Cool Mods - Thread restored 10/18/2012
My daughter was getting a little warm in her bunk during our last camping trip, so I decided to put her a fan in to keep the air flowing. I had been wanting to add a 12-volt fan to the main livin...
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Luvnevryminutofit wrote:
Thanks to RVSnowbird and Pulsar, I think I can post some pics now. I had to move my spare tire to the TT passthru when I built my rear bike rack. Since it ate up too much space I went with a new plan. A friend acquired a Ford spare tire winch from an old truck and I cleaned it up. welded in some angle irons and now I have:
While I was in the area I added abattery cutoff switch
Hopefully, more to come!
One word of advice. Being a Ford owner with the winch quite a few have failed and dropped their spares with one when towing that did a horrendous amount of damage to the TT ... broken holding tanks, both axles bent and needing replacement and more undercarriage damage ... gas and/or water lines. Likewise some not towing lost their spare and never knew it until they either had a flat or had the need to access it. It might never be an issue with the weight difference in the spares weight from a large truck type tire (probably 100+ lbs.) vs. a much lighter TT spare (less than 50 lbs). Also, always keep some pressure on those Ford spare tire winches since they can bind up and even destroy the cable causing a potential failure or you can end up not being to either lower or raise the tire. I have taken one apart and the problem is the cable is large enough that with will try and unwind w/o tension and jump the nylon holder tracks. I have experience in that since I have the T-shirt and headaches that went along with it. I had to the stock one replace and even the replacment went bad and had to tear it apart and find the actual issues with it. I would recommend using something to positively secure that spare in case of winch failure. On my Van I used crossed chains up to some frame cross members. On my TT I used some much lighter chains, but still secured to the trailer and not 100% dependent on only the winch. One key is whatever secondary method you use is once in place use the winch and lower the tire to see how it will ride with the winch force off with your secondary holding system. You don't want it trying to stand up right under the hitch area.
A dropped spare from my Van or trailer while towing would do thousands of dollars damage to my trailer and potentially causing a loss of control situation.
Larry
