I been looking around on line for something I could bolt up to my Axis to hold my spare tire but I could not find anything that I really liked.
Well after I had a Blow Out in May I been trying to figure out how to do it myself. I also purchased a TMPS (I should have had one years ago! Had to wait 4.5 hours for roadside on a SUN night
).
I did call around a few local places (Shops/welder etc) but either they were booked out for 4 / 6 weeks or wanted way to much money for what I needed.
So while looking on Amazon for HD metal that I thought would be easy to work with at home and I came across 5 foot long 12 gauge "Uni Struts". After some research I found that one of them (4 foot section) had a weight compacity over 1700# (I need 43 inches for my application with a 75 # tire - so Im safe
).
Plus they had some HD brackets that I thought might work for me. I already purchased a cheap Ford tire hoist about a month ago while I was in the planning stages.
I wanted the highest clearance under the tire without touching the bottom of the RV floor.
Im very please with the results. All in im around $195 ...that includes several nuts/bolts/washer from HD. I used grade 8 bolts for part of them (see zinc color bolts in picture) and reg duty bolts on the rest of them that I thought would have less stress etc. But have the statifaction of doing something myself is priceless.
Right now Im using a 12 inch long socket extention with my cordless impact and it works great. But im also looking for some linkage to bolt up to make it more complete.
I really like the fact you cannot see the tire hang down at all when looking from the sides of the RV. You have to craw under it to see anything.
What do you guys think? Should I put a cable lock on it? You Cannot lower it without tools.
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