88 YJ-CJ Spare Tire Carrier Part 4

Tire Carrier, Part 4

End Sleeves and Bushings:

I decided to sleeve the ends with square tubes.  You can see the tubes and the extra holes that I drilled for plug welding the sleeve:

Some persuasion was needed to drive the sleeves home...BFH:

Plug welds: 

Drilling out the ends for the bronze bushings:

Bronze bushing - 5/8" OD and 1/2" ID:

Bracket installed.  Good shot of the new bushings:

Test fit...no issues so far:

Tire Size

After doing a quick measurement, I think the 33" tire will be fine with my bumper.  It won't be necessary to move the tire mount higher.  

I did a test fit of a turbine wheel:

The 33" tire should clear the bumper by about 1.5" - not even close!

Rubber Bumpers

There are four rubber bumpers that help stabilize the tire carrier.  They all rub on the paint, so they'll likely leave a mark.  But I'm mostly okay with that.  

Two of the bumpers are on a welded bracket below the spare tire.  They are missing in this picture:

The new bumpers are installed - they just screw on.

The other two bumpers are on the arms and press against the tailgate.  Earlier tire carriers didn't have these bumpers - they were added at some point during the CJ7 production run.  I went ahead and added them, as I think they'll improve the strength and reliability of the tire carrier. 

Hole drilled and tapped:

Both new bumpers installed:

Bumper pressing against tailgate:

Latch Bracket

The latch bracket is in pretty good shape except for the mangled slot:

Reinforcement plate shown on the right:

Reinforcement plate

Sorry for the poor picture - it was getting late, and I was trying to finish this up.  I welded up the slot, and then used a die grinder to match the welded areas to the reinforcement plate. 

Bottom view:

The entire latch pin is fully engaged in the reinforcement plate.

Latch is done:

Tire Carrier is done except for cleaning and painting.  On to the next task!