Cookie Cutter TJ Rear Tire Carrier

I’m cheap, so naturally I wound up building a tire carrier out of scarp metal rather than ponying up for a real one when the Cookie Cutter TJ outgrew its stock sized spare 🙂 I like the thought of saving weight by not dragging a spare tire around with me all the time, but I want to be self sufficient, so along comes a spare!

Took some scrap to work and played around on the mill to get this:

Pulled off the OEM stuff:

Did some welding and painting on it:

And burned it home:

After which I whipped up the swing arm:

And I realized that I had goofed and made it too short. So I cut it apart and welded on a taller support:

It worked out good! That’s a 35” tire on there for reference. The extra nub allows for a place to stick the Go-Pro and it’ll allow me to go up to a 37” tire if need be:

I had to make a little wrench to undo the bolt lock as well:

So fa so good! For the effort and money I have in it, I’m happy.