “wood should never be in contact with metal” my significant other seems to think that even using small metal L-brackets is a no-go because it will produce squeaking. I took your post to mean “wood should never be in contact with the metal body of the van”. Do you have some insight that will put this argument to bed? 🙂
The only squeaks we can hear come from wood on wood that are not fixed together. The L-brackets don’t move at all, they don’t make any sound.
First, thanks for this awesome details resource. I am building a ProMaster and will install a horizontal bed rail to the horizontal beam on each side of the van. Wanting to avoid squeaks as well. My thought was to use rivnuts and a strip of EZ-Cool between the van beam and 2×4″ bed rail as a thermal break and to help prevent squeaks. You see any issues with this plan?