Spare Wheel Mounted Recovery Tracks
Going off-road? Make sure you don’t get stuck…
Whether you are a serious off-roader or a casual holiday camper, going off-road always carries the risk of getting stuck. Just pulling off the tarmac onto a muddy layby can lead to a sticky situation of you don’t have the right tyres and equipment.
Even with the best tyres you can still find yourself bogged down in mud, sand, or snow so it’s important to have extra equipment to help you get moving again. Gone are the days of using bits of wood or carpet to try and get some extra traction, now you can use panels specifically designed for the purpose. Variously known as Recovery Tracks, Recovery Ladders, Traction Boards or Sand Ladders, these tracks are designed to maximise grip between both the track and the ground and the track and tyre. Usually in reinforced plastic the tracks are brightly covered to aid visibility in poor conditions and are lightweight for easy handling.
There is a wide range of commercial tracks available with varying sizes and costs and an on-line search will bring up plenty of recovery options.
The big issue for recovery tracks is storage: where to keep them? When you are stuck, you don’t want to have to get to the bottom of the pile inside your vehicle to find them, and when they have been used, you definitely don’t want to put them back inside.
Wheeliams have the best solution; store them on the outside of your rear mounted spare wheel: easy to access, easy to remove and easy to use, easy to store away – keeping the mud outside and your vehicle moving.
Recovery Track Options
We have focused on allowing you to mount one of two commercially available models of Recovery Track as standard:
- AUTOFONDER 10T Reinforced Nylon Board – 910mm x 310mm
- MAXTRAX MK2 FJ - Reinforced Nylon Board – 1150mm x 330mm
The kit is designed to accept two boards of either type, stacked on top of each other.
Our kit includes fixings and clamp plates for the AUTOFONDER and also holes to allow the standard MAXTRAX mounting pin set to be fitted.
Please note that our kit does not include the boards or MAXTRAX mounting pin set as you can find these on-line from many suppliers.
If you need to fit alternative tracks, then you can easily drill our generously sized 5mm thick aluminium centre mounting plate with additional fixing holes.
Wheeliams Recovery Track Mounting Kit
Surface Finish
Recovery Track Mounting Kit components are supplied powder coated black.
How it Works
The Wheeliams Recovery Track Mounting Kit is simple to install, and simple to remove if you need to access the spare wheel.
The mounting kit fits using three Strap Beams that sit on the outer diameter of the spare wheel; one positioned at the top (12 o’clock) and two others at the 5 o’clock and 7 o’clock positions. A mounting plate is bolted to the ends of these beams, and it is to this that the Recovery Tracks are clamped.
A 3m, 50mm wide ratchet strap (included) is passed around the outside diameter of the wheel, over the Strap Beams and is fully tightened to clamp the beams onto the tyre.
The AUTOFONDER board is clamped to the mounting plate using two clamp plates held in place by hand tightening the supplied knobs.
The MAXTRAX board should be mounted using the MAXTRAX mounting pin set (not included).
Wheel Diameters
The tyre mounting is adjustable and will fit tyres from 28” (711mm) to 34” (854mm) outside diameter.
Safety
The 50mm strap provides the main fixing of the kit to the tyre and this relies on the tyre being fully inflated and maintained in that condition.
Always check the strap and all clamps & fixings are secure and that the tyre is fully inflated before the vehicle is used. Also check during intermediate stops.
The Recovery Track Mounting Kit is not intended to support other items of equipment and should only be used as described in our information.
Weight
The kit, without boards, weighs approximately 5Kg.