An observant HIPO may use this for an excuse to pull you over. Don't come to KS, we use Flaw Enforcement to finance Law Enforcement.
Maybe some neatO LED-style sidemarker lights?
I was thinking this over and as I recall vehicles are required to have a lit running light at each corner of the vehicle on each side of the vehicle and a reflective lens on the rear corners to reflect light from an outside source when the vehicle is idle and lights are off. The tailights wrap around the rear corners of the rig and provide a light to both the side and rear thereby making the side lights un-neccessary. Any law enforcement out there please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
Whew, that came out long winded. Not at all trying to come off as a know it all, just what I remember. Oh, I will stay away from Kansas too anyway.
Thanks for the idea on the LEDs. I think I will wait and see if I have a problem but it is always good to have a backup plan.
The only thing I can see you second guessing over time is the single full width swing out. Depending on where you wheel it can sometimes be a pain to have to get into the back of the truck in tight quarters and not have quite enough room to get the swingout open. Little bit easier with a shorter swingout. Also seems like the horizontal tube that the tire is mounted to is awefully close to the liftgate. If you get any flex in the tire carrier on a washboard road or something that could give you a little headache.
I went back and forth on that for awhile. The reason I went with the long single swing out is I wanted to keep the Hi-Lift below the roof line as mentioned above and to do that and keep it all tucked tight to the tailgate I had to go full width. I am hoping that it doesn't prove to be problematic. Also I don't do alot of long distance expedition stuff where I would need to carry gas cans but I am building a small reciever mounted set up that I can pop in if I ever do.
One of my personal pet peeves is a tire mount that sticks out way behind the truck. I think it looks goofy and it poses two problems: 1 more leverage against the spindle and latch mechanisms. 2. It is more prone to hitting things and adds length to an already long vehicle. (By rock crawling standards.) It is hard to see in the pictures but I kept it all a minimum of 1" away at it's closest and that is along the Land Cruiser emblem on the bottom of the top gate. I also built it as rigid as I could get it. I used 2.5" 0.250 wall tubing for the bottom of the swingout to help resist the tortional force exerted by the tire mount with movement. I made the tire mount kick out at 8* to follow the angle of the lower gate and then back to true vertical at the Land Cruiser emblem. I then mounted the tire slide kicked in at the top 8* again to follow the angle of the upper gate and keep the tire as close as possible to the vertical plane of the spindle and latch mechanisms.
I totally over thought that aspect of it.
I also just realized you referenced the
horizontal not vertical tube that the tire mounts to.
It is on a slide and can be removed from the swingout or just slid more rearward for clearance, preferably before I dent the upper gate.
Is the spare on a slide also?
will a production model be available?
Sorry brother I almost forgot it is a slide setup that I blatantly copied from Luke.
It allows me to adjust when I go up in tire size too
I spent a ridiculous amount of time on getting every detail exactly how I wanted it. Not sure how that would translate to a production bumper.
... To give you an idea, I actually welded a cap to tubing with the correct id for the safety pin at the latch where it goes into the main swingout tubing and welded it in place at the correct angle so that water won't get inside instead of just drilling a hole.
A few things I forgot to mention. I got the spindle from Luke so it is a literal copy of his and the latch and lock pins I got from thier respective manufacturers on the internet. I decided to skip the gas strut that came with the spindle early on but I don't remeber why anymore. Probably should have used it.
I kicked the leading edge of the bottom of the main body of the bumper between the frame rails up at a 45* to help keep it from hanging up on rocks and such.
I also made the wings end about 1" back from the wheel opening so if I trim the wheel wells later it will not be a factor in tire clearance.
Thank you to all again for the kind words.
Close up of the tire mount area and nice coincidence in space at the center of the spare.
Now start working on the second one where you fix the little details that went wrong on this one. Once you get the second one done, ship that early prototype to the address I PMed you and let me see how it works here in the southeast. Good.
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Thanks for all of the complements. 
