Making a shelf for the back of a 2015 van

[Benny Blanco]

Hi

Does anyone have any experience of making a shelf in the back of their Berlingo van? I need one the whole width of the van to go from the back doors just above the plastic trim (about mid height) through to just before the side door opening, it's for boxes of sweets for my business so does not need to support a huge amount of weight. I have made one previously out of plywood and secured it on the ply paneling on the inside but with speed bumps, braking etc it keeps coming loose so I need to secure it to the steel subframe and wondered if anyone has done anything like this and the best place to secure it to?

[brodfather11]

You could use the tie down mountings. , there should be 4 and are used for tying down loads.
They will be strong enough for what you want as they bolt into the floor at/near the chassis rail underneath
Change the bolts, discard the wire bit and use for whatever bolts you need to bolt down your shelve unit

[Sol]

Take two lengths of timber, the length of the side of the van where you want the sides of the shelf to be, use something like 20mm thick by 50mm deep, then centre and screw that to the strengthening rail using self-drilling screws (35mm long x m4 or whatever, then sit the ply shelf on top of them, and glue / screw it to the top of them, nothing will move, use Gorilla wood glue and a few wood screws, it will stay put. You can even glue & screw a piece along the upper rear edge of the ply, to stop the sweets sliding off when you brake in traffic.

[jemselectrical]

Hi

Does anyone have any experience of making a shelf in the back of their Berlingo van? I need one the whole width of the van to go from the back doors just above the plastic trim (about mid height) through to just before the side door opening, it's for boxes of sweets for my business so does not need to support a huge amount of weight. I have made one previously out of plywood and secured it on the ply paneling on the inside but with speed bumps, braking etc it keeps coming loose so I need to secure it to the steel subframe and wondered if anyone has done anything like this and the best place to secure it to?

Yup    

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[jemselectrical]

My base ply            

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[Benny Blanco]

I should probably have mentioned I ideally need the shelf to be removable so I have the option of putting larger items in the load space, I would prefer to use just screws so I can do this if necessary.

Take two lengths of timber, the length of the side of the van where you want the sides of the shelf to be, use something like 20mm thick by 50mm deep, then centre and screw that to the strengthening rail using self-drilling screws (35mm long x m4 or whatever, then sit the ply shelf on top of them, and glue / screw it to the top of them, nothing will move, use Gorilla wood glue and a few wood screws, it will stay put. You can even glue & screw a piece along the upper rear edge of the ply, to stop the sweets sliding off when you brake in traffic.

Which part is the strengthening rail, can someone show me via a photo? Ideally I will screw into this as mentioned by Sol here, just need to be sure I'm not screwing into anything that will pierce the external skin of the van.

[Benny Blanco]

I should probably have mentioned I ideally need the shelf to be removable so I have the option of putting larger items in the load space, I would prefer to use just screws so I can do this if necessary.

Take two lengths of timber, the length of the side of the van where you want the sides of the shelf to be, use something like 20mm thick by 50mm deep, then centre and screw that to the strengthening rail using self-drilling screws (35mm long x m4 or whatever, then sit the ply shelf on top of them, and glue / screw it to the top of them, nothing will move, use Gorilla wood glue and a few wood screws, it will stay put. You can even glue & screw a piece along the upper rear edge of the ply, to stop the sweets sliding off when you brake in traffic.

Which part is the strengthening rail, can someone show me via a photo? Ideally I will screw into this as mentioned by Sol here.

[Sol]

I should probably have mentioned I ideally need the shelf to be removable so I have the option of putting larger items in the load space, I would prefer to use just screws so I can do this if necessary.

Take two lengths of timber, the length of the side of the van where you want the sides of the shelf to be, use something like 20mm thick by 50mm deep, then centre and screw that to the strengthening rail using self-drilling screws (35mm long x m4 or whatever, then sit the ply shelf on top of them, and glue / screw it to the top of them, nothing will move, use Gorilla wood glue and a few wood screws, it will stay put. You can even glue & screw a piece along the upper rear edge of the ply, to stop the sweets sliding off when you brake in traffic.

Which part is the strengthening rail, can someone show me via a photo? Ideally I will screw into this as mentioned by Sol here.

Behind here as in this picture from @jemselectrical's photos - where I drew the green oblong. You will have to take off a bit of trim but there is a flat strengthening rail behind this. It's what the trim clips push into.

Or stick a sheet of ply using velcro, to the tops of the side trims? Better Idea...spans the rear and is easy to remove too.