Retrofit for spare wheel/tire on 71

[Lumatic]

My 73 has a spare tire stowed up front between the A frame. My 71 Tradewind does not have spare capacity. It looks pretty straightforward to cut out the belly pan section between the A frame members for a spare. What do you think?

[Zeppelinium]

Marshall, good to see you posting. I've got some more parts coming out of the Sovereign today--the dinning table and maybe the storage bins and roller doors.

For you tire questin, see my thread on repairing banana skins. There is a photo and drawing in this post

http://www.airforums.com/forums/260061-post5.html

which shows how the frame looks inside the belly skin. My Sovereign has the spare tire carrier up front, with about half the tire showing below the skin. I think cutting a circular hole and slipping in a short cylinder of aluminum skin material, riveted to the belly panel, would provide adequate splash protection to the rest of the cavity. The cross member in the frame in my Caravel has the bolt holes (threaded) for the aft end of the tire carrier trapeze. I would assume this is standard, even if the trailer didn't have the tire carrier option.

The drawing is a bottom view of how the tongue and main frame come together. You can see where the threaded attachment holes are and how the tire would fit.

During repairs, I partially filled the cavity with solid foam insulation, so the tire could go up tight against that--maybe put a sheet of skin material up against the foam for additional protection.

Zep

[Wabbiteer]

It looks like someone reused the cutout belly skin as the spare area liner on my 72' and insulated area with 1" thick white foam board. This trailer dropped off a hitch somewhen and wiped out the front wraps and pounded the spare hanger assembly on mine so I volunteer my 2¢ worth..

I know no one here would ever allow the trailer to separate while towing but there are even chances of a road hazard finding the spare carrier someday...

Looking at damages my advice is use flatter, un-tall stock like I-beam on its side or angle hung on its side ( L--->V) as the tire brace arms, and lift the nose ( ___/¯ ) of the front tire holder yolk with as much bend as you can get away and still get tire out to give it a chance to deflect up and skid over something instead of being driven straight back; it was the hangers yolk plowing into the ground that seriously tried to take out the rear spar and what I'm looking at has been repaired (I haven't dropped skins yet)...

The full one-inch of insulation between tire and floor made a dropped profile that reduced clearances and amplified damage. Also remember modern radial tires are wider then the original bias ply so thick insulation is double jeopardy... (Pictures on request)