Spare tire carrier for oversized tires

[brownvan]

pics attached below

 

[gman676]

Thanks for the pics. Nice job and glad you were successful.

 

[ohmyjersh]

This week I put on AT4W 265/70/17 tires onto my sprinter and added the agile offroad spare tire carrier modification last night. I ran into an issue where hooking the tire carrier back in would not work. I was literally bench pressing the tire into the van trying to make it work. So I read on here about stretching the carrier, I don’t have access to the tools but I do have a lot of weight. So here was my solution.

Over night I laid out 620 lbs, focused the center of the weight on the piece of the carrier that’s flat and pusinto the tire.

After a good nights rest, I tried it again and it worked no problem!



oh and here’s the van with the at4w on:

 

[dplotner]

Attached below is a pic of the hinge adapter plate I made to fit 285/75/R16 BFG KO2 tires mounted on the OEM steel wheels. The plates bolt on to the existing frame points and expand the tire cage out and down at the front, lowering and widening the hinge mount points. The main point of interference is the frame cross member towards the rear (make sure to reroute the trailer hitch wiring out of the area) and 2nd point would be the lowering hooks and ensuring there is enough articulation to engage/disengage them. The dismounted cage can be expanded around the tire with the tread inside the rear bar. I did a few test fits using a jack to push the tire and cage up into the cavity and engage the hooks at the lowermost position (with 2 turns engaged on the lifting bolts). Then I pushed the tire/cage all the way up into the cavity and took a few measurements of where the hinges were located with the bigger tire and made these adapter plates out of 1/8" stainless.
Works great and doesn't change the departure angle. Also the height drop distance on the drawing (between 42 & 84) has an extra 10 mm for some clearance in there. I measured it as around 32, set it at 42. Some folks have done this with it at 0 (ie dropping the hinge to the last hole) and that may work depending on your tire size and how you fit it into the cage. I gave it some extra room to articulate and allow me to hook the rear by hand. Total drop was 72 mm. You could probably reduce this by bending the cage as well.

Hey Brownvan,
I am trying to do the same thing with a BFG 275/70R17. Has this held up for you? My tire is supposed to be 32.2" vs yours at 32.8". My assumption is that i can keep the same spread that you used, but shorten the drop a few MM to do the same thing. Did you run into any other issues with this solution over time? I am also struggling to find a piece of 3" bar stock to make this from. Is the 1/8" stock adequate?

Thanks in advance!

-david p-

 

[brownvan]

Hey Brownvan,
I am trying to do the same thing with a BFG 275/70R17. Has this held up for you? My tire is supposed to be 32.2" vs yours at 32.8". My assumption is that i can keep the same spread that you used, but shorten the drop a few MM to do the same thing. Did you run into any other issues with this solution over time? I am also struggling to find a piece of 3" bar stock to make this from. Is the 1/8" stock adequate?

Thanks in advance!

-david p-

No issues here, still hanging tough since install.

 

[Farfrumwork]

Adding-on to this thread resurrection.

Initially I fit a new Cooper ST Maxx 255/85/16 (32.8") in the OEM spare location, but it took me an hour...

When I got another set of Coopers (same tire and size) I moved one of the used ones to the spare location. It's probably 3/4" less diameter than new. I also dropped the pressure in the tire to ~15psi to get it a bit smaller and pliable as well. It goes in a bit easier now.

I didn't add any offset brackets to the front side, but I did give some gentle massaging with a mini-sledge to the rear most part of the cross member (careful to not break the undercoating) so the tire diameter would fit in there.