spare wheel carrier design ideas wanted
 

Has anyone got any design ideas for me? I am mounting my spare wheel high up on the back of my Iveco 40-10 and cannot lift it there on my own, even with two it's a struggle. I have thought of a block and tackle and I have a chassis mounted carrier with winch that I could adapt. If anyone has seen or got designs of how others lift there wheels then please let me know. I want it to be mechanical so I dont need power.

Graeme

How about an arm that is hinged at the bottom to the chassis, that you mount the spare on to and then winch that up into the vertical against the back of the vehicle and then put a pin in it to hold it up there.

If you have the time you could even put a hydraulic ram on the bottom to raise it up for you :-)

What about an air operated ram from your built in tyre blower upperer (compressor)?

Why are you limiting the disign to mechanical? By far the easiest way of doing it is to use a cheap, demountable electric winch. I bought a Champion winch for not much more than £50, welded the supplied mounting bracket onto the top of my box (I have a 3.5 metre high box on a Merc 917 4x4 and boy are those wheels heavy) so that normally the winch lives in one of the side boxes and is only fitted on (with a couple of bits of bar) when needed. Takes 30 seconds to mount the winch, 2 seconds to connect up the cables and 15 seconds to raise/lower the wheel. Simple and painless.

"Takes 30 seconds to mount the winch, 2 seconds to connect up the cables and 15 seconds to raise/lower the wheel."

That's 47 seconds, impressive - but in my case I'd spend 23 minutes before that trying to remember where I put the bloody winch a couple of months ago when I last used it. Add on to that the fact that I can't find one of the mounting bars until I remember I'd already welded it to a spring hanger to strengthen it.

As previously stated I want it to be mechanical to avoid power problems also I like simple. dont want to have to mount a winch or spend £50 on a wheel carrier. if anyone has got photos including those of electric winches that would be helpfull. maybe I can copy it mechanically!

Graeme

Can you put a photo up of where you want the tyre mounted - how much room you have available, behind the cab or the back of the vehicle, height above the ground? Weight of the wheel?

Spare wheel on the front, tilt up and down very little lifting.
The wheel size is 8.25x16 around 56 kg.
http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z...Carrier02a.jpg

I dont know if mounting on the front is a good idea because of blocking the radiator. the wheel will be about 150cm to its bottom from the ground. I cant seem to upload photos.. they are too big, dont know how others seem to put them here?

Graeme

I like Julian's idea. To make it simpler leave out the winch. The bar will take the strain out of positioning the wheel and once it is past the horizontal it will increasingly help with it's weight. I can't imagine you'll need much effort with a 16' rim/tyre.

150cm is high - no wonder you need to winch it up/down.

I'd be inclined to use a block and tackle (doubled or trebled) which would give you far better mechanical advantage than a single gear hand winch - plus mounting a hand winch could be a lot harder depending on what you have to hook it onto.

You can get really cheap and simple, just treble up three truckers knots and you have the same effect as a block and tackle.

To make lifting the wheel easier have a sling which keeps the wheel vertical, ie dont lift it from centre.

You need to consider the mounting point for block and tackle - depending on the length depends on how high above the wheel mount you need to have the mounting point. You also need to be able to lock/tie off the rope whilst you bolt the wheel onto the mount.

Nice one Roger...exactly what I had in mind! thought there might have been some better way. I have thought of using a boat rope cleat or jammer (dont know the right word) to hold it tempararily while I bolt it on.

Graeme

If you treble the blocks, you'll only need to loop the rope around your foot to keep it there, as long as you weigh more than the wheel!!

Cleats are far to complicated!! Plus some wanker will want to moor their boat up behind you at night.

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I have to agree,
Julian has a great idea.
Perhaps a simple "A" frame with the wide part at the bottom, fastened to the chassis..
Perhaps a simple rope pully block to hoist it into the vertical position, when the wheel is attached.
I suppose you could even have 2 spares, one vertiaclly above the other.