I finally tracked down a wheel to use for the spare tire that matched my other wheels.  I picked it up from the powdercoater last week and today I decided to take it to the tire shop and get the spare tire mounted.  No problems there.  But when I went to put the tire back on the mount this happened:

The tire is sitting on the body of the car and the lugs are barely sticking out of the holes.  It seems that the correct wheels have a different offset than the one I was using before.

So now we have a project on our hands.  I unbolted the spare tire carrier from the tailgate.  There are a lot of holes going on here.  The carrier only uses 4 so I am not sure what the others are for.

The carrier was bolted to the tailgate with these bolts.  Each bolt had a stack of washers on it to space the carrier out from the tailgate.  I am pretty sure that this carrier is NOT actually for this car.  That would explain the extra holes and the stacks of washers.  I am not sure what I can do about it now though.

Plan A is to run with the stack-of-washer plan.   This is my test using about 1″ worth of washers on two of the nuts..  With this configuration the tire fit perfectly.  But I don’t like the washers.  Time for a hardware store run to see if I can find something better..

This is what I found.  1 1/2″ spacers.   That is about 3/8″ too long so I had to cut them down.

That looks OK.  If it was warmer I would paint the carrier but it is 30 degrees out and this is covered by the spare.

This is the inside view.  By the way I am by myself today and it got real old wedging a wrench on each bolt then diving into the back of the car to turn the nut.  Anyway the bolts on the bottom are a little too short.  It is OK for now but i will have to pick up some longer bolts.

Much better.

And the tire is clearing the car body.  I used three washers on the bolts to adjust the clearances.

Ship it.

Now that all the wheels are done it is time for some hubcaps.  I have four decent caps for the wheels and one pristine NOS hubcap that I will put on the spare for now.

    

Not bad.  This will work.   I have another hubcap with the center cut-out.   I may eventually fit a light in the hole and use the spare tire as a third brake light.   I can decide later.   Next I have to get rid of the spare set of Jeep wheels.