Smittybilt XRC Rear Swing Arm – Textured Black (87-06 YJ/TJ/LJ) - SB76654

This tire carrier is heavy duty made of thick gauge steel. Assembly was easy and instructions were straightforward. The handle mechanism is well built and one of the best that I’ve seen on the market. It is nice to take 75lb wheel off my tailgate eliminating the risk of damage. There is absolutely no movement or rattling once secured. I am 100% satisfied with this tire carrier and would highly recommend the XRC bumper as well, this combination will not disappoint. Don’t buy look alike’s or copy cats, the build quality and gauge of steel is inferior.

After purchasing the XRC rear bumper for my 2005 Jeep Rubicon, I found that the spare was sitting too low on the factory carrier and was rubbing on the new bumper. I knew it would only be a matter of time before the finish would be damaged, so I ordered the Smittybilt carrier. This carrier is very heavy duty and has some really high-end features at any price. The Amazon price for this item is a bargain, especially with the free shipping. It was a bit involved to install (more than I expected), but easily manageable with basic tools. There are a couple of issues that prospective buyers should be aware of when deciding to buy this carrier. The factory third brake light can be installed on this carrier, but will require cutting of the part and will sit way too high if you are mounting a normal sized (31-32 inch) spare tire. It might be okay with a large (35-37 inch) tire. I decided to forego the third brake light on my installation, but now I need to find a rubber grommet/plug to properly close the hole in the tailgate where the factory wire harness came through. It would be nice if Smittybilt could provide one in the kit.

The rear swing arm pivot was welded with a outward slant which caused the latch not to contact or operate properly. Smittybilt support argued for days even though I provided hi res pictures. They kept telling me to put the tire on and the swing arm will drop enough. I put my full body weight of 230 pounds on the swingarm and the latch mechanism had both provided shims installed. The latch was not even close to matching up with the latch opening. Secondly, the instructions claim you can bolt on the rear bumper (not the tire carrier, the bumper). YOU MUST DROP THE GAS TANK, 100% no way, no tool to get to the holes you must drill to mount the bumper. Save yourself a lot of hours of frustration and research, drop the tank first if you have a Jeep TJ. My setup is a 2004 Jeep Wrangler TJ Rubicon. Not a fan of their slider install either. They could save TJ owners a lot of time by sending two longer bolts for the rear body mount. Instead they ask you to drill a 1" hole from the inside of the body.

First off it is a great product. Cleans up the rear end of your Jeep and allows for great looks! I have a 33" tire held on it right now and it fits perfect with room to spare. I haven't tried it yet, but I am skeptical if I will be able to take my hard top off with the tire carrier on. It looks like it is in the way of the hard top to slide off. However, I haven't tried to detach my top yet so don't get your hopes down if you have a hard top.

This thing is a monster (this review is being left for both halves of this bumper). I have a 2006 Unlimited LJ model Wrangler. For those who have this model this bumper goes on like a CHAMP. There is NO need to move or drop the fuel tank because the longer wheel base gives you the room to rummage around up there. On like BUTTER. At the least the base bumper portion of this went on like butter. For those who have the same idea I did though, you REQUIRE both halves of this bumper. Your stock tire carries with a 33" tire will NOT fit over the lower bumper after it is installed. The lower half, despite having a dipping surface, rests about an inch HIGHER than stock. So get both parts. The upper portion with the swing away had a couple issues (hence the 4 starts on the swing away). Few things to know: 1) Read ALL the directions. The directions talk about the tightening bolts at the hinge being used to adjust the bumper up and down. It is a bit vague, but there are 3 bolts going through the hinge, and you tighten them to raise the bumper and loosed to lower. There are also 2 shims you can put under the hinge and it is the combo of these shims and tightening bolts that allow you to fine tune the height of the bumper to slot into the handle hole when closed. Note, this might take 2 or three install attempts if you don't start with the shims underneath, mine took about 3 attempts. 2) This bad boy comes with 1 handle already attached but a mine bad-A handle in the box you can switch out. There are no instructions on how to do this but it is fairly intuitive but requires some hammering. 3) The hinge comes with 2 soft washers, I could not for the life of me get both on. This whole thing is a bit "not to specification" but is largely adjustable so it doesn't matter. I just left the top soft washer off since it wouldn't fit, and because it would not really be seeing any wear. All in all, I love this bumper, you can adjust almost every facet of it, though the adjusting process can take awhile.

