Camping Fridge Slide

This Instructable will walk you through how I designed and made a fridge slide that mounts in the back of my vehicle for use when camping. More details in the project brief below.

When I go camping, I always need a way to keep food & drinks cold. Over the years, I've always made do with a standard cooler, but dealing with the ice can become a hassle. I recently upgraded to a camping fridge, which is a simple 12v powered fridge made to work in vehicles, RV's, etc. The first trip with it worked amazing, feels like a luxury, and eliminates the ice dilemma. However, it was a hassle to get items out of when in the back of my Land Cruiser. My solution: a simple slide that the fridge can sit on, that will allow the user to slide it out to the edge of the tailgate, making it much easier to grab items from.

These already exist on the market, however, most cost an arm and a leg (like $500+ for the nice ones) and I knew I could build it cheaper. Yes, you can build one of these for dirt cheap by getting some angle steel and drawer slides from Home Depot, but I wanted to laser cut this one and add some cool design features.

After taking some quick measurements of my fridge and cargo area, I jumped into Autodesk Fusion 360 to start designing the parts. The sheet metal workspace in Fusion is awesome to work with, I highly recommend it. After a couple of revisions and prototypes, it was ready to send off to the laser cutter. I used SendCutSend out of Nevada for previous sheet metal projects, and they did an amazing job cutting and bending these parts too.

I received the parts from SendCutSend just a few days after ordering, seriously cannot recommend them enough! A quick run to the hardware store to pick up some nuts & bolts and I was ready to assemble the slide.

After everything was assembled, I put my fridge on it, strapped it down, and tested it out. Works just as designed! All that's currently left is to bolt it down to the floor and reinstall the carpet. I do use my Land Cruiser pretty hard offroad, so I'm eager to see how it holds up over time. The thin aluminum was a great option to save on cost but may bend over time, considering the weight of the fridge fully packed and how I tend to use my truck.

Here is a short video of how it works. Very smooth and effortless to push/pull. Locks into place in both the open/closed position.

Overall, I'm really happy how this came out and how much money I was able to save over buying one currently on the market. After some use, I'd like to laser cut a second version that improves upon the current design and explore some other material choices. Thanks for checking out my Instructable!