Before I can Install the Teraflex Alta Cargo Rack (that is currently backordered or this post would include that as well) I need to upgrade the Hinges on the rear door of Tiny. The rear door isn’t really rated to carry a tonne of weight. In fact they are only rated for about 23kg’s which is already about the weight of my spare tire. So before I can add on an additional 45kg’s of rack and another 50kg’s of gear to that I need to update the door hinge. In comes Teraflex’s HD Hinged Carrier & Adjustable tire mount.
Both of these are required to bolt on the Teraflex Alta Cargo Rack so install them I did.
Normally these get installed to help support your 80kg 34″ spare tire of doom, but I have not gone to that level of upgrade quite yet so this is overkill for the measly 32″ BFG AT’s that I have on. This is entitleuy to support that Alta rear carrier.
The Next step is to add the door hinge which was easy enough. I recommend adding the for right torx on the body of the jeep first and getting it tight ish before opening the hinge and finger tightening the other two. Then I closed the gate loosened the right most screws so I could line up the holes on the gate itself. I added in a bolt on the farthest right of the gate to make sure it all stayed aligned. and then Tightend to the tork spec those two outer right ones on the hinge. once they were tight I pulled that far left bolt out, opened the hinge (leaving the gate still closed and suppoted by the shims) and I tightened the 4 bolts (two on the top and two on the bottom) on the body side off the hinge. They can only be acssesed when the hinge is open.
Once those 6 bolts on the body side of the hinge were tightened to spec I closed the hinge and added in all the rest of the bolts on the gate. There are a few, 4 to replace the hinge bolts of old are supplied by Teraflex. They are a little longer than the factory hinge bolts. and the rest you reuse from the tire carrier.
That is all super confusing I know do it in this order and you should have no gate alignment issues.
The hardest part for me was pressing in these lugs. mostly I don’t have a vice or a press so I had to get a spot clever.
Teraflex recommends that you don’t hammer them in so I put the closed end of a wench down that was bigger than the lug I was pulling through. I would recommend a big nut or something similar instead of the wrench if you have it but i couldn’t find anything like that so a wrench had to do. I added some washers so the lug nut could push against something other than my wrench :) and I screwed the lug on to slowly pull it though and into place. A bit (read a lot) of muscle was needed to get them on but it worked a treat and in no time I had all three pulled through and in the tire carrier.
it was all a bit of work, and when I added the tire back on it looked beefier but functually it was pretty much the same but now I am all set for when the Alta rack ships.
The gate closes better than it did before and there is a satisfying thud to it that wasn’t there before.
All and all easy install and great product thus far.