With the new wheels and tires, we needed a new way to carry the spare. It no longer fits in the location where the stock one did. The exhaust is in the way.
The plan is to mount it to the drivers side rear door. That one does not get opened and closed as much, so adding the weight to the door is not a huge deal. The hinges on the door are super beefy, the same ones used on big refrigerator semi trailers, so I think they will take the extra 250lbs ok.
The basic plan is a “basket” the tire will sit in, with long legs that will spread the load across the panels that make up the door. It will get through bolted to the door, and the tire will get a couple ratchet straps to hold it in place.
The basic plan
I used 1×2 steel, .125 wall I believe. Some odd angles were needed to match the tire profile. A couple of gussets were added for strength.
Metal cut and tacked Painted and ready to install on the door.
It was bolted in place with polyurethane sealant, and lots of bolts. Getting them all drilled and everything lining up with sealant everywhere was a fun project. You can see the lifting eye I added also in the picture below. This lets me hook a come along to a pulley for lifting the tire. Much better than trying to man handle it up there…..
Bolted in place.Completed
Getting the tire up is still a chores, but the mount is solid and works very well!
Skifari is a trip lead by a good friend of mine each year. We camp in a ski area parking lot, ski there during the day, then drive to the next one. Repeat for a week. It’s a great time and we had amazing snow all trip this year! We had 10 people in 6 rigs. We started at Mt Baker, then headed to Sasquatch BC, followed by two days at Whistler.
Heading up to Baker after work for the first night got very interesting. It was dumping snow, and they had not run the upper area at all that day. 6-8″ of snow were on the road. Once we were ~1/2 a mile from the upper lot, we came across a small slide that was covering the road to a ski area. I stopped to see how deep and packed it was to see if we could cross. As soon as I got back in the car and touched the gas the truck followed the crown of the road sliding right into the snow bank. We were stuck, right in an avalanche Chute. I dug the side of the truck out and used the maxtrax under one front and one rear wheel. I was able to pull forward a bit, but it still was sliding along the snow bank. Luckily we were traveling with friends who were able to winch us back to the center of the road. But we were still slipping all over trying to move. I started to put on chains and a second slide released and hit the truck. Luckily we had a lookout watching the hill and took off running when it let go. Scary as hell bit we made it out ok minus a few buried tools…. We got very lucky that it was a small slide.
Stuck
Feverishly working to get out of the slide area
That’s all we got for pictures, we were working as fast as possible, and once the second slide let go I just hit the gas back down the hill, one chain halfway on…
But we made it back down to the main lot and parked, it was almost midnight at that point. We had a tiny fire, a couple beers and crashed.
Baker had good snow, 10-12 ish inches overnight, pretty damn light, but not compared to the upcoming days.
Family ski day at Baker!
After skiing Baker we headed North, crossing the border up into BC and parking at Sasquatch mountain. Its a little 3 chair place, but there was no one there and the snow was the lightest fluffy pow you can imagine. It was great for the kid, she usually has trouble in pow, as shes ~55lbs, she just gets stopped, but it was so light she could keep moving relatively easily!
The whole Skifari gang parked at Sasquatch
Its going to be a good day.
Sasquatch Pow
Nice terrain for a little place
Next we headed to Whistler. Long drive day, but not too bad. There are always a couple on skifari. We stayed at the Riverside RV park. Whistler is VERY anti camping in their lots, so this was the next best thing. Close to the upper village and parking at blackcomb mid station worked awesome. We would roll out at 7 and have breakfast up there.
Parking lot lunch!
Whistler Camp site
Some fun trees at whistler.
A normal Skifari evening, a nice little fire, a few beers and great friends to chat with. Such a great time.
I have been putting off trimming and skiing the back door for a while….. But now that its good and cold, the door and frame sweat, a lot.
So I got a dry day and got to work. First a layer of foam board was spray glued to the door. Its 1″ thick and R 5.
Insulation glued on.
Next layer was a sheet of 1/4″ ply glued to the insulation. The glue was supposed to be temporary, but it holding well so far, I may add a few screws later.
Plywood Skin
This left me with covering the metal frame that goes around the back door. Its steel, and goes all the way through to the outside, so its cold and it sweats. I look a couple of scraps of the 1″ foam and cut it down to 1/2″ thick. This was glued to the steel to create a thermal break. Plywood is not very insulating, so a gap between the wood and metal is needed.
Thermal Break insulation
1/2″ gap between ply and metal.
aNext I cut a piece of 1/2″ ply to cover the frame, and overlap the door. I am putting a gasket on it to keep the moisture vapor from getting behind it and sealing the space.
Gasket and overlap
Interior
All done
Really cleaned up the inside, its not just an aluminum door anymore. And no more dripping on the bed! That’s the last big wall piece that was left to do.
Took a quick overnight to play in the snow. Truck did great! 4×4 worked great, just had to manually lock in the hubs, which meant I couldn’t drive in mu slippers….. Life is hard.
We headed up Smithbrook road near Stevens pass again, lots more snow this time!
But first a quick stop at Stevens Pass ski area, they were letting people sled! Not kicking people out, which is unheard of in my experience. So we stopped and had lunch and did some sledding.
Lunch at Stevens
Sledding!
After lunch and some fun we headed up Smithbrook road. We had to push a couple cars up the road to a wide spot to get turned around and headed back down so we could sneak past them.
Camp spot!
Snow was pretty deep where we stopped to camp. Pretty spot and fluffy, but polished really slick from traffic up the road.
Nice little trip, it got cold, we had a nice fire, and enjoyed a lot of sledding!
The weather called for a good sized winter storm to hit the local mountains, so what do we do? Pack up and head out to try to find snow!
Snow level was still pretty high, higher than the ski area, but we found the highest spot we could pretty easily get to up a forest service road. We had been up there before, but never that high, there are a couple of steep switch backs that had always held us back. So I grabbed a new pair of tire chains on my way home from work and we headed out for an adventure.
Turning off the highway onto dirt it was still raining. We need to get higher!
Turning onto the FS Road
Not long after it started snowing, not hard, but not sticking yet. After getting through the switch backs we made it to 4600′. Not much higher we could easily go, so we found a flat ish wide spot and called it good for the night. IT was snowing and sticking at this point.
Parking for the night
We played in the snow until it got dark and headed inside for dinner. Made a little fire and went to bed for the night. In the morning I could hear the snow hitting the roof vents, good sign! But I had not checked the fuel for the heater before we left….. It was empty. I had extra, but it took a good 45 minutes to get the lines primed again.
Pretty Morning View
Winter wonderland!
It had snowed bout 3″ over night and was still coming down hard. After a quick breakfast we did some sledding and whatnot. Kid and dog had a great time throwing snow around.
We decided we should probably head down the hill before it got too much more snow. Only one car had come by in the morning, and it was a little slick.
Heading down
Road looked a little different on the way down! Lots more snow. No issues going down the hill, just idled down in first gear. As it turns out in 2WD the whole time…. The front axle is not engaging, one more thing to be fixed. But overall a great trip and fun to play in the snow!
