Rear bar wheel carrier

Make that "lock to keep it open"

And make sure the "lock" to keep it open is strong enough for the weight of your spare tyre.

We now have a dual carrier, not MCC, and it has heavy duty struts to keep it open. Our larger set or wheels weigh 52 Kgs each. The new bar does the job superbly but the previous single carrier was a bit on the weak side.

Neither had an actual physical locking mechanism like our sons rear bar, (pin in a hole) but I do like the strut system as there is nothing else to fiddle with to get it to stay open.

Agree with Ken. What follows may just stir your creative juices.

What I did recently for our Forester was a custom job attached to the towbar. It swings DOWN to allow tailgate access. ANY type will be a PITA but a swing-down isn't going to fight you or attack the tailgate. The alternative of roof-loading wasn't considered for noise/drag reasons.

Being bolted on to the towbar in place of the towing tongue, it was easily removed once back in "civilisation". Probably isn't a solution for serious 4x4 vehicles, but worked for us - even SWMBO could easily lower and raise it. Worked a treat, never flinched on the GCR.
Description and pics in another place ....

Which obviously doesn't work if you're towing!!

I've done the same thing and if I am towing our off road box trailer, I simply place the extra spare in the trailer

Fitted to my 1998 100 series for off road . It is a bit of a nuisance until you need to change a wheel.A few years ago we attached a twin jerry can holder to it for additional fuel rather than on roof . Removing the swing out not too hard if staying on the tar.Hope this helps.

Reminded me of a couple of pluses, Phil.

Easier to take the spare off the rear carrier than scrambling on hands and knees, on hot bitumen or powdery bull dust, to retrieve the spare from its normal abode.

Also, if you are unlucky enough to total a tyre, the remnants are easy to bolt onto the carrier, depending on how much wire is protruding from the tread.

Bob

Thanks for your reply. I am going to do a trip on the Canning Stock Route and for this trip will not be taking the camper trailer. I am looking at the rear wheel carrier as a means of taking an extra spare and two extra jerry cans.

I have had OME suspension / lift to the vehicle and the rear suspension is heavy duty so that should take it.

For other trips where I take the camper trailer I would not have the jerry cans on the rear bar but may take the extra spare depending on the trip.

I would have the extra weight of the rear bar, wheel carrier, wheel and tyre. As you suggested I will add this weight to the ball weight of my trailer and check if they are within the manufacturers limits.

Thank you very much for your advice. I had not considered this when I thought of getting the rear bar.

"and the rear suspension is heavy duty so that should take it."
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It will certainly support extra weight but it will not transfer weight forward to the front wheels. Few people seem to realise this and it has resulted in many suffering major damage to chassis, wheel studs and axle housings even though the total weight of the car may have been a few hundred kilos under maximum.

The problem is the distance from your rear axle back to the tow ball or the end of the body/tray is a lever. As you would know, you can put a little bit of force down onto the end of a lever and lift a lot of weight at the other end of it. This is what is happening to your car. The more weight you put well back behind the axle, the more it will force the back down causing the chassis to pivot on the rear axle and lift the front. This causes the rear suspension to sag but that won’t break anything while the car is stationary. The whole scene changes dramatically when the car is in motion. You will soon see what I mean if you place a brick carefully on your bare foot then pick it up about 300 mm and drop it onto your foot. Imagine the effect on your chassis, axle housing etc. when the forces generated by a few hundred kilos way out the back about one and a quarter or more metres behind the axle come crashing down when the rear wheels drop into a depression or washout in the road. It gets worse when the end of the chassis has to catch that falling material and instantly heave it back up again as the wheels come up out of the hole.

Car manufacturers are aware of this which is why they will tell you to lift the rear up with a WDH and transfer some of the weight to the front wheels. They don’t recommend or supply heavier springs or air bags because they lift but don’t transfer weight anywhere other than straight up an inch or two.

To get an idea of how a WDH works, imagine the two bars of the hitch attached to your tow bar without a trailer. If you lifted their ends up and kept going you could not only lift all the weight off the rear axle but lift the axle up as well. The weight of the car would now be supported by the front wheels and you.

Springs can not do that. They can make the chassis sit up a little higher but all the weight that was out the back and on the axle is still there. Nothing has been transferred forward.

The next problem with all of this is a WDH can be a real menace on off road camper trailers or vans. If the car is climbing up out of a creek or whatever while the trailer is going down into it, the angle between the two could be so high that the tow bar or car could be damaged or the bars on the hitch bent beyond their elastic limit and rendered useless.

The final point is if you are not towing anything , you can’t use one which is all the more reason to pay very close attention to what you hang off the back. There is no shortage of examples of chassis damage on the net on cars that were not towing.

The question could then be asked, how do I carry all of my gear, with a lot of it having to go down the back, when I am not towing anything and can’t use a WDH? The answer is you should be towing something. A small purpose built box trailer can carry a lot of the heavy stuff. All of its weight is so close in front of and behind the axle that is does not have long heavy ends to swing around and therefore does not need much ball weight. The car should now be well under its maximum carrying capacity and miles under its towing limit.

All of this comes down to owners paying close attention to their car and trailer specifications before buying them. When you see specifications like a tow ball limit of 300 kgs, you should think now that will force the rear end of the car down considerably and have the head lights up in the trees so what is the manufacturer’s solution? There will be one if you look in the book or ask them.

The other issue to keep in mind, particularly with a dual cab, is a large portion of their carrying capacity should be in the five seats. You can’t for example have a sub 200 kg family of five up front and the rest of its capacity out the back without running into problems.

Sorry to have to bring all of this up but a road like the Canning needs 100% reliability and anything less is unacceptable. No part of the car should be overstressed.

671,

you've got a lot of weight up front with an engine, particularly a diesel engine. A rear bar with two large tyres wouldn't weigh more than 150 kgs. A camper or caravan would have a ball weight of under 300 kgs. Plus the weight from behind the driver's seat to the tailgate.
The engine is sitting over the front axle in a lot of cases but they weigh a lot.

Just a thought.

Steve

Steve


Thanks for your reply.
I am looking at a rear bar with two jerry cans and one spare wheel.
If I had the camper trailer on I would only carry the one spare wheel as the camper has 3 jerry cans.

The ball weight on my camper trailer if approximately 100 kgs.
The rear bar I am looking at weighs 50kg. To that I would have to add the weight of the wheel and tyre.
In all the total weight would be about 200 kgs.


Tjilpi

We have that setup on our Landcruiser.

The bar has been on for over 4 years and we haven't had any major problems with the bar or vehicle in that time.

The picture I posted above was taken up at Mc Gowan's Island north of Kalumburu. The roads we have have travelled in that time have generally been the road less travelled, so it's been well tested.

Ours is sold by Powerful 4x4. We have the older model. Their new bar has had some changes but they are very similar.

Steve.

Gas strutted as well.

When we bought our rear bar the waiting time caught us too.

We ordered in December for a May pick up but checking two weeks before the due delivery date the new date was early July with no guarantee. We were due to leave in late July.

Other businesses were a minimum 6 week wait, so we bought ours 2nd hand off Ebay.
It turned out to be a great buy. Because we had been prepared to pay for a new one we had a budget that allowed us to put in a good offer and we bought a one year old bar for $600 cheaper than new.

Checking the delivery date is important.

Steve.