Bronco Style tire carrier

[Me007gold]

Has any one tried this yet? Seems like it could work fairly well on our trucks if some one has a small amount of skill. Is the body strong enough to support this?

[Hatchet669]

i thought of the same thing a while ago (cept the blazer style) i believe the body wont handle it with out reinforcment... but its been a long time since i last looked into it...

[janesy86]

Yea, its been talked about before. Not much behind the sheet metal. Would take a good deal of work to beef up. I really like karo's design for the rear carrier, very sleek...

[Diacom]

Well, if you don't mind cutting the rear bumper cover for the lower mount to get into a stronger structure for mounting, then all you'll have to do it figure the upper mount reinforcement.

Basically you'd have to have it fold down rather than to the side is what i'm getting at.

[bgwolfpack]

Not only is the metal soft but you'll need a stick to hold the hatch up. Otherwise I'd suggest attaching to the hinge portion of the hatch at the top where the metal is far more robust. Keep thinking though!

[Trail X]

Ran, the tire mount would be to the sheet metal around the tail light, not the tail gate itself.

I think it could work, you'd just have to really reinforce the inside of the attachment areas. Because you'd mount it on the corner of the sheet metal, it should have enough rigidity to handle the weight of the tire, especially with the attachment points spread so far apart.

the biggest challenge would be building up the area under the tail light, as that's currently just plastic.

[navigator]

there isn't a lot of detail but I don't think the jeep XJ has any stronger sheet metal than we do and this guy was able to do it.
http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f11/bronco-tire-carrier-its-good-thing-855315/

[bartonmd]

With the XJ being a uni-body, I'd say that their sheet metal is probably a bit stronger than ours... Have you pushed on our sheet metal? It's really pretty thin...

Mike

[Trail X]

With the XJ being a uni-body, I'd say that their sheet metal is probably a bit stronger than ours...

I'd doubt that area of the body is built to take any more chassis stresses than ours.

[bartonmd]

With the XJ being a uni-body, I'd say that their sheet metal is probably a bit stronger than ours...

I'd doubt that area of the body is built to take any more chassis stresses than ours.

The material feels a quite a bit thicker back there on the XJ than it does on the TB...

[OregTrailBlazin]

I'd doubt that area of the body is built to take any more chassis stresses than ours.

The material feels a quite a bit thicker back there on the XJ than it does on the TB...

I agree.. Looking at my dads jeep, I think the internal support on the back of the XJ is all the way to that outer layer of the body, but on ours its further inside the body structure... If that makes sense, it's monday and my brain is fried

[navigator]

If I had seen this about 2 weeks ago there was a junker sitting in my yard I could have cut a panel out to take a look.
I have another one in the yard but I doubt my son would appreciate if I cut a hunt out of it.

looking at my TB though there might not be enough real estate there anyway.