I had the cross-bar carrier under my 97 F350. Not a good design. I was driving to my dad's house one morning and ran over a very large Craftsman standard flat blade screw driver(probably 12-14 inches in length at the least). As I was driving I started to hear a clicking sound kinda like when you get a rock stuck in your tire and since I was only 1/2 mile from my dad's house I waited till I got in his driveway to look. When I saw what I had managed to get stuck in the tire I couldnt believe it. The truck had Wal-Mart Liberator A/T's on it with road hazard so I took it to them to fix it. The little po-dunk W/M here didn't have another tire and mine was ruined so they told me they were going to drop the spare and install it so I could drive 20 miles to the next wal-mart to get the new tire. When they tried to drop the spare the bolt stripped out and wouldnt come out so they unhooked it from the other side. Never did put the spare back under, I just left it out cuz I have roadside assistance on my insurance. My dad left the spare on his 95 out and the cross bar dropped down on it and was draggin under the truck on the interstate one day when I drove it....that scared the crap out of me.

 

I've had "BigRed" a 1977 F250 for about 10 years. I had never used the spare, but I knew it was underneath the truck bed. I am sure the contraption that is holding it up is the original equipment.

I recently agreed to lend "BigRed" to a friend for a short road trip of hauling stuff.

So I went to Les Schwab to get a slow leak taken care of and to check on the spare.

"Everything's good" they said.

I looked underneath and it didn't look like anything had been touched. Since the air valve was on the top side of the tire I wondered how exactly they had checked the air pressure.

So I drove it back into their bay..."The spare" I said. "That is what I wanted to have checked. How do you get the spare out of there?"

They didn't have a clue. There was a threaded rod, badly bent, on the side opposite the handle that releases the bracket holding the spare. They thought the bolt needed to come off that rod and used an impact wrench to completely strip the nut and rod. Totally stuck now, in a loose spare tire position.

I took it home and figured out the handle/cradle mechanism. Used a sawsall to cut off the threaded rod. I got the tire out. then used a coupling nut and bolt to put it all back together. I traded in the split rim and flat spare tire for a good used one.

This spare went into the bed for the road trip which "BigRed" handled like a champ.

Now, the spare in in my garage!! How the heck do you easily get the spare tire back into that bracket?????

Any thoughts and tips would be appreciated.

OR
Seattle

 

I can't tell completely from your post, but your 250's spare carrier may be different than some of the Rangers. Mine has a cradle that is hinged on one end and is held up with a bolt at the back of the truck under the bumper. You remove the bolt and the cradle drops down on that end, after which you unfasten the spare and lift it off. You could check the air in the spare if you are underneath the truck without taking it out of the cradle, if you can get to the valve. The back bolt is the same size as the wheel lugs so the wrench that comes with the truck fits both. Not sure if you have the same setup but that is how it works if you do.

 

Well I do have a spare tire story that will make you go look at your spare atleast, this didn't happen to me, but I was the one that had to go out and deal with it, andit's not a ford but it could happen to a ford no matter what type of spare tire mounting system you have.
The story is this, a guy had bought a brand new Chevy 2500 (I worked at the chev dealership at the time) He had it about 6 months and was out on the interstate about 15 miles from town when he ran over some junk in the road and had a flat. Well he calls the dealership and tells us that he has a flat and the spare doesn't fit, of coarse the service manager just can't understand but agrees to send a mechanic out to help him out with it since the guy was a good customer and always had all his maintance done at the dealership plus bought atleast one vehicle per year, thus I come into the picture so he tells me to grab one of the salesmans demo vehicles and go help this guy out (he didn't want me taking my truck since it was a ford on a service call like this, and we didn't actually have a service truck) so I pack up a jack and my torque wrench and sockets just incase the issue had to do with not bieng able to get the jack to work, loaded it up in the dealership owners 1 ton SWR and headed out. well I get there and the guy has the truck jacked up, the tire off and the spare out so whats the problem, well the spare was a 6 bolt wheel for a 1/2 ton truck instead of the 8 bolt for the 3/4 ton truck so it was a good thing I had brought the bosses truck out, took the spare out of it, put it on his truck (1ton swr uses the same rim and tire as 3/4 ton) and told him to stop by the shop when he got back to town and we would get him a new spare for his that was the same as what was on teh truck since the tonner had a size bigger, and we needed that spare for the tonner since it was a new vehicle that was for sale just driven by the boss.
So at a minimum take your spare down and make sure it actually fits your bolt pattern, nver know they might have accidently stuck a spare for a different vehicle under there.

