Manual Bed Lift

I'm in the process of trying out some different designs for my Sprinter. Storing the bed on the ceiling while not in use clears up a lot of space. I've only came across the electric bed lifts (happijac).. has anyone seen a manual version of these? I was thinking along the lines of a pulley or murphy-esque type system.
 

JJolls

'14 170 4cyl Crew
Recycled:

There are a few threads here on the forum... do a search for "bed hoist". This may give you some ideas about what you could do!
 

bstory

New member
We haven't installed ours yet, so we can't be sure this will work the way we intend, but our thought was if you keep the weight of what you are lifting down, using a light-weight frame and slats (we use Ikea slats), and a foam mattress, no plywood, the whole thing is light enough we plan to lift it with small pulleys on the 4 corners attached to the ceiling and rope. We will have nylon cleats to tie off the rope - marine hardware - on the bed supports below.

Once it is up, we will have some sort of a swiveling wooden cleat to keep it from swinging back and forth when we are driving. We have determined that the bed will clear the reading lights when we hoist it. We would have one person at each end with 2 lines each, so the height and clearances can be watched.

You might wonder if it so simple why we haven't done it yet... we have had our van since 2009?

The answer is that so far, we haven't run into the multi-day bad weather stretch that would make us feel like we wanted to sit in the van, rather than outside. Plus, we have enough stuff stored under the bed when camping that we would have to move outside, we just have been too lazy to do it. But we have the hardware and line and will probably get around to it at some point. I need to find ways to put everything under the bed neatly in storage containers that will slide under the van when the sitting area under the bed is needed.
 

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d_bertko

Active member
I'm too tall to allow for ceiling bed storage.

But also thought space was wasted because you can't otherwise use the large volume of space that the bed has to sweep through being lowered.

Here's our alternate solution:

My bed panels are lengthwise instead of the usual crosswise. The 2" of firm seat foam works great for sitting and the sections stack or otherwise store.

Sleeping requires more cushioning and my wife sewed up a duvet bedroll. It unifies the underlying panels with 2" of quality memory foam for an excellent bed. The bedroll will store in my overhead racks but often is used as a daytime backrest.

The panels arrange as shelves, benches, daybed, staggered twins, and full or queen bed choices.

No tools needed and all the pieces are easy for one person to transfer in or out of the van.

Dan
 

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BC61

Member
thought space was wasted because you can't otherwise use the large volume of space that the bed has to sweep through being lowered.
What is seen as wasted space to one is valuable to another. I'm working on a lifted bed to fit motorcycles under. It has to be almost to the roof to load bikes with fairings, can be lowered to use it with bikes stowed and further lowered to a more reasonable height when empty.
 

zeidwh

Member
Here's another alternative to consider. This is an older "work in process" photo of one of my beds that flip up and out of the way. I made a second bed as well so that they can be joined together. I use my van for a lot of things so getting the beds out of the way was also important to me.
 

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