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Land Cruiser 80 Series Swing Arm Tyre Carrier |
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| Jaco wanted a swing arm tyre carrier that would fit on the existing bumper of his 80 Series Land Cruiser. | |||||||||
| Since the outer edges of the bumper are made of plastic, (Sies Toyota) and the spindle has to mount on the outside edge to clear the opening door, a bracket had to be made that would be strong enough to bolt to the chassis and also be strong enough to hold the weight of the tyre and swing arm in both the locked position and the extended open position which would exert the most force on the bracket. This took up most of the time since one had to work blind, as there is no way to get in behind the bumper to draw and cut templates. It was also a matter of repeated fitting and refitting in order to line everything up. |
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Eventually after much on and off of the bumper, the bracket was cut and welded together. The bracket uses existing Toyota holes to bolt into, with two additional holes drilled through the top of the chassis. The bracket was made of 8mm plate. |
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The spindle and shaft, which I turned on my
lathe holds two taper roller bearings and the shaft bolts onto the
chassis mounting bracket.
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The swing arm is welded on to the outside of the spindle housing. |
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| The swing arm is 3.5mm (wall thickness) rectangular tube welded in an upside down T, with 4mm plate strengthening the vertical T section. |
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In order to make provision the bend and the
drop in the swing arm which can be seen on the pictures, Jaco decided
that we could take a short-cut, and weld a section of plate from the one
section of tube to the other. Whilst this does not look so good, this
would prevent having to make compound angle cuts, and is probably
stronger. The 4mm plate also reinforces this joint at the horizontal
bend.
Note the way the tube was cut where it welds onto the spindle. This to provide maximum area contact with the spindle |
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Detail of the Locking Pin |
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| Again a conscious decision was that no larger or wider tyres would ever be used so the tyre mounting was welded to the vertical tube rather than make an adjustable tyre mount. Since the December holidays were fast approaching the swing arm was painted with black self etch primer. The plan is to have it powder coated. | The shaft holding the backing plate (onto which the spare wheel bolts) is welded to the vertical T section. (No provision for adjustment) |
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The latching mechanism is two pieces of
dovetailing 8mm plate through which a locking-pin, a "Brauer" push pull
locking pin is inserted. This has a toggle action when it reaches the
final throw of the clamp and securely locks the tyre in place, with no
movement whatsoever.
Dovetailing metal locking plates |
 Brauer Catalogue – Showing parts - To Access Brauer use the following URL http://www.matzka.com/brauer.htm (Download Push Pull Slimline Clamps pdf)
Latch in the closed position |
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The tyre carrier proved exceptionally strong
and rocking the vehicle at the end of the extended tyre carrier did not
alter or change in anyway the dovetailing of the locking pin.
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Jaco and the bracket Two satisfied engineers |
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| Should anyone feel the yen to tackle such a job and they have the time and money to import a better clamp, they may want to use the De-Sta-Co http://www.allamericanproducts.com/toggle/341moddt.htm latching clamp, although I must say that the Brauer push pull clamp (Locking Pin) works great. | |||||||||
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