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.

[tdkosta]

Good question, anyone have any answers?

[70rs/ss]

Should've got the inner plates? I know that doesn't help, but that is a HUGE part of getting one. I have one and it is for sale, when I pull it apart I can shoot some picts of the brackets, But I'd guess without them the tire carrier is worth a lot less.

[bouncytruck]

The inner plates are about 1/4" thick and have threads on the holes. The upper plate has a long rod welded to it so you can get the thing up in the bed side.

I used to have photos I took for another board member, but they don't appear to be on this computer. I loaned some inner brackets to Nubomb so he could have some fabbed up. He had estimates done and due to the compound bend in both brackets to match the shape of the body panel, the cost of having them fabricated was going to be astronomical. He ended up getting a set from another board member.

[stomper]

I made my own with steel flat bar. Don't recall the thickness but just tapped the holes and it worked fine. Guess it musta been 1/4". Didn't weld a bar on the top one. Pulled it up by two strings thru the holes in quarter panel on either end and then threaded rod in the center hole to line up with outer bracket.

[cleszkie]

Well I'm pretty sure that my Blazer does not have room up there for the backing plate. There is a vertical spar that is welded to the inner skin that leaves about a 1/16 of an inch of clearance between the inner and outer skins (I measured the clearance after I drilled the holes in the quarter panel). In order to work around this I had to cut the backing plate I made into three pieces, getting rid of the middle section that would have interfered with the spar. After doing this, I was able to fit the two backing plate pieces into position and thread in the three bolts. I can't explain why my truck has that spar in that location. All I know is that I have a 72 K5 Blazer that was not originally fitted with the tire carrier. I'm just glad I got the thing bolted on with backing plates. I wonder if anyone else has had this problem.

BTW - I located a few pictures of the upper backing plate that BobbyK took a while back. The piece I fabbed up was identical in thickness and shape. No way an original piece would have worked either.

[BobbyK]

Here's the upper backing plate.
The round bar is attached so you can fish it up through the side maker hole and hold onto it while getting a bolt into it.

[bouncytruck]

Has the bed skin been replaced on your rig? Sounds like you may need to make a custom swing away like BobbyK did.

[LUV2XCLR8]

pic's