Hi all,

I've had my 2-dr Rubicon for about 6 weeks now. I've carried out a few simple mods (Mopar bumpers and door sill guards). I have a few other small mods on the way (Grille guard and gas cap door). Now seems like a good time to start thinking about something a little more ambitious. (I need to put a winch on sometime soon but I'll get to that later).

First I need to be able to carry my bicycles. The best way to do this on the JK (IMO) is using a hitch mounted rack. However, the spare wheel currently prevents me from a) folding up the rack when not in use or b) carrying more than one bike (it's a 2 bike rack).

I've been thinking about how to deal with this and am thinking I'd like to take out the back seat (easy enough - it's out already!) and use the space in the back of the two door to mount the spare wheel, a secure trunk and an on-board air system. I think that it should be able to fab some sort of frame mount which carries the spare wheel and also the onboard air system and mounts removably onto the rear seat latches (when the seat is out) so that I can run as a 2-seater most of the time but have the option to switch out the off-road stuff for the back seat if I need to.

Here are the two questions:

1) Does anyone market a wheel mount which would enable me to do something like that (see picture of orange Jeep) ? Either an independent wheel mount or somethign I could use to incorporate into a custom fabricated frame.

2) Can anyone recommend a really good shopwhere I might go for a custom fabnrication - I'm on the west coast but don't mind driving within reason (i.e. CA, OR, WA) - or paying (again within reason) to get this done right. (SF or Seattle areas are most convenient - I'm at both regularly with work)

The mount has to be very secure !

Once I have that sorted out I'll be able to use the JK as a bike carrier (which is the second most important function after wheeling) and maybe even do something like the shave tailgate mod that was posted a while back (blue jeep pic) - that's my favorite JK mod ever.

Thanks in advance,

Steve

 

I use a hitch mount bike carrier, I just went and bought a 14" extension and that brought the bike rack perfectly outside the spare. This was a cheap way of doing it, since I will be putting a Tuffy Drawer in the back.

 

I've seen some spare mounted bike racks somewhere. It's like a disc that slips over the lug bolts with a square tube sticking out through the center of the wheel.

Damn man, don't give up any interior space. It's handy to have.

 

I don't mind giving up a bit of interior space - I'd like to use the space where the back seat is (that's practically useless in a 2-dr anyway as it's a climbing expedition to get in there). I typically only have me or me and one passenger in there anyway and so mounting the off road stuff neatly inside appeals somewhat.

I looked at the wheel mount bike racks and don't really like them for a couple of reasons.

a) A couple of them didn't look too sturdy and I don't want to put extra weight loading through the wheel.

b) The bikes I want to carry were fairly expensive custom built racing bikes and I don't want to suspend them from their top tubes (this is a requirement of all the wheel mounted racks that I have seen). Thus I have a Yakima hitch mounted rack that locks the bikes in by their wheels.

I could use a hitch extension on the Yakima rack to opush the rack further out from the body of the JK. I might do this as a hold over measure while I sort out something a bit neater.

The bottom line is that I REALLY want to mod the JK into a 2-seater with all the offroad stuff mounted (ideally removably) in the back. That does have the added advantage that I can get the wheel off the back of the Jeep and reduce the risk of it whacking on the ground when going into steep inclines (that's not a problem at the moment with the stock Rubi wheels but down the line I had some though of going a bit bigger with the boots).

Thanks again,

Steve

 

Maybe mount the spare upright on a bracket bolted between the rear and middle vertical roll bars on the drivers side, A.K.A. Cherokee style?

I just went out and looked at mine, I have 33's and it looks like it would fit nicely like that. It would be out of the way (mostly), and leave plenty of room of the trunk and onboard air.