Vintage Shovel Mount

I'm curious if anyone else has seen one of these shovel mounts.

It's on my 69 CJ-5. It's galvanized, so I'm pretty sure it's a purchased part. It covers up the origninal spare tire holes and matches with the spare tire rack so well, I suspect it's from the same manufacturer.

The reason I ask is that I don't have the front bracket and would like to reproduce one. It interferes with the Kelly hardtop doors, but it would be fun to have the shovel there when I've got the top off in the summer.

Does anybody know what the front bracket looked like?

 

My guess is that it would be a spring clip that holds it. Basically a piece of 1/8" steel bent in a hook shape and would keep tension on the handle so it will not slide out easily.

 

A spring clip makes good sense. It wouldn't be too hard to fab that up. I was thinking along the lines of a strap of some sort or a hinging clamp with a wing nut.

 

Check out the way the MBs and GPWs (WWII jeeps) hold the shovels in place. A strap/band for the shovel head an two footman loops with two canvas straps for the handle. The straps/footman loops could work with your bracket. The straps put tension on the shovel handle forcing it to stay in place. The straps are available. This system has worked for 70 odd years.

 

Yes, it seems like they've rattle canned some areas that had surface rust. ....but not the whole thing because that would be too much work.

 

There are various military types available for the front, you could look at those.

 

Oh man, that's cool! I have the same rear rack and would love to have that shovel holder. Having never seen one like it before, I would suspect it was homemade.

 

Don't the M38A1 hoods have provisions to mount a shovel on the underside of the hood?

 

Yup!
-Donny

 

Can a CJ5 be made to hold a shovel under the hood? Ive seen it on the A1s, is there any reason it wouldnt work on a cj5?

 

I don't see why you couldn't do it on a CJ5. It's fundamentally the same hood. Just need to add the brackets:



It might interfere with the air-cleaner on V6's though. Mounting it more front-to-back would solve that.

 

So, not wanting to drill any new holes in the body, this is what I've come up with so far. A 1" tie down strap anchor and a Russion military surplus canvas strap:





Issues: 1) The geometry doesn't hold it as tight to the body as I would like. 2) The Russian straps are really hard to get tight.

For the strap, I'll find a something with a cam type latch so I can get it tighter.

For the geometry, I can't flip the bracket around because it hits the shovel handle. I think I'll make a custom bracket along the same lines, but tweak the geometry to work better.

In the meanwhile wrapping the strap like this works OK: