Well, after having the roof rack in place and having had my wife help me load and unload the spare tire from the roof, it became obvious that she wouldn't be able to do this alone.
Taking inspiration from others, it was time to build a rear receiver tire carrier. I picked up supplies, and on a trip back to Montana from Wyoming to visit, I went to a friends house so we could do some work.
First was a purchase of a
CURT Spare Tire MountAlso a
Receiver ExtenderAn extra piece of 2" boxed Receiver tubing as well as a 1" X 48" piece of stainless strap from the local supply store
3 new Wheel Studs and locking Lug nuts from the local auto parts store
We started by cutting the receiver stinger from the tire mount. This left the 24" high box tubing and wheel mount in place.
We took the extra 2" boxed Receiver tubing that I had purchased in an 8" length, and cut one wall off.
We ground the coating on the top surface of the Receiver Extender to make a clean welding surface. Beveled the ends of the boxed tubing and had it tacked to the Extender.
We mounted the Extender and placed the Tire mount in place to check for clearances. Once satisfied everything was in the correct position, the tubing was burned in to place.
Upon getting home, I hooked up with one of our Roustabout companies to do some drilling. We used their drill press to drill a pivot at the bottom of the box tubing and Tire mount.
Bolted that point, and then drilled a lock pin location further up the box tubing. Once completed, we removed the Tire mount and beveled the bottom to ensure there would be no binding when it is lowered.
Using a spare wheel set up, We figured where to place the studs and had them welded into place to ensure they wouldn't come lose later on.
One of the Engineers where I worked does powder coating at home. So I took a Saturday and went over to his place. First we sandblasted both of the pieces down and cleaned thoroughly before hitting them with powder
and baking them in the oven. I also had him hit some chrome Warn lights that I picked up from my older brother when he placed new ones on his headache rack on his truck. Figured they would look better in black to keep
with the near no chrome aspect of our Trailblazer.
Once cured and reassembled, it was time to mount a wheel and tire into place. I found a problem with mounting however, the combo would not allow the wheel to completely mount down to the face of the wheel carrier.
Rather than cut and re angle the mount place, I hit up Walmart for a black cutting board. Cut it down and drilled it out to make a spacer for the carrier. It fit perfect and gave filled the space I needed to seat the wheel fully.
This also acts to keep a metal on metal contact from the wheel to the mount.
Here is a pic of everything mounted up from my trip to
DTC
Now, with the license plate covered by the new carrier, it was time to relocate the plate. Taking the 1" stainless strap and cutting it into half, I used a vice and hammer to bend the strap around until I was satisfied with the shape to have it fit the back of my Trailblazer.
I picked up a package of large suction cups and small square bumpers. The suction cups are used on the outer most license plate bolts to help keep the place against the body while insulating against bolt abrasions, the bumpers fit behind the inner most license plate bolts and near the bends of the brackets to help keep any vibration from ruining the paint below them. As of now, I do not have my light relocated, please don't do this, it's not exactly legal, I've just been lucky driving at night and not getting pulled over for it.
Here is what it looks like:
It works quite well. That being said however, there are a few short comings. First, the stinger hanging down would drag on obstacles while running trails. Found out how bad on the first day of the event.
The solution was to remove the tire carrier and just run the stinger and shackle in place as having a rear mounted extraction point was required of the event.
Second, on paved roads, everything was fine, but once offroad or on a rough incline, the carrier would move around quite a bit. My solution for this was to take door frame wedges and force them into the lower
and one side of the carrier once it is mounted. This eliminates almost all of the movement in the receiver. If you are a bit smarter than I was, and find a hollow extender rather than a solid one like I have, there
are better options to keep this from happening such as
Curt Anti-Rattle Kit.
For now, this will work just fine until a new rear bumper is built with a tire carrier mounted to it.
