Ever had a "good idea" that turns into a project bigger than Ben Hur?
It all started with Numba 1 sons spare wheel swing away wheel carrier, that he wasn't too happy with. The bearings were seized and worn and it "dropped" a couple inches when you opened it - meaning you had to either slam it to close it or LIFT it every time you wanted to close it.
That got tiring real quick.
He spotted a twin wheel carrier - then he decided he would sell the single wheel carrier and buy a new dual wheel carrier!.
Simple huh?
If only - next was a trip the 4wd show and inspect every manufacturers offerings - & we found we liked the gas struts - they are a nice touch - another seemed a little flimsy - yet another didn't have swing arm stops etc and so it went - he just couldn't really find exactly what he wanted.
The K & N was about the best we could find.
So off to K & N and had a look at their manufacturing etc and got a price.
Yow!
We removed the old single wheel carrier, rebuilt with new bearings etc & repainted it and sold it off via the Exploroz Trader / Quokka route.
Then things went kinda quiet for a while...the $780 he received for the old carrier wasn't going to cover the $3500 cost of a new twin wheel carrier by a long shot...so time to save up a bit more disposables was required.
Then he spotted an advert on Exploroz Trader, seemed too good to be true!
Yep - two wheel carriers R & L off a 100 series cruiser - that had been modified to suit a Navara ute & best of all they were located in WA so no shipping/freight costs.
So around we go and check out these two carriers!
$350 later, we arrive home with the two said carriers.
Turns out one of them had been modified to remove the wheel carrier and a square tray added to carry 2 jerry cans for extra fuel.
Now how were we going to mount these to a 80 series bumper - which is mostly made of tin plate aluminium and plastic?
Seems like we needed some steel C channel to make a decent rear bumper capable of carrying the twin wheel carriers!
Another $170 at the local steel
shop and we have the C Channel from hell, 2.9 meters of 7mm thick C channel that obviously meant to be a lintel in a building or something!
Next problem?
Get that bumper off the vehicle so we can use it as a template to work out what angles and distances etc will be needed!
Turns out there's a whole lot of nothing inside those fancy plastic corners!
By using these plastic corners and the straight aluminium section, it turns out we can scribe a outline of the bumper onto the concrete floor of the workshop as a template for making our corners!
OK now came the interesting part! Numba 1 son wanted anything but sharp 90 - degree corners - 2 x compound 45 degree angles would soften the look a little of such heavy steel...
Simple enough for a carpenter like me - what could be easier than 2 x 45 degree angles?
Well - when you haven't got a protractor, and are using measurements - geometry and maths to get a couple 22.5 degree corners to cut - there's plenty of room for screw-ups... & I still don't know how I did it, but we achieved a 120 degree bend made from two 60 degree cuts, on our first attempt - go figure!
Much re - cutting later (The drop saw wouldn't cut half way thru the steel channels 150 mm wide section, meaning cutting from each side and reversing the angles twice for each cut necessary, and we needed to make 4 cuts for one corner) we did finally get our compound 90 degree - ish cuts to get a radius corner!
We lost at least a day with this particular screw-up and fix I guess - it was much harder than you imagine or I can describe.
While we finally had it we tack welded it with the arc welder to make sure we didn't screw it up any further.
Next was a quick "test fit" to see how we were looking after this 1st and troublesome corner.
Next we used the plastic corner of the original bumper to scribe & cut the flange of the C channel, to get a closer fit to the vehicle body at the side.
Now using my template from the first corner drawn on the concrete workshop floor and buying a sliding bevel from Bunning's to duplicate my final angles for the 2nd corner, it didn't take too long to get the second corner cut and tack weld that - then reverse the cutaway scribe section of the first return and use it to cut the second return to better fit the body on the other side.
After another quick test fit, to make sure we had got it right so far, we needed a couple hi lift jacking points cut into the bumper each side - like we'd seen on some of the more modern commercially available carrier bars.
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Next came hours and hours of cutting and grinding to get all the original and modified steel mounting brackets off the 2 carriers, ready to fit them to our manufactured bumper bar!
If you knew how many grinding discs I went thru, how deep the pile of steel grindings and disc particles was in the workshop by the time I had them ready to mock up on the bar, no joke - more than $100 worth of grinding / cutting discs and I looked like a black ant when finished!
Left hand wheel carrier mocked up.
Right Hand Jerry Carrier also mocked up.
Now time for another quick test fit!
And of course a test with at least 1 spare wheel on it!
Cool - so far we are on track.
Because the vehicle already has a 90 liter fuel tank, & a 175 long
ranger tank at the rear (and another 140 liters of LPG for the diesel gas) - the vehicle already gets about 3000km's between fill's
The second carrier RH arm with the jerry can holder - will be kept for carrying spare
water on trips.
It's our intention to manufacture a mirror image of the LH wheel carrier for mounting to the RH side when it is desired to carry 2 spare wheels, or alternately we can buy a new arm from the original manufacturer for another $650 - looks like we will be making it!
What we have found at this point?....
The LH wheel needs to come at least 60mm to the left of where it now sits, in order to not impinge on the space in the middle that the RH spare Wheel will occupy when fitted.
We plan to do this by cutting the two wheel carrier pipes away from their square tube mounting bearing block, with a drop saw - remove 60 mm from each pipe, then re-weld them back into place.
The catches will have to be similarly relocated by 60 mm each to match the shortened carrier arms.
We will do this on both carriers to create room in the middle for larger diameter (33 inch) tires later.
Also - the side returns of the steel bumper need to be built up with some 2 x 1 inch angle iron on top to raise the height at the side to match the body panel moulding's and then roll these back into the main bumper with some half pipe pieces in much the same way that the plastic corners were originally moulded.
Also chequer plate will be required to cover the chassis rails etc where the original alloy step used to sit.
The original rubber mud flaps pieces will need to be cut out a little to suit the square shape of the ends of the steel returns compared to the more rounded shape of the original rubber bumper returns.
Lastly, there is room between the chassis rails and rear bumper where the original alloy step sits to build and drop in a 3/16ths steel plate box with chequer plate lid, to hold shackles and snig chain/ recovery gear etc.
Then it will be time to pull it all apart again - wire wheel and sand it all - ready for paint.
Add some LED lights to replace the original globe models, bolt on some rated recovery hooks...
That will probably see this "little" project out.
I think I might need a firewall on this computer that keeps me & numba 1 son out of the trader section before any more small projects pop up!
I'll keep taking pics of progress, and post up another thread with more details as we complete this project.
Many thanks to everyone who contributed with advice on this project via my earlier threads asking for help, also - many thanks to Exploroz Trader section for providing access to the carriers and finding a buyer for the old carrier.
In all honesty - after this project i can see the value in these manufactured wheel carriers that are already engineered and fitted for you.
Our should cost out at just under $1000 all told for materials - I've no idea how many man hours have gone into this other than to say I've lost count, and my hands have so much arthritis from cutting and grinding with a 4 inch Makita grinder that I'm having trouble holding a knife and
fork to eat!
The companies who make, sell & fit these things, really earn their $ in my opinion.
Cheers!