Alright, so since I’ve put my spare tire carrier on in November of 2020, I’ve had a billion questions on it so I figured I would finally make a write up on it. For the actual tire carrier, I used a first gen CRV mount I got from the junkyard and painted it Fiji Blue to match the Element. I first piloted 4 holes by marking them out and then got them to the correct size. Initially, I bolted it straight into the hatch without anything besides the oem nut but, after a few months, I noticed some hairline cracks spreading from the mounting points so I braced the inside with larger washers but there was still a bit of water seeping in and that inspired the neoprene washers. The combo of both stopped the seeping and strengthened up the mounting points to stop anymore cracking. There are two pictures of the washers on the inside of the hatch. The hatch strut supports came from ElementDriven and that was a preemptive thing because people had been cracking their mounting points and I didn’t want to fight that later. The license plate was shifted over with the plate bracket and screw lights. I spliced power from the original lights mounted it with them so it stayed legal. One major question I have gotten is “well how does it stay up” and to answer that, I’ve attached a video showing it going up. I used 200 lbs rated struts that hold it up with no problems and can hold it just like the normal hatch without a tire. When the tire is off, it turns into a weapon and will go from closed to open in less than a second. Overall, there have been very few problems with doing this and any ones that were there were from my inexperience and have been mitigated. Feel free to ask any more questions but that should be a general explanation of it all. There are 2 pics from the front looking back, one in the mirror and one facing back. Since I’ve gotten my tailgate fixed, I have added bumpers to the tailgate to let the tire rest on the bumpers to not strain the hatch as much. Apparently the whacked up tailgate sat so far off that it let the tire rest on the cladding.
![Automotive tail & brake light Tire Plant Car Wheel]()
![Plant Automotive parking light Automotive tail & brake light Hood Automotive lighting]()
![Wheel Car Automotive parking light Automotive tail & brake light Tire]()
