You'll definitely want to go back and re-torque all of you nuts/bolts after around 500 miles. Fairly normal process for anything Jeep bound.
I'm not sure what would rattle on the carrier? Kinda' wondering if it might be from your tailgate. If, when you open your tailgate, it drops slightly, you may be able to re-align it. Mine got out of sync when I put my CB antenna on (hinge mount). It rattled a bit after that. I put a jack under my spare with just a little pressure, released the 4 hing bolts and then re-tightened them. No more rattles/squeaks after that. May be worth a shot, or keep that radio cranked!
Thanks for the order @19 JLUR Bright Whit3 !
Great suggestion @Sting_NC_USA !
@Tech Tim when you installed it were the Rugged Ridge hinges super tight? I can't get them to bend from straight, even putting all my weight into it. They will not budge. Not sure if it is defective or of I am missing something. Currently soaking them in WD40 over night.
@Carlton, Yes, they were super tight, though once we got them moving, they loosened up a little.
Thanks for the info. Major relief as I already waited forever for it to get here due to the backorder.
Anyone have any experience with this kit? There is basically zero information on the skyjacker link.
Probably my favorite one I've seen. I think I'll go with that one.I went with the Hauk bumper and tire arm and I wouldn't trade for anything out there.
Curious what lug nuts you are running?So after many months of waiting for a tire carrier to be released that hit all the points of importance for me and one that I liked, I purchased and installed the Motobilt tire carrier.
The tire carrier was delivered within two weeks of ordering and it arrived with the best packaging job I have seen to date. Just to get the top open to pull everything out, I had to go through 30 plus staples.... that’s not a joke, and heavy duty shipping tape. So if you decide to order anything from Motobilt you can be assured it will arrive with great care in packaging what you ordered. This is something that has been lacking here lately with some companies.
After I painted the carrier satin black on Friday, I decided after it fully cured that I may end up going to a slight textured finish and a black that is more dull to match just a bit better. I think I will wait for it to get a bit warmer out before I tackle that.
The install was pretty straight forward after I assembled the hinges and removed all the body panels that I needed to, so I will not go into a step by step on that. Motobilt says they are working on a PDF for future installs.
I really wanted to keep the factory camera mount so I have always had a plan to do so with whatever carrier I purchased. Once I took the factory carrier off and disassembled the camera mount from it, I had to come up with a plan to modify it to work with the Motobilt carrier and my wheel set up. So I cut the stock carrier up with a dremel and cutoff wheel. There is also the plastic mount inside that actually holds the camera, that needed a little modification. On the plastic piece that holds the camera, on its base there are round spacers that fit around the studs, I cut those spacers down flat with the rest of its base.
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The piece I cut off the stock carrier I trimmed down a little more to slide onto the plastic camera mount after I mounted my tire and wheel. you need this piece to work in order to use the factory camera “locking” cover. Once I got it trimmed up right to fit in front of my mounted wheel on the carrier, I slid the camera cover on to see if it would lock and it did. I decided to make this more secure and not fall off while going down the road so I drilled a small hole in the plastic piece and the camera mount for a very small screw to fit in. I actually drilled two holes in each top corners but after securing the first screw I figured out the second hole is not needed. Once that was done I did trim the edges of the camera locking cover because the bottom of it would hit my bottom lugnut.
once this was figured out I decided to just delete the third brake light and wire up a LED light ring inside the wheel on the carrier. I just think it looks cleaner this way. This isn’t very hard to do so I will not go into detail here unless someone needs the info.
The carrier so far has been great, but I have only had it installed for 4 days. I can say though with already several hundred miles on the road, there have been no rattles at all. Opens smooth like Butter. It is SOLID! I love how tight it is to the body, and that it is adjustable. No interference with parking sensors. I do plan on getting some zerk fitting caps for the hinges but other then that this carrier was well worth the wait. I run a 37” tire and have it mounted two spaces from the top bolt holes and it just clears the stock steel bumper by a hair. So if I go up in tire size there is plenty of space to go up. This carrier looks to be pretty bomb proof but time will tell. Thanks @Motobilt
