Mopar tire mount, antenna relocate, black canyon wheels

Did some stuff...

Picked up an OEM, hard-to-find Mopar rear tire carrier assembly at junkyard a few weeks back. It was in crappy condition, rusty, and missing several pieces of hardward and brackets - including the rubber grommet on the hatch assembly and the 2 main bolts and bushings that hold the thing onto the lower mount. These parts are VERY expensive from Jeep ($26/bolt!) so I decided to make my own setup with $10 in shoulder bolts and brass bushings from McMaster. Also improv'd the plastic bushing piece with some Chevy Truck energy suspension bushings that I found at a local auto parts store. Had to do some dremeling, cutting, and widening the hole to work, but it worked out.

Also did some reinforcement of the bumper in addition to the OEM brackets. A few 10" lag bolts from the outside of the lower mount running back to the frame crossmember.....

All in all, I think it turned out good and lets me take the spare off the roof, where it's PITA to get to and makes it so the Jeep can't come into the garage because of the height. Also having it up top makes the jeep lean more into turns, which annoys me considering the sloppy handling already

Also moved my CB antenna from the roof to the rear carrier. When the carrier is open, the antenna is out of the way of the hatch. Still have to run the wire back there. Also you can see my license plate lighting that I rigged to make it legal....

before:


after:









Also, finished stripping and painting the Canyon wheels. You can see the original condition, stripped down to bare aluminum, and painted in these shots:







also doing my Maxima wheels (from a G35 coupe), since two of them were curbed last summer trying to avoid an idiot who stepped out into the road in front of me

When I get the spare tire carrier mounted on my XJ, I am definitely going to steal that idea for the license plate. Looks very clean; nice work.

Thanks, I won't take credit for it though. I got the idea from ParadiseXJ here, who did it (first?). Mine is slightly different in how I did the lighting and wiring, but more or less in the same location.

Nice work!

What holds the whole assembly closed? I can see the latch in the first pic, but where does it attatch? (Maybe a pic of that also?)

Original_MudButt said:

Nice work!

What holds the whole assembly closed? I can see the latch in the first pic, but where does it attatch? (Maybe a pic of that also?)

Click to expand...

latch assembly on hatch (there is a metal backing plate on the inside...I stood on the "nub" (170lbs) and it was plenty strong...the "nub" goes into the "hole" on the swinging part, and the latch catches on that diagonal rod piece here....just like a door. It has a secondary safety catch too, like a door.

all the dust in the pic was from drilling through the fiberglass rear hatch...

I'll note also, that due to the good design of this setup, with two adjustable rubber bumpers, when adjusted correctly it makes NO noise on rough roads....no squeaks or rattles at all (so far).

The weak point is the strength of the bumper mount, supposedly. My reinforcements should help - I sat on top of the tire on the rack and bouced up and down and nothing happened, so that's about 250lbs on the hinge pieces with no problem, so I'm thinking it should be fine just to hold a 31...

Nice..... Thanks!

irish44j said:

latch assembly on hatch (there is a metal backing plate on the inside...I stood on the "nub" (170lbs) and it was plenty strong...the "nub" goes into the "hole" on the swinging part, and the latch catches on that diagonal rod piece here....just like a door. It has a secondary safety catch too, like a door.

all the dust in the pic was from drilling through the fiberglass rear hatch...

Click to expand...

Thats the only latch? to the fiberglass gate?

no thanks, i'd always be backing into trees with that thing and my hatch would be DONE

bcmaxx said:

Thats the only latch? to the fiberglass gate?

Click to expand...

there's a big metal backing bracket on the inside of the hatch....so it's not bolted into the fiberglass itself. The way the brackets are designed the load is distributed.

Example: the XJ it came off of at the junkyard had been in a huge side-impact wreck, with some serious forces involved, clearly. But the fiberglass hatch on that one was undamaged and the rack didn't appear to have released from the latch...

I was a bit worried at first, but the more I test it by yanking it really hard, sitting on it, jumping up and down on it, etc...the more I have confidence in its strength to hold a 31. I'm not loading up 38s up there!

