Let me lead off in saying apologies if this is a duplicate post somewhere, but I couldn't find it if it is.

I am not sure if many of you have had the "privilege" of having to drop your spare tire yet, but it can be a pain in the rear to figure out if you dont know what you are doing. Since I just had to do it for the first time myself to swap out my spare to the new BFG I bought, I thought I would share.

First step is to locate the tool to lower the spare. It is located behind the passenger side backseat, you need to pull the little loop on the side to drop the seat (my hand is in the loop, dont mind the seat covers)-



After you drop the back, you will need to remove the entire jack setup. First, remove the velcro strap holding it in place-



Then slide the entire jack assembly towards the side of the truck, then pull it up and out-



Once you have it out, you will want to take out all of the bar pieces from the pockets on the sides. You dont need the short hook bar. Put the remaining 3 straight pieces together into a single long bar and attach that to the tire iron bar. Once you are done, it will look like this-



Now you need to open the hole to get to the mechanism to lower the tire. It is locked, so you will need to take your key and pull it out (friendly reminder that those who have keyless start like I do need to open their key fob to pull out the physical key). It is located below your tailgate here-



It pulls out entirely and leaves an empty hole behind. Now you need to put the pole in the hole (maturity people ). It is important to note that it DOES NOT go straight in. Rather, you need to angle it slightly up and slightly to the left. You are tying to get it into a guide cone, which will then guide it into place. Here is a picture of it attached-





Once connected, lefty loosey righty tighty. Turn to the left and lower all the way to the ground. Give yourself some extra slack so you can pull the wire up out of the tire once it is on the ground.

You have now dropped the spare! Not super difficult but these things seem to get more complicated with every vehicle I buy, so I wanted to share. Hope it helps someone here.

And now, I am going to end with some gratuitious truck **** in the form of pics of my truck with the new BFG's-

 

It seriously amazes me that this is not common knowledge to people, especially truck owners.

 

I'm going to get called an *** hole for this, but whatever it's been awhile... pages 367-369 in the om

 

What size tire did you go with that you could still keep as a spare?

 

Tires are OEM size. When I bought the BFG's I bought 5 (along with an extra rim) and I kept the extra Wrangler adventure as a 2nd spare. I swapped out the spares because I wanted the BFG as the primary.

 

Nothing wrong with going to the owners manual. But it doesn't always include the small details that are nice to know when you are doing things like this. For instance, it doesn't tell you that the tool needs to be angled up and to the left to actually get it connected to lower the wheel (whereas it would be intuitive to send it straight in).

My point here is that the owners manual will get you there, after some frustration and irritation. As someone who has changed tires at -40F before, those little nuisances add up real quick in a less than optimal environment. The goal of this post was to just provide a bit of insight into the small details needed to get it done.

 

Thanks for taking the time to write the details.
I will lower mine just to get used to it, in case I have to do it in the dark, and also see if I can lube the mechanism somehow. In Canada, winter and salt rusted solid that mechanism on a previous Toyota pickup I had, so I will try to prevent this on the F150.

 

Yeah, it's changing a tire and yeah it's in the OM but that little detail about the angle of the tool may very well save folks a LOT of time and frustration. Probably a good idea for me to go do a practice run and show the wife. Had not thought of it until I read your post so thanks!!

 

Amazes me people that don't do this BEFORE THEY HAVE TO so they know how to when it matters, as well as those that don't READ THE OWNERS MANUAL immediately.

 

There is a difference between reading through and studying the OM Rickwuhk. Again, in the case of changing the spare tire, the manual appears to show the tool to lower the spare tire in a horizontal position. According to the OP, that is not the case. I think most people would assume that horizontal would be correct and would spend frustrating time as they continued to fail in their approach. No amount of reading the manual would help you out there. Thanks to the OP for pointing out a "top tip."

And thank you, for once again, reminding us all that we should read the OM chapter and verse.