Continuation of the spare tire story

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about our contemplations with regard to getting the spare tire onto the roof of Miss Doozie (https://trekincartwrights.blogspot.com/2018/02/what-to-do-with-tire.html) - I honestly figured that we would just put it in the back of the Jee-rage for a "while" until we were able to figure a way to get it onto the roof and make a secure place for it.

Dwayne had the bright idea to ask Mr Sutton at Sutton's Auto Body if they had a forklift that we might be able to use to help out. He agreed and...

...on Tuesday after the bodywork was completed, he lifted the tire up to "close" to the roof top...

Then he and Dwayne got the tire off of the forklift, over the goat-rail, and onto the roof.

For the relatively short trip from the body shop to our campsite, we tied the tire down to the goat-rails with various straps that we had brought along.

 But we wanted to make a more permanent mounting, so we set about to accomplish that on Wednesday afternoon...

We weren't comfortable with the tire sitting right on the roof - we have quite a few things already on the roof, and the space where there was room for it had two roof supports under the tire, but we didn't want the part of the roof that does not have roof supports to bear any of the weight of the tire.

We looked at several options at Lowes, and eventually settled on treated 2x4s.

They extend across the roof of the bus, resting on the walk-treads over top of roof rails ...

... and are screwed down through the walk-treads and into the roof rails underneath.

The plan was then for the tire to sit on the 2x4s which would transfer the weight of the tire to the walk-treads and the roof rails.

Lots of drilling and then putting in stainless steel screws.

We then put metal angles onto the 2x4s to hold the tire from sliding side-to-side or front-to-back.

The final touch was to put a strap around the metal angles and all the way around the tire and cinch it tight.

We think it is secured well now. Our goal is to get a cover to go over it - we have a piece of plywood that we will cover the center of the tire so the cover won't sink down and hold water. We stopped at a place called "SewMasters" here in Yuma that indicated that they had tire covers. We asked if they had one for a 45" diameter tire and the guy in the shop said, "What kind of vehicle has tires that big?!?!?" Anyway, he did not have tire covers for that size, and although the name was "SewMasters" and I thought that may mean that they woud do custom sewing, they evidently do not. We know of an upholstery shop in the DFW area where we had an awning sewn for Miss Daisy, so we're hoping they will be able to sew one for us. One of our Blue Bird friends told us that he sewed his own cover - which would also be an option I guess.

This was a BIG to-do that I was convinced was *not* going to make it to "done" - so thankful it is completed!!!