so. I was driving to work the other day (actually almost a month ago) and pulled into my usual parking space, got out, and headed toward the building, when I saw a mysterious tire laying in the middle of the parking lot. I didn't remember driving over it, and, upon looking under my truck, discovered that it was, in fact, mine. So I rolled it up and threw it into the back of my truck and went on.
Yeah. I know you like my story. But anyway, the problem is that the metal cable/cord/whatever that held the spare tire up (the one that goes up into the crank mechanism thing) frayed up like crazy and just broke. I have all of the pieces, the metal piece that actually holds the tire on, all of the wire (though it's broken), and the whole assembly is still together. So, is there any way I could fix this, and if not, where could I buy a whole assembly? I don't especially want to pay a lot of money just to put a spare tire back on if I don't have to, which leads to another question- do I even want to put the darn thing back on? I know it lightens my truck by a good bit (that sucker is heavy) and I don't even have the stock tools to bring it down and put it on if I were to need it.
Any help/ideas would be appreciated.

 

Go to a junkyard and you could probably find the tire carrier, and the tools to use it. It is always a good idea to have a spare tire on your daily driver.

 

i fixed one on my buddies ford. i used a piece of steel from work about 2" x 6" x 3/8 thick and it had a line of holes already drilled in it. i cut the fray off the cable and threaded it in one hole and out another, then used a couple of cable clamps to complete the loop. its as good if not better than factory and its been there several years. on yours, a 1/2 drive ext should work to lower it.

good thing yours fell off in the parking lot, otherwise you'd lost it.

your story reminds me of one. a couple of my buddies went camping, loaded all their stuff in the truck, drove up into the dirt roads in the mountains. started drinking beer and stopped ever so often to get another out of the big cooler in the back of the truck. 2 more buddies left a little later and followed them in. along the way they found a nice sleeping bag, stopped and picked it up. a little later they found a water jug. then a cooler. one of them said - isn't that tim's cooler. it was, all that $hit fell out of the back of the first truck when they left the tailgate down.

 

im wondering if i should take mine off. its pretty much pointless because my spare is so much smaller

 

I would leave it on, you never know when you may need to limp home.

 

i have mine on there. all the tools and everything. and even though it is smaller (like mine) it will still work to get you home when you blow a bead...trust me i know... i have had to do it before

 

but i dont even have a jack or the bar to get it off.

 

^Read my post

 

mmm hope you know a good tire repair place that does deleviry service.
Had this problem in mine all the tools for it were stationed in the trays behind the seats. lol, i took those trays out when in put the sound system in. about 6 months later still had the tools out of my truck, I blew a tire doing 80 down the road.
Once I got the damn thing stopped I had to make the embarassing call to the local tire shop and have them come out to change my tire trust me it made my day..... not

 

That reminds me, I need to throw my tire change tools back into my truck. Thanks for the reminder guys.