replace garage benches with bed

I was wondering if anyone had removed the toy hauler garage benches and replaced it with a king bed? We live 6 months during the summer in our cyclone 5th wheel toy hauler and sleep in the garage part because I like having all the windows open and party pad out even at night. We boondock in the mountains while my husband works in a near by town. Right now we have a queen mattress on the benches, but I'd like to take them out and put a king size bed. We still use the garage for our toys as well. We never use the benches other then use for sleeping. Just wondering how hard it would be thanks.

Chickabee68 said:

I was wondering if anyone had removed the toy hauler garage benches and replaced it with a king bed? We live 6 months during the summer in our cyclone 5th wheel toy hauler and sleep in the garage part because I like having all the windows open and party pad out even at night. We boondock in the mountains while my husband works in a near by town. Right now we have a queen mattress on the benches, but I'd like to take them out and put a king size bed. We still use the garage for our toys as well. We never use the benches other then use for sleeping. Just wondering how hard it would be thanks.

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I don’t totally understand what your trying to accomplish. You said that you have a queen mattress. Are you referring to the upper bunk above the seating or have you laid another mattress in the space between the bunks. I believe it would be very difficult to put a king mattress where a queen is. They are considerably wider and would have no support for that extra 16 or so inches.

And judging by the response, it might mean that no one else has done this either.

We like to keep our rear door down also using the 4 season door to hold in the ac. When we have someone that needs to use that bunk, we lower and raise the top bunk and although we don’t use the seating, it stays in tack and is there as Heartland designed it.

i will say that some people have removed the seating and made more space for an office, etc.

Let us us know what you do. Maybe others can learn.

Chickabee68 said:

I was wondering if anyone had removed the toy hauler garage benches and replaced it with a king bed? We live 6 months during the summer in our cyclone 5th wheel toy hauler and sleep in the garage part because I like having all the windows open and party pad out even at night. We boondock in the mountains while my husband works in a near by town. Right now we have a queen mattress on the benches, but I'd like to take them out and put a king size bed. We still use the garage for our toys as well. We never use the benches other then use for sleeping. Just wondering how hard it would be thanks.

Click to expand...

You need to be aware of the weight issue. Several questions come to mind for this conversion:
How are you going to support the big mattress?
If adding plywood (or such material) will you trade off the weight of the plywood for thinner mattress to maintain current weight so not to max out the unit?
How much do the current benches weigh?
How much would the set up you want weigh?
Seeing these are support by a chain drive assembly, will the chain drive support the raising/lowering of the new conversion?
Will the chain drive hold it in place once raised for travel?
Have you considered how you will support the bed in the down position, add extra supports under the bed frame or what kind of set up?
In the travel position how will you support the extra weight taking some stress off the chains?
Once in the travel position will there be enough clearance for your toy to be loaded because the extra thick king mattress may cut down on the distance from the floor to the bottom of the assembly, will it interfere with the toy?

I think there was somebody who did this conversion, but stayed with a queen size due to the weight issues encountered.

david-steph2018 said:

You need to be aware of the weight issue. Several questions come to mind for this conversion:
How are you going to support the big mattress?
If adding plywood (or such material) will you trade off the weight of the plywood for thinner mattress to maintain current weight so not to max out the unit?
How much do the current benches weigh?
How much would the set up you want weigh?
Seeing these are support by a chain drive assembly, will the chain drive support the raising/lowering of the new conversion?
Will the chain drive hold it in place once raised for travel?
Have you considered how you will support the bed in the down position, add extra supports under the bed frame or what kind of set up?
In the travel position how will you support the extra weight taking some stress off the chains?
Once in the travel position will there be enough clearance for your toy to be loaded because the extra thick king mattress may cut down on the distance from the floor to the bottom of the assembly, will it interfere with the toy?

I think there was somebody who did this conversion, but stayed with a queen size due to the weight issues encountered.

Click to expand...

Right now we have a regular queen mattress on top of the benches that we sleep on. The chain drive supports it well in up position now. When we take the 4wheeler it still fits ok with no problems.
My husband takes up most of the bed and I sleep on the back side so he doesn't have to crawl over me when he gets out of bed to go to work in the mornings. But with him taking over the bed I am pushing on the screen doors. I was just thinking if we remove the benches and add plywood and put a regular king mattress in with our heads towards the back of the garage with some kinda head board to prevent the pillows from pushing the screens out would work and be about the same weight?? Idk even if that would work. Im just brainstorming lol..
I was thinking adding the same kind of support the benches have that will hinge down and support it. We do not use the top bunk except for extra blankets storage so when the grandbabies come up we have enough and thought of even removing it. No one sleeps on it, since we sleep on the lower one, we lower it only to get the blankets off. We could store the blankets on the other bed . The master bedroom up front we use as a guest bedroom for it is too hot for me to sleep up there. Thank you. You have given me some things to think about.

Try to look at this link:
Upgraded lower bunk! (heartlandowners.org)
If you go to the search bar up on top and enter modifications to cyclone or road warrior this and several others come up.

@chickabee68

We have a 2021 4006 unit second thing we did was yank the fold up bench configuration and put in a second queen bunk. The HapiJac system can be configured very easily for a second bunk. Trying to get Heartland to do this conversion was impossible so I had to take matters into my own hands and call around to see what parts I needed to get direct from HapiJac. I went simple on the bunk frame and used 2x4 + ply decking. It works perfect for our needs. At some point I may move to square tube steel or something but not interested at the moment. We used IKEA mattress material to configure the actual bedding, we did that for the top queen as well.

There are a few different track systems on the HapiJac so you need to know which one you have before you get parts. If you need further details just shout.
(apologies pic is sideways .. but you get the idea)

akfoote said:

@chickabee68

We have a 2021 4006 unit second thing we did was yank the fold up bench configuration and put in a second queen bunk. The HapiJac system can be configured very easily for a second bunk. Trying to get Heartland to do this conversion was impossible so I had to take matters into my own hands and call around to see what parts I needed to get direct from HapiJac. I went simple on the bunk frame and used 2x4 + ply decking. It works perfect for our needs. At some point I may move to square tube steel or something but not interested at the moment. We used IKEA mattress material to configure the actual bedding, we did that for the top queen as well.

There are a few different track systems on the HapiJac so you need to know which one you have before you get parts. If you need further details just shout.
(apologies pic is sideways .. but you get the idea)


View attachment 65155

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I am wanting to do the same thing. Can you send me some photos of the platform you made? Did you attach it to the brackets that had the sofas on them?