On 27/3/2013 2:12 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Tue, 26 Mar 2013 01:08:28 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

*MY* favorite (actually, most hated...) "how not to" is the spare tire
carrier on domestic (Ford, GMC, etc.) full-size trucks. My folks had
a car repair and tire place. I've cursed out loud in front of my
mother while trying to remove/replace a tire under a truck. A
(slightly) better design is the chain hoist system used on some
smaller imports. I hope there's a special place in hell for the
Mercedes-driving engineer that designed this thing (you know HE never
changed a flat in his life!).

My former 1983 Dodge D50 pickup had a chain hoist spare tire under the
bed. Great idea until I blew a rear tire and high centered the rear
axle while driving on a dirt road on the way to a mountain top radio
site. In order to lower the tire, a long hand crank was provided. The
problem was that I was backed up against a hillside, and could not get
the long crank into the hole. I had to dig out part of the hillside
for it to fit. In order to remove the spare tire, I had to jack up
the pickup bed about 3 ft off the ground, and crawl under the raised
bed to release the toggle link holding the tire to the chain. Of
course, with the tire lowered, the toggle link is UNDER the tire on
the ground. I raised it with a bottle jack and a rather unstable pile
of rocks. While replacing the blown tire, the pile of rocks and jack
did partially collapse. Perhaps in your parents tire store, it might
work, but on a dirt road, it's not easy.

Yes, my Toyota has the chain lift spare system too. But its marginally
better than having to unload the whole back of the tray to get to the
spare, like some other pickups.

--
Regards,

Adrian Jansen adrianjansen at internode dot on dot net
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