Spare tire lift - full feature how-to video with measurements

[Lucky Strike]

After going out and doing some wheeling with my local club and dragging my tail here and there I decided to raise my rear spare tire. Since a rear bumper isn't in the cards, and don't want to put the tire in the cab or on the roof this seemed like a decent half-way option to gain some clearance. Since I was doing the modification I decided to put together a video about how I raised the rear spare tire. I included parts used & where to get them, along with before & after measurements. Granted its a fairly straight forward affair, but never hurts to have some idea what your going to get into. The tire is mounted solid, the nose cone to the jack is fully accessible, and I gained quite a bit of clearance. For clarity, I'm running a full sized spare, 285/75/16 Trxus MT Radial. I'm tired so i hope to come back and edit this post a little bit but for now enjoy the video if you are interested in doing this small modification.

Link to my youtube video:


Some other threads on the subject:
Spare Tire Modifications
Spare tire lift and what I learned.

 

[camino70]

I'm getting "This video is private."

 

[Lucky Strike]

Sorry the video isn't fully uploaded... it will be up soon. auto update turned the computer off mid upload :/

 

[Lucky Strike]

Ok the video is live now sorry for the delay.

 

[G-Cat]

Excellent "how to" video. Thanks!

 

[planomateo]

Great idea!

 

[geanes]

This should be a "sticky" @Lucky Strike ... EXCELLENT video. Thanks for posting this. Very easy and clear to follow.

 

[87warrior]

Nice video. That is nearly same thing I did to lift the spare, except I used a coupling instead of a T fitting.

 

[Lucky Strike]

Nice video. That is nearly same thing I did to lift the spare, except I used a coupling instead of a T fitting.

Thank you! Post up what you did.

I wanted to use a straight coupling instead of the tee fitting but the 1/4" female fitting was only an inch in height. I was looking for 1 1/2". The 1/4" male comes in 1.5" but wanted the large face that the female fitting has to support the cross member. A 3/4" straight female would work as well but I thought it might be too big in diameter. The above is for black iron fittings, other fitting types may have worked out better than what I chose to use.

 

[4WDarren]

Looks like I just found another item to add to the "to-do" list. Nice job!

 

[blklnamru]

Awesome, thanks!

 

[BEG]

That's awesome. I had no idea it was so simple. I'd probably spring for some UHMW or aluminum spacers instead of the tees just to avoid any future rust issues but the idea is solid. It's going on my list for the next time I do a tire rotation.

 

[Lucky Strike]

Something that doesn't corrode would be better for sure. these fittings were cheap, had wide faces for support, readily available, so I went with them. post up how you do it in the future. it really is a simple mod that gains you a decent amount of clearance in the rear for the amount of $ and effort.

 

[70 FJ40]

Thanks for the video. Made it very simple. Took me maybe an hour including clean up. That's with a 3 year old's "help" too.

 

[syche]

Hi, i missed out, how much did you drop the winch from the cross member, how many washers?

 

[Lucky Strike]

I put 3 washers in each bolt location, total 12. I put 4 under each side bottom bar, total 8. 20 washers total.

You could put a few more under the jack maybe 5 or 6 and be fine. I should say, make sure there's sufficient thread engagement into the jack before you haul off and stack a ton of washers under it. or you can replace the screws with longer ones.

 

[syche]

Super, thanks for the details, will do that on mine as well

 

[Cleric Duran]

Just watched your video on YouTube subscribed. Can't wait to see what you come up with next

 

[Lucky Strike]

Thank you for the kind words and sub. I have some projects in the mix, hopefully they will come to fruition soon.

 

[Jeepster09]

Why did you shim jack down? I don't see why it needs to be shimmed?