Thread: Rear Wheel Carrier for Defender/County

There’s a lot of different wheel carriers on the market. Everyone seems to have their own ideas of where and how they should mount. Some open with the door and some have to be unlatched and swung out of the way before the door can open. Many are not adjustable for different size tyres. Some use bearings in the main pivot points and some use nylon bushes. Some mount on the vehicle using existing holes and some require drilling some new holes.
I decided to make a new wheel carrier using a combination of the ideas that work best (in my opinion anyway) This is how I went about it………….

I wanted a carrier that mounted using existing holes, and that also opened automatically with the door. I also want it to be strong enough to take a bigger tyre than standard and possibly other equipment as well.
First I measured everything accurately on the back of the vehicle…..in this case, my ’99 Defender and my ’88 County, then drew up a full scale drawing to see how everything would work and order some materials for the job.



The main mounting bracket is the first part to fabricate.





I made sure the main mounting bracket covered the chassis rail right to the top and bottom edges where it’s strongest. The jacking tube is also behind the bracket, so it adds a bit of strength too.



The main bracket has a couple of smaller brackets that extend under and over the chassis. Probably not totally necessary, but a bit of added strength wont hurt. Defenders with the one piece rear door wouldn’t be able to use the top bracket as the gap between the chassis and door is filled in.



I used a stub axle at the main pivot point because it’s strong and operates very smoothly, and importantly, doesn’t allow any movement with the use of tapered roller bearings.


Even though the main bearing point is quite capable of taking the load of the whole carrier, I’ve mounted a small steel bracket on the tow bar bolts to take some of the vertical load. This will prevent any minor vertical movement from being exerted on the door mount. The holes in the bracket are slotted so it can be finely adjusted to the correct height and allow the door to close smoothly.



Wheel carriers appear fairly simple when you look at them on a vehicle, but there’s actually quite a lot of components that go into making one. I’m just making these in my home workshop, so there’s a bit of time involved with some of the ‘fiddly’ bits.






After fabricating all the components, I finally got to the stage where I could start welding things together.







This is the mechanism that allows the carrier to open with the door, shown here in the open and closed positions. In the closed position the swing arm will press firmly against the rubber buffer on the door plate. I think one of the most important things with a wheel carrier is to make sure there is no movement so it can’t rattle or vibrate. The firmness of the buffer can be adjusted by adding or removing washers behind it.





The pivot bracket on the door plate is adjustable to allow for slight variations in the door position.




I’ve made the wheel mounting plate adjustable to allow for different size wheels and tyres. This also allows the wall of the tyre to rest firmly against the vertical section of the carrier, eliminating any movement…….again, I think this is very important. Some carriers have the wheel and tyre sort of hanging in mid air, and if you grab them, you can actually move them by hand, so imagine what’s happening on those giant outback corrugations.



After trial fitting the carrier to the Defender for the first time, I found I will have to make a slight adjustment as my bigger tyre (255/85/16) nearly hits the tail light in the fully open position. It doesn’t actually hit, but it’s too close for my liking, so I’ll extend the next carrier by about 60mm.



I made it so the center of the wheel was in the same position as the original door mount, but if I extend it by 60mm it wont really affect anything. There will still be plenty of room to grab the door handle without having to squeeze your hand in and the height will remain the same, so you wont lose any rear vision.
Below is a 235/85/16 tyre (same diameter as 750/16…31”) and a 255/85/16 (33”)





That’s as far as I’ve got for now. I’ll post more pics as the project continues.

Cheers, Murray

Originally Posted by Trippo

top job
I bought a stub axle & hub in November to do the same.
Like the design - might find a similar looking one around soon
Got to finish the off-road camper first. (current project)
Chris

Mate, I've got so many 'Current Projects' on the go, I'm surprised I got time over the holidays to do the wheel carrier