SUT Tire Carrier mounted on SUV

[sclui56]

Ever since I got the H2 SUV in mid October, I have been trying to find ways to increase the cargo space and finally gave in to getting an external carrier, as much as I dislike the piece sticking out in the back, more cargo space is very important to me.

Been looking on eBay as well as the SMA’s, have heard mixed reviews on the SMA so I was looking for something else, in the meantime I was wondering why GM hasn’t made one.

Then I saw an auction for a used SUT carrier (turns out to be Dan’s), I wasn’t absolutely certain that it would go on the SUV, but what the heck, bid away. As it turned out I won the bid and Dan sent the carrier, BTW, Dan couldn’t have done a better job in packing up the pieces, better than what I’ve seen from some vendors! The item arrived as described in record time from DHL ground, shipped Friday from CT & I got the pieces on Tuesday in CA.

I figured it wouldn’t be plug & play, Dan had cut the tag light wire between the bumper & the light assembly (this assembly – bulb holder & wiring harness + 1 grommet runs about $98 retail), and the SUT bracket has a third mounting hole on the passenger side.

Went ahead & removed the SUV’s D-rings, couldn’t find an extra bolt so I bought a Class8 ½”, lock washer, nut. Since there’s nothing behind the bumper on the SUV for the extra mounting point, I went to a local trailer hitch store & the guy punched me a 2”x2” ¼” thick plate, even punched a hole for me, I ended up using this plate behind the bumper to give a bit more strength & distribute the stress.

Started mounting the left & right brackets/D-rings, before tightening down the bolts, I realigned everything after slipping on the carrier assembly, then tightened the 4 bolts, center-punched on the bumper for the extra hole using the bracket as a guide, drilled out a new hole and mounted the Class 8 bolt + ¼” plate, etc. Rechecked the alignment & then tightened down everything to 90 ft-pounds. For those who plan on doing this, the SUV bolts are M12x1.75x55 while the SUT uses M12x1.75x65 (P/N 11589048), in my case, I didn’t feel the extra length was used to grab anything but air, I stayed with the 55’s for now. BTW, my dealer wanted $4.75 each for the 65 bolts).

Since the tag light complete harness cost nearly $100, I decided to be cheap, bought 12’ of two-conductive wires with heavy duty rubber tubing (this way is somewhat weather resistant and I don’t need to wrap them), spliced the new wires into the cut ones, now the hole on the SUT’s bumper is situated somewhere in/around the HUMMER lettering, so I had to find an alternative spot to drill, looking from the inside of the rear bumper, there’s already a hole on the metal bumper (when viewing from outside, it’s approx. 3” to the right of the letter “R”, along the center axis), I used a small drill & drilled out the plastic skin from the inside, a 5/16” hole so I can use a 1/4” grommet. Fitted everything, replaced the 5 plastic snap-on wire clamps on the carrier with plastic wire clamps and tightened the clamps in place with 10/24 nylon nuts, everything is now secured and has enough slack. Fed the wire through the bumper, needed a thin film of grease to make it easier as the new wire’s OD is very tight going into the 1/4” grommet, then on the underside I ran the tag wire into the factory plastic wire wrap, used plastic ties in a couple of places just to be safe. Didn’t feel like tracing all the way up to the rear park lights so I just spliced the 2 wires into the trailer harness (black-ground, brown-park).

Now a couple points, the rear of the SUT D-rings brackets do not mate perfectly to the contour of the rear bumper, at first I thought it might be the stamping and drove to the dealer to eyeball their SUT, on the 2 samples I looked at, there’re similar gaps between the bumper & the D-Ring brackets, so I knew it was fine then. May be it’s just me getting old – when I removed the bolts from the inside the trunk when removing the internal tire rack, I didn’t even think the two bolts to the floor would go through all the way to the underside and didn’t put them back initially. Luckily I found that out when I was under the truck while hooking up the tag light, bought a couple of fender washers & bolted those 2 holes up in a hurry.

A Couple of tactical errors I made – shouldn’t have bothered with the satin finish lettering and shouldn’t have ordered the cargo liner so soon as I can use a fully covered one now.

Will post some pix tomorrow, just thought I let people know that it can be retrofitted to the SUV. I will probably work on a couple of mods – have a mechanism to lock the carrier when it’s fully released, and a lock mechanism to avoid casual lifting of the release lever. I am happy with the carrier, but I have a feeling that I will loose the rear tag one of these days as it can be easily removed. BTW, did everything myself and I am not sure I want to change my own tires on the H2.