Space is at a premium in a Eurovan Weekender. When you stop for the night, there is a lot of loading and unloading that happens. Right from the start we decided not to use the factory cooler. It’s located under the jump seat behind the driver. At first we used the space inside the cooler to store miscellaneous items. That proved to be problematic, because to access this area you had to raise the seat cushion and open the top of the cooler. That got me thinking about the possibility of replacing the entire cooler with something that would allow us to use it for storage more conveniently.
The first thing I found out was that the removal of the cooler was simple. In fact, it’s even documented in the VW owner’s manual (Section 3.1.1, page 91). All you had to do is unplug it (ours was already unplugged) and slide it out.
There was a surprising amount of space available without the cooler. The dimensions were 10 1/4″ H x 16 7/8″ W x x 17 1/2″ D. I started looking for some kind of storage box that I could put in there. What I wanted was something with an open top and a handle that would make it easy to slide in and out.
After much searching on the Internet, I found a tote box at Wayfair that was a good fit and was gray in color. It’s made by Rebrilliant and is a gray plastic storage tote. Here is a link to the Wayfair listing. The tote measures in at 8.5” H x 14.75” W x 20.75” D. That’s a bit deeper than needed, but it fits fine.
Here’s a shot of the tote with some of our junk in it.
One thing that I found out was that I had to add something to keep this tote in place while driving. Just starting from a stop would send it moving backwards in the cabin. I noticed that there was a metal brace left in place on the floor at the front of the opening. I looked around my shop and found a piece of aluminum in an L shape that was 1″ in width. I cut a piece off to fit under that brace and simply slid it in place. It’s a nice snug fit and serves perfectly as a stop for the tote when driving around.
The tote slides in place and is easily removed by lifting the front and sliding it back. Here’s a photo of the tote with the bracket keeping it secure.
