Monday, October 26, 2009

Can You "Spare" a Tire?

I have a Dodge 2500 diesel pickup with an 8-foot bed. I purchased a used 10-foot Alaskan cabover camper. To put the camper on the truck one must put the tail gate down. I cannot get to my spare tire because the hole (for the spare tire crank) in back of the truck is partially covered by the tail gate. This has to have come up for other owners of Dodge trucks as the body style was the same from about 1995 through 2002. Can you give me any pointers or solutions?
Russell, (Roslyn, WA)


Russell, I’m unaware if there are any modifications you can make to the spare tire access port, but if the camper does not require the additional support of the gate itself, remove the gate entirely before loading the camper. This applies only if the bed will support enough of the camper without the assist from the lowered tail gate. If the lowered gate is essential to supporting the camper, then the only other options are a front bumper mount for the spare, a roof mount (on the camper) for the spare or a rear mount for the spare on the back of the camper. I don’t think you’d want to risk running without a spare.