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R50 Tire Carrier Mod: Let's settle this!


hawairish
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Hey all, the rivnut tool that is commonly recommended in these threads has been discontinued by the manufacturer. Anyone have one still lying around that they'd be willing to sell? Or is there another tool that has been used successfully? 

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14 hours ago, Rota said:

Hey all, the rivnut tool that is commonly recommended in these threads has been discontinued by the manufacturer. Anyone have one still lying around that they'd be willing to sell? Or is there another tool that has been used successfully? 

 

Any similar tool will do...tons of options on Amazon still varying from $30 and up.  Seeing a Beetro 14" unit that's at the low price range and has the essential metric sizes.  Most kits come with both SAE and metric sizes, which is a plus if you have other uses.  Mine still sees occasional use so I'm keeping it around. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/12/2022 at 12:09 AM, hawairish said:

 

Any similar tool will do...tons of options on Amazon still varying from $30 and up.  Seeing a Beetro 14" unit that's at the low price range and has the essential metric sizes.  Most kits come with both SAE and metric sizes, which is a plus if you have other uses.  Mine still sees occasional use so I'm keeping it around. 

 

Thanks! I've got one now and it seems to be pretty decent quality. Just need a step drill bit for the holes. I see you mentioned the ones from Harbor Freight. Did you use the one that's just a smooth cone that's essentially "stepless" or one with coarse steps to drill the holes in the body?

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18 minutes ago, Rota said:

 

Thanks! I've got one now and it seems to be pretty decent quality. Just need a step drill bit for the holes. I see you mentioned the ones from Harbor Freight. Did you use the one that's just a smooth cone that's essentially "stepless" or one with coarse steps to drill the holes in the body?


Coarse stepped ones. The two larger ones have sizes that are basically perfect for the rivnuts, though I rely on calipers to confirm the diameters. You want the hole to be the same size or a hair smaller; too large and the rivnut will likely spin. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Got lucky on Wednesday! felt like checking the junkyard inventory and there was a 97 pathfinder with a carrier that had been brought in the day before! swooped it for the Q yesterday, gonna go back tomorrow for the hole templates in bumper and for the hinges. I have been keeping my eye out for one of these for about 2 years lol. planning on getting it done up in the next few weeks! Thanks everyone in this thread who has posted their experiences and advice here as a resource.

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  • 6 months later...

Hey everyone, hopefully everyone is still around on this thread. I bought 01 silvas path from him and I'm having a bit trouble from the quarter panel warping. I know he has some support behind it but it seems like not strong enough. I have my old rig which has an oem carrier with the supports. So I cut that out this weekend and plan to try to make it work this coming weekend. I never worked with rivnuts so I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to attach the pem support to it. If anyone has any suggestions that'd be greatly appreciated.

Also the Oem support has welded nuts on the back which I'm trying to decide if I should cut those off. I attached some photos as a reference 7694e0f4d8e39be93ae3e6bb1b8248c8.jpg6db6fce08910f56c93bbece43d65ea8a.jpg5138659857b26395ab247710b7e9b9e1.jpg

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If you can fit the whole bracket in there, just use the nuts on the bracket instead of the riv nuts. The riv nuts are just a way to avoid having to deal with the brackets. Maybe you could remove the nuts and use the riv nuts to hold the brackets to the panel--but I would expect that to be a PITA to line up, and also weaker when you're done, and I don't know if there's enough length on the riv nuts to clamp through the bracket and still hold themselves in.

 

From what I remember (and can see in the picture), that truck has great big honking tires on it, so any strength you can add to the tire carrier mounts will be a good thing.

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Yep. Has a full size 35" spare tire on it right now.

I'm going to have to drill out the riv nuts and somehow thread in the bracket I just cut out of my old rig. Not going to be an easy task that's for sure..

I could also fab up another bracket , but again Im not sure how the riv nut will hold the bracket without me actually installing it in the piece I mock up, which is going to be more difficult I'd assume than trying to just fish this piece back there and thread the bolt a couple turns60f7d342f50e676a511ce9ed0ea1fbb8.jpg07e77e4de7e33ec90099729d886556c4.jpg

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That’s fantastic info to have, thanks for sharing that. I have a bunch of rust repair to do on the rear quarter panels so on the passenger side I‘ll make sure to weld some reinforcements on the inside of that area while I’m in there before I mount the carrier. 

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