One of the mods you will most likely have to do “if” you lift your Discovery to fit bigger tyres is to modify the
spare wheel carrier to take a larger overall diameter tyre. This is usually needed when you go for a more aggressive mud tyre in a bigger size due to its much bigger tread.

There’s quite a lot of “info” out there, but I never found a definitive answer on the best or easiest
way to do it. I found lots of different answers, etc, from lots of diff people, but never found any pictures, etc of what they had done, so in keeping with tradition, I thought I would document this mod too. The way
it’s achieved is to remove the spare wheel carrier and “flip” it over 180. This will give you more room to clear the rear bumper.

There are other options, and that is to fit an adapter to the existing carrier to move the studs higher or to some
companies make a complete replacement carrier assy to enable you to fit up to a 33″ tyre on the back door, well with the current financial outlay with the lift and new wheels/tyres, I decided to try the mod to the factory carrier first.

My Disco is now lifted 2″ and fitted with 265/75-16 Cooper STT, which are about 32″ + in size overall. This is
significantly bigger than the 255/55-18 all-terrains I did originally have fitted, which were around 29″.

So something had to be done to fit the spare onto the rear door !!! First, you have to remove the rear
door trim panel. If you’re attempting this carrier mod, then I’m pretty sure you have already done it in the past or are capable of removing the trim panel, etc. Once that’s off, you can begin to remove the carrier assy.

It’s simply held on by six nuts and bolts that go through the door’s structure. Below are the bolt
positions on the inside. (right-hand side)

And left-hand side

The carrier also has 2 steel spacing blocks outside between “it” and the rear door skin; be careful not
to allow them to drop and damage the paint on your rear door. Once it’s off, keep the spacers relative to the side they came from and lay it down on the floor, then flip the carrier 180 and sit it next to the spacers. This will show you where the new holes need to be drilled, as the holes in the carrier are not evenly spaced.

Below is the left-side spacer with the carrier flipped. You can see it in the middle hole that will need to be
re-positioned.

The right side spacer with carrier flipped 180

As you can see, the top and bottom holes still line up, and there’s a lot of “play” in the hole size to the
bolt size that goes through the door structure. I had read that some people needed to “bash” the carrier flat, but I could not see why this would be needed as the new hole position will sit nicely just above the original hole on the flat section of the carrier.

Now, there are 2 ways to do it: either sit the spacers next to the carrier so the top and bottom holes line up and draw/transfer the holes across “freehand,” or hold the spacer onto the carrier with tie wraps in the top and bottom holes and turn it over to drill back through the other way. Either method will work and will depend on your free-hand skills with a pencil as to which way you do it.

Once the holes are marked, drill them to the same size as the top and bottom holes, which is about 10 mm.

Here are the new holes drilled with the spacers lined up, showing the “old” position.

Now, that’s not quite the end of it. You will also have to mod the carrier so the rear window wiper does not
hit it in the lower “parked” position, as the carrier is angled on the original left side to miss the wiper arm.

Now again, there are 2 options here: some people remove the wiper of the splines and move it clockwise a
few notches so it misses the carrier. This works fine, but it would annoy me if the wiper is not sitting horizontally when it is parked, so the other option is to cut a space/section out of the carrier so the wiper
can stay in its original position and not hit the carrier. This is the method I prefer, what you do is up to you.

To mark the area to cut out, I simply tie-wrapped the spacers to the carrier assy, then held it against the door
skin to see “roughly” where the wiper sits, marked it with a pencil, cut the vertical slots with a hacksaw as the carrier is very easy to cut, then chain drilled to meet the 2 cuts together, and then filed it nice and neat keeping a small radius in each corner to “stress relieve” it.

This is how it sits on the door ref the wiper arm, I chose to cut it a little “oversized” to allow all possible
movement in the wiper when it sweeps down.

Now it’s a case of re-fitting the carrier back to the rear door, re-fitting the interior door trim panel,
and then hanging your new spare / bigger tyre on the rear door. The first time you close the door, do it slowly in case the carrier mod is not enough to provide clearance (it should be for up to a 32″ tyre)

Below is the clearance amount with the new tyre on the door. It’s approximately 10mm, not much, but it’s enough!! And does not cost a penny!!

The only downside is the carrier being “flipped” 180 is that it moves the spare toward the passenger side, a
little more, so the rear vision is a little more “blocked”, but it’s a small price to pay, in my opinion, as the vision was not great anyway!!