That is sweet! Do you have any pics of the jeep with a side view of the wheels? And also what king of paint did you use, how many coats, etc...I want to do the same thing to my ravines

beatassXJ said:

That is sweet! Do you have any pics of the jeep with a side view of the wheels? And also what king of paint did you use, how many coats, etc...I want to do the same thing to my ravines

Click to expand...

the black wheels aren't mounted up yet (except the spare), maybe in a week or two when I have the time.

cut and paste from my post in one of our local forums that I made on the topic:

Here's how I did it:
1. apply aircraft paint stripper to the wheel facing. Let it sit about 10 minutes until it starts "bubbling up"
2. use various things (plastic scraper, stripping sponge, tile grout brush) to remove the stripped paint.
3. repeat on sections where all the clearcoat didn't come off
4. used a small orbital sander (and sandpaper by hand) with fine grit paper to rough up the surfaces (including between spokes and outer edge of rim)
5. 1 coat of self-etching primer
6. 2 coats of flat black lacquer
7. 2 coats of clearcoat (which made it too shiny for my liking)
8. 1 more coat of flat black lacquer.

occasional use of superfine wet-dry sandpaper and ultra-fine steel wool between coats to smooth out any debris/dust or paint roughness as well....

I've painted wheels before and this seems to be a pretty good system for keeping them looking decent for a couple years. Black is a bit harder since any chips will show up big-time vs. a silver wheel. They're not "perfect" but they're good enough for a Jeep!

veedubshafer said:

no thanks, i'd always be backing into trees with that thing and my hatch would be DONE

Click to expand...

do you usually back into trees with your bumper? :huh:

I will add that it would be hard to push the hatch in except with a really hard "backing into a tree." there is a lower bumper on the tire carrier that rests against the bumper itself and prevents the assembly from pushing back too far in the event of a light contact with a (tree)...No, it won't stop a hard impact...but if you're backing into stuff hard, you could just get an extended hitch or something to hit the tree first :clap:

you can see it in this pic, at the bottom right:

I have the same tire carrier and have been trying to decide where to mount my cb antenna. Nice work, i like it. The wheels look really good too.

irish44j said:

do you usually back into trees with your bumper? :huh:

I will add that it would be hard to push the hatch in except with a really hard "backing into a tree." there is a lower bumper on the tire carrier that rests against the bumper itself and prevents the assembly from pushing back too far in the event of a light contact with a (tree)...No, it won't stop a hard impact...but if you're backing into stuff hard, you could just get an extended hitch or something to hit the tree first :clap:

you can see it in this pic, at the bottom right:

Click to expand...

we run alot of tight trails and trust me you WOULDNT be taking that pretty XJ out there - that tire carrier would be layin on the trail and the paint on your wheels would be GONE lol

veedubshafer said:

we run alot of tight trails and trust me you WOULDNT be taking that pretty XJ out there - that tire carrier would be layin on the trail and the paint on your wheels would be GONE lol

Click to expand...

:roflmao: Yeah irish, no pretty boys allowed out on our trails. Hard-core only. I tell you, a kid like you wouldn't last a second out there, what with the bears, and the trees, and the rednecks with guns. Not for the faint of heart.:looser:

Sorry, I couldn't resist, I didn't know people like this really existed. I bet his dad could beat up your dad, Irish...

i wonder how this will hold up compared to duplicolor's new wheel paint.
anybody tried that stuff?

irish44j said:

the black wheels aren't mounted up yet (except the spare), maybe in a week or two when I have the time.

cut and paste from my post in one of our local forums that I made on the topic:

Here's how I did it:
1. apply aircraft paint stripper to the wheel facing. Let it sit about 10 minutes until it starts "bubbling up"
2. use various things (plastic scraper, stripping sponge, tile grout brush) to remove the stripped paint.
3. repeat on sections where all the clearcoat didn't come off
4. used a small orbital sander (and sandpaper by hand) with fine grit paper to rough up the surfaces (including between spokes and outer edge of rim)
5. 1 coat of self-etching primer
6. 2 coats of flat black lacquer
7. 2 coats of clearcoat (which made it too shiny for my liking)
8. 1 more coat of flat black lacquer.

occasional use of superfine wet-dry sandpaper and ultra-fine steel wool between coats to smooth out any debris/dust or paint roughness as well....

