Tonight I started building a spare tire carrier for my truck. I mainly need one for when I go camping so that I have more room in the bed of the truck. So I decided to make one that fit into my receiver. On top of holding the tire, I also needed the carrier to allow me to use a standard hitch so I could pull a small trailer. Onto the pics.

Here is a quick pic of the materials once that had been cut to size. All of the pieces were scrap except for the receiver. I also had an old rotor that I stole the studs from.

Pic of the tube that fits into the two reveivers. Compliments of my buddy Aaron.

Wheel mount with studs inserted.

Receiver welded to the 2" tube. The welds are triple passed.

Top of the upright tube with the cap welded on.

Welds all cleaned up.

Some weld pics.


This is where I left off tonight.

Now my question is, on the upright tube I tripled passed the welds to the receiver but I'm not to sure if its going to be strong enough so I'm most likely going to put in a small brace/gusset at the bottom. Here are two pics of the some gusset pieces I had laying around, thoughts?

 

nice!!

 

Cool

 

nice welds!

 

Cool. More support never hurt anything.

 

Did that fit in his lunch box? lol

Thats way overkill by the way. I have a 11 gauge 2" tube that I use to lift my truck with my hi-lift. It never hurts to over build it I guess.

Now you need to make one that will hold 4 rims for the dunes.

 

Haha yes it did fit in his lunch box! And yes it is overkill, but the price was right, and i'm sure it won't go any where. I didn't want to use the 1/8th wall tube I had since this will also have a trailer behind it.

 

Ah yes that is true. You should put a couple plug welds on the female end of the receiver just to make sure its solid.

 

any ideas on making it a swing away?

or do you not plan on opening the tailgate?


Looks awesome, cant wait for more pictures

 

No plans on opening the tailgate. I considered making it swing at first, but decided against it since this will only be on the truck occasionally.

I welded on the studs and mounting plate today. Decided against braces for the moment. Going to keep an eye on it for cracks, just liked how it looks now. Hopefully in the next few days I should have it primed and painted so pics on the truck to come!

 

hey man any update? it looks like a really good idea just wondering what it looked like all mounted on the truck?

 

I finished the carrier up yesterday. Finished cleaning it up and painting it. Onto the finished pics!

 

dang, excellent job man. nice work! i kinda like it

 

Looks good but I think you made a mistake by not adding the gusset. Thats a mighty large lever arm with weight on the end of it.

 

Looks good.

Why is there a seat out of your truck?

 

yeah that thing might get winging around and break without the gusset. especially at the dunes.

besides that looks like it works great for ya, nice job!

 

Why did you use all 5 studs? 2 or 3 suffices for factory application? Just wondering.

 

Great work. Wanna help me do a front hitch and raise my rear hitch?

 

I would have put the gusset on, you won't hurt anything by doing it.

otherwise i like it.

 

Looks good, I agree you should probably add the gusset.

I dont know how strict the police are around there, but you might want to move your license plate to where it can be seen when you have the carrier on with no trailer.

 

I may add a gusset on later, just waitin at the moment to see how it works. I'm not to concerned because it will not be on the truck everyday. My main purpose for building it was for the twice a month I go camping in the summer

I finally found some new ones for the truck!

I do agree the dunes would wreak havoc on the arm, but it will Never see the dunes.

I used all five studs mainly because I had them.

Yea I thought about the licence plate as well. I have considered putting a second licence plate holder on the carrier, but at the moment I will leave it like this til I can wire something up.

 

Nice work! Looks great.

 

ok makes sense then. I kinda figured it might not see the dunes but I had to ask heh. I will be fine on the road I'm sure so you ca see how it works for ya. I guess I didnt realize it was just for camping.

 

I think you need to add hinges and a hole-pin system to it so you can fold the tire carrier down to open the tail gate. seems like its gonna be a pain to have to take the whole carrier off to open the gate every time. other than that it looks like great work!