Need ideas for truck bed camping with spare tire under platform

I've got a long bed 14 short cab tacoma. I'm looking at ideas for a bed system for my truck. I have a canopy on there currently. My issue is how to store my hilift jack, spare tire. I have larger than normal tires and do not have a swing out carrier so my spare lives in the bed of my truck.

I was thinking of building 2 cabinets on either side that go up about 3/4 of the height available inside the canopy(leer, no side windows). Then adding rails on the cabinets to support a platform for my bed. Ideally I'd like to have one side be cubbys for clothing storage and the other side be for food and cooking supplies as well as pop up canopy storage.

This is mainly gonna be used for summers at venues where I work most of the summer, think mid may to October.
Just not sure how to build my cubbys for storage and use of a small ecoflex battery system with solar charging. Any and all tips are appreciated.

I'm thinking 1/2" ply for the cubbys with 2x3 for rigidity, 2x3 for the rails for platform and 3/4"ply for the bed itself. Whats got me a bit confused is what the offset should be to fit a cooler that doubles as my fridge should be and how access to spare will be. This does not need to come out as I likely will be going from Washington in the summer to Nevada in the winters for work.

 

The rest is up to you and a blank canvas.

sleeping on my truck bed my Hi Lift 60 was mounted on the side where my feet would kick it.

larger spare tire was squished under the bed.

Ended up moving things like that outside of the bed (hi lift) to make room. Plan is eventually swingout spare tire carrier.

short bed is tight on room. I slept on a platform with “drawer” totes underneath, and aux battery in the backseat area locked to the floor.
Sleeping diagonally to turn the 5’ length into 6’. I’m not sure if there would be room to put vertical cabinets because of that. Or how accessible they would even be.

same thing for a fridge, had that on the back seat.

 

I've got the last year of the short cab with the long 6ft bed. I'm only 5ft9" and about 150lbs. Just need a space big enough for me comfortably and my 2 10lb poodle crosses(shih tzu/ poodle and cocker spanial poodle mix. My main issue is that the spare tire is almost a foot tall. I was thinking of storing it under the bed and use as much height over the wheel wells for stroing clothes, basically just lots of black clothes as it's a work requirement.

 

why not put in factory spare tire location?

supposedly can fit up to 35” with massaging.

 

I was told it wouldn't fit but I'll have to check if it works. Mines the equivalent to 33 almost. If that works I may get more storage as that's my main concern. I'd be living out of my truck for likely 8 months a year so looking to make it almost like japanese style pod room with cooking too

 

A 33 will absolutely fit under the bed. Just hammer the tabs up.

 

Which tabs are we talking about?? If I can do that I just totally changed my plan for the bed of my truck

 

There should be two tabs that stick down out of the X-shaped crossmember that the OEM spare tire carrier is attached to. If you don't bend them up into the crossmember, they'll block a 33 from being pulled all the way up. As far as I know, their only real purpose is to keep stock-sized spares centered while you're pulling them up.

 

Couldn't find these photos from a few years ago when I was writing the earlier posts. First photo shows the tabs that I hammered up, and the second shows the clearance to the diff for a 255/80R17 Cooper with the wheels jacked up. You can't really relocated the cable hoist on my 2011 very easily, but IIRC, the more typical chain hoist can be shifted back a bit to gain more clearance.