GSequoia said:
One being that the hinge is more exposed and hangs down lower than the OEM style that I ultimately went with; I could easily see that getting nailed by a rock and potentially peeled.
Yeah, I can see that too - but I figure the tow bar is more likely to get hung up (which is what usually seems to happen; it does a great job of protecting the skidplate from damage) unless I'm in something that's at a really acute angle.
Another reason is that all of the weight is on that one section of the bumper / quarter panel (I admit that I do not know the extent of any bracing it has). The OEM style spreads the load across the upper quarter panel and that bumper corner.
Agreed with you on that. It basically only has two mounting points from what I remember: the edge of the bumper and the plate on the tailgate. The realconcern I have is that if it gets hung up on something at the bumper, it could be forced up and inward, also denting the tailgate (and possibly breaking the rear window) depending on severity.
I dislike the latch being in the rather weak hatch as well. Particularly when dealing with an early model fiberglass hatch. While your late model is a steel hatch that shouldn't be confused with being bulletproof.
No, understood. I got a pretty good idea of how beefy the steel tailgate is from the one I saw with the Jerry can holders bolted to it; while the guy may not have done the best job of installing them to begin with, the topmost bolting points had torn out, taking the sheetmetal with them. Kinda looked like someone had put a .40 through it from the inside.
The early model latch is in the center of the steel bumper (while not that thick I will give you) with some bracing inside the bumper itself (pieces of structully bent sheetmetal on eithe rside of the latch pod). This center latch also bears some of the weight of the tire in the OEM style carrier.
Understood. The main problem I've seen with this type of carrier, though (and I admit this was from quickie measurements carried out in the junkyard and compared against my XJ later, so aren't exactly empirically accurate) is that the later-style tail lights, being taller, don't allow enough space to get the bolts through to the inner fender well from the panel the lights mount against. This means that the upper brace for the tire carrier can't be properly secured - at least, not in any way I've figured out that might be workable.
And the last reson - particularly dealing with tires over stock size (I'd trust my OEM one up to 33" tires) is the leverage placed on that hinge. With the OEM style that top mounted hinge keeps a lot of the "pull away" leverage at bay.
Granted, but plans don't call for going over 31" for the foreseeable future so it should work out OK for a year or so. Roofmount's not an option due to clearance in the garage here at work coupled with lousy on-street parking. Mainly, I don't want the added weight or expense of an aftermarket bumper and carrier - though I do like the C4x4 stuff...
Installing the OEM style carrier is a bit of a pain but in my opinion well worth it for a solution involving stock hardware. I'm sure you could graft that style to the late body style with little problems as the body styles aren't that much different really.
Yep, and that photo was actually stolen from a
thread on JF where the guy did exactly that. I agree it's not necessarily the best way, but given the bumper design of the XJ not being conducive to fitting the usual bolt-on carriers designed for 4" flat C-Channel bumpers, is probably the best that's available without going aftermarket, unless anyone else knows of something that might work instead.