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33" Wheel in "Stock Location" on a 97+

WB9YZU

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Madison, WI
I got spurred on a bit by Voteban's thread on a 31" in stock location and figured that I could put a 33" in the stock location...

My tire is a 33X12.50X15 on a 10" rim with some minuscule offset.

The issues I saw to this actually happening were:
1) There is no room to actually put it where the spare rode before (on a platform behind the wheel arch) because it hits the speaker housing and the seat.
2) There is no support for the wheel if you stand it up outside of that area.

So it seemed to me that the solution was to make a bracket to support the wheel, and to move the top of the seat forward.

The first thing was to lay down the seat and try and position the tire so it would not hit the hatch, then to see how close I could get it to either side.
I chose the drivers side as it was already reinforced to hold a tire.

Then I needed to build a bracket.

I started with this:
picture.php


Then I added feet and mounted it to the inner fender with 1/4" Self Tapping screws:
picture.php


There it is with the tire mounted:
picture.php


The next thing to do was to move the upper rear seat brackets. The bracket needs to go up and forward. I fit one of the brackets to the seat, folded it back, marked the holes, and ran in some 1/4" Self Tapping screws to hold it on. I made a template, but didn't commit it to the computer yet. I would recommend that if you are going to do this mod, that you look at the Bracket that Go-Jeep made for his 32" tire mounting modification, and make something like that.

All in all, the tire fits, and is not laying all over the cargo space anymore. Gone are the ratchet straps!

I will reverse engineer the bracket later and post the drawing, but you get the jist of the idea :)
 
Pretty cool idea. So you have to move the seat bracket forward so the rear seat back has to be tilted forward a bit more?
 
Can you take a picture of the reworked seat mounts? Also, can you get a more detailed pic of the mounting of the tire bracket to the jeep body itswlf
 
So I took this project on. Sick of the spare taking up the whole trunk.

Made a simple bracket from 1/8" plate to move the seat bracket forward.
1333159989.jpg


Here is the now upright seat. Not the best, but I dont sit back there. May have to change it of the carseat doesnt fit.
1333160028.jpg


Took some all thread rod in 3/8" flavor. Double butted it, heated it, and bent it, and then slid it through the stock mount.
1333160074.jpg


I took two spare lug nuts and tightened down with a nut so that the lugnut fit into the wheel stud hole.
1333160120.jpg


Here is my spare, only 32" but plenty of room all around
1333161230.jpg


Room between the wheel and seat.
1333161337.jpg


And yes there is a box end wrench banded to the wheel. Until I can find or make a t handle for the nut, it'll stay to tighten it
 
Should work.

The reason I wanted to go with a more beefy solution is I was heading to WinterFest and didn't want a 50+ lb tire rolling around by one point ;)

Here is the bracket
picture.php


The bracket is held to the same reinforced inner fender as the OEM tire bracket.
I upgraded the 1/8 TEK screws with 1/4" Grade 8's screwed into Rivet-Nuts in the inner fender.

Good start on the bracket. I just used TEK screws as I never use the back seat ;)
 
Looks nice. I'm lazy so I just threw my spare up on my roof rack (with a solid, welded on mount of course). :D

It will eventually make it's way onto a rear bumper / tire carrier some day once I get around to building one...
 
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