I drew up a ladder/tire carrier design, looking for input. Any thoughts?

How would you open the hatch.

The bottom of the ladder would be hinged. the top would have a clamp latch holding it to the roof basket.

Oh ok

Why not use wider rock sliders as a step so you can get to the roof rack?

Back to the drawing board, usually there are many drawings and designs before you hit on a good one. Guess that comes from my drafting days in HS and Mechanical Drawing that I enjoyed.

What if you put the hinge on top and a latch on the bottom so that the ladder goes up with the hatch? Only problem with that would be the hinge would have to be perfectly parallel to the hatch hinge and the struts probably wouldn't be able to hold it all up

The ladder idea is just to allow better access to the roof rack while providing a place to put the tire. Id like to see someone try to haul an elk onto the roofrack using only rock sliders. haha

Might want to fix that shackle angle...

what is that, a d35 or 8.25?

This is a possibility but hinging to the rack would be the problem as you pointed out. Maybe using no hinge at the top, attaching the ladder to the top and bottom of the hatch would be best, also using a clamp latch at the bumper supporting the majority of the weight at the base of the ladder with angle iron. Definitely need a heavier duty support/lift cylinder to lift all that weight. Another thing, is the hinge for the rear hatch heavy duty enough to support the weight?

8.25 but its not intended to depict exactness.

Again, not intended to depict exactness.

ah we were just having some fun with ya mang. we know it's not to scale.

good luck with the ladder thing, even tho once you have it you will find it to be a hindrance having to drop it every time you want into the back.

i'm sure we've all thought about one at some point.

I've heard that the hatches on a XJ aren't the strongest so I wouldn't want to mount anything to it. if you need to haul an elk, get a hitch basket? like the way you're thinking tho.