The Tire Carrier Thread

[sundevil827]

@clobato

Excellent feedback, thank you for taking the time to do it! (Even if it's not the feedback that I was hoping it would be.)

I'm going to be putting on 40's that come in at about 120 lbs, and that was one of my questions for them, especially since I added the Slant Back Tire carrier. Before I ordered, I did call, and they told me that the slant back (even though it says is rated to carry the 38" tire) was carrying 150 lbs easy, without issue, and they were running 40's themselves.

Details and pictures please when you are done! You've got me re-thinking the carrier and considering other directions, but I'd rather know sooner than later.

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[bkjolly]

Anyone running the Hauk carrier?

http://haukoffroad.com/bumpers/jl-rear-bumper/

I love the look of the Hauk stuff and the fact you can order them color matched powder coated, I wish @lodoffroad offered that option for the JL's.

 

[Rad vlad]

I have watched the video several time I have no idea how I would do step 4 5 and 6 with the different hinges and it does not address the brake lite and back up camera

 

[clobato]

Here’s the update. I worked on my tire carrier some more today and was able to get the install completed and everything seems to be functioning properly.

To address the sagging issue, I made a spacer out of some 1/8” thick plastic and put it between the body tub and the new bottom hinge bracket. The first picture below is of the spacer below. This pushed the bottom hinge out away from the tub and fixed the sagging issue. With the spare on the carrier, it opens, closes and latches smoothly.

I was able to confirm that I did receive two nuts that were the wrong size. It looks like they may be a 9/16-13 or 5/8-13, and the correct size is a 1/2-13. I picked up two new nylock grade 8 nuts at the store, and they went right on. And in hindsight, I’m wondering if the wrong nuts were contributing to the sagging issue. With the wrong nuts, I wasn’t able to securely tighten the pivot bolts, so it may have let the carrier and tailgate sag. I tried to take a picture of the wrong nut in the second picture below. The nut on the hinge pivot bolt is the correct nut, and the nut on the carrier pivot bolt was the larger wrong size nut.

And for the the license plate relocation bracket locking bolt issue, I was able to get that straightened out as well. I picked up a 3/8-16 1” set screw to replace the bolt that came with the kit. The third and fourth picture below show the clearance issue I was running into. The fifth picture shows the set screw.

Now that everything is in and good, I have to say I’m pretty pleased and believe it will meet my needs. It just took a little more massaging at the start than I anticipated. And for the completed install pictures:

 

[clobato]

@clobato

Excellent feedback, thank you for taking the time to do it! (Even if it's not the feedback that I was hoping it would be.)

I'm going to be putting on 40's that come in at about 120 lbs, and that was one of my questions for them, especially since I added the Slant Back Tire carrier. Before I ordered, I did call, and they told me that the slant back (even though it says is rated to carry the 38" tire) was carrying 150 lbs easy, without issue, and they were running 40's themselves.

Details and pictures please when you are done! You've got me re-thinking the carrier and considering other directions, but I'd rather know sooner than later.

I have watched the video several time I have no idea how I would do step 4 5 and 6 with the different hinges and it does not address the brake lite and back up camera

If you guys have specific questions, let me know. I’d be happy to help walk you through the process.

 

[sundevil827]

@clobato

Biggest question I'm sure will be your satisfaction over the next few weeks, but that'll take a little bit of time.

Little questions...any issue on the back-up camera re-location? Satisfied with the position of the 3rd break light?

I'd hesitated, and was debating cancelling and ordering an EVO, but that's nice and clean, and the fixes appear to be fairly simple. Plus....I'm a fan of the slant back too...that's really what I wanted, and ACE has it...

Thanks again for the pic's and the fix details, now I'm back to looking forward to it!

-Cheers!

 

[clobato]

I have watched the video several time I have no idea how I would do step 4 5 and 6 with the different hinges and it does not address the brake lite and back up camera

Based on the video, there is no step 4 for the JLs. The JLs don’t have the plastic covers on the hinges.