I've painted wheels before and this seems to be a pretty good system for keeping them looking decent for a couple years. Black is a bit harder since any chips will show up big-time vs. a silver wheel. They're not "perfect" but they're good enough for a Jeep!

Click to expand...

veedubshafer said:

we run alot of tight trails and trust me you WOULDNT be taking that pretty XJ out there - that tire carrier would be layin on the trail and the paint on your wheels would be GONE lol

Click to expand...

wow, well thanks for the complement. My Xj has certainly never been called "pretty" or "nice" before. I guess you must be a fan of 5 coats of bedliner/undercoating on the rocker sides and wheel flares, rust/bondo hole in the driver's door, rust spots and dings on the hood, roof, and panels.

The nice thing about panting wheels is that I don't have to care if they get dinged up or chipped, because a $2 can of spraypaint will fix it....as opposed to those who buy powdercoated/chromed wheels where you have to have a pro repair them. But you're probably so hardcore your wheels are just plain steel with an inch of rust on them, eh?

And why would the tire carrier be "lying on the trail" exactly? You're that crappy of a driver that you just back into sh*t all the time? You go so hardcore that you would break the mount bolts that have a tensile stength of 180,000psi? I'm not saying it's the strongest rear carrier out there (it's not), but it's certainly strong enough for anything I'm going to do with my XJ around here...

Either way, I'm not doing any serious rock-crawling here in Washington D.C....just the occasional trail runs, so I'm building my rig to suit the kind of driving I'm doing, not to tackle your uber-hardcore-super-expert-ultra-tight-super-steep-crazy-drop trails.

But I really do appreciate your concern.

Shouldn't you be out bending steel bars with your bare hands rather than posting on the internet, mr. hardcore?

Maverickj1 said:

:roflmao: Yeah irish, no pretty boys allowed out on our trails. Hard-core only. I tell you, a kid like you wouldn't last a second out there, what with the bears, and the trees, and the rednecks with guns. Not for the faint of heart.:looser:

Sorry, I couldn't resist, I didn't know people like this really existed. I bet his dad could beat up your dad, Irish...

Click to expand...

yO dAt'S hoW DeY roLLs uP in pENNsyLvANiA hARdcOrE!!!! :laugh2:

Good thing that guy doesn't know that my daily driver is a :eyes: JAPANESE SEDAN! He'd probably tell me how I couldn't run on the dragstrip with his chipped v-dub or something...

irish44j said:

wow, well thanks for the complement. My Xj has certainly never been called "pretty" or "nice" before. I guess you must be a fan of 5 coats of bedliner/undercoating on the rocker sides and wheel flares, rust/bondo hole in the driver's door, rust spots and dings on the hood, roof, and panels.

But you're probably so hardcore your wheels are just plain steel with an inch of rust on them, eh?

And why would the tire carrier be "lying on the trail" exactly? You're that crappy of a driver that you just back into sh*t all the time? You go so hardcore that you would break the mount bolts that have a tensile stength of 180,000psi? I'm not saying it's the strongest rear carrier out there (it's not), but it's certainly strong enough for anything I'm going to do with my XJ around here...

Either way, I'm not doing any serious rock-crawling here in Washington D.C....just the occasional trail runs, so I'm building my rig to suit the kind of driving I'm doing, not to tackle your uber-hardcore-super-expert-ultra-tight-super-steep-crazy-drop trails.

But I really do appreciate your concern.

Shouldn't you be out bending steel bars with your bare hands rather than posting on the internet, mr. hardcore?

Click to expand...

well, sounds pretty enough if actually CARE enough to put bedliner and bondo on :sure: and if you're just riding on trails then you should have just left it stock and yeah I like backing into trees it makes for a good laugh and scares the fiance