Drifta Rear Drawers Review 76 Series Toyota Land Cruiser
Drifta 4WD Rear Drawer Setup 76 Series Toyota Land Cruiser
In this post we review our Drifta 4WD rear drawer setup in our 76 Series Toyota Land Cruiser after more than 18 months of use. We have done a detailed post over 12 months ago when we fitted our Drifta 4WD drawers to our 76 Land Cruiser if you would like to read it here.
Why We Chose Drifta Drawers
In our previous 4WD we had a drawer setup from Drifta 4WD and over the years we were extremely happy with how the setup worked. As a result, we stuck with the same setup in our 76 Series Toyota Land Cruiser. Drifta have been making drawer setups for 4WDs for well over a decade now and have come up with a decent finished product. Drifta do not use drawer runners but instead Teflon which has the added benefits of more storage space and less weight but there are a few disadvantages which we will discuss later in this post. Each one of their drawer setups is fully customisable to suit your individual 4WD setup and gear which is an added benefit. At the time of deciding on what drawer setup to go with we already used a Drifta car back kitchen and having the Drifta drawer setup allowed us to continue to use this as we could replace one of the drawers with this kitchen setup. At the time this was a big factor in our decision process, but we have not really used this kitchen setup for some time now, so it did not really matter in the long run. You can read about the Drifta car back kitchen that we used to use in our post here.
Customisable for Your Setup & Gear
One of the big benefits of the Drifta rear drawer setups is that they are completely customisable for your individual 4WD setup as well as the gear you are using. This is not something new that Drifta is doing as there are many other companies out there providing customisable rear drawer setups, however they do come with a decent price tag attached to them. The Drifta drawer setup for the 76 Series Toyota Land Cruiser starts at $1,625 for a base two drawer side by side setup with slide out table and side wings. Any customisation or additional options from the base setup increases in cost. Additional extras include different fridge slides, battery recess, drawer inserts, side wing in fills, aluminium protection strips and so on. For a complete drawer setup with fridge slide you will be looking at more than $2,000 depending on the options and configuration you choose.
The base two drawer side by side setup was not a good option for us for several reasons. Firstly, this layout would mean we would either have a normal fridge slide sitting on top of one of the drawers making it extremely difficult to see or get anything out of our fridge. There is an option to add a drop-down fridge slide which is not something we would ever choose to use due to the weight of these and the hefty price tag that they come with. The side-by-side drawer option is a great option if you do not have a fridge in the back (which seems highly unlikely) or require the extra storage space. We could see the benefit of the extra storage space for day-to-day use if you removed your fridge, but for us this was not ever a requirement.
As a result, we chose to go with our drawers sitting on top of each other with our fridge beside the drawers. This does result in extra plywood required due to the additional size of the drawer setup, but it does provide us with a more user-friendly setup. With 33-inch tyres and a legal 2-inch lift, we are still able to easily access our fridge and can see everything inside of it.
Pull Out Table
By far the best feature of the Drifta drawer setups is the pull-out table. Ask anyone with a Drifta drawer setup in their 4WD and they will all confirm this, we guarantee you. The reason why this is the best feature is how versatile the table is when out and about exploring. You have the option to partially slide the table out and use it as a platform while it is still in your 4WD. If you then want an actual table, you pull it out completely, fold the legs out and set it up where you need it.
We constantly use the pull-out table as a platform for many different uses. If we need to quickly make lunch, coffee, or a cup of tea, we partially slide out the table and sit whatever we need on top of the platform. We still have easy access to our fridge and the bottom drawer. This is probably how we use the table most frequently compared to a normal table.
As a table though it is fantastic as each one of the legs is adjustable. This is a huge benefit as it allows you to set the table up at different heights for whatever you are using it for. If we are touring without our trailer, we use the table for our kitchen at the back of our 76 Series Land Cruiser. When using it as our kitchen we set the legs as high as possible and this makes the table a great work bench for food preparation and cooking. When we are touring with our trailer then we use the table at a much lower height between our two chairs for our drinks and other gear. The adjustable legs are also great if the ground is not level, you can simply adjust one or two legs and your table will be level and stable.
