A friend of mine that used to do plastic welding for a living made this for me: I know it looks like a weird bundt-pan, but it's a storage compartment sized to fit under the 17" aluminum wheel. It still allows the use of the stock spare tire retainer, and is held in by the pressure the spare wheel exerts on it. The intent is to pad the interior and then put tools and other on-trail supplies that are needed in dire emergencies or specifically for flat tires inside. For the moment I've stocked it with my normal under-floor stuff. It's big enough to accommodate the better part of a full roll of shop towels, the ice scraper that's oh-so-needed in the desert, the bag of gloves and first-aid kit, and the zip-up windbreaker/coat. This stuff moved from around the outside of the tire frees up a fairly large amount of space under the rear floor. I've got room now for the emergency folding one-time-use fuel can in addition to the stuff I already carried, seen under the lug wrench that we previously added. I did this because while the spare-tire-flip is fairly easy, I wanted the valve stem on the spare to be pointed up where it was easily accessed to check and refill. If upside-down I know that I would neglect to check it as much as I neglect to check the one under my pickup truck. Getting the spare out is a mildly bit tougher than it was before, but not horribly so.
So a sort of non-update update, after that last picture I put the cargo floor back into place and my wife has driven it for a couple of days without complaints. I actually took the picture on Monday, so a work-week without any rattles or squeaks. Now it's time to put together a list of tools that would be good to have on the road/trail specific to this vehicle. I've already have the 1/2" breaker bar and socket for the wheel lug bolts, and I've made a lug insert to make it easier to put a tire back on (basically bolt with a long smooth shank with the head ground off that gets threaded on to the hub to slip the wheel on to), so I suppose some tools to deal with hoses, accessory/serpentine belt, antisway bars and other suspension related components, fluid drain plug sockets for the motor and rear differential, sockets for the skidplate, that sort of thing. Suggestions for what should be included would be appreciated.
