To make room for an LPG vapour tank and to attach a bike carrier, I wanted to use a wheel carrier. I knew it was going to be “custom” since there is no readily available item for this. A common solution I found is to use impressive steel beams and a trailer hub used as pivot point. I found this solution to be to heavy. I designed a much slimmer design that reduces weight that uses two rod ends a pivot points. Also, it uses the already existing mounting point of the tow-bar. The fixed part weighs about 10 kg, the swing part including the jerry can holder also weighs 10kg. This construction allows use of the tow-bar, but for overlanding I removed it to shed another 10kg. Still, the plates at the bottom (10mm thickness) can be used for recovery, which is more convenient than using the recovery / transport points that are right behind the leaf springs.
Besides the obvious mounting points this design also has a fixture just below the left rear light, just above the highest rotating point, creating a total of three contact points. When using this carrier without the bike-carrier, it is nice and stiff enough.
The bike carrier is mounted against the spare wheel. When carrying the bikes, an extra strap is used to fix the entire carrier. This strap is fixed to the top of the rear gate and reduces the flexing. With this strap we can do normal off road driving while keeping the load stable. A great benefit of mounting the biker carrier against the spare wheel is that the entire assembly can swing away, providing access to the rear hatch without the need to remove items.
Funny fact: while the bike carrier is designed to fit on a 4×4 spare wheel, the manufacturer advises not to use this bike carrier off road…