No Drawer Slides
Drifta does not use drawer slides but instead Teflon strips underneath the drawers, this is the signature feature of Drifta drawers compared to any other. There are benefits to using Teflon compared to drawer slides, but we have found over time that there are a few disadvantages.
Benefits of No Drawer Slides
The two main benefits of not using drawer slides would be the additional storage space and weight reduction (but this might not be as big a benefit as you think).
Having no drawer slides provides additional storage space as you do not need to make the drawers narrower to fit the drawer slide runners. This is one of the main benefits that Drifta will talk about however in our opinion, drawer slide runners are not actually that wide and the amount of storage space lost is minimal. There are also many clever storage ideas that other 4WD Adventurers have come up with using the space above drawer runners. This includes storing chopping boards and other narrow bits of gear that do not get in the way.
The other main benefit that Drifta advertise in their videos is the reduction in weight without using drawer slides. Here there is a benefit for sure, but it will really depend on the type of runners being used and the size of the drawer. If you had an extremely long drawer running the length of a ute tray you would need heavy duty drawer slides to hold that weight. So, in that setup there could be a decent weight saving. But you also need to remember that as the Drifta drawers do not use runners their drawers are slightly bigger and as a result will have more plywood which will offset some of this weight saving. On top of this Drifta install stainless steel sprung loaded stoppers on the backs of the drawers so that they do not fully extend and fall out. These stoppers are not heavy but also add a small amount of weight. So, to be perfectly honest we do not think the weight saving is that much of a benefit as it is more than likely minimal.
Disadvantages of No Drawer Slides
From what we have found with our Drifta drawer setup in our 76 Series Toyota Land Cruiser there are a few disadvantages of not having drawer slides. These disadvantages are movement in the drawers causing annoying noises and no full extension of the drawers.
The biggest annoyance we have found with our Drifta drawers is from the noise because of banging and rattling when driving over any sort of bump. The reason this occurs is because there are no drawer runners there is a few millimetres of space on the sides and above the drawers to allow you to easily open and close them. As there are no drawer slides securing the drawers, when driving over bumps or corrugations, the drawers will move from side to side or jump up and down causing the noise. This is far more noticeable when the drawers are not fully loaded. We know that drawer slides can also rattle but be aware that this will be something that will annoy you on your drive.
Another disadvantage of not using drawer runners is that you do not get full extension when opening the drawers. This is because they need a sprung loaded stopper to be fitted to the rear of the drawers to stop them falling out when being opened. This results in the drawers not fully opening leaving about 200mm to 300mm of the drawer not open. We have since made some adjustments to allow us to open the drawers slightly further, but it can be a hassle when trying to get gear stored at the back of your drawers. Having drawer slides allows you to fully extend your drawers (that is if they are good runners) as the runners hold the drawers in place. Fully extended drawers provide you easy access to all your gear no matter where it is stored in the drawers.
Carpet Pros & Cons
Drifta line the internal and external sections of their drawers with a nice charcoal carpet. There are some pros and cons to the carpet they use as well as carpet in general.
Let us begin with the carpet used by Drifta in our drawer setup for the 76 Series Toyota Land Cruiser (this will be the same for any Drifta drawers no matter the 4WD). Overall, the carpet looks good and, in most instances, has been fitted to the drawers reasonably well. There are some sections where the adhesive has not been applied correctly and the carpet has started to come away from the plywood. The carpet used is extremely thin which has its benefits but also disadvantages. The benefits are of course the weight saving gained from using lightweight material. The disadvantages occur in areas where heavier gear might be stored and any movement from corrugations or bumpy roads can lead to wear and tear quite easily. For example, the top of the drawers where we can store boxes, crates, or bags, should have a sturdier material to reduce wear and tear. We have found a couple of areas where the carpet has been worn through with some damage to the plywood. As a result, we now have a thicker marine carpet section that we lay on top of the drawers if storing lots of gear in this area to eliminate any damage. Just be aware of this as you might want to do something similar if you have the same type of drawer setup.
The other disadvantage of carpet in general is that it can make cleaning a bit more difficult. For basic dirt and dust this is not a big issue as a simple vacuum will keep them nice and clean. It is more of an issue when there are liquid spills as these can be far more difficult to clean with carpet. For us this is not a massive problem, but it can be for some people.
