Been on the road for 8 months,what spares to carry.

Gunny,
I know you I have had a bit of flaming about Maggy Island, but I will answer what you have asked.

With a new vehicle I carry sweet FA. As a vehicle gets older, you get to know what fails in that particular model.

Much of it depends on what you know about your vehicles shortcomings and where you are going to travel. For me I always carried sets of wheel bearings and seals for the truck and the trailer. For the 4wd I never have done that.

For me I carry water for the radiator, spare fuel filters x 2, a little bit of #8 fencing wire and gaffer tape + a good tool kit so I can throw them when I get stressed and don't forget a wee dram of gods bundy rum to calm the nerves.

For you Gunny, I have driven all those areas in trucks & trailers 40+ years ago and I think this is why I am retarded. Then again I played round town clown in a truck today and hated it.

Look after the big fella or he might bite you. LOL.

You are in trouble if everyone takes your advice....there will be a serious lack of spares from friendly passers by. :-)

That's a great trip Stuart and Gunny. It seems to me you forgot one important spare - a knee to replace the broken one ;-) Me - the most important thing I take on the road is a reliable gaff tape :-) Cheers!

There is really no right answer to the question of what spares to take. I had to replace a gear box bearing in my 4wd at only 50,000 ks. That was a case of one faulty bearing in a million but I suppose it could happen again so maybe I should take a spare box on trips plus a transfer case and two diffs as well.

Back I the 1980s I bought a well used 504 Peugeot and put another 430,000 ks on it without any starter motor problems but I remember having to replace a failed starter motor on a new 505 Peugeot at work during its pre delivery service.

I have replaced lots of failed fan belts and radiator hoses at work but I have never seen one fail that looked like it was in good condition. They were always cracked, frayed, brittle or soft and swollen. If you start a trip with good ones, you should still have them when you return.

The same applies to wheel bearings. The only failed ones I can remember seeing had either done a squillion miles or had water in them and were rusty.

One thing that I have noticed though after running around the coastal regions and the Outback for over forty years is wherever I go I am surrounded by local people driving standard cars that are almost certainly not carrying any spares.

You simply can’t predict what is going to happen. If you don’t push the car along hard in rough conditions and keep it under its maximum weight, you would have to be unlucky to need anything.

I've never carried a wheel bearing and never replaced one on the road. I have replaced front wheel bearings on Holdens that got water in them via deep floodwaters, that then went rusty (the vehicle usually has to sit for a while afterwards, for this to happen).

I've carried spare fanbelts and radiator hoses, and cannot ever remember using them on the road.
I always carry a length of heater hose, which is usually a source of problems long before radiator hoses.
If you use top quality fanbelts such as Gates, one fanbelt will virtually last the life of your engine. The Perth bus fleet use Gates fanbelts and they get 500,000kms minimum out of them.

The most useful things I ever carried were contained in a small centre tray in my toolbox.
That tray contained all the little things that you need, such as air fittings, nuts & bolts, screws, a range of wheelnuts and studs, a length of fuel hose, threaded adaptors, clamps and clips, pipe fittings, small parts, small electrical items - and the 1001 other vital little items that you always seem to lack, when carrying out a repair.

I think I've helped more people who have broken down on the road with no spares, than I have ever carried out road repairs on my own vehicles. Blocked fuel filters were probably the biggest hassle I ever had on the road.

However, one night, I was completely mystified by my V8 F100 that just started going slower and slower and started occasional backfiring.
After much checking and head-scratching, I discovered that a dry rubbing block on the breaker arm of the points on the 302 Ford V8 was making the breaker arm chatter - and this was causing out-of-sequence spark plug firing and making the engine lose so much power I was struggling to get over 30kmh.
I pulled the dipstick, dropped 3 or 4 drops of oil on the rubbing block, and I was cruising at full speed again, immediately!
If only all mechanical problems were that easy to fix!

I carried spare fan belts as well as other spares for 2 trips around Australia and 2 trips across. Decided to replace the original belts because the Patrol had done 160,000km just in case. Although the belts were the correct ones according to the manual they never looked like fitting, ended up buying new ones by trial and error, good parts supplier, and throwing the others out. I'm glad I didn't wait til one broke before replacing them, could have been interesting. The only spare I ever used on the road was a fuel filter. Of the tools I carried the only thing I didn't use was the chainsaw. Carried shovel, crowbar, tow chains, towed a landcruiser out of Battlecamp Creek, plus all the normal stuff. Got to be prepared as I don't know what I'll need when.
Geoff

The only spares I carry are for the van. I carried more spares when I had the turbo diesel but carry none of that with the V8 petrol Cruiser.

In 2010 I broke a main leaf on our 18.5 ft Gazal van about 80K south of Walcha near Nowendoc NSW and luckily I was able to find a quiet spot off the road and unhook so that I could get into Walcha to have the spring repaired for a temporary fix.

On another trip around Nov 2013 we hooked up with a mate and his Jayco Sterling and we discovered he had a broken spring. Luckily we were only 80K out of Toowoomba QLD and he got a replacement set of springs for one side, all that was available at that shop.

I did a trip to York Peninsular back in March this year and on the way back broke a spring on our Jayco Sterling. It broke right through the centre bolt.

Given our past experiences we carried a spare spring the mate had given me when he upgraded and, once I found a suitable place to do a repair, we were back on the road in an hour and a half.

The mate decided on a trip to Darwin via central northern QLD and back via Alice Springs, Coober Pedy etc.

Between Alice Springs and Yulara he lost a wheel. An outer bearing disintegrated and the whole shibang headed for the hills. He had to get a replacement hub, bearings which he carried spares for, brake shoes etc. $1600 later he was back on the road again, albeit with a serious pain in the rear where his wallet sits.

Further along, somewhere near Wagga Wagga he found that he had a broken spring, one of the brand new set he had put on since the trip before. Luckily he had a spare old one strapped to the underside of his van and he was underway again in a short while.

Now he carried spare bearings and grease but failed to repack his bearing before leaving home on this trip. The broken spring, I can’t say unless they were imported from somewhere and were of a lesser quality steel, however they were genuine ALKO springs and were an upgrade full set of seven leaves whereas the originals were six leaved.

As I have upgraded to seven leaves as well I am wondering when I will next get a broken spring. To this end I will always carry a spare as it is the only thing that has happened to the van so far.

I have had 3 Cruisers. The first was an 80 series with 316 on the clock when I got it and it never missed a beat in the 2 years I had it before bending it around a tree.

The second 80 series, replacement for the first was a 95 Multi valve turbo running gas as well and I never stopped spending money on that vehicle. Very happy when I sold it and bought this V8 petrol.

This current V8 petrol has cost virtually nothing (except fuel) since I bought it, has never let me down and is an absolute pleasure to drive and does a wonderful job of tugging the 24 footer around. No spares required so far. I do not even carry oil for it. Mainly because I am never too far from a garage as it often needs a drink. LOL

I was going to abbreviate all this but decided it may contain something of use for someone else running large vans.

Cheers, Bruce.

Hi Stuart (and Gunny) please don't tell me Stuart that you missed out on a Drysdale Burger on the GRR because of a dicky knee

I don't like to take up valuable space with a whole heap of spares I probably won't use, but these 3 items have got me out of most sticky situations:

Duct tape, cable ties and tie wire

G'day Stuart,

Packing another strap and half a dozen screws for the other knee? Would save a drive back home.

Kind regards