diy rear door spare tire carrier

I placed my air conditioner compressor and condenser under my van and need to relocate the spare tire. I saw the eurocamper one online for $299, but is out of stock as of now. It looks like it only works for steel wheels as the wheel is mounted with the inside facing out. I have alloy wheels and cannot mount them that way.

I bought a spare tire mount for a Land Rover Discovery 1 off ebay, used. I cut off the mounting bolts and bought 3 studs that were 12mmx1.50 and 2.50" long. I welded these onto the Land Rover mount and then primed and painted it.

I had to remove the rubber bumper stop from the door and sealed the hole.

I used 40 series 8020 to make the vertical pieces for the mount. I tried to center the middle of the spare tire about 1" above the Sprinter logo on the rear door and in the center of the door from left/right.

Nice use of materials. Did you use backing plates? My experience indicates that without backing plates you will eventually get cracking in that sheet metal at the mounting points.

Did you see cracking in the door sheetmetal?

Nice work


Thank you

Surveillance Van

floydturbo said:

Did you see cracking in the door sheetmetal?

Click to expand...

I helped a friend install a door mounted tire carrier on his toyota. It only came with small backing washers. After a trip with some washboard roads he noticed spider cracking around the mounting holes.

In my day job I am an engineer in aerospace, so I deal with fatigue cracking on a regular basis. I can't guarantee your setup will crack, simply because I don't have the details. In practice a 3x3" backing plate is a good design choice. The exception would be if the panel has existing reinforcement within an inch of the mounting holes.

A indication of future problems is if vibration/driving causes the panel to oil-can under the weight.

no visible vibration

I can watch the rear door spare tire on my rear view camera while on the highway. From the screen, I cannot see any vibration. Time will tell if there are any issues with the door skin, but for now it looks good.

Stress cracking is definitely something to watch for with that method of mounting. I haven't witnessed it on Sprinters, but have seen it on other vans.

In my experience the Sprinter body metal is quite brittle as compared to body steel on older model vans.

Your installation looks great. Just keep an eye on the mount points as Midwestdrifter suggests.

If backing plates need to be added my preference is a round shape, or square with a decent radius on the corners.

vic

Re: no visible vibration

floydturbo said:

I can watch the rear door spare tire on my rear view camera while on the highway. From the screen, I cannot see any vibration. Time will tell if there are any issues with the door skin, but for now it looks good.

Click to expand...

Have you had any issue with stress cracking over time? Your installation looks like something I would like to imitate. Nice job!

No issues at all.

none

Is there any reason you didn’t build the carrier with the wheel reversed and mounted flat against 80/20 (on a flat plate attached to 80/20) ?

Purely cosmetic. I wanted the nice side of the wheel pointing outwards to look nice.

That makes sense. I have two more questions.

What material did you use between the outside door and the small column 80/20 spacers you cut (looks like a circle of black plastic)?

How tall are your 2 80/20 vertical sections?

They are large rubber washers

Anyone think of a reason this wouldn't work on a 2006 Sprinter? N/M, ordered the Sureco.

I have been using three types of 80/20
1515
1515 light
1515 ultra light

Do you know which one you used for the tire carrier
I included a pic of all three

I use the 40 series. 40mm

the 40 series also comes in the three weights. Are the triangular corners hollow or solid?

I'm borrowing your idea to install my spare tire on my FORD E350

have you notice any deformation on the door shell, stress risers, etc...??

I plan to connect my 80-20 and create more of as "Square" So the 80-20 is "independently structural" (stable on a fix plane) to diminish the load transfer into the door..

Tip: In the old school Range Rover world is a guy, a really nice guy name John Gadd, that has millions of range/land rover parts (Usually the engine fail, but the rest of the parts are very good)

Roverdude" AT "sbcglobal" DOT "net