 

i put my spare in the bed when i got the truck, mounted upright in front of the wheel well on the drivers side. getting it there was a chore. my truck was 10 years old when i got it and the spare had never been out, got it to lower but twisted off the bolt holding it to the cradle. i dont worry too much about it bing stolen, i have a cap and its not easily seen. in the winter i have a sand-filled tire stored underneath for ballast. it works great, is out of the way and wouldnt someone be in for a surprize if they tried to steal THAT !

 

Well, i couldn't when i got my truck, so made a fixture for it, but i had to move it to the bed with the new rear-end and pipe setup.

 

Everytime i change the oil and rotate the tires, i make sure all my tires on the truck are at 30 psi and the spare is at 40 psi. The spare will lose air since it gets hot under the truck from the exuast. I always put it at 40, so that if i need it it will be somewhere between 30-40 psi which is perfect. FYI i worked at a tire store back in the day and i would always check the air in the spare tire on trucks because they were always low, plus if the owner of the truck saw me do that, i would get a $1-$2 tip for checking things that nobody else did, spraying thier tires with armor all and wiping off the wheels was good for tips too.

 

I have a 2002 Ranger...I have the cable with the T bracket holding my spare on too. I got a flat today and tried to get the spare off. Three hours and many busted knuckles and skinned hands later...That stupid bracket just spins and spins but tension NEVER gets released...AM I BEING STUPID? HOW in the blue hell do I get that thing off?
Anybody?

 

Yank on it. It's gotta come, it's only cable. Once you got it "free", you can wind it down by hand, and push down at the same time with your foot.

Be glad yours isn't chained and key locked. Mine rusted, so I had to get bolt cutters to cut the chain off. Hour and a half late for work that day.

 

Take a look at your owners manual for the proceedure & location of the things needed to access & lower the spare. If you don't have the owner manual, one can be down loaded at no cost here https://www.fleet.ford.com/partsands...owner-manuals/

If your trying to turn the "T" bracket to unscrew it, it won't work on this model, as the "T" is crimped to a cable thats holding the spare up under tension.

You have to break out a handle & extension from where the jack is stored & put the extension in a access drive hole for the retaining cables axle, onto which the cable is wound.

This drive hole access is located between the rear bumper & tailgate & may be blocked with a lock cover. There should be be a long grey shaft key to remove the lock, in the gove box, or maybe someone stored it with the jack.

Anyway, as bigrigfixer said, it's only held up by cable tension on the "T" bar, so if your cranking the drive axle & it's not lowering, it may be stuck a little to the bed, especially if you've undercoated the body in that area, so stay clear & give er a kick & see if it'll turn loose & wind down.

Let us know how it goes.

 

Mine is easy, its in the bed.
Can't use the spare carrier,the Class 3 hitch is in the way.

 

my spare fits with my class 3 but you sure wouldn't get any bigger of a tire in there. I think its like a 235/75/15 or something....sure couldn't get one of the OEM 31x10.50x15 BFG A/Ts or the 32x11.50x15 BFG A/Ts I have now....would be nice though.

 

something for yall to consider in the "no air in the spare" problem. I have for years now kept a 12v air compressor in my cars. The kind that hooks up to the cig lighter. Cost about $30 for a good one at the auto parts stores. WELL worth the price. I cannot tell you how many times I have used it to inflate peoples spares that were flat.

 

its been almost 2 years since i posted to this thread, since then i have removed my "ballast spare" from under the box as well as the stock carrier. i still have the spare-in-bed setup. i would never have another spare mounted underneath a vehicle. here's some pics.

 

I check my spare twice a year on my 2002 ranger, no problem crank it down with the jack handle adapter, and crank it back up again, when it is all the way up the cable reel will ratchet so you can not over stress it. The T bar does not come off the cable the cable should have enough slack to tilt the T bar through the center of the wheel.