Can I put my spare wheel on my bonnet?

I went to great efforts putting the tyre on the bonnet of my S2. Once done, I got in the car and realised that a 235/85 is substantially bigger than a 600x16 and I couldn't see where I was going. I have a bonnet mount kit lurking in the garage somewhere as a result.

Tim Hobbs

'58 Series 2 '77 101FC Ambulance '95 Discovery V8i

Olly R tried to scribble ...

As Tim says .. it's _well_ worth simply placing the spare wheel on the bonnet one day and seeing what and how far, you can see with it there ..

Try driving with it there too, strap it down maybe for a short while, to see how it fares when on road and lining up junctions and road markings. When we wanted to do this with our swb S3 we found that with the tyre sizes we had it was easier to add a third hinge to the rear door and hang it off the back .. ;)

my wheel and a 750 - 16 tyre are bolted to the bonnet / hood of my S3 swb. Visibility is not great anyway. with the wheel there its like a porthole. but i am also very tall and have retro fitted seats, essentially i sort of peer over the wheel at what of the road i can see!

hmm. . . must take the wheel off and see how i get on. . .

Ted

I've never liked bonnet mounted spares - especially after I had one collapse onto me while I was working on an engine years ago.

Steve. Suffolk. remove 'knujon' to e-mail

Mine is on the roof.

I reckon it would obscure the wing mirrors as well, I hear there are disadvantages to shoving the spare on the back door two, regards the weight on the hinges, bound to cause damage eventually unless you get one of those thingys.

I think you can get an expensive aftermarket recessed bonnet somewhere.

in article bogqgq$1eetbi$ snipped-for-privacy@ID-129032.news.uni-berlin.de, Larry at snipped-for-privacy@larry-arnold.com wrote on 7/11/03 18:55:

or find somebody who has one for sale (hint, hint).

I'll try this out first, and see how much I can see!

cheers

Olly

I wonder if it is possible to mount a spare wheel in front of the radiator ?

That's presumably a height-of-spare-wheel issue, rather than an ability-to-suuport-the-weight-of-the-wheel issue?

Olly

Almost anything's possible in a land rover ;-) Mine's a stage one, so it's got a flat front like a Defender, but it might work for other Series vehicles.

Olly

Is a 235/85 bigger or smaller than a General SAG 7.50x16? I've been driving with one on the bonnet for ages. You should know where the corners of your vehicle are, without having to see them :D

Alex

The SAS Pink Panther did. It was mounted at an angle, so as to allow cooling. Upright would not be a good idea, methinks.

Alex

Same diameter but the metric tyre is a bit wider I think.

It was just about impossible to drive with it there.

Tim Hobbs

'58 Series 2 '77 101FC Ambulance '95 Discovery V8i

You can hear where the corners are. If theres a crunch or bang then theyre telling you that youre too close..

interference parking :)

You can also get less expensive recessed Military bonnets? At least I assume thats what it is on the front of my older car. Never had a problem with the bonnet mouted spare till I took it off one day to change a flat and couldn't be arsed to bolt the flat onto the bonnet when I knew I had to sort it out anyway so lobbed it in the back. I was amazed at how much you could see without a big wheel in the way.

Oh and it takes TWO people to open the bonnet with a spare on it, one to pull the release catch and the other to lift it as it wont just spring up that little bit on its own!

in article boh1nr$1egnpd$ snipped-for-privacy@ID-129032.news.uni-berlin.de, Larry at snipped-for-privacy@larry-arnold.com wrote on 7/11/03 20:58:

Theres a Srs2 round my way that has a wide bumper with a recese in that holds the spair upright infront of the radiator.