You’ll need to do a modified step 4 for the JL. You need to remove the passenger side plastic trim from the inside. CJ Pony Parts has a good video on how to install the JL trailer harness. In that video they show how to remove the interior plastic parts. (See process at about 2:32 into the CJ video). Once the plastic is removed, there are two body colored pieces of tape that cover the hinge mount bolts. In the Ace video below, at about 30-35 seconds they show the inside of the Jeep where the hinge mount bolts are. The tape was already removed in the Ace video.





For step 5, you would proceed similarly to the JK video. Working one hinge at a time, remove the two torx bolts on the tailgate and three bolts on the inside. At that point the stock hinge will slide out from the outside.

For step 6, I found that it was a real tight fit getting the tailgate side of the hinge into the body side of the hinge. I couldn’t get the two pieces to align and get the pivot bolt in with the hinges off the Jeep. I found it easiest to bolt the body side of the hinge to the three bolt on the tub. Once the body side was secured, the tailgate side slid in with a little persuading with a mallet. I was able to get the pieces of the hinge aligned at that point and install the pivot bolt. I the attached the tailgate side of the hinge to the tailgate using the two factory torx bolts. I also found that leaving the two bolts on the tailgate and the three on the body loose allowed me to align the tailgate. Once everything is aligned, tighten all the top hinge bolts.

The JLs don’t have the spacer in step 7, so ignore that.

I didn’t bother with the level in step 8, I just did the visual alignment that I referred to above.

You can pretty much follow the video word for word from there. In step 13, you’ll tighten the three bolts that secure the bottom hinge to the tub on the inside rather than the three bolts they refer to on the outside of the JK.

The lights and the camera are pretty straight forward. For the brake light I just cut the factory wire that goes into the stock tire carrier and third brake light. There is a white and black wire. The black is ground the the white is hot. On the Ace bracket there were two grey harnesses, one short, one long. The short harness is the brake light. Splice the red wire of the short harness to the white wire and the black to black. You should then have a working brake light. The longer grey harness is the license plate light. You’ll have to route that through the tailgate, probably add some more wire, and route it through or next to the factory harness back to the tub where the bottom hinge is. Fish the wire through the body and down to where the factory license plate light harness is. There is a white and black wire for the license plate light also. Same thing as the brake light, just splice red to white and black to black.

For the camera, once you get it out of the factory carrier, use the three tiny screws that come with the new carrier to bolt the camera to the plate bracket. Wiring is easy as you just the stock wiring.

Sorry for the wordy post! I forgot to take pictures as I was going so it’s all I have. I hope this helps, let me know if you have questions.

 

[clobato]

@clobato

Biggest question I'm sure will be your satisfaction over the next few weeks, but that'll take a little bit of time.

Little questions...any issue on the back-up camera re-location? Satisfied with the position of the 3rd break light?

I'd hesitated, and was debating cancelling and ordering an EVO, but that's nice and clean, and the fixes appear to be fairly simple. Plus....I'm a fan of the slant back too...that's really what I wanted, and ACE has it...

Thanks again for the pic's and the fix details, now I'm back to looking forward to it!

-Cheers!

I’ll keep you posted on satisfaction.

I didn’t really have any issues with the backup camera relocate. You pull it from the factory carrier and bolt it into the license plate bracket with the supplied hardware. All pretty straight forward.

I was pleasantly surprised with the third brake light. Yesterday when I first saw it, I was thinking ther was no way it would be adequate. I actually ordered one of the brake light rings that bolt on behind the wheel this morning before I got it all wired up. Once I got it functional, I have to say, the light is actually rather bright. The location is good, and roughly center in the wheel. When my new light comes in, I’ll probably go ahead and install it because I already spent the money and it was only $35, but I’d say you’d probably be fine with just what they send with the Ace carrier.

I’ll be honest, last night I was thinking I wasted a bunch of money, And it was way too much “fixing” for a brand new part. But in reality the fixes were easy and just a few hours worth of work. I’m definitely happy with my purchase now that everything is installed.

