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here is the tyre carrier i've made. Like Steve F i used a slam shut latch and sub axle (thanx for the idea steve)
I also made a replacement bumper which doubles as a towbar.
There are really 2 stages to this carrier. ONe for around town where the tyre sits nice and close to the tailgate, and 2 where you can bolt on 2 jerry can holders for camping.
michael a wrote:when you made swivel part did you grind down an old trailer hub or can you buy just a round wheel bearing holder made from steel not cast?
Cheers
Its a flangless hub that a place in wa sells, cant think of their name at the moment.
Saddle up tonto, its the not so loanrangie! . 98 TDI DISCO lightly modded with more to come.
the only thing i wonder about is having the wheel that far out from the mount/welds. would the combination of rough roads/heavy tyres/leverage cause a failure of the mount or the welds?
i like the idea of the hayman reese type hitch there, as long as its secured with a padlock
Instead of using a catch to hold it closed, try using a control rod (such a short tie rod) to connect between the door (must be a side pivoting door that pivots on the same side as your tyre carrier). Then when you open the door the tyre carrier opens at the same time. Most of these door catches already support a full tyre, now it will only hold it closed but not bear the weight.......
I hope this makes sense, I am waiting at the Qantas club, for a flight delayed over an hour and had a few scotches.....
With the design of many I see two things that confuse me.
1. Why use wheel hubs for the pivot. Bushes can bear far more load.
2. The wheel sits out from the back of the car (a fair way in this case). The carrier is generally attached only to the bar. This gives a long lever for vibration behaviours, and to try and twist the bar off the car, in an out and down action. It basically trys to pivot over backwards. When you look at where the forces end up, you can work out what cops the biggest load. Now as they often dont fail, it probably means they are heavily overengineered. Does anyone have a design for a more efficent design? Something like the factory Surf carriers would be a start, although possibly not the best.
the latch is a bear claw latch sourced from autolock, i'd advise using a similar latch from a company called Eberhard (supplied by concept latch in victoria) only because they dont require you to buy a pair of latches like this bear claw one.
The hub is infact a flangless trailer hub sourced from trailer spares in WA.
It's a 1 ton axle with 2 roller bearings designed for a trailer carrying much larger loads than this will ever see.
I've actually had this design put through and FEA program, and at the extended setting it should take 2G's of force for 2 million cycles. And after 350kgs added to the end on a static force it will only experience 0.2mm of permanent set.
The top half is designed exactly like a towbar with 2 droppers welded to a towbar hitch which is 64x64x6 RHS 350 grade.
This same hitch set up goes on any towbar that is designed for 3,000kgs' plus. so a tyre and 2 jerries are fine.
