Paddocks Spare Wheel carrier

[A Twig]

For christmas my lovely parents bought me a swing away spare wheel carrier. Hurrah I said, hoping it was Mantec - it was paddocks. Never mind, it's the one that opens with the door at least I thought (useful given that I regularly carry 4 in the back), so it sat in the back of the landy until a few weekends ago until I decided to sort it out.

First job, removing the old spare wheel carrier from the door. Les kindly offered to help and even cut me some steel to go over the hole left behind. However, some tw*t had weldud up the back door to strengthen it, and when replacing the bolts that held the carrier on, had used long ones and simply cut the ends off to make the interior trim fit.

I left Les' and headed back to bath with a pocketful of pop rivits and a sheet of steel, and a shopping list for new tools. My shiny Clarke angle grinder, lazy tongs and work gloves arrived midweek, and last sunday I decided to crack on, and at 12:00pm I strode outside with all my tools and shoddy work clothes on.

Angle grinder to all the bolt heads was fine (apart from me forgetting that the alarm was still set, and it going off as I was halfway through a bolt, the shock of which nearly made me drop the angle grinder).

Now the rear trim was still off from my efforts with Les the previous weekend, so all I had to do was ship the wiper motor out and pull off the carrier. As if.

The aforementioned melding wasn't the neatest of efforts, and the lumps of weld were stopping the carrier plate thing from coming out. I was determined not to take an angle grinder to the inside of the door, so after a good half hour of levering, swearing, shutting the door on my fingers and hitting the hold thing with a mallet, it finally came free. Hurrah! I then whipped off the remining bolt heads from the outside and removed the outside plate.

Finally I clamped the new steel panel to the door, and started drilling the holes to rivet the plate in. By this time I had an audience of a 5 year old and a 7 year old who live on my street and insisted on sticking their faces into where I was drilling, trying to climb on the roof rack and other such things. Wary that their parents were most likely in ear shot, I bit my tongue repeatedly and politely asked them to go away as I didnt want to blind them with the bits of metal flying from the drill bit (they, unsuprisingly, having failed to notice my ear, eye and hand protection).

Whacked in some silicone where the plate overlapped the door, rivits popped in, and one nice clean door:

Hurray I thought, now this swing away carrier bit can't be hard. Ha ha ha ha... Usual instructions along the lines of:

1)fit reinforcing plates

2)fit lower bracket

3)fit upper bracket

4)fit door bracket

5)re-attach wheel

No mention of which of the 4 types of differing diameter supplied bolts to use (some of which had no nuts anyway) and hell they had even thrown in some 4.8mm pop rivets as well!

Aftermuch offering up and swearing and drilling I got the reinforcing plates in, having to hammer them back in past the afore mentioned welding efforts. Drilled holes, bolts and nuts all in palce and appropriately tight. Now for the lower bracket. I removed the pin from the hinge so I just had the bracket, worked out where it could fit, and emptied half a can of WD40 over the appropriate bolts on the chassis.

After much swearing, and managing to persude my girlfriend (who had come out to watch) to get under the chassis and hold the nuts with a spanner while I did the ratcheting (that has to be true love right there!) I eventually managed to get the old bolts out, thanking my foresight of buying decent work gloves which saved my knuckles no end.

Lined up the bracket, bolted the top two holes in then went to do the bottom one.

The only problem being that the botton hold actually stands away from the rear x-member:

There is unsuprisingly no spacer supplied to fill this gap, and also the gap meant the original bolt was now not long enough.

Still I thought it's only one bolt, so I'll crack on with the upper bracket. This doesn't come off, so I had to put the carrier back into the bottom bracket in order to line up where the top bracket should go, the instructions of "drill 4 6.5mm holes" not being all that helpful. So I lined up the carrier, went to put the pin of the hinge back into the bottom bracket - fog light is in the way. Swear very loudly, take the front of the foglight, where the hell are the bolts to take this off? Consult workshop manual on the PC (spreading some muck on the house walls as I go up the stairs) - oh joy, back udner the chassis I go. Fog light off, bracket pin doesnt wont to go back in, but my big mallet says it does, tighten the pin back up, put the fog light back in, take a deep breath, time for the top bracket.

I drill the holes, digging some large washers out of my toolbox cos funnily enough there arent any supplied, and unlike them I worry about the possibility of it ripping through the panel. Wierdly the fourth hole is under the bit where the frame rests when the door is closed so would foul, so I dont do that one, and just drill and bolt the other three. Helpfully there are only one set of the supplied bolts that will fit a 6.5mm diameter hole and they are the set that are supplied without nuts... Fortunately I have some in my toolbox that fit so that that in palce. By this point it is dark enough that even being right under the streetlight I can't really see so I call it a night at 7pm.

[A Twig]

So these are my queries. First, I can't help noticing that that bit of the carrier that bolts onto the door is at the moment lined up no where near the centre of the strengthening plates.

This is with the frame pretty flat against the door. Any ideas? Is it really meant to stand away from the back of the vehicle at approximately a 20 degree angle to line up with the centre of the door!?

Second where the hell do I get an appropriate bolt for the bottom bracket as shwon in the above pic and what should I make my space from?

[kpodmore]

Hi mate,

I have one of these and to be honest mine has been great. I decided to mount mine slightly lower that normal and drill new holes so i didnt have to drill my new galvanised body capping. I'll try and find a picture if its any help?

For a space at the base i used an old bracket fromt he told of a rear cross member

here is a rough photo, i have just changed the rear cross memeber and am refitting carrier so I try and geta better picture

[Turbocharger]

If you're in Bath you must have discovered Avery, Knight and Bowler by Green Park station by now? They'll sell you just about anything boltlike that you need, just head in and describe what you want to them.

[A Twig]

Yeah I'm off heading into town today to sort out some stuff, so I'll pop in on the way. Still can't decide where the door bracket should go, any ideas anyone?

[Orange]

The angle looks correct to me as when you open the door, the bracket will pivot to about the same angle on the opposite side.

It must be fairly easy to hold it in place and swing the door while watching what happens when you hold the bracket in different places. My guess is that if the bracket is mounted centrally, the door will not be fully open when the bracket is hitting the remainder of the carrier...

Does that make sense??

If it's cosmetics you are worried about.......put the wheel on and you won't ever see it again!!!

[jcwcooper]

I have the same carrier and it does sit at a funny angle like you say, Looks much better when the wheel is on though.

Dave.