Battery Recess
With the Drifta drawer setups they do not come standard with a battery recess or compartment for you to store a second battery. You need to ensure that you request a batter recess if this is something that you need for your second battery setup. Remember that it does come at an extra cost.
In our Drifta drawer setup we requested a battery recess behind the fridge compartment as there would be sufficient space allowing us to keep our drawers as deep as possible. The battery recess is basically a section where you can mount a battery, there is no mounting points or anything else for your 12V setup. You will need to make your own tie downs and mounts for your battery. As the drawers are made from plywood it is easy to drill holes or screws anywhere so making something is not too difficult. We suppose they do this as everyone has a very different 12V setup so you need to work out how you will secure your battery and other 12V gear.
We simply used some timber, two tie downs and a strap to keep our battery nice and secure. There was enough space beside the battery to mount our Redarc DCDC in-vehicle charger, fuse box and earth block. Although it is a bit tight in this area so access to everything is not as good as we would like it. However, it all works, and we can access our fuses easily enough when we need to. As space in this area was limited, we did end up making another section that we mounted above the battery recess to allow us to fit additional earth terminals, battery isolator switch, compressor fuses, anderson output for the fridge, as well as act as a cable manager. If we knew this would be an issue, we could have asked Drifta to make something similar when they made the drawers, however it was a pretty simple process and it works for exactly what we need.
Side Wings Work a Treat
The side wings that come with the Drifta drawer setups are simple but good. The side wings for our 76 Series Toyota Land Cruiser follow the contours of the vehicle and therefore fit nice and snug. They are supported in place by a simple but neat combination of simple and light shelf brackets and plywood slide inserts. As a result, the bracket supports are easily removed if you ever want to remove your side wings. The plywood slide inserts are screwed into the sides of the drawers so you can easily modify the height of the side wings depending on what you would like to store underneath them. With that in mind, there is plenty of storage space under these side wings for different types of gear. We have our ARB Twin On-Board Compressor fitted under one side wing and all our electrical wiring under the other.
We believe the side wings come standard with most Drifta drawer setups, but the front infills are an additional extra. The front infills are a must addition to these drawers and we would highly recommend that you request these if you chose these drawers for your 4WD. The infills finish the drawers off nicely giving them a real neat and tidy look. These infills are also great to use as mounting points for electrical outputs, switches and even compressor couplings. We have used the one infill for all our rear 12V electrical outputs and switches which are all easily accessible. The other infill in front of our compressor has our compressor output where can easily connect our compressor hose when we need to use it.
Drawers Are Heavy
The Drifta drawer setups are made entirely out of plywood. The majority is 12mm ply with the top section being 15mm ply. There are pros and cons to using plywood which we will discuss in more detail below.
Plywood is cheap and strong making it one of the commonly used materials in 4WD drawer setups. The problem with plywood when used as the predominant material in a drawer setup is its weight; durable but heavy. Our Drifta drawer setup (excluding the DIY modifications that we added to them) weighs in at 65 kgs when empty. This would be similar for any other drawer setup that is made from plywood. There is no getting away from the additional weight that will be taken off your payload with any type of drawer setup. It is just a matter of how much weight. Here we think Drifta, if they had the right machinery, could have been a lot smarter in their manufacturing process and shaved off at least 10kgs maybe even more. The reason we say this is that there is a lot of plywood used in these drawers and there are many areas where there does not need to be that much wood used. For example, the drawers themselves are pretty much the exact the dimension of the internal area they slide into. Here Drifta could have made the sides of the drawers far shorter and used a lot less material. This would not have any negative effects on the strength of the drawer. There are sections on the bottom of the drawer frame where there are two section of ply on top of each other which we believe is to follow the shape of the 76 Series floor. Again, this could have been solved differently rather than just sticking another big piece of 12mm ply underneath to level the drawers out. One other way that Drifta could have removed some of the material used in the drawers is by cutting out sections of the plywood where it would not affect the strength of them. These few small changes would have a big impact on reducing the overall weight of their drawers.
