Spare tire mount for the trail

Here's some views of a spare tire mount I fabricated from scrap that I use off road. My intent is to keep Ol'Red as stock looking as possible but also be able to use her on narrow off road trails without scraping the spare tire off the right side of her. Using this modification doesn't put a load on the tailgate and it can be installed or removed in about 10 minutes.

Here's an overall view of the rear without the tire or gas can installed:



A detail view of the upper part of the rack secured to the tailgate chain latch using a bolt, a nut and some washers. There are no holes required to be drilled in the tailgate itself:



A detail view of the lower mount that attaches to the rear part of the frame using existing bolt holes. If the original implement hitch is installed this could easily be modified to use holes in the hitch:



Overall view with the spare tire installed:



The wood insert is to keep the jerry can from rattling.

Drive safe, have fun, and pack your trash out....

Very Nice,  I notice you don't have a draw bar?  is that because it bottoms out on the trail?  I too am wanting to rig up a spare tire and jerry can on the back but mine, however mine has a drawbar of which I was considering using as the support as well as the tailgate latch like yours.   Just curious of why the Drawbar is off.   

As a footnote to the construction of the spare tire frame, I tilted the frame out from the tailgate far enough to make sure that the frame does not contact the tailgate. The spare tire frame only contacts the body or jeep frame at the mounting points. This eliminates the possibility of damaging the tailgate through daily use.

Of course, that doesn't eliminate the possibility of someone rear-ending me in traffic! The tailgate would get damaged anyway in that situation.

Another example of same concept.   It has worked well for past couple years.

That is a straight forward design; however, the center location of the spare leaves no location available for the jerry can.

I designed my carrier for the express purpose of having spare gas for the CFFC Fall Color Tour. You do not want to run out of gas on the trails so everyone tops off the tank the night before and carries a jerry can with extra gas. Mike can give you a pretty severe look if you run out of gas and have none onboard your jeep. While no one will leave you stranded, a fair amount of razzing from your fellow jeepers could occur.

Ol' Red's gas gauge is not as accurate as I would like it so the jerry can is cheap insurance about having enough gas when I trail alone.

Edited by SE Kansas 46 CJ-2A - 18 May 2021 at 5:57pm

Nice work! There are endless variations of these. Each designed for the owners needs - no right or wrong way. I made this one last year. I'm very pleased with it.

My little trailer hooks to either the receiver or the stock ball mount. Currently the pintle is just used as a tie down point. This photo was before I built the tire rack.