Well.... Truth is it can be done. And no you don't need any special hook-ups for material or million dollar shops. A little bit of patience, a bit of dumpster diving, a few basic tools and you can build one yourself.



That's a teaser photo.. I promise I will get some more with dimensions and detailed parts and tools list.

 

I'm looking forward to this. Unfortunately the teaser pic looks like I need an aftermarket bumper....

 

Bill show us the teaser and nothing more and you will get banned. How rude!!!

 

Well with the understanding of my lovely wife Jennifer, who graciously said she thought I needed to spend part of Easter Sunday working on the Jeep.. I got the rear tire carrier finished...



The materials list:

The bulk steel pieces:

6 foot - 2 x 2 x 1/4 HREW square tubing
2 - 4 x 5 x 1/4 plate
4 - 3 x 4 x 1/4 plate
1 - 8 inch x 1/4 round plate
1 foot - 1/2 hot rolled round stock

The price for these pieces......FREE!!!!!!

My local scrapyard allows you to pull pieces off of the piles and pay for them at scrap prices. But if you take in scrap at the same time that is the same or higher value, they will subtract the costs from your payout. So I found all of these pieces in various trips taking axles, brake drums, spring, etc. It took the course of a couple of years to collect everything for the project.

The tire attachment pieces:

2 foot - 1/2 coil threaded rod
4- 1-1/2 long 1/2 coil nuts
2- 1/2 cast coil wing nuts

The price for these pieces.....FREE!!!!

These pieces are commonly used in heavy form work for concrete. They were selected for two reasons...

A. I work for the manufacturer of them, so I am very familiar with them and I have access to them at no cost. You might be able to get them from a contractor used.. or a rental house fairly cheaply. Or I can give you the name of a supplier in your area.

B. Coil rod has 6 turns per inch threading. So this makes it much quicker to unthread and thread the wing nuts holding the tire on, rather than using regular 1/2 threaded rod which has 13 threads per inch. My feeling was that Acme Rod with its 3-1/3 threads per inch was too coarse and if a nut started to back off it wouldn't stay on.

Other parts and paint:
Grade 8 nuts and bolts.....$8.50
1/2 inch implement hitch pin...$4.50
Krylon Flat Black spray paint...Free(left from another project)



This is the finished carrier sitting on the deck of my trailer.

Tool list:

Corded electric drill capable of taking a 1/2 drill bit
Assorted drill bits up to 1/2 size
Some method of cutting the tubing and rods. I used a chop saw and a hack saw.
Welder.. I used a Harbor Freight 110v wire feed welder. You could use an arc welder just as easy.
Assorted wrenches to attach the bolts and nuts.

I didn't use any plans or drawings, just an idea in my head of what I wanted to do. This involved alot of holding pieces of tubing up to the back of the Jeep and multiple times of lifting my spare onto jack stands a different heights to get a feeling of how it was going to look.

Now I have Tomken rear bumper that is 2 x 6 x 1/4 tubing that form nicely to rear of the Jeep. It has a slight curve to it so that wasnt hard to work around. You could put this on a stock bumper, but you would need to find a away to brace the bumper.



Close-up with the tire mounted.

Orignally I had three bolts for the tire, but the wing nuts hit each other and wouldn't let them tighten correctly.

 

nice

 

Looks good boss. You gunna start fabing and shipping these with bumpers?

 

i ll make sure i wont follow too closely when you hit that bump on the highway..
or i ll follow you when i need a new spare!

Mark

 

Thanks for the compliments.. And no I won't be fabbing any for anyone else. I fab things because I can or if I can't afford buying someone elses. The Tomken bumper now costs almost what I would have paid for buying the entire thing with a tire carrier back when I first got it...


I doubt very much that rod that has an 18k working shear strength will break.

If that is supposed to be a pot shot at using a Harbor Freight welder, then obviously you have never used one. It's a damn good little welder.

 

it looks nice but why not ad some bracing by running some metal to the sides from the top like a pyramid shape. but with a 31 i guess it does not really need it