Offroad bumpers, tire carriers, and ladders...

[SBJ420]

so how is everything working out so far? Still looking for the other part

 

[pope_face]

Pretty good... I'm just waiting to get paid... hopefully I will be tommorow. Then I'm going to try to track down some flatbar or angle iron or whatnot to reinforce the panel underneath the window/behind the hatch... I don't want to start welding randomly, as I don't have the experiance and don't want to go through the body panel, so I think I'm going to reinforce the panel and just bolt something to the outside to mount the tire carrier... But, I'm still sort of debating between using pieces of angle iron with holes drilled in them as brackets, or slicing off the tab that goes behind the hatch on the top bracket and just mounting that onto something and then the body. As I've mentioned before, I want to mount the entire assembly further back than it should be, so that the tire clears the bumper. It's only about a 3" difference, if that. The only issue with using the stock brackets is their shape along the inside edge... it's contoured to fit the body panel, so mounting it to a piece of flatbar might be a bit tough...

 

[SVO42]

Thanks for the measurments, pope. I'll check it out on my Ex once the weather cooperates. It was raining yesterday and now it's snowing. But, I'm at work anyway. Maybe I'll leave early and go play in the snow. :roll:

 

[pope_face]

SVO... I tried to take pictures, but I did it when I posted the measurements... I couldn't get the flash to work though, so I couldn't get any. I'll try to shoot some today or tommorow though.

However... like I mentioned above, it can fit, but the top bracket is a little awkward... in order to get it to fit behind the hatch like it's supposed to, it either interferes with the side window, or it doesn't fit properly against the slant above the taillight... You'll have to do some modifications to get it to fit properly...

 

[Gatorblazer]

You've had a day to mount this thing! Where is the update!

 

[pope_face]

Hahahaha... I don't know if I mentioned, but my life consists of work and school... I don't have much time off, and it's raining... I haven't even had a chance to rip out all the trim panels inside yet... I just cleaned all my gear for work out of the back. But... updates will come... I've talked about it too much to not do it...

 

[SBJ420]

I found the other part if you still want it, It was right infront of me, but under some leaves!
Let me know
its the striker for the door, where it connects to the rear hatch

 

[Gatorblazer]

Any update?

 

[pope_face]

Lol, somehow I thought this thread had died... there are some updates, but progress is slow due to freakishly large amounts of rain for the past several weeks and my lack of a garage... I've got the interior rear trim panels removed and have found out that there is a panel about 2-3" wide and ~1.5" deep running along the body right underneath the rear quarter windows. It's welded on and it's one piece, so I'm not too keen on hacking into it to put reinforcement plates behind it, although that may be the route I have to go. Other than that, while removing my taillights (in order to switch them with clears) I noticed that the little part of the body right underneath them isn't reinforced, which is good for me as that'll be one of my mounting points, so I'll make my own reinforcements on the inside and outside... Other than that, nothing yet... I still have to take a saw to the carrier and hack off a couple pieces...

 

[clearamericanbo]

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?"... )

no, the sunroof, if you were to get one off of somthin in the junck yard, you wouldent have to brace up, the roof it just sits on it, the only thing is that you would have to cut the holes for the run off tubes, or else you could get water inside,

 

[jimwww]

I would love a rear carrier for my 2dr as well.. (fyi 20x32 sunroof fits right in above the driver)

 

[Regulator_XLS]

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

what front end are you running with those 35's

 

[sparkyXplorer]

I could be Wrong, but I am pretty sure that the X in that picture ^ is on 33's

 

[Regulator_XLS]

nope your right im an idiot, i was gonna say i have 33's on mine, and my rear end is plenty stron comp[ared to a jeep, but the front end needs to be beefed up before i can run some 35's

 

[sparkyXplorer]

I am running 33's no problem on the stock IFS front end with 100k miles...ball joints are shot but those happened prior to new tires...

 

[revenantdead]

Have we died? i wanna see how this turns out. i've been thinking about this for a while.

 

[parli22]

To restart this thread a little. I have an idea that a through a jeff draper (jdraper) about the samr things you guys are looking for. The reason for my ideas to jeff is because when I was on vacation in South America (Venezula) and doing some offroading I saw alot of offroad truck and got a lot of good ideas. Also jeff built me one hell of a front bumper and rock slider for the truck.

Right now the idea I gave jeff was.
looking for heavy duty bumper with dual swing outs
1 for full size spare tire passanger side. and a second smaller swing out for 2jerry cans.

to also through it in the mix i ask him if possible for Ladder on one side and a possible hitch.
so we will see what he comes up with

 

[revenantdead]

pics parli?

 

[parli22]

I saw Jdraper at a run yesterday. He says as soon as he gets a second he is going to finish the design and order the material and he's going to give me a price because now he's design a similar one for himself .

 

[hardywo]

I picked up a BII carrier a while back, but it never went anywhere because of the mounting brackets. Any progress designing new ones to work with our explorers? Let me know what you did, and thanks for working on this.