Reviews for Body Armor 5298 Tire Carrier for Body Armor (JL-2965) Rear Bumper for 18-20 Jeep Wrangler JL
I ordered the bumper a year ago with the thought in mind that I would add the tire carrier in the future
Very heavy duty. Looks great - fits great. A little tedious on getting the back-up camera out of the old carrier with 3 very tiny torx screws. Didn't want to drive into town for the proper tool, so I just ground the heads off with a Dremel. Also may take a little trial and error to get the tire mount adjusted to your wheels back-spacing. But altogether a great finished product.
Fits nice and tight, close to the rear of the body and doesn't stick out too much. I opted to mount my tire as close as I could to the swing out arm and made sure everything was mounted neatly and tightly. Wobble and rattle significantly reduced during street driving and off-road is a night and day difference compared to when I had the tire mounted on the factory hinges. Installation was straightforward on the BA4x4 bumper that I had already installed on my JLU. Make sure you level the arm pole before settling the swing out arm onto it. I had to make some adjustments in order to level out the tire carrier and swing out arm after the fact. The only difficult thing was finding a stupid 34mm socket to secure the castle nut onto the swing out arm and to the hinge it was mounted on (eventually found one at a local automotive shop - none of the home improvement stores had any).
Instructions were easy to read and relatively simple to follow. Remember that the bearings have two components in each box - in case you're like me and have a moment where I thought I was missing some parts. Remember that you'll also need grease to pack the bearings with before installation. Aside from this and the 34mm socket, almost all other tools are common in most garages or included in the box with this tire carrier.
Pretty happy with this overall. Installed by myself and it took about two hours for the full install. Having my rear brake light and backup camera still functioning is a real plus.
Just finished putting this on my 2019 JLU. Love the bumper. It rocks. Put the bumper on about three months ago. Got new (bigger) tires and the spare really taxed the stock spare mount and tailgate. This tire carrier goes on pretty easily, but it would have been easier if I'd put it on with the bumper. Works great but the adjustment is a pain. Had to un-mount the spare twice to get it just right. The only real issue is the camera mount and the 3rd brake light mount. Both are just kinda half assed, IMO. They leave the wires exposed where they were not before and BA does not provide any weatherproofing for those wires. Luckily, I had some conduit leftover from another project to use. Also, BA doesn't give you a good way to secure those wires. We'll see how they endure with time. Otherwise, great product.
The bumper is great. But the tire carrier is another matter. Make sure you have a 35mm socket for the castle nut! And the problem I have is the bolt on spindle. Installed it and made sure the arm was level, after the first drive the arm sagged down. I loosened it up and realigned it. After driving about 5 miles it sagged down again. I realigned again and tightened the bolts down stupid tight, got to the point i was afraid i would snap them or strip them out. And the arm sagged down again. At this point I think I will just level it back out and bolt it on and weld it in place. it seems that the design of the block along with the powder coating on it does not give it enough friction to hold in place,