Lifting heavy spare tyres off the Chevy

Finally worked out a way to lift my spare tyres up into their carrying position on my 6" raised Chev Silverado. I didn't want anything that added to the already very high roof canopy height.

These 35s are almost 50kg and the swing arms on the back of the canopy mean that I have to get them up to above my chest height in order to get them "home". I'm over 6 foot and also over 61 years....so my days of hoisting these sorts of weights from the ground are behind me. I can still do it if I use a milk crate to get them off the ground, then cradle the tyre in my arms, bending at the knees and lifting to my full height......but it ain't easy.

So, a year or so ago I bought a aluminium folding motor bike ramp. The idea being that I could place that into position and roll the tyre up, then lift it the last foot or so. Still not ideal.

I have had a small 2,000lb winch sitting around in the shed for a few years and finally decided to make it work for me. I have four heavy duty Rhino bars on the canopy. I was concerned they may not be up to the task of taking the weight from underneath, but after doing this little job, I hung off the extension and it didn't flinch. Given that I weigh around 100kg, I figure it will have no worries with a 50kg tyre.

The Rhino bars are mounted so that there is a gap of around 60mm between their bottom edge and the roof of the canopy. I grabbed some 50mm steel water pipe that was lying around and cut a piece 1,220mm long. I drilled a hole in one end and bolted it to the underside of a Rhino cross member, about 1,050mm in from the rear edge of the canopy. The bolt has a Nyloc nut and is tight, but not TOO tight......the steel pipe can pivot from one side to the other at the back. I moved the Rhino bars 2 & 3 closer together so that there would be some extra support for the pipe as it pushes upwards with the weight.

I added some blue nylon stuff they use on the sides of boats to protect them.....this was glued to the top of the canopy right near the back and the steel pipe rests on it and can be pushed from side to side without damaging the surface of the canopy roof.

I then grabbed another piece of steel water pipe, but this stuff is smaller diameter and can slide into the first bit of pipe. This smaller pipe is about 1 meter long and is carried inside the canopy....can also be used as an extension on a breaker bar etc....or for beating the beejeezus out of anybody who upsets me!!! haha
Now I got the winch and set that up with a short piece of the 2" pipe, about 100mm long.

So, how does it all work? When I want to take a spare tyre off:

1. open the swing arm about a foot
2. insert the 1,000mm of small diameter pipe into the larger pipe so that it extends out over the top of the spare tyre
3. slide the winch onto the extended bit of pipe and connect up the power cable to the Anderson plug on the back of the truck.
4. attach the cable around the wheel, using a small D shackle.
5. undo the 4 bolts that hold the wheel on to the swing arm.
6. operate the winch to take the weight of the tyre.
7. swing the swing arm back into it's position against the back of the canopy.
8. lower the tyre to the ground.

There's a side bonus too. The AirSafe Hitch I use for towing the caravan weighs about 30kg and is awkward to lift and then slide/insert into the box hitch receiver. I can now also use this winch set-up to lift that up and down as well.