'04 Chevy Truck Spare Tire Winch Stuck? Here's How to Release It!
 

Like most Chevy truck owners the spare tire on my '04 2500HD would only come down about 4" before stopping on the safety latch. GM has come up with this design to keep your spare from falling off in case the winch cable breaks, unfortunately the safety latch rusts up quickly making it impossible to remove your spare the way it was designed to.

While there are a ton of you-tube videos on this problem most are done either on a lift, using floor jacks or ratcheting tie down straps. I thought there had to be an easier way so I finally looked at it today & thought I'd share a pretty easy method I came up with.

1) First remove your license plate for access then lower the spare by the cable winch until the tire stops on the safety catch.

2) If you can get your arm thru the plate hole reach in and pull the square shaped rubber boot down, this will expose the safety latch mechanism. You can also reach around the tire from underneath to remove the dust boot.

3) Lift the cable winch so the weight of the tire is just off of the safety catch. You can now spin the safety latch by turning the spare tire, turn until the latch part is facing the rear of the truck.

4) Now you can push the latch towards the front of the truck with a long (18" or so) screwdriver thru the license plate hole to release it. Depending on how badly it's rusted you may have to assist it with a hammer. If it doesn't release you may be on the wrong side of the latch, turn the latch 180 degrees & try releasing again.

5) Drop the tire the rest of the way with the cable winch. Once you have it all the way down you can tell it you need to replace the winch. I was able to clean & lube mine up to get it working as it was supposed to.

If you're on the road trying to drop the spare don't worry about not having a long screwdriver, one of the jack tool rods will work in an emergency.
I plan on now dropping the spare once every 6 months just to keep it lubed up.

The pics are thru the plate hole. I took these are after I got it lubed up & working so the tire is a little lower than when the safety catch is stuck but you can see the gold colored latch (screwdriver pointing to it) in the center of the mech.

...or a die grinder and cut off wheel. I had to cut it completely away.

No more safety latch but at least now I can drop it without using every tool I own.

K

Do the later models have anything like that? My 2011 will pretty much lower it to the ground if I'm not mistaken.

I've seen reports that 1999-2013 had the safety latch on them although I'm not positive. There are 100's of different forums/you tube videos that come up on a search under the "Chevy truck spare tire stuck" problem & some of them are comical.
The one with a good 'ole boy that had his cameraman stop filming halfway thru his video to get him another beer gave me a good laugh. :beerchug: