Offroad bumpers, tire carriers, and ladders...

Alright, I know this topic has probably been beaten into the ground, and I know there's an offroad fabrication forum, but I have a first gen Explorer and this is where I'd rather get some input...

I've done a little research on the BII tire carriers, so I've found out that I won't be able to fit one without serious modifications... Or, at least not a stock one. The next option is a bumper mounted tire carrier... seeing as I'm cheap and don't want to buy an aftermarket bumper, and because I don't want to hack away at the body too much, I want to make my own...

I'm going to be making my own bumpers anyways, but I was considering removing the little chromed panels just behind the rear wheels... I'm not sure if those are separate panels or if they're part of the rear quarter panel, but they're getting hacked off. I noticed that the frame just behind those panels (by the gas filler neck on the driver's side and above the tailpipe on the passenger's) has holes already drilled in it... so I'm considering making custom bumpers and mounting them to the stock location as well as wrapping them around the sides up to the rear wheels and bolting them to the frame in that place as well. That should allow me to have a heavier bumper that can support more weight as well, or at least more weight on the sides. Then I'd run tubing up from the bumper on the passenger's side, right behind the taillight, and bolt it to the body to keep it from wobbling too much. I know I'll have to reinforce the body behind it, but I'm planning on using like a 4"x8" sheet of steel on the outside to spread out the weight, and a similar sheet on the inside. I can't weld the body panels because I don't have enough experiance, so I'm going to stick with the bolts. Then, weld a piece of angle iron to the tubing for a mounting surface, and weld a couple door hinges to that. I could then make the tire carrier itself to wrap around the back and lock to the bumper (rather than the tailgate) and use door hinges to hang it. All that would be left would be to mount a ladder onto the tire carrier.

I'd make the ladder sit partially on the bumper itself when the assembly is closed... that way if I climb up and the assembly shifts, the bumper will take the weight rather than the body. I did have a question though...

If I go with this route, is it possible that I could put too much strain on the body where the assembly bolts to it? The last thing I'd want to do is gouge a huge hole in the side of my truck and have my bumper fall off... Any comments/suggestions?

I want to do a spare tire carrier and do it cheap, just like you. People say that the BroncoII tire carriers wont work.... Why? because nobody has done it. If you reinforce the panel where you mount a BroncoII carrier it should work and you would be the first to pull it off.

If you decide that you will make your own bumper with a swinging tire carrier then I hope that you are a damn good fabricator. A homemade swinging tire carrier is hard to do well and it is even harder to make it so that it doesn't rattle. My suggestion for this is to get a wheel spacer and weld it on there to use as lug bolts.

My third bit of input is about just buying one.

This James Duff one is expensive but good.
http://www.jamesduff.com/broncoII/bumpers_carriers.html

The cheap route for just buying one I am still researching but this is what I found. I got these pictures from Oscarnec's cardomain page. You will not be able to open the window part of your hatch if you do this, but if you do it properly I don't see why you wouldn't be able to open the entire hatch. You might need some stronger lifters so when you do lift your hatch it doesn't fall on your head.






I am just waiting to hear back from Oscar and find out what he has to say about this set up, then I need to start researching fender flares for my explorer. Does anyone know if the bushwacker flares for a 89-92 ranger would fit correctly? Here is a link to check out...
http://www.bushwacker.com/fender.asp?make2=3&cat2=78&search=Search

In the threads I found it said that one reason the BII carrier won't mount is because it's supposed to mount above and below the taillight... on the Xs the hatch ends right above the tailights, making it so that you can't mount it there... I suppose you could either hack off part of the hatch and mount it there, but that would be difficult to do properly... I suppose another simpler way would be to put a mounting bracket on top of the light itself... it'd cover part of the light, but I think most of it should still be visible... Actually, I think I may go that route, if I can sort it out. I want to make solid bumpers rather than tube ones, so I suppose I could always put in LED lights in the bumper itself... that way I can have the stock lights as well as the LED ones, and if I ever needed to switch back to stock for any reason I could remove the tire carrier and mounting bracket and replace the bumper...

Does anyone have any ideas on this? Or, just replacing both stock lights with ones in the bumper and using the light mounting locations to mount a tire carrier?

Fil

Ok, I got an actual good look at the BII carriers today... Turns out they mount on the side of the body and wrap around the tailgate... the bottom part of the tailgate has a little pad that the carrier sits against when closed... I've decided to go with it, so I'll be picking one up likely on Sunday, along with a grille to modify and some wheels... I don't think anyone has a full write-up on how to mount this, so I'll try to break out the camera and get some shots to go with it...

Fil

I am going to hold off on my spare tire carrier to see if this works alright for you. Finally someone is actually doing it.

I looked at doing the same thing, but the problem I ran across was the vertical height of the BII body mount. When I measured I think that the carrier bracket was about an inch to long for the explorer. It put one part of the bracket on the body and the other in the window, making in impossible to use unless you changed the shape of the bracket. To verify this, I measured the height of the BII in comparison to the Explorer, and found that there is a difference, the BII is taller.

If you can get around this, let me know, as I can pick an rack up for like $20 at the pull a part.

How easy is this to get to the t-handle? That gate will be f'ing heavy with a full sized spare on it!!

froader in teh first pic it looks like the t-handle is gone

You're right. So you lose the whole back hatch..... :thumbdwn:

FROADER said:

How easy is this to get to the t-handle? That gate will be f'ing heavy with a full sized spare on it!!

