Oh, what fun today was! I recently replaced my bald 235-85/R16 tires and wheels with a nice set of used 9.50 x 16.5 tires and wheels. The "new" tires have about 80% of their original tread and look / ride / drive real nice.

The old spare had to go, though, since it was from a set of tires that was taller and skinnier than the new ones. When I went to pull out the spare, it was obvious that everything under there was both dirty and rusty. Getting the old spare out and the new one in was a genuine PITA.

Dealing with the dirt and rust was no problem but the design of this tire carrier is really poor, IMHO. I did cut off the bolt that comes down through the center of the tire mounting strap, pulled it out, and replaced it with a new bolt and wing-nut. That part is now about 1000% easier to deal with.

The end of the carrier nearest the bumper has a long bolt with a curled over "eye" and washer on the bottom end. It fits through a slot, which has bent with time, so it's difficult to get the eye through the strap that holds the tire. Dealing with this beside a busy highway, in the dark, and in the rain would be ridiculous.

Anyone have an idea for improving this design to make unlatching the spare tire easier? Would it be better to just forget the factory spare mounting arrangement and mount the spare in the bed or on the front of the truck?

What say you wise ones of FTE?

 

i mounted my spare in the bed of my 250 just made a mount out of some square tubing and angle. lost part of it so i need to redo some stuff. personally i hate the setup of the factory spare.

 

I used a really long bolt and nut. have to keep 2 adjustable wrenches behind the seat. I smeared grease all over the bolt and threads. still sucks to lay under the truck, but now the spare will come out with out a torch, or saw zaw

 

Find a donor truck with the slide out spare tire carrier.

Or, fit the truck with a in-bed spare tire carrier.

Both were optional.

 

Thanks, everyone. This is good advice. I haven't decided what to do with this yet but will soon. At least now I have some good ideas to work on. Appreciate it.

 

Ed,
When I got my truck, my spare was chained to the headache rack. The space where it should have been under the bed was taken up by a draw type hitch...sooo. I got a piece of 2 inch wide strap (1/4' thick) bent it at a 90 degree to fit Under the bed rail and another 90 degree sticking out along the bed. Two holes each in the 90's for 1/4 inch bolts and two big holes in the middle of the strap above and below each other to go through the lug bolt holes of the tire. Those last two took Long bolts. But when you drill and bolt everything into place, it does make a nice tire carrier for your bed. My truck is a short bed, so my spare is between the wheel well and the bed on the drivers side. It's really not to getto looking and functions nicely.
LNF150

 

Meant to say behind the rear wheel well and the tail gait.

 

also thought might check out some of the vans, they have a cable that goes in the hole in the spare, and winds up and down with the jack handle, might work for a pickup.

 

LNF150:

You have any pics of that? I *kind* of see what you mean but not quite.


dustybumpers:

That might work but I'd like to follow the KISS principle on this. Trucks used to have front bumper mounted tire racks way back when. Don't see that much anymore but it would not be a bad place to mount a tire... assuming that it doesn't up and run off, that is.

A bed mount would be OK too. There's a nice space for a tire either in front of or behind the wheel well. I favor the front mount, just behind the driver.

 

prob wouldn't put it in front of the grill, I had a rack for fishin poles, and a cooler for my 4x4, overheated in traffic, won't do that again.

 

It really is a stupid setup. I like the GM setups that have a small hole in the bumper or roll pan that you stick the crow bar through and lower a cable with a bracket holding the spare. Easy to do and very little mess. I just throw my spare in the bed under my tool box, that way it consumes very little bed space.

 

Ed_B, Not a problem. I'll take some pics tomorrow (with the measurements) and send them to you. Super simple/nothing fancy set up...you'll laugh, but it works really good for my truck, stable and secure.

 

OK, great. I will look forward to seeing those pix.

But... I don't laugh at anyone who is trying to help.

 

Yeah, there IS that. Might not be too bad if the tire was spaced forward
a bit and not right in front of the grill.

I had some over-heating probs last summer but a good radiator douche fixed that. I used one of those clean-out chemicals + several flushes + new 50-50 anti-freeze / anti-boil in it. The radiator in the 300-6 powered trucks is pretty minimal, IMHO.

Had a '78 F150 2WD truck once. It had the same 300-6 engine but with the 4-spd. OD manual tranny. It's radiator died, I went to a shop about it, and they didn't have one for the 300 but they did have one for the 351. They put that in for the same price and it worked GREAT. No more over-heating probs, even when going up Green Mt. road (4 miles, 6% grade, MANY curves) in the summer time with a full bed of wet alder on board. I wish that my current F250 4x4 had the 351 radiator. May have to look into that if any more over-heating probs come up.

 

Your fan clutch was shot - at low speeds there's barely any air moving through the grill from the ram effect, if the clutch works like it should it can pull all the air it needs from under the bumper even if the grille is blocked solid. If you've seen a diesel truck with a grill blanket, that's just what they're doing, they kill the ram air effect so they don't overcool at high speed, and all the air the radiator needs is drawn though the space behind the bumper and before the core support. Really having a wide open grill is only beneficial at high speed, so the ram effect forces air through the radiator, which means the fan won't have to work to supply that air, so overall you get better fuel economy. So yah, you can run your spare up front, I was about to do that but I ended up putting a brush guard with four 4x6 lights in it (four more 3x5s to come tomorrow) and the wheel would block them, so I ended up putting the wheel on the front bed wall for a while, and now it's on the outside wall of the tailgate - can't lower the tailgate much at all, but I hardly ever need to anyways.