Backing Plates for Swing Away Tire Carrier

[cleszkie]

I know this has been discussed here many times before, and I did a search on this topic on this site. But the threads that came up no longer showed the attached pictures that I needed to see.

Anyways - I bought a swing away carrier that came without the backing plates. No problem. I just fabbed the upper and lower backing plates out of steel strap and welded on nuts. I also welded on a piece of rod to the upper backing plate to help position it behind the rear quarter panel (like I remember seing in pictures). But when I tried to position the upper backing plate, I found that the plate was too thick to fit between the inner and outer bed skins. It seems that there is a vertical support spar that is connectd to the inside of the inner skin that makes the area very tight. How in the world is a backing plate supposed to fit up in there? I removed all of the welded on nuts, and the plate (3/8" thick) still could not fit up there. I have the plate bent to perfectly match the inner surface of the outter mounting plate, so it isn't a shape issue. Can anyone offer me some advise on making the backing plate or better yet post up pictures of the upper backing plate? I really do not want to mount this thing with sheet metal screws!

BTW - my truck did not originally come with the carrier if that makes any difference.

Thanks in advance.