Some information for anybody who has purchased a H3T and has yet to remove the spare tire.

While at first the removal is seemingly straight forward, if you go off-road at all there is a chance that the vibration may have loosened off your spare tire and the dreaded "secondary latch" has now activated itself to hold your tire in place.

Basically to remove the spare tire you need to assemble a long rod from parts of your emergency kit (which can be easily removed if you remove a top-mounted wingnut on the passenger side of the bag). The rod slides female end first through a hole between the tail gate and the rear bumper.

If your secondary latch has not activated you can simply turn the rod counter-clockwise and lower your tire to the ground.

On the other hand if the latch has activated you can refer to your useless manual which instructs you into a wonderful circus of balancing your tire on your emergency jack, then flopping it around until you somehow magically disengage the latch and it falls on you... after an hour of fiddling with it I had the luxury of searching online, had I been stuck on the side of the road likely I would have given up and simply had it towed.

Now, what I found out was GM has alternate instructions for servicing this shifty secondary latch not found in the manual. Here is how to disengage it easily... using the rod tighten the tire harness back up so it is snug, now keep tightening it. According to the alternate service instructions you can't over tighten the tire, what you are listening for is TWO distinct "clicks"... once you hear those you should be able to lower your tire to the ground.

Why this was not in the manual is beyond me... but at least now you know!

 

Good to know! I just took mine offroading yesterday (broke off the factory side step in the process). And I will be driving back to FL later this week, I would be really ticked if I had a flat on the way home and could not get the tire out! Defineately something to check before we hit the road.

 

Yeah if I had been stranded on the side of the road I would have been really pissed off... I was already pretty ticked off the owners manual instructions about using the jack to disengage it was not working. Hmmm, now to see if I can get a 35" tire under there this week.

Everytime I see somebody go out with side-steps on they end up banging them up pretty badly. I have been actually removing mine each and every time I go out... I find you have to really spray in a lot of WD40 to get the bolts to go in smoothly.

 

Got mine down with no problems at all.

Sugar, your 35 tire will fit but just barely. I put mine under but took it off right away as it hangs down very low and would cause problems off road.

I will try and find pics to show you

 

Here are a couple pics

 

If the secondary latch hasn't engauged it just drops down like nothing, but I think I knocked my tire loose off-road last time and it engauged. If that happens don't mess around with your jack-stand like the instructions tell you to, just tighten it all the way up, then overtighten it until it makes two popping noises and it disenguages... way easier.

Hmmm, those pictures are tight. My spare is a 30$ junkyard one so it is pretty bald, I might have a bit more clearance.

 

Still relevant help Sugarphreak, thanks.

 

I heard both clicks and still can’t get the spare tire to lower. The cable will but not the holder portion that the spare tire rim sets on.
what am I missing? I heard two clicks but still now joy.

 

Perhaps you are missing that you are posting in a FIFTEEN YEAR OLD THREAD and those guys are long gone from here???????????????

 

Listen I know it’s an old thread yet I hope of trying to solve my current issue with my spare tire cable bring stuck.