Are my eyes messing with me or am i really seeing progress pics?
Looking good!

 

Looks great! keep up the good work

 

ok so 227 post read and im hooked, cant wait to see you pull this off. also the garage door spring mounted in the tube might be a good back up plan. that is what we use on our roller trailers at work to assist in the lifting of about a 175lb 3/8 inch thick steel loading ramps. they wont take up a lot of space mounted to the inside rail on each side of your roof rack. and we only use one per ramp, they are about 8 dollars a piece at home depot.

 

I think you're just seeing things....

And thanks for the comments.

 

Not sure if this has been addressed, but isn't the tire carrier and the hatch going to lift on different angles making the tire carrier "slide" down the hatch to compensate? Or am I crazy?

 

This is an awesome idea. One thing i don't like about the swing out tire carriers is it's one more thing you have to move to get to the back(sometimes i'm lazy ) However isn't the hatch going to be pretty heavy with the tire on it? It would make me think it'll make the struts that hold the hatch open go out sooner.

 

Ritter, it's looking good! But just looking at your sketch here:

I would guess the tire would be mounted about 8 times further away from the hinge than your gas strut is. That means the gas strut has to be able to pull 8 times the entire tire carriers weight. Generally you want that ratio the other way around. I'm not saying it won't work, just keep it in mind....

 

come on guys READ. he is working on a DIFFERENT opening system to either assist the shocks or to replace them. he hasnt been working on this design just to reply on them factory shocks which is made just to hold the hatch.

 

What ever happened?

 

I just went through and read every post in this thread from the begining. After his first post about this idea I was hooked and the above idea was pretty much what I was thinking. The hardest part about the OPs idea is positioning the struts in such a way they dont get in the way of the hatch but can still lift the tire. The factory has already figured out the best geometry to lift the gate with minimal force. The only thing I would suggest you change for the idea above and the current project the OP is doing: your tube holding your tire needs to go all the way down to the bumper with a pin or stop. I don't know where you wheel or who you wheel with but the first time you back into a tree or one of your friends taps your rear end with their bumper it's going to push that tire through your hatch.

Just my .02. LOVE the idea. If I wasn't so set on a diaper style carrier I would be doing this.

 

PS. Was impressed with your MS Paint work. Can see you are already getting comfortable with Autocad. You have an engineering mind and arent afraid to think outside the box. Keep it up and I'm sure you will complete even greater projects in time.