31" tire on factory spare tire carrier?

My take away is 31" tire will fit with mods to bumpers and 3rd brake light. Seems pretty trivial. I'll eventually mount my spare, which is a Mickey Thompson, on the ravine wheel and make the necessary mods.
 
hardtailpan said:
My take away is 31" tire will fit with mods to bumpers and 3rd brake light. Seems pretty trivial. I'll eventually mount my spare, which is a Mickey Thompson, on the ravine wheel and make the necessary mods.
Click to expand...
I didn't have to mod anything when I had a 31" tire mounted. 33's I had to raise the 3rd brake light, 35's had to raise it a bit more again.

If the tire is properly supported, the stock carrier can handle 35's. I'm on my second year with 35's, had 33's for two years before that, and 31's for a year before that.
 
derekmac said:
I didn't have to mod anything when I had a 31" tire mounted. 33's I had to raise the 3rd brake light, 35's had to raise it a bit more again.

If the tire is properly supported, the stock carrier can handle 35's. I'm on my second year with 35's, had 33's for two years before that, and 31's for a year before that.
Click to expand...

My hope is that nothing needs to be modded as I have enough other things to take care of on this TJ.
 
TJRick said:
Really? Wow. That is a very unethical thing to do to avoid responsibility.
Click to expand...

I have no sympathy for insurance companies. They're in the business of ripping people off and screwing people over for the most part.

I guess that makes me an unresponsible asshole. Thankfully you’re here to remind me of it 🤣
 
  • Face Palm
  • Like
Reactions: jodomcfrodo and Zukey14
Chris said:
Insurance companies are not someone I have any sympathy for.

I guess that makes me an unresponsible asshole. Thankfully you’re here to remind me of it 🤣
Click to expand...

I didn't necessarily mean the insurance companies. I don't have much sympathy for them myself.

I am talking about if a young driver - who is expecting to see a third brake light - runs into the back of your Jeep and gets injured because you removed it. Or what if a passenger in your Jeep gets injured because of it?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Zorba
I do think a 3rd brake lite is important - that triad of lites is hard to miss. Duals though, especially with the old skool combination red turn signal/brake lite, can get missed easily. And its not just young drivers - I sometimes have difficulty discerning brake lites from turn signals on the increasing number of even foreign cars that use red all around - having separate red filaments only helps slightly. Obviously, I'm a proponent of amber turn signals which have been shown to be far more visible - so the more brake lites the better as far as I'm concerned!
 
Xposure said:
What breaks when you run too heavy of a tire on the factory mounting location?
Click to expand...

The hinges, and sometimes the spare tire mount itself, especially if you don't have the rubber snubbers pushing up tightly against the spare.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Xposure
Chris said:
The hinges, and sometimes the spare tire mount itself, especially if you don't have the rubber snubbers pushing up tightly against the spare.
Click to expand...

I'm looking over mine and with 33's the rubber snubbers are no where close. It seems like they really need to be half inch or so longer to touch the tire.

Is there a good way to reposition them? Does anyone make brackets or something like that?
 
Xposure said:
I'm looking over mine and with 33's the rubber snubbers are no where close. It seems like they really need to move outward a couple inches to hit the fattest part of the sidewall and stick out from the tailgate a inch.

Is there a good way to reposition them? Does anyone make brackets or something like that?
Click to expand...

Yeah, you want those rubber snubbers very tightly pressed against the tire sidewall on the spare, otherwise you can do some serious damage to your tailgate.

What most people do to extend them is get longer bolts and stack hockey pucks (with holes drilled in the middle for the bolt) or cut little sections of PVC pipe to put between the tailgate and the rubber snubber.

Hopefully this makes sense.

For mine, I actually got another set of rubber snubbers and cut the domed portion off the top, then stacked them. It worked nicely and looked factory.
 
Chris said:
Yeah, you want those rubber snubbers very tightly pressed against the tire sidewall on the spare, otherwise you can do some serious damage to your tailgate.

What most people do to extend them is get longer bolts and stack hockey pucks (with holes drilled in the middle for the bolt) or cut little sections of PVC pipe to put between the tailgate and the rubber snubber.

Hopefully this makes sense.

For mine, I actually got another set of rubber snubbers and cut the domed portion off the top, then stacked them. It worked nicely and looked factory.
Click to expand...


I edited my post but you had already replied. So looking again I suppose they dont really need to hit the fattest part of the sidewall. So I suppose they just need to come out half an inch or so.

Regarding the PVC can you describe that some more? Which way do they cut it?

Do they put something like rubber between the spacer and paint to not damage the paint?
 
Xposure said:
I edited my post but you had already replied. So looking again I suppose they dont really need to hit the fattest part of the sidewall. So I suppose they just need to come out half an inch or so.

Regarding the PVC can you describe that some more? Which way do they cut it?

Do they put something like rubber between the spacer and paint to not damage the paint?
Click to expand...

They just need to touch the sidewall and be pressed up against it very tight, so that when you hit bumps or imperfections in the road, the tire isn't able to move (which is what causes the damage).

I never used the PVC pipe method, nor would I.

Just buy extra rubber snubbers and do this:

https://wranglertjforum.com/threads...re-snubbers-or-rubber-tailgate-bumpers.18498/
Look at the first several posts in that thread and you'll see photos of how it's done.

That's clean, easy to do with a vise and a hacksaw, and looks factory. That's the only way I would do it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Xposure
Top Bottom
Back