D Vautier
4/2023
My son has a 2005 Dodge Dakota
and he had talked to me several times about the spare tire, which he
could
not remove. When the idiot retarded Dodge engineers designed a
spare tire storage mechanism for 2000 through 2007 Dodge Dakota trucks,
they somehow wound up with their collective heads totally up their
collective asses. The thing was a joke. It consisted of a strange
cable that hoisted and lowered the tire on a cable with a series of
assembled rods which maneuvered the tire part way down thus allowing the
hapless customer to grope up under the tire and try to squeeze two clamps which
were probably rusted and theoretically allow the tire to descend to the ground.
My son and I struggled with this contraption for a long time and finally got enough room to get an aluminum oxide skinny cutting wheel in there to cut the cable and free the tire.
He then welded a 5/8-11
allthread shaft to the remaining plate. We mounted the tire and placed
another allthread in an opposite hole and tacked the second shaft in.
He then removed the tire and fully welded it out. We then managed to
get the tire up while threading washer, lock washer, and nut in that
order. After snugging the hardware and tire, He then cut the excess
allthread shafts and deburred the work.
