If you’re like me, you want/need as much space as possible for all your camping gear, therefore taking out the rear seats only makes sense. A false floor to covers the foot well giving you a nice flat rear cargo space for all your gear and also it makes a handy storage area under it for your spare parts, recovery gear, safety equipment, water bladder; what ever you deem necessary. As always with any modifications you do, check with your local transport department/authority for the legals. I have heard that changing the seating capacity from 4 seats to a 2 seater may require some sort of check if you it’s permanent but if it’s only for a short period of time for camping, moving,…whatever then you should OK.

Taking out the seats is easy (In a MU it’s easy), just fold the seats up and find the bolts that secures it to the body. Undo the bolts and take the seats out, I would replace the bolts back into the hole now so you don’t loose or misplace them. Remove the seat belt clips, again place bolt into original hole and the same goes for the seats securing hook.

First you need to find a hinge which you will fit the hole/s where the seats used to bolt down into the body on each side near the wheel arches. The hinge should allow you to bolt it into the car and into the board thus allowing you to lift it up, down and lie flat without any bolts getting in the way of teh hinge mechanism.

THE HINGE


Now you need to get a big piece of plywood (I’d use marine ply) or MDF (medium density fibro board), this should not cost too much, $20-40max. Cut the board so that it fits over the foot well and back towards the hinge. Double check the lengths of the board by extending the front seats as far as you want/need them to go. If you don’t do this, you not have enough foot room.

THE BOARD


Now you’ll need to support the board ends which are now free floating in the foot well. To do this, I cut 2 bits of the timber roughly 12cm long by 4cm squared. I drilled down the middle so that a long bolt can be place through it and secures the board into a nut which you will need to do next.
The nuts need to be welded into the footwell, I would use stainless steel nuts for this. These nuts must fit the long bolts in the timber blocks and you will need to cut out hole in the carpet for the nut and bolt connection. The placement of the nuts is up to you, I placed mine behind the front seats in the center of each seat. This allows me to grab stuff from the footwell without the timber blocks getting the way, but if you prefer a different placement then feel free to do it, just make sure that where ever you place them it should support the board with your body weight on it. Once the nut has been welded into place, align the timber blocks over it and mark where to drill a bolt hole into the board.
For a nicer/clearer fitment over the welded nut, I rounded out around the holes of one end of the timber blocks. This allows the nut to slip in flush with the floor as the welded nut does protrude upward from the chassis through the carpet. If all is lined up properly you will be able to place 2 long bolts through the board, into the timber blocks, pass the carpet and into the welded nuts. Choose your blot length wisely as you don’t want it too long.

THE TIMBER BLOCKS


I also bolted 2 larger U bolts on each side for tie off points for my fridge.
The only negative, if its even one at all, is that you can’t fully open/flip the false floor as the board hits the roof,…no lost in my mind.

THE END RESULT