Spare Tire Not Lowering (2004 Montana)

ariwinokur

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I need to access the spare on my 2004 Montana. When I operate the winch to lower the tire, the cable comes down but the tire stays up. I really wonder if that spare was ever removed before. It looks like the mechanism is a little rusted up? Any thoughts on getting that spare out?
 
I tried to release the secondary latch according to the instructions. It doesn't seem to have worked. If I did it right. Any other thoughts?
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why are you saying if you did it right, did you?
 
Tertiary latch

The Owner’s manual method works on new vehicles. When you crank it up, it pushes the secondary latches in. When you crank it back down the yoke “should” drop down first so that it clears the secondary latch mechanism. Mine didn’t.
There is no mention of the “tertiary” latch – called rust. Here is what I found. As other Internet replies have said, the tire will drop a couple of inches, but the cable continues to drop. So, crank the tire back up, put jack stands, wood, bricks, etc. to hold it into position, then un-crank it again. With luck the “yoke will be loose enough now to push it thru the hole in the rim. Mine we stuck to the inner metal bracket on the other side of the rim, so I needed to use a screwdriver to free it. With some work I finally got the yoke back thru the rim and removed the tire.
Now I could see the mechanism but didn’t know what to do with it. I couldn’t see any secondary latch. All I could see were a couple of white nylon pieces then the inner metal mechanism. What I finally discovered was that the inner bracket was actually two pieces not one! I finally got them to move independent of each other. One is a bracket (connected to springs) that has a hole and then there is a second metal cup that holds the nylon pieces. The metal cup is supposed to drop down thru the hole in the inner bracket but wouldn’t.
After more messing around, I got it to move, chipped away at the rust build-up, then I could see the two secondary latches. I pushed them in one at a time, kept working with it, then finally got it off. I chipped off the rust, got both secondary latches working (they look like spring-loaded brass rectangles). Then, lubed it a little, put it all back together and make sure it worked a couple of times before calling it “Done!”
 
thanks for the post
 
I JUST HAD THIS PROBLEM WITH MY 2003 PONTIAC MONTANA...CABLE WOULD LOWER BUT NOT THE TIRE. THE PROBLEM WAS RUST I HIT AROUND THE TIRE QUITE A FEW TIME VERY HARD AND SOME RUST FELL THEN THE TIRE CAME DOWN
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I need to access the spare on my 2004 Montana. When I operate the winch to lower the tire, the cable comes down but the tire stays up. I really wonder if that spare was ever removed before. It looks like the mechanism is a little rusted up? Any thoughts on getting that spare out?
 
It was 11 years ago. Pretty sure he got it down by now.
 
It's 2025. Still a problem for us.
Did you ever have a dealer or private shop look at it?
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