I built my bumper 12 years ago and it has held up quite good, but the one thing I have never been happy with is the way the swing latches to the main bumper. I have a striker and latch and a spring pin for extra safety (see attached).
P8280028.jpg
I thought this would be the cat's meow because it would be like a car door.

It's never failed on me, but it rattles and squeaks a lot. It also allows the top of the tire to move back and forth placing some torsional loads on the hinge. So I am looking to do something different and looking for ideas of clamps that hold the swing arm down well and are not subject to getting pulled open on the trail. It also still needs to allow my tailgate to function normally so height of the stationary point is critical.

Would appreciate any ideas! Thanks!

Tire carriers really need a lash-less latch and hinge system to have quiet operation.

I'm a proponent of cam latches. When I built mine, I was in a hurry getting ready for Super Celebration, so I used a De-Sta-Co clamp I had laying around. Not as convenient as a door latch, but its rated for 3000 lbs and doesn't rattle.







Given more time, I would have built something like this:




I like to construct the latch so it sits between two other points of contact. This prevents the latch side of the swing out from rotating and removes some of the "shake" from the tire carrier going down the road or trail.
crosssection.jpg

In the picture, the black is the bumper, the green is the swing out, orange is the latch, with the red arrows showing points of contact.

Digger - as I was doing research I came across both of those designs and put them on my short list. However, I believe the second one is from protofab and I heard some say it seems to come loose on it's own.

The De-Sta-Co latch was on my list as well (mcmaster carr) and it would be the cheapest way to go.

The others I found that I like are:
Fab Fours, but mount in a vertical orientation:


Or this one from Smittybuilt:


This one from 4x innovations would work as well:
http://www.4xinnovations.com/Swing-Out- ... p_110.html (can't hotlink from their site)
Here it is installed:
http://www.4xinnovations.com/Swing-Out- ... p_112.html

I do like your idea of two points of contact tho. That could help the torsional rocking of the swing arm. Just not sure I could build one strong enough as I don't want the latch sticking out past the rear of the bumper. A simple bump stop might be tolerable, but I'm afraid it may just bend.

Any feedback welcome!