Made a bed mount spare tire carrier.
 

Built this spare carrier out of bracket from a B350 van interior tire mounting.

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/h...pskdmm0h8g.jpg

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/h...ps2igyoaey.jpg

I really wanted to build a tire well to stand it in but there's no place in this box long enough to make it work and be out of the way, unfortunately. I was really wanting something like this. If I had a long bed there might be enough room to do it.

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/h...ps7qnhhft7.jpg
http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/h...pso4yvfzvg.jpg

I also installed new taillights and a new headlight switch. My headlights refused to come on last week after I got back to town and made a pit stop at the grocery. I had to nurse it home on back roads with only parking lights.:

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/h...pssweawrpz.jpg

Steve

I like this idea a lot, the old Ford Camper Special, but there's probably not enough inner structure to hide a spare tire in on the Dakota.

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/h...psb7x7z9ex.jpg

Steve

Looks good! Mines in my bed too but just chained to one of the rack holes...not so clean lol.

Looks great!

Thanks, I would have just tossed it in the back but at some point I'm sure I would walk out and find it missing. The bracket just made it possible to mount it up and out of the way from the main bed.

In the beginning I had intended to mount it on the front of the truck but finding a bracket to make that happen is almost impossible now. Back when I had a B250 van I found a front mount kit that would have been nice, however, with such bad fuel efficiency I would now not add anything to the front that would worsen already crappy mpg numbers.

Steve