The question was asked on another forum and reminded me of a clip I saw ages ago but can not and have not been able to find for years.
Q/ How to get a spare tyre on/off the Roof Rack.
A/ with a home made portable crane
Here is a photo and I will attempt to explain how it all works.
Using the photo, the bottom of the unit would rest against the top of the rear wheel arch.
The section at thigh height would hook onto the roof rack rails and secure the unit to the vehicle.
The top section of the unit also pivoted from this section allowing the top arm of the 'crane' to turn. Above the pivot and before the top arm bent is a simple hand winch, similar to a boat hand winch.
The cable from the hand winch ran up to the top of the crane arm via a pulley wheel or similar.
When mounted on the roof rack the top of the arm could be pivoted away from the vehicle and the cable connected to the tyre on the ground. Using the hand winch the tyre was raised until it cleared the roof rack then the arm and tyre were pivoted or turned around over the roof rack and the tyre then lowered onto the roof rack.
The reverse action to raise the tyre off the roof rack and lowered to the ground.
The video of the unit in action made the whole process look very easy and no chance of doing yourself an injury in the process.
Hope this explains it for you. All you need to determine is the height and angle of the top arm to get the end point in the right spot to centre the tyre on the roof rack and ground and getting the arm to freely pivot.
The down side is saving room on your roof rack for the crane, but it makes loading and unloading your roof rack pretty easy.