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Yeah I agree. I was thinking about doing something like that myself. But with my 33x12.5 on a steel 15x8, I think it would be too much weight.

i am thinking of doing one on the drivers side in front of the tail light and have it mount to the wiper location. lose the wiper.. but with plans of 37's i may have to take a different route. right now i have a 33" under the truck.

My 35 chills in the cargo area until I can afford to get a rear bumper built.

Gatorblazer said:

I looked at doing the same thing, but the problem I ran across was the vertical height of the BII body mount. When I measured I think that the carrier bracket was about an inch to long for the explorer. It put one part of the bracket on the body and the other in the window, making in impossible to use unless you changed the shape of the bracket. To verify this, I measured the height of the BII in comparison to the Explorer, and found that there is a difference, the BII is taller.

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Hmmm... Didn't really think about that... I'll take a look though... I don't think it should be too much of an issue... I can't weld anything to the body anyways because I don't have the appropriate tools or skills, so I'll try just bolting steel plates to the inside and outside of the body to spread out the weight... I'm planning on mounting my subwoofer in place of the little cubby on the passenger's side, so I'll be pulling that off to get a good look at what's back there and where I can reinforce it to... As far as I know, there's beams behind the body panels to provide structural support... I'll mount brackets between two of these, then drill holes through them and the body for support. If the top mount does in fact end up where the window is, I'll probably just take another piece of steel and run it up the side of the body and use that to mount it... Not sure yet. Or, I'll mount the carrier lower and move the bolts for the wheel up... Or, if that interferes too much with the back window, I might just mount the carrier lower and work around it when I make my bumper... Actually, it seems a few offroad trucks have really large front bumpers... I could just make a custom rear bumper that has a mount built into it... not a bolt-on/swing-away carrier, but just a cut-out to fit a tire into and straps to hold it down. The bumper would stick out a lot further around the tire, and you'd have to pull it down everytime you wanted to get into the tailgate, but you could use the rear glass without any problem... Or, I'll just make a rack for the hood and carry the tire on that...

FROADER said:

How easy is this to get to the t-handle? That gate will be f'ing heavy with a full sized spare on it!!

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you're right but i bet you could get some better hatch lifters to help you

yeah you also said you just put your 35 in your cargo area, but mine is packed with my stereo... i love my stereo and hate it at the same time... love it because nobody i know has a cleaner install and nobody is even close to as loud as mine... but I hate it because it takes up so much space and it bounces around when im rumblin round the ranch


can anyone answer my fender flare question? i dont want to post a new thread about such an easy question

Arthur said:

can anyone answer my fender flare question? i dont want to post a new thread about such an easy question

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I'm not too sure, but IIRC the front end of a Ranger is pretty much the same as the front end of the Explorer... Other than that, I have no clue... I'm assuming they would fit, but if no-one else knows then I suggest a trip to the wreckers and just measuring the Ranger wheel wells and the Ex wheelwells... All you need is for both to be the same size, or for the Ranger wheelwells to be a little larger...

I'm too cheap to buy new parts like that, so I'm going to see if I can find some used ones at a wreckers, even off of a Jeep Wrangler or Cherokee... I like the square shape of them, and the more I think about it, I don't think I'll be selling the Ex anytime soon, so I wouldn't mind getting some larger flares and cutting away the fenders underneath. Essentially, isn't that what the flares are for?

I was going to ask what kind of stereo install you have... Mine is pretty simple, but it's loud enough for what I want. My amp is mounted in full view behind the rear seats, and the sub takes up too much space, so I think I'm mounting them behind the panel on the right like I mentioned above... I might go pull that panel from a Ex with the premium sound system and see if I can work from there... I have a box for my sub right now, bit it's about 1"-2" too deep to fit behind the panel... I'm considering using sheet metal to extend the panel out to fit the box there, but would it be a better idea just to mount the sub in the panel? Should I build a box to go with it? It's an 8" sub, so it's not super huge... but I do like my bass...

FROADER said:

My 35 chills in the cargo area until I can afford to get a rear bumper built.

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My 33 chills (literally) on the roof till I can afford a custom also.

Arthur said:

can anyone answer my fender flare question? i dont want to post a new thread about such an easy question

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The front will but the rear will not. The rear has the cut out for the doors.

Hmmm... just to throw something in here, how hard would it be to put in a pop-out sunroof on an Ex? Would it just require cutting out the sunroof panel from another car, cutting out the roof of the Ex, welding it in and touching up the trim pieces, or would I have to reinforce the sheet metal around the sunroof as well?

My EB has a sunroof where jus the rear pops up at the turn of a knob. Check the junk yard for some. Also check the Mazda Navajos.

Yeah I know some of the Ex's have them... but I'm just wondering how it looks installed... is it reinforced, or is it just sort of put in?

As far as I'm concerned, I could use any pop-out sunroof from any vehicle, providing the roofline is similar and it doesn't end up getting mounted in a wierd place... I'm actually considering going ragtop a la Volkswagen Beetles... just hacking most of the roof out and getting a custom ragtop for it... or even just using something like a fabric truck bed cover... It's waterproof and should be sealed if done properly, and if I get one of those roll-up bed covers with the velcro on the side it'd be pretty easy to open up when I need to and just roll shut when I'm done...

(This has gone from being "How do I mount a rear tire carrier?" to "What sorts of crazy shaith can I do to my truck?"... )