Spare Tire Engineering

In efforts to find a good location for a tire spare, I had to do some serious design and building. I had seen a photo online of a 69 TradeWind where the spare tire was located under the frame (as opposed to a rear of front mount). I was excited to see that originally it looks like the tire was hidden under the floor in the front of the trailer. I checked my trailer and found evidence of a tire mount! They were available online for almost $200 plus so I decided to build my own. I settled on a winch design and welded a frame to hold the winch. The real challenge was a custom rod that extended to the outside of the trailer that could receive a LUG to raise and lower the tire. Took me a long time to design and build but I am glad I did it. This also mandated that I re-configure the belly pan in that area.