The spare tire onmy 2004 GMC HD2500 won't drop down. Wire drops to the ground but the tire only drops about2". It's caught on the secondary latch. Tried all the suggestions in the manual to no avail. Any ideas. Thanks Gregg

I just went through this with my van, had to unbolt it with a long extension and them rip it down. Sucked but at least I was in my garage at the time vs on the side of the road.

Yeah they are notorious for that. My last two Duallys has done that. Luckly I was at the house both time its happened. Just drop the whole thing.

I was able to get mine down with out unbolting the winch. I placed a jack under the tire to hold it up in pplace, the lowered the winch a bit, sprayed some Movit penetrating fluid on the latch....let it sit for approx 15 min, the grabbed a long screw driver and a hammer and gave the latch a couple of good hits...right below where it comes into contact with the winch assembly......

then got the tire down and lubed and cleaned the latch till it moved freely with some Volvo Penta Corrosion Blocker...that stuff is awesome

Where is this secondary latch??? I've had my spare off once to use but other than that it comes off once a year for preventitive maintenance and upkeep and I've never seen a secondary latch. I've got my H2 rim in there now and it comes and goes up and down as I need to. Where is it???

same thing happened to me. drop the wire down, then tighten it back up as much as possible. when i did this my dropped. oh i did beat the piss out of it with a sledge when the wire was dropped lol

the secondary latch is located on the cable right above the spring at the end of the cable....it is really visible once you drop the tire and remove the cable from the center of the tire

I don't think mine has one on there then. I've never removed it so it must have been done for me before I bought the truck.

can you air the tire down?

I had to cut mine off this weekend when I gotta flat and didnt have the tool to lower it down. Luckily I had a jack and sawzall with me.
How can I go about replacing the wire/secondary hinge??
Any thoughts or experience is appreciated

Happened to me last week spent 45 min on the side of the road in the rain beating and cussin. I finally took the whole thing down and needless to say when I got back to the garage I took a cutting tourch to the hook part, won't have that problem again.