dangler

Here's a little post to show our lives down here
are more than glamour filled hot rod building.

van!

Last week I took the van up north,
and after seeing a couple trucks and cars on the side of the freeway,
realized the spare tire was ditched on the side of the house.

broken spare tire winder

The New Jersey salt had seized up the spare tire mechanism.
The cable mount had been dangling all this time,
reminding me that this needed to be fixed.

simple

Scrap all thread was pulled out of the pile,
and a simple mount was made.

The top nut and washer on the inside was welded to the stud,

with some spacers washers between the frame and floor to take up the slack.

I had some stainless all thread and nuts,
but SS has a tendency to seize up under stressed conditions.
Changing a tire on the side of the road is that situation.

key

The key to this contraption was this special nut.
This is down and dirty stuff here.
Not everything I do needs hours of grinding and polishing!

child labor

Jakob had seen me weld the half-wing nut up,
and after chiding me about how hack it looked,
was wondering what it was for.
The perfect guinea pig.
If he was able to tighten it up then mission accomplished.

hack scrap

A zip tie locked the modified nut in place,
along with a second nut which means I'll need to have a wrench now.
Kinda defeats the purpose there so maybe I'll weld another one up.
This was coated with anti-seize,
as I can imagine the threads getting chingered up and jamming the nuts.
After looking at this picture,
I'll look for an acorn nut to cap the end off too.
Definitely a one way rig it won't be easy to put it back up there.

ghetto rigged

This looks secure but a piece of rope is good insurance.
Also the nut can be loosened,
and then the rope can lower the spare down.

Wow I hope to never need to change a tire!

TP