Another area of underutilized space in the Jeep is along the ceiling. It’s also a great spot to store frequently used things, since it’s accessible from the front seats, from the sleeping area, and from outside the rear doors. So we wanted to find an easy way to hang some things from the ceiling.
The Grate
Rather than trying to individually attach items to the ceiling, we decided to first attach a grate, to which we could then attach things in a bunch of different ways.
I bought a 24″ x 24″ expanded metal sheet to use as a grate, and two punched steel flat bars as side rails. First I put the flat bars running front to back, resting on the sound bar and rear crossbar. Using zip-ties, I attached the rear ends of the flat bars to the rear crossbar and the front ends to the holes in the sound bar that were intended for the hard top mounting knobs (I removed the knobs a long time ago, since I found that tightening them caused leaks between the hard top and the windshield header, leaving them loose would cause a rattle, and removing them entirely seems to cause no problems). Then I placed the metal sheet on top of the flat bars, and zip-tied it in place. The zip ties keep it really secure, but the metal-on-metal can rattle a little bit, so I added some felt pads in a few spots until it was quiet.
Hanging stuff from the ceiling
Once the grate was in place, we started hooking some things to it. There are a lot of options for connections. We generally use a combination of bungee cords and carabiners, plus zip-ties for semi-permanent stuff.
The list and layout is constantly evolving, but generally we hang:
- Our USB fans
- Paper towel
- Toilet paper
- A box of small trash bags
- A box of rubber gloves (for cooking or car maintenance)
- Headlamps
- Headphones
- Battery-powered light switches
- Water bottles at night
- Extra carabiners
It also creates a small shelf between the grate and the roof, where we store a few things like books, our powerbank, cellphones, etc.