Offroad-Express

My D21 pathfinder has the spare tire in the back which takes up a lot of room. Has anyone fitted a swing type external tire carrier to a wagon without one?

There are a few dimples where the lock bracket goes, I'm wondering if there are already threads behind these, and inside near the right tail light, looks as if there are extra "bits" on a wagon with the swing type carrier.

Has anyone managed to fit these extra bits and the carrier? Without major surgery to the back corner.

Thanks anyone.

Check inside panel behind taillight, I'm pretty sure it doesn't have the brackets inside. Which could make it a good project to swap over all components, or just a headache

used to have a surf with the same issue. the panels lock etc on the tail gate where a no brainer as it all "fitted" so to speak.

as for the hinges bolting to the rear body there were no allowances for it however a steel plate behind the panel steel to help spread the load works.

Looking at US websites, this is not very straight forward.

Hosehustler on here did it to a surf and he said he would never do it again. Mite b easier to mount it off a custom made rear bar/bumper

Yes I have.... It was a wee while ago and I have sold the truck now so here is what I roughly did.

Firstly the latch and bumpstop. no there is no thread behind the dimples. If you pull the trim off above these you can just feel/see there is no threads through little holes.

I welded two nuts to a piece of steel (x2) to lineup with the holes in the latch.

There is the little dimples where the holes line up which can be drilled out.

Once you pull the trim off the inside of the boot edge there is some little plugs which I pulled out which leave small holes. from memory there were little holes towards the middle and bigger holes out towards the edges.

I tacked a welding rod onto each of my little plates and manoevered them diagonally into the holes and along to where they needed to be and then bolted the latch and catch on from the outside.

I left the welding rod still attached just incase I ever have to move them.


Next the carrier itself, I was luck enough to find one at pick a part so pulled everything off I could.

Inside the taillight (you need small flexible hands to get to it) there is a right angled bracket screwed up into a support structure for the top bolts.

My car has the support structure internally but not the bracket. I pulled the bracket off the old one and took it. From memory it in involved a 1/4" ratchet with either a 8 or 10mm socket and a couple of extensions and universals.

There is also a bracket down the bottom but I couldn't work out how to get it off. I eventually gave up and ran out of time. It would have been a lot easier if I could have got it, but I just couldn't.

The top was easy as I had the bracket and just had to drill 4 holes, bolt the bracket in and line it all up. (was a bit fiddly to line it all up as no dimples here)

The bottom was a bit tricky as there is not much room and I didn't have the bracket.
Once again I just made up some plates with the nuts welded onto it and slipped them into place.

From memory the ones along the back I had to go in along from the boot edge, and the ones on the side I had to go in from the taillight and down. but there was something in the way and took me quite a few attempts to work out how to get it in. I possibly even had to trim the back of one of the nuts down???

I kept my plates to as small as possible, but after a few months I could see the corner of the plate stressing the metal, so next time I would make the plates as big as possible and round all the corners off.

This is all from memory, but to answer your question yes it is fiddly but yes it is doable. I also made the decision I was only ever going to carry a tyre and a spade on it as I didn't want to stress my plates which could have been bigger, and I probably would have replaced these if my auto hadn't of died.


The thing that probably took the longest was trying to get HT bolts the right thread and size to match the ones already on the vehicle (from the top bracket). (Though it was a Saturday and most of the engineering places were closed)