Spare Tire Hoist Wire Broke.
 

I have a 1998 Chevrolet Blazer LT with the spare tire winch underneath the truck. I was messing around the other day at a grocery store and drove over one of those small concrete slabs in the middle of it. I've done this before and nothing has happened. Except this time when the back tires reached the pavement the spare tire fell off. I didn't actually notice until two days later when I saw a tire laying right where I had drove. Checked my truck and sure enough it was mine. What happened was the wire for the winch was so rusted out it just snapped. Is there anyway I could fix this myself? Or would I have to buy a whole new spare tire winch?

I found this part but if there is any cheaper and easy fix I would definitely take it.

GMPartsDirect.com - Find a Item

Thanks!

I've got one in perfect working order that I removed cause my 37's won't fit under there I'll sell you a whole lot cheaper than new! PM if your interested.

I just had this happen to my 98 two days ago, while I was driving to home depot, with my little trailer hooked up. I was going about 45, when I heard a bad noise and looked in the rear view to see my trailer up in the air. That spare cable broke, tire took off, unsettled the trailer body and rolled out in the median. I was lucky, did not cause an accident and recovered my tire. I am in the same boat. Now, got to check my other blazer to make sure this does not happen. Scary!

Responding to this 2 years later I ended up buying a used one off ebay for like $80 and putting it on myself. The real problem was that there is a a bolt supporting the hoist under the bumper and the only way I saw getting to it was to either take off the bumper or drill a hole through it under the plastic molding. I chose neither and just managed to remove it from the old one but never could get it back on the new one. Also the longer bolts that attach to the top of the winch didn't line up so I was only able to secure one to the truck itself.

In total I was only able to secure 2/4 bolts for the winch, but all in all it still works and it's still there.