Attaching a cabinet to an Eagle shell

[journeygirl]

Hi all,

I just bought a new eagle shell (on the last day they made 'em) for my 2004 Tacoma. I'm loving this camper and have already had some great adventures in it. I have solar, a furnace and stove, a roll over couch, and a soon to come thermal pack (no water system and no cabinets). I'll post a few pictures of recent trips after this post!

I've decided I'd like to build a small cabinet with a cutting board surface on top to attach next to the stove/furnace unit. My question is what is the best way to attach this cabinet? I'm thinking of putting two pieces of wood against the back wall and then securing the cabinet to those. But those strips need to be attached to something secure. How do I find the studs behind that wall? And since the studs are aluminum (right?), what is the best way to screw into those once I find them? And I'm thinking the cabinet needs to be overhung at the bottom so that the little hatch to access the electric wiring is still accessible.

Sorry if these are dumb questions but I'm a beginning builder and want to get this right.

Also, if anyone else built a similar thing in an Eagle shell, could you send some pictures of what you built?

Thanks everyone! This site is full of helpful, kind folks, and I appreciate all I'm learning!

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

I think your best bet would be to give FWC a call or email and get measurements of frame placement from them. You'll also want to ask about wiring location so you don't run a drill bit through the wires.

 

[Vic Harder]

I just took mine apart on that side, 2005 Hawk Shell. Cabinets were screwed down into the plywood over the wheel wells in three places, and three places at the top.

Here is a pic of my drivers side wall

 

[TwoPlusLu]

I'm not sure if this will help you at all since we put our cabinet in a different location in our Eagle shell (we have the sofa on the driver's side) but here's a blog post of how we chose to install our cabinet - we too were afraid installing via the wall wasn't going to be strong enough, so we went form the ground up.

http://twopluslu.blogspot.com/2016/06/camper-modifications-part-one-kitchen.html

 

[journeygirl]

Thank you for these ideas! Twoplusblu, that is a great idea for installing the cabinet from the bottom up without blocking the storage area. Thanks!

 

[RC Pilot Jim]

Wandering Sagebush has a good idea.- contact FWC.
There was once two separate frames - one for shells and one for the regular camper. I believe they switched to one frame after 2012. Not sure though. When I installed our sink I was unable to get the dimensions from them so I took an educated guess...and just caught the edge of the aluminum stud.

 

[BILL98388]

I found that if I removed several screws at the top of the side paneling that I could pull the panel away from the frame and look down to see where the aluminum studs were located. I believe that this is documented elsewhere in this forum but it was easier to write it down than search...;-)

Bill

 

[BillTheHiker]

Are you guys using pop rivets or machine screws, and what size, into the aluminum stud?

 

[Vic Harder]

3/4" #10 metal screws. 1/2" is often long enough, and #8 is beefy enough for holding the paneling on