 

[Rad vlad]

Based on the video, there is no step 4 for the JLs. The JLs don’t have the plastic covers on the hinges.

You’ll need to do a modified step 4 for the JL. You need to remove the passenger side plastic trim from the inside. CJ Pony Parts has a good video on how to install the JL trailer harness. In that video they show how to remove the interior plastic parts. (See process at about 2:32 into the CJ video). Once the plastic is removed, there are two body colored pieces of tape that cover the hinge mount bolts. In the Ace video below, at about 30-35 seconds they show the inside of the Jeep where the hinge mount bolts are. The tape was already removed in the Ace video.





For step 5, you would proceed similarly to the JK video. Working one hinge at a time, remove the two torx bolts on the tailgate and three bolts on the inside. At that point the stock hinge will slide out from the outside.

For step 6, I found that it was a real tight fit getting the tailgate side of the hinge into the body side of the hinge. I couldn’t get the two pieces to align and get the pivot bolt in with the hinges off the Jeep. I found it easiest to bolt the body side of the hinge to the three bolt on the tub. Once the body side was secured, the tailgate side slid in with a little persuading with a mallet. I was able to get the pieces of the hinge aligned at that point and install the pivot bolt. I the attached the tailgate side of the hinge to the tailgate using the two factory torx bolts. I also found that leaving the two bolts on the tailgate and the three on the body loose allowed me to align the tailgate. Once everything is aligned, tighten all the top hinge bolts.

The JLs don’t have the spacer in step 7, so ignore that.

I didn’t bother with the level in step 8, I just did the visual alignment that I referred to above.

You can pretty much follow the video word for word from there. In step 13, you’ll tighten the three bolts that secure the bottom hinge to the tub on the inside rather than the three bolts they refer to on the outside of the JK.

The lights and the camera are pretty straight forward. For the brake light I just cut the factory wire that goes into the stock tire carrier and third brake light. There is a white and black wire. The black is ground the the white is hot. On the Ace bracket there were two grey harnesses, one short, one long. The short harness is the brake light. Splice the red wire of the short harness to the white wire and the black to black. You should then have a working brake light. The longer grey harness is the license plate light. You’ll have to route that through the tailgate, probably add some more wire, and route it through or next to the factory harness back to the tub where the bottom hinge is. Fish the wire through the body and down to where the factory license plate light harness is. There is a white and black wire for the license plate light also. Same thing as the brake light, just splice red to white and black to black.

For the camera, once you get it out of the factory carrier, use the three tiny screws that come with the new carrier to bolt the camera to the plate bracket. Wiring is easy as you just the stock wiring.

Sorry for the wordy post! I forgot to take pictures as I was going so it’s all I have. I hope this helps, let me know if you have questions.

Thanks man I will get up with a buddy this weekend and see what I can do

 

[clobato]

Thanks man I will get up with a buddy this weekend and see what I can do

Good luck! Let me know if you have any questions.

 

[DayJ]

So this beautiful thing came in after 9 weeks and there are no instructions per ACE it’s similar to the JK install which does not help much has anyoneinstalled one yet that can help me out?

I'm in the same boat... Cant wait to get mine on.

 

[Rad vlad]

There is a video now on you tube still looks like a lot of work

 

[clobato]

There is a video now on you tube still looks like a lot of work

Man! Where was that on Saturday! Props to Ace Engineering for getting the video out. The discussion about leaving the T55 torx bolts on the tailgate loose was the piece I didn’t do and what caused my biggest concern!

I will also have to reroute my wires based on the video. I left them in the factory hole, and it didn’t leave for nearly as much slack as the harness in the video.

 

[SHYUperman]

ACE just announced their Pro Series Rear Bumper with Carrier and they're running a sale

https://www.jlwranglerforums.com/fo...eries-rear-bumper-tire-carrier-350-off.22729/

 

[DayJ]

Bahahahaha, of course the video would come out after I just tried to figure it out with no guidance... I got most of it right, and yes the T55 would have been nice to have, but I may of just made a size smaller work...

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