KZN185W

iTrader: (1)

You got PM. In case you decide to fab the carrier instead, I can give you dimensions & pics if you like.

dragr1

iTrader: (3)

Thought about that, but my fab guy moved to Wisconsin. If you could post some more pics that would be great. Especially close up pics and with the tire off would be even better.

HOJU

Roy, if you could post a few pics of the tire off, the carrier open, the latch, etc..... that would be great!

Albuquerque Jim

Just a thought:

I bet the JDM tire carrier is sold in parts...

Perhaps one could purchase the bracketry and the latch. Then build frame for the carrier itself locally.

dragr1

iTrader: (3)

That's a good thought. If I could pick up the latch portion and the brackets that mount to the body, the carrier arm should not be all that hard to fab.

HOJU

Well I sent some more e-mails to various places around the world, and Dan in Australia gave me an e-mail for a man named Russ who buys and sells used toyota parts off of wrecked Hilux Surfs. I'll let you know what i find out- it's not much, but it's somewhat of a lead...

bamachem

JIM!

EXCELLENT IDEA!

bamachem

REPLY:



Andy,

While I am sure that I can get my hands on the required parts for the rear door/hatch and those can be installed on almost any rear door/hatch the other end is what poses the probelm. The hinges are are attached to the tire carrier tube frame in a manner that is meant to be permanent. Removing the tube frame from the hinge would at least destroy the hinge pins which are tack welded to the hinge frame. Now that just covers the tire carrier and latch. The runner side of this is also very different. There is a inner frame with a rod that runs from the top hinge to the bottom hinge inside that cannot be seen from the outside and is very hard to see from the inside as well. I have been told that should damage occur in this area the outer fender will have to be have to be cut away to repair it. I have only found one post about have this mod added. That post covered the cutting to the out side fender and rewelding. That post was on a different board. While there are a few "pick and pull" wrecking yards in Japan they are quickly being forced out of business by the GOV as the space they sit on can be used for housing and the regs are getting tuffer and tuffer to comply with so they are going out of business very quickly. If you want me to push this it will take some doing but I am sure that it can be done. Just to make sure we are on the same page...you are asking about the factory installed rear mounted spare tire carrier, cause that is what I have been talking about.

I will head to my favorite parts shop this weekend and see if I can get an exploded parts diag of that area.

HOJU

hope he gives us good news

sschaefer3

doods-

If the guy is willing to find them and send them DO IT.

What you then will fab up is the inner supports, inside the body.

This is one of the most sound ways to correctly mount a rear "butt jewelry" tire on a 3rd Gen.

I do have to add that I hated, despised, cursed that tire back there. Just so you know.

I also had problems hitting it on extreme departure, hence back in the day Steve Hunt raised his up real high.

That said, go with this guy have him round up the carriers, send them all in one container, buy a few extras on speculation, you know, talk amongst yourselves.........

Also keep in mind what we found on Caseys 4WD conversion, the 2WD frame and body ARE DIFFERENT. You would have thought they would make one frame and one body that would work for both, but they did not. The 2WD frame has crossmember one moved approx 1" back and the hole for the shifters in the 2WD body is actually smaller. So for them to add a brace to the JDM bodys would make alot of sence and you know those braces are not in our bodies.


All I can say is boy I'm happy I have a Sonoran Steel rear bumper that fits a 35 under the body.

bamachem

yeah, that's the idea that i was thinking about. getting at least one complete set shipped. it would be nice to get 4 or 5 complete ones if we can get that many, but that's unlikely - but there's also a glimmer at the end of that tunnel...

from there, i could have it sent to AZ for some super-duper fab work at this place called sonoran steel who'd be interested in helping me develop an aftermarket 3rd gen carrier that modeled the OEM JDM carrier.

have you ever seen the support inside a 90 or 91 runner that had the carrier? it was a pair of plates that contoured to the body lines and had some captive nuts. it had a section of small channel connecting them to add some strength. you simply drilled holes in the body panel according to a template, then held the backing plate in while you started the bolts from the outside, torqued it down and it held in place by sandwitching itself to the body panel. the deal-i-o w/ the JDM version over here is the latch, but that could be modded on the carrier to latch to the bumper instead of the rear hatch.

i'm thinking leave the rear hatch alone completely, and use a relocating tab for the plate like on darren's rig below. that is almost identical to the position of the OEM rack. then, fab up a latch similar to his as well. shouldn't be too bad... now the real $$$ would be in getting a set of the hinge points to have some made or make some from a jig to fit in the right places, then from there add some tube for the holder, then a bolt-on latch point for the bumper then a bolt-on plate tab to make it legal.

you think you'd be up for that steve???

sschaefer3

I think you need to get one over here and see it first. I would not attach to the bumper, because then you'll never be able to get a custom heavy duty rear bumper, which would be frame mounted.

Can't connect the frame to the body.

Isn't the only thing you need the license plate pannel and the add on plate light?

You don't need the entire tailgate.

bamachem

ahhh, true, true...

so, it would be a bolt-on plate to the gate then. no biggie.

well, theres the latch system that's internal to the gate, the filler panel for where the US version currently has a plate, then the light for the plate on the JDM version. that's why i like darren's version much better. much more simple and can be easily fabbed here in the states w/o depending on suppliers in japan for filler panels on the back gate and more complicated latch systems that are internal to the hatch...

sschaefer3

I still think it would be ideal to get the tailgate and carrier over here, then you could reverse engineer it.

Maybe one full tailgate and several carriers. It can't be "That" much to ship that stuff over.

bamachem

well, JDM parts would be several hundred at least for the carrier and the complete hatch, then several hundred more to ship. i think you can skip the hatch latch () and just fab something like everyone else uses for carrier latches on a plate to drill and mount to the rear hatch. then all that would be left would be to reverse eng some backing plates on the inside and then the outer carrier hinges so they could be easily produced. they wouldn't have to be as "pretty" as the OEM ones w/ the plastic covers as long as they'd be functional. from there, the only thing left would be the tube bending and that would be the easy part...

Albuquerque Jim

Geez...at least give me a little credit for the idea. You guys were at a dead end trying to ship a whole tail gate assembly.

Another piece to this...I could have the body brackets cast out of aluminum if I had the originals to mold from.

bamachem

lol... not exactly. i gave up on the "whole gate" long ago. i was still looking at getting the whole carrier though. i thought you were suggesting that we just get the end point mounting brackets....

HOJU

So I'm assuming that this is a lost cause, since none of us has been able to get any info on where to locate one of these suckers....

Am I right?

bamachem

pretty much.

i'm moving on to fabbing one up. it would mount to the side of the runner, above and below the tail light. it will take some time to get the shape right. i'm also not in a hurry and this isn't a priority right now. i'll hopefully have something in 6 months... until then...

HOJU

It's been a while, but I got these from a buddy over on the IH8 Mud forum. Seems to me that A whole new rear hatch isn't necessary.

Can't figure out how to get them larger on here but, here you go-