This thing is pretty solid. I've had it on for a little over a month and so far no problems. The hinge is greasable and it doesn't rattle. I've had it out on the trails a couple times and driven about 1000 hwy miles under full load (31" spare, iRack, Hi-Lift and full Jerry can) and no bolts have loosened. It also has a bracket for the stock third brake light. I will say that I'm not as satisfied with the iRack but that's a different review. Oh, one sortof problem with this and all the Smittybilt products I've gotten is the bolts are metric but the instructions list them as inches. I also had a few extra bolts so I had to re-read the instructions a few times to make sure I didn't leave any out.

XRC Rear Swing Away Tire carrier – Black Texture – 76654 I bought a Jeep which had the matching rear bumper that this attaches to, XRC Bumper – 76653, but this item, the Swing Away Tire carrier – 76654 was missing. The Bumper, 76653 was damaged where this item bolts to it, 3 bolts. One of the nuts welded to the inside of the bumper was broken off and missing. The reason the tire carrier was missing I can only guess at was because the tire carrier became unlocked and opened while the Jeep was being driven and broke off somehow. The key here is the tire carrier unlocked. I was able to repair the bumper and my repair actually came out amazing, after welding and painting you could not tell that it had ever been broken, but this is not my point here. I did not like how the tire carrier was made in China, yes it’s heavy and strong, but still. Maybe too heavy. I replaced all of the nuts and bolts because I do not like cheap hardware that is made in China (junk) I used mostly grade 8 bolts and I think that made it look better too. It all went together ok, you must use Loctite on the bolts everywhere. The plunger that is supposed to hold the tire carrier open did not work because it was too short, cheaply made as all things made in China are. I was able to make a replacement plunger that was ½” longer and that worked. My point here is I do not like how this tire carrier latches and locks so that it doesn’t open while the Jeep is in motion. There is only one short pin to lock it so it doesn’t open accidentally and unexpectedly. I did the best I could and making darn sure that pin is all the way seated correctly before I will drive the Jeep. I still wasn’t happy so I now use heavy rubber bands to hold the pin down and in place, which is not ideal, so I got a belt and I wrap it around the tire carrier and rear bumper to make darn sure if it does open it won’t open very far. I only use the belt when I take the Jeep off road. Otherwise so far this thing works, it holds the spare tire very well, I just do not like the poorly designed locking mechanism, obviously it failed on the previous install.

This thing is heavy, but can be easily installed by one person. Can be done in an hour. The 3rd brake light that is the tricky part

Works perfect. No instructions, but was very straight forward so not necessarily needed. Very sturdy and nice to have the weight off the rear door

Very well built the finish is fantastic great product.

For people who are purchasing the bumper and tire carrier together I have a couple of tips that will save you some time and frustration. Tip #1 Install the tire carrier bolt and jam but into the bumper before installing the bumper. Also I had to run a tap into the welded nut on the bumper do to some powder coating/ weld spatter. Tip #2 Install the L nut plate with a couple of bolts just finger tight to hold in place, can be a pain in the but after the bumper is installed. Tip #3 (just for the bumper it’s self) if you have the TJ (not the LJ) like I do, the 2” receiver hitch square tubing was a bit long (towards the fuel tank) this mean I needed to trim about 1/2-3/8 of an inch off the skid plate bracket in between the mounting bolts for the fuel tank. As I had to lower the tank to install the 4 bolts you have to drill holes for. Once the bumper once installed I was not able to lift the fuel tank back in place without trimming that little bit off to clear the square tubing. Now for the review of the carrier, the only reason it doesn’t get a 5 start review is because of the 3rd brake light. Having to hack apart the factory one to just jam on top of 2 bolt heads used to mount a small L bracket on the carrier is just cheap and really unsightly (when spare tire is removed, as none of that is seen from behind with spare tire installed) honestly I would have been happy to pay 50-100 bucks more for them to have included a steal frame that used the factory lights lens and bulb or even as an add on option. Also I had to drill a couple of holes in the carrier itself to run wiring for the 3rd brake light.