Aluminess rattle

[Fishingman]

Hey guys I have a full rear Aluminess bumper and I get quite a bit a noise rattling from the tire carrier. From the top hinge spot (see pic) any fix for this? I’ve tried to adjust the latch point to move the weight around a bit but doesn’t seem to help. There seems to be some slop in between the two discs. All bolts have been checked and are tight. I have video I can message someone to show noise and play in the hinge.
Thanks

[joefromsf]

Are you sure its coming from where you finger is pointed and not the washer above? I was getting a high pitched ringing and traced it to the washer. You can trace the sound by using tape to temporary keep suspected bits from rattling. When I determined it was the washer I used a dab of silicone to keep it quiet.

[Fishingman]

Pretty positive it’s from the spacer not the washer above. The video shows it I’ll try to post that

[Futrmbl]

At Ace hardware they have plastic washers of varying thickness and sizes.
Maybe be a rattle solution?

[boywonder]

FWIW here are some suggestions....

For reference, I built my own rear bumper and used Aluminess swingarms in the design..and spent lots of time getting everything dialed in and tight.

That being said, I have no rattles.......and I bet that many cracked Aluminess swingarms are from the slop that's causing the rattles.

Here's how it works......you have the upper and lower black delrin washers at each pivot point, above and below the swingarm joint in your picture....and the black delrin ramp blocks screwed to the top of the bumper.

The robust way to eliminate the slop is to machine new delrin hinge spacers of varying thickness to get all the joints tight when the swingarms are latched.


To accomplish this I machined delrin hinge washers of varying thickness to have zero vertical slop in each hinge joint, and have the swingarm height just rub the delrin ramp on the bumper to load everything when the swingarms are latched. It takes a bit of trial and error to get everything snug.



Black Delrin Rod of the appropriate OD is readily available from mcmaster-carr to fabricate spacers if you have acces to a lathe. I can provide the P/N if you are so inclined go this route.

You can also do a poor man's version by using stainless fender washers to shim each hinge up or down.....and if you need the delrin washers to be thinner you can easily sand them thinner on a flat surface.

Determine if your swingarms are resting on/touching the delrin ramps on the bumper first..if they are you wont have to make any of the bottom hinge spacers any thinner....then use a feeler gauge to determine how much thicker the delrin hinge spacers need to be or how many stainless fender washers you need to add to remove all the slop on the top and bottom of each hinge joint.

Here's my build thread for the bumper/swingarms.....skip to page 11 to see the final design come together including the delrin hinge spacers if you are interested.

https://www.sportsmobileforum.com/fo...-up-17870.html

[geoffff]

Originally Posted by Fishingman

Hey guys I have a full rear Aluminess bumper and I get quite a bit a noise rattling from the tire carrier. From the top hinge spot (see pic) any fix for this? I’ve tried to adjust the latch point to move the weight around a bit but doesn’t seem to help. There seems to be some slop in between the two discs. All bolts have been checked and are tight. I have video I can message someone to show noise and play in the hinge.
Thanks

Sigh... I've experienced many years of frustration with Aluminess rear tire carrier shaking and rattling that I've never completely been able to solve. I have the standalone Aluminess rear tire carrier (without their custom bumper), but I think my situation is similar.

I don't know if I drive more washboard roads than most people, but what I find is that: the steel bolts rub against the soft aluminum bolt-holes. With this wear, the holes get larger, and more shaking happens, and then accelerated wear.

If I understand what boywonder suggests, ensuring vertical tightness with properly sized washers could slow this process, but I think the fundamental problem is the softness of the aluminum. Any movement of the bolts will eventually will eat away at the aluminum.





I've tried various things over the years to slow this down.

First I changed the two-point connection to the rear door hing to a 3-point bar. The original two-point bar could rotate easily, allowing the rear tire carrier to easily lean out from the rear of the van:


original 2-point connection from carrier to door hinge


my custom 3-point connection from carrier to door hinge

This helped with the carrier itself, but eventually the two (upper and lower) swing-arm bolts started to wear.

At one point I removed the carrier and shipped it back to Aluminess for repair. I don't remember exactly what they did, my rattles came back in a few years.

Most recently I wrapped my swing-arm bolts with wire to widen them to get them to fit snugly in the wear-expanded holes. This, of course, is only a temporary hack-fix.

-- Geoff

[geoffff]

Also note that there are two axes of movement. What I wrote above mainly addresses the movement leaning out away from the back of the van.

There is also rotating movement which causes the latch end to sag. Eventually there's so much sagging that the carrier won't latch closed without my lifting it.

Aluminess sent me their fix for this problem - a tough plastic pad on which the tire carrier can rest when it's in the closed position. [edit: They call it a "swing arm rest", and sell it on their website here.] If you don't have this pad, it might be worth adding one:











This helps, but after 5 years of use the pad is now showing wear, too. About 1mm has worn off, so my latch now doesn't align quite correctly anymore.

-- Geoff

[shenrie]

Originally Posted by geoffff

Sigh... I've experienced many years of frustration with Aluminess rear tire carrier shaking and rattling that I've never completely been able to solve...

...the steel bolts rub against the soft aluminum bolt-holes. With this wear, the holes get larger, and more shaking happens, and then accelerated wear.

same boat. i bought my carrier used and those holes we elongated upon purchase. i havent done it yet but im hoping that buying step down washers like this:



and pairing them with matching shouldered bolts so that there is no touching the soft aluminum by the bolts at all.

this kit looks like it could help as well:



im going to have to do the same thing for my ccv top attachment points at some point too. the washboard roads have elongated all 8 of the mounting points for my top as well.

my temp solution for the tire swingout was to make a new mounting plate for my spare so that it sat lower (also needed one that had 8x170 since i swapped bolt patterns). i set it up to where the weight of the spare tire actually rests on the bumper instead of just hanging there with a 9' wide wheel and 35" tire combo that is way too damn heavy as it is. now the bumper takes the weight of the spare instead of the carrier. now i only have to tighten the tire carrier bolts every few months rather than every trip.

another bonus was now i can see better out of that rear window since the spare is lower.

[Annie O]

i'm getting ready to pull trigger on the very same Aluminess Swing-arm tire carrier that is giving everyone here fits! I do have a machinist son who could fit something if needed.



Is there an alternate tire carrier out there...?

[Twoxentrix]

Originally Posted by Annie O

....Is there an alternate tire carrier out there...?

Member Cyrull just posted a couple alternatives in another Thread
https://www.sportsmobileforum.com/fo...tml#post272034