How To Factory Spare Tire Mod for bigger tires by fosh69

[Sal-XK]

• fosh69 emailed me the info he was having troubles posting it.

I've mounted a LT265/70 17 Nitto Terra Grappler on my factory rim and want it to fit in the factory location. I started by removing the exhaust heat shield. I did not photograph this part, there is no mistaking it. This part will not go back on.

Now I had to figure out what else was keeping the tire from fitting in the hole. The biggest issue to address is the hitch, so this will have to be removed and modified. With the tire out of the way, start by removing the fairing and the connector plug:

1. go in behind the bumper and find four little greenish yellow clips and remove them.



2. the fairing should pop out of the slots... set this aside.
3. on the connector, slide the red locking tab out and remove the plug from the back of the connector.
Next, you need to access the bolts holding the hitch in place. There are two ways to do this: Either remove the bumper, or cut out access holes. I chose the latter in case I ever want to remove the hitch, all I have to remove is the fairing and get at the bolts.
1. locate the bolts that are hiding behind the plastic molded cover.
2. get a sharp knife (utility blade works) and a heat gun (to make cutting easier)
3. cut out enough plastic to ensure a socket fits in there over the bolt heads (heat the blade or the plastic to help make cutting easier)
Attachment 871
4. once you can access the the bolts, loosen and remove them, the hitch will come right off.

Now you can see there are four captive nuts on the spare side of the hitch... these need to be removed. They pressed or swaged in somehow, I had one that was tack welded in place. If that's the case, slice through the tack welds with a cutoff wheel or something similar. Otherwise they can be knocked off with a hammer... keep at least two of these for reuse.
Attachment 872Attachment 873
Next, clearance the back side of the receiver. Cutoff wheel, safety shield and a vise come in real handy. You want to take off the ‘excess’ square tube and cut a bevel on the bottom side. Do not cut the weld area, just cut down to it. Use a grinding or flapper disc to smooth the cut edges.



This should be enough bevel. It just aids in positioning the tire in the well.
The next step is modifying the connector mount.

1. Remove the connector from the mount.

1. Cut the tack weld at the safety chain hole.

1. Bend the mount out to about there: and then tack weld back onto the safety chain hole.

1. Now re-clock the connector at about 90 deg CCW and re-drill your screw holes. Clean up the hitch and give it a nice coat of paint or in my case, truck bed coating and install your connector.

[Sal-XK]

On to mounting the hitch back up. The factory bolts and captive nuts were obviously in the way of the tire, and the two center bolt heads would still interfere even if the bolts were reversed. A visit to my local hardware store turned up these 4.5”x 5/8” grade 8 carriage bolts, nuts and lock washers (factory are metric and are around a ½” bolt, but the factory hole will accommodate a 5/8” bolt with no drilling):












They have a nice rounded head and the square shank wedges quite nicely in the round hole of the hitch. These are for the inner two bolts, the outers can retain the factory bolts, just flip them around and reuse the two captive nuts you kept but reverse them or drill out the holes a bit so the extruded side sits in the hole. In retrospect, the outer bolts have enough clearance to use them in the stock location, so if you prefer, you don’t have to remove the two outer captive nuts.
Now, just fit the hitch back up in its place and feed the bolts in from the front to back. Tighten all your bolts (I do not have torque specs for these) and ensure the carriage bolts sink in fully flush to the hitch.










Install your connector plug and adjust the harness to your liking so that it’s out of the way of anything including the spare tire. Install the spare:

1. The spare will need to be guided in at an angle, front side up first, to clear the pan hard bar.

1. Raise it up and snug it into place and you’re done.

[pjmjr508]

Sal or Fosh69
Can I get a copy of the pictures 6 thru 12 in Post #1 or can they be reposted so they can expand?
Thanks

[fosh69]

I had issues uploading the pics, so Sal uploaded the write up for me. PM me your email and I'll send you the word document.

[Omelet]

Great job Bud! That is basically what I did to mine to make my 255/75/17 spare fit up there. However I did reinstall the exhaust heat shield. It barely fits, but I wanted it back in!

[Matt]

Nice write up! Definitely needs to be in the "how to" section.

Would also recommend anyone who's changing bolts on the hitch to get grade 8. Even if you don't tow, the next owner might.