- Joined
- Mar 12, 2024
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- Location
- Columbia, SC
- Vehicles
- Cybertruck FS AWD
Best place I have seen yet for it! Awesome!
Carrying a spare when taking challenging off-road trips is important in case of a major tire failure and having to call for recovery assuming a recovery service is available. My solution for carrying a spare has evolved over the past year from carrying it in the vault to strapping it to a rack on the truck.
Both methods had disadvantages. The spare tire is heavy and huge. It takes up a lot of space in the vault. Strapping it to the top of the truck negatively impacts aerodynamics and driving range, and is vulnerable to being stolen.
When I chose to install the @Urander bed rack and Inspired Overland Carbonlite tent, how to carry the spare again presented itself.
The Urander rack expands the cargo carrying capacity of the Cybertruck along with improving the look of the vehicle (I've received more positive remarks about the look of the truck since I installed the rack).
After watching YouTube videos from Bearded Tesla Guy and Teslatino, adding the compact Carbonlite tent became an obvious enhancement for my overland vehicle.
Carrying the spare on top of the truck became impractical, and going back to putting it in the vault was a non-starter. My solution was to mount it inside the Urander rack leaving the vault available for carrying camping gear.
The tire is raised up tight to the underside of the rack using a Lippert winch mounted to two Urander crossbars.
I put the spare face down in the bed (or on top of the closed tonneau), and attach the hoist cable to the inside surface of the wheel.
I used a couple of leftover mounting brackets that came with the Carbonlite tent to capture the cable end piece instead of the usual practice of inserting it through the center hole in the wheel.
I use a Makita driver and 3/4" 6-point socket to raise and lower the tire either from the bed or from the closed tonneau. It's effortless (except for lifting the spare into and out of the bed).
Here's what it looks like with the tonneau closed.
Urander advised me to support the winch on two crossbars for a 100 lb tire. The winch capacity is 150 lbs.
I'm very pleased with how this worked out. Once I get the spare into the bed (with help if I can get it), raising and lowering the spare is super easy. There's no noticeable loss of range by carrying the spare this way.
Note: Putting the hoist cable end piece through the 2" diameter hole of the center of the wheel didn't work well. The tire was impossible to keep balanced horizontally, making the raising and lowering of the tire an awkward chore.
With the spare in place, loading and unloading the bed is somewhat more difficult, but not overly so.
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