When I go on trips out to my cabin I always haul a lot of cargo. My dogs go in the back seat so I need to maximize the cargo carrying capacity of the rear cargo area behind the back seats. I purchased a second HHR cargo shelf from a wreckers for $20 and tried to carry extra cargo by putting it in the upper shelf brackets and keeping the original cargo shelf in the lower position. This would allow me to store lots of small stuff between the spare tire cover and the lower cargo shelf, then bigger stuff between the lower and upper cargo shelves and then big stuff like coolers and my duffle bag on top of the upper shelf.

I soon found out that didn't work because the upper shelf would always flex under the weight of the cargo and fall down. After doing a little thinking and engineering I came up with a system that's super easy to make and works really well. I apologize if someone has already come up with this idea and posted it.

If you look at the first picture you'll see how and where I mounted a 41" (104.1 cm) long 1.25" diameter wood dowel to the underside of the spare shelf using 1.25" ABS electrical conduit hanger brackets purchased for a couple bucks from Home Depot.

The clever thing about the way I've done it is that the upper shelf goes in the other way around than the lower shelf does. That means the end with the affixed dowel shown in Photo 1 goes forward in the cab and the dowel will drop right into the forward molded upper cargo shelf holder brackets. Another piece of 1.25" wood dowel needs to be cut to a length of 41 3/16" (104.5 cm) and just gets dropped into place in the aft molded upper cargo brackets without being attached to the upper cargo shelf.

The second photo shows the underside of the dowel reinforced shelf in place. With the two dowels giving it strength and support, the upper shelf can now bear quite a lot of weight with no problems. I've frequently loaded it up with two large heavy coolers filled with food plus a good sized duffle bag stuffed full with clothes and other things and stuffed some other small things up there as well and have never had a single issue. The nice thing about this system is that because the aft dowel is not attached to the upper shelf, you can raise the aft end of the upper shelf and it will rotate up to about 20 degrees around the forward (attached) dowel. This can be handy when loading up the compartment between the two shelves before stowing anything on the upper shelf.

I think the information in the photos I've provided will give you all you need to duplicate what I've done. This system has been working great for me and has made it a lot easier to carry a lot more cargo in a more organized way than I could before. This may not be for everyone but I hope there are some other HHR owners out there who can make use of this idea.

Feel free to ask questions if you need more information on what I did.



How to mount the dowel onto the extra shelf. The upper shelf goes in backwards with the attached dowel end forward.


Dowel supported upper shelf in place. Rear dowel not attached to extra shelf and just dropped in place to support weight.

 

neat. i like this.

 

The other nice thing about is if you leave the upper shelf in place and have some stuff stored between the two levels, no one can see it through the tailgate window. I think it makes it less likely that someone will try to break in if they can't see anything worth breaking in for.

 

The higher extra weight would also increase the height of the centre of gravity effecting the increase in possibly of a roll over.
So, yeah, bad idea.

 

And say a big hello to the cooler and the other items you plan on storing on the top shelf as you do a panic stop as they wack you on the back of the head. To me it is a TOTALLY bad idea, and I would not recommend it to anyone.

 

The coolers and bag I carry up there are too large to clear the rear seatbacks and headrests so they can't possibly move forward in the cab in the event of an emergency stop or even a collision. I knew there would be naysayers and those who might try to to shoot down the idea but give a guy some credit for intelligence.I am a professional engineer and well understand the physics of what happens in a sudden stop. Contrary to what you might think, this is actually a very good idea that brings lots of benefits to those needing to make the most out of the HHR's somewhat limited cargo space. I now get way more packed in the rear cargo area than I did before, its a lot easier to pack and also easier to get to stuff I might need to pull out because cargo is separated on the two levels.

With the way I've designed this, the upper shelf can easily hold a lot of weight and it'll cost less than $10 in materials plus whatever you can get a spare shelf for from a Pick 'n Pull. With the information I've provided, you can literally build and install it in less than 10 minutes.

 

Well sorry, but that is still a very very bad idea.

If you are actually a "professional engineer and understands the physics of what happens in a sudden stop" - you surely must realize the danger of putting ANYTHING on that back shelf, let alone on the back window shelf of a car.

Will you be responsible for the injury to another member that takes your "expert" advice? I think not.

This thread is closed as a NON-Recommended modification.