The problem we see is that at the time when we purchased our drawers Drifta was making them all by hand using templates and simple machinery. They might have since upgraded their machinery, but we are not 100% sure here. If they were using a CNC machine to cut their drawers then they would be able to a lot smarter in their production process. They would be able to easily cut out small sections of the ply where there is minimal load or strength required and potentially remove 20-30% of the material used in their drawers.
Drawer Weights Not Advertised
This is one of our biggest issues with the 4WD industry in general, companies not listing the weights of their products on their websites or making it difficult to find out these weights. You can see what we mean by simply checking out the Drifta website and finding their listed drawer setup for your 4WD, there will not be a weight listed (well there was not any at the time we wrote this post). We understand that these drawers are customisable so not all setups will be the same, however there could still be a weight listed for the base setup advertised with some information on what different setups have weighed in at.
With a lot of 4WDs being over GVM, companies in the 4WD industry need to play their part and make weight information far more easily accessible so that when people are planning their 4WD builds, they can make far more accurate calculations rather than a bit of a guessing game. We are by no means pointing the finger at Drifta at being the problem, this is a problem across the industry. Companies know what their products weigh as they need to ship them. We usually find that the only companies and products that have weights advertised are the ones that know their products are lightweight and as a result want people to know this. We believe that businesses should be far more transparent here and if they are embarrassed by that number then maybe it is a good idea to have a look at your products and see if there are any possible improvements that could be made. Again, we all know that some gear is just heavy, and it must be, but still advertise your product weights as this allows us to work out the optimal spring rate for suspension setups, ensuring where are within our payload, and whether we need a GVM upgrade.
Long Wait Times
One last point to add is that you will experience fairly long wait times as these drawers are all made to order. Usual weight times in the past are around 3 months but you can pay a premium to move up the queue and have them done in a month. We understand that these are all made to order so there will of course be some sort of a wait. Just be aware of this as it means you need to start planning and getting your order in way before you need them. We ordered our drawers before we even picked up our 76 Series Land Cruiser so that we did not have to wait too long before we could install them.
Overall Good Drawer Setup
Although we have pointed out several negatives to our Drifta drawer setup in our 76 Series Toyota Land Cruiser overall, we are happy with them. They are well made (a few issues in places as they are made by hand), look great, are completely customisable to your setup and gear, easy to install, made in Australia, integrated table with multiple uses, and add loads of storage usable storage space. Drifta have been making drawers for 4WDs for an extremely long time now and they continue to grow so you know they are a good quality setup, or they would not still be churning them out across Australia. We do believe though that they could make some minor improvements to how these drawers are made to reduce their overall weight as they are heavy. The advertised benefit of not having drawer runners we believe is overhyped and is not as much of a benefit as advertised as we discussed above. They can be rather noisy, but we do know this is an issue for most drawer setups and is quite difficult to get around.
Overall if you do decide to go with a Drifta drawer setup in your 4WD you will be disappointed. They are extremely functional and have some great features. The one bit of advice we will give here is do not rush this process, ensure you know exactly what you want, and have it all laid out before you make that final order. We would also recommend trying to get confirmation of the final weight of the drawers so that you are certain you have done your payload and GVM calculations correctly. In hindsight if we had to do it again and had more time on our hands, we would have made our custom rear drawers using a mix of plywood, aluminium, and other lightweight materials. We know weight savings would be achieved as we know someone who has copied our drawer layout (exact same dimensions) and used a mix of plywood, aluminium, other lightweight material, plus used drawer slides, and their drawers weigh 15kgs less than ours. This would not be an option for a lot of people but if you have the contacts and ability this is always a good option.
If you would like to read our post on how we installed our Drifta rear drawers in our 76 Series Toyota Land Cruiser you can see it here. For more information on the 76 Series Land Cruiser drawer packages on Drifta’s website you can see them here. For the exact setup we chose to go with you can see it here on the Drifta website.
Thanks for reading our review on our Drifta rear drawers in our 76 Series Toyota Land Cruiser. If you would like to keep up to date on future posts and become apart of the 4WD Adventure community please join here. You can also follow us on social media for more regular updates.
THIS IS NOT A SPONSORED POST, WE PAID FOR THIS GEAR AND IS OUR HONEST REVIEW.
The Thoughts of Peter.
