* There were four considerations I made before I mounted my spare tire:
- 1) ease of access,
- 2) ground clearance (on road or trail),
- 3) security ...not liable to come loose (from road contact or jarring), or being stolen, and
- 4) best location to help with trailer balance.
* 1) Ease of access: Since there was/is only 21" of clearance underneath the frame, and because I had previous difficulties getting the spare tire out from underneath my old S-10 pickup (low to the ground), in muddy conditions, I chose a top-of-frame mounting location. Now at 69 years (61 when building the TTT), I hate(d) crawling on the ground, since I have bad knees and back to consider.
* 2) Ground clearance: I was building the trailer for going semi-offroad eventually, or at least over rutted dirt roads at times, so mounting the spare underneath would reduce effective approach and departure angles (if under the tongue, or at the rear), and would even hang lower than my axle (the crossmembers of the frame are too close to each other to tuck the 27" diameter spare to tuck inside them).
* 3) Security: As stated in the two paragraphs above, an under-frame mount would subject the spare to possible ground contact, and resultant loss or damage could occur. Having now chosen a above-frame location, a secure mounting point/hardware would be needed. Since I had by now decided on a front-wall mounting spot, with the tire's weight being supported by the tongue, a simple 1/2" carriage bolt would be sufficient to hold the tire in place (with large washers on both sides of the wall, and with a nylock nut to tighten). I simply added a heavy chain thru the modular wheel holes be able to lock it in position. The later addition of a locked-in-place slide-mounted tongue box made access to the tire even more difficult for a possible thief.
* 4) Trailer balance: I was aware of the trailer being very heavy in the rear, due to 55/45 front/rear axle placement, and having a lot of equipment and gear placed behind the axle, so I always planned to counter that with added weight on the tongue. The spare tire on the tongue helped greatly with that, even before I had acquired the larger tongue box to pack with heavy gear (and battery), and prior to building weight-bearing over-the-box "roof racks" to compensate.
* Though I've not had to use the spare yet, I can get to it in less than five minutes (2 minutes to find the keys & 3/4" wrench for the nylock nut, 1 minute to remove the overhead storage box & swing the rack up out of the way, 1 minute to move the tongue box forward & to remove the chains, and 1 minute to unbolt the tire). I do so before every trip, for practice, and to check the tire pressure and status (though it's new, and never been on the road).
- Spare tire mounted to the rear of sliding tongue box.jpg (241.63 KiB) Viewed 4830 times
- spare tire mount details.jpg (153.85 KiB) Viewed 4830 times