2003 disco 2 Posted December 22, 2014 Share Posted December 22, 2014 Hi all, i have searched this forum for a similar question but cant find anything, as im brand new to it, could be the way im searching, Anyway...............Question is, what spares do people recomend to carry on long trips ? with road, dirt and 4wd tracks all in the same trips....i have just returned from a 3 week 7,000km trip and had the top radiator hose split, a fuel line rub through causing an attamized leak, and several electrical faults...all were fixed on the side of the road with various parts not really meant for the job, but it got us home no problem, im happy to spend around about $1000 on spares to have in the rear drawers....so besides a full hose kit, belt, fuel filter, what else would people recomend.....??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
landkeeper Posted December 22, 2014 Share Posted December 22, 2014 having had a couple of them and thinking of the the things that went wrong with ours i would say a d2 isn't a very fixable on the side of the road machine , i'd be more inclined to spend money on a really good going over of mechanicals before you set off , things like a set of hoses would be a good idea to carry, maybe a spare air bag and ride height sensor and a nanocom perhaps after that make sure you have breakdown cover Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigelw Posted December 22, 2014 Share Posted December 22, 2014 I was told this much to a simmlar post. " Break down cover and a mobile phone with in car charger" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stuck Posted December 22, 2014 Share Posted December 22, 2014 Credit card Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanuki Posted December 22, 2014 Share Posted December 22, 2014 Don't carry new parts as spares: fit them to the vehicle and carry the removed parts as the 'spares'. It's always easier to fit a part in the comfort of your garage when you don't need to, rather than at the side of the road when you break down, it's stupid-hundred-O'clock, it's raining, and you've got an appointment with a ferry 200 miles away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Team Idris Posted December 22, 2014 Share Posted December 22, 2014 Lengths of wire, so systems can be jumped. I might carry a tyre? Once your spare is used and on, almost anyone can get your new tyre onto the flat wheel. And you can ram the tyre full of 'stuff'. Good recovery sounds a good plan. I wonder if you can create a 'relationship' with a supplier so you aren't a stranger when you ask for parts to be sent too........... "Hi Bob, yeh, we can air freight spares to **** ". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boydie Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Just saw this question and it reminds me of the recovery charges that the Birdsville Roadhouse have for recovering broken down vehicles in the Simpson desert - AUD$400.00 per hour - there and back There is as, as Tanuki said, no substitute for pre-trip preparation. Give your car a total service, replace all the existing filters and oil and coolant, even in the gearboxes and differentials and then, when you have been all over the car from front to back get a reputable garage to give it a "spanner" check all over, a second set of eyes will often see something that is so obvious that you missed it. I once missed a split gearbox mounting rubber! As for spares, take a full set of water and fuel line hoses and in your instance a front and rear air hose, a can of tyre moose will fill up a suspension air bag to get you to a service point. If you have tubeless alloy rims a puncture repair kit, you have no hope in hades of removing the tyre from the rim without a tyre press. Allow for possible contaminated fuel and take a fuel filter and spare air filter, take a full set of all the tools you will need to carry out these repairs. Take a roll of silicon tape, it's great for road-side repair of any burst hoses and is a very effective electrical insulator. Take some alloy putty, it will fix holed sumps and fuel tanks. Take containers of fluids, 2 litres of each will do, concentrated anti-freeze, transmission fluid, engine & gearbox oils. Don't expect them to be readily available at your refuelling points. Take your credit card, on our recent trip we came across a Toyota Land Cruiser with a broken front driveshaft, we reported it to the roadhouse at Cameron's Corner, however they were aware of the breakdown, it transpired the owner didn't have the money to have the replacement shaft sent out, which would have been there within two days, out so he was hitching it to Broken Hill 800 kilometres south to get one from a wreakers yard and then hitch back to install it sheer madness ! As for tyres, I carry three spares, one on the rear and two on the roof rack, I've never ever had a puncture but I know as sure as hells bells the trip I leave them behind I will have a couple of unrepairable flats and as I said, with LR alloy rims with their double inner bead, you are not going to replace a tyre casing on the roadside. take a comprehensive first aid kit, mine even includes No.5 sutures, I had to stitch up a 6 cm x 2cm deep split on my left hand on one trip, it wasn't fun without aesthetic but there was no alternative, the nearest hospital being 1100 kilometres and 4 days drive to the south. Lastly take a satellite phone, don't expect to be in normal mobile phone range and you never know when you need help fast. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poscott Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Sometimes I wonder if its worth towing a donor car behind my Freelander. Just in case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FridgeFreezer Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Very much depends on the vehicle, the trip, the location, your skills... People get carried away with carrying all sorts of stuff that's not essential, and can be mitigated by doing decent prep beforehand - things are far easier & cheaper to fix/replace/upgrade in the workshop than by the roadside. As mentioned, you can always keep the still-working old part as a spare, either on the shelf or in the boot. Concentrate on things that are a single point of failure & the vehicle will not proceed without. You don't need a full set of hoses, you need the longest hose and a knife. You don't need all the gaskets, you need a tube of instant gasket (gaskets are fragile too, easily ruined in transit). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon_CSK Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Sometimes I wonder if its worth towing a donor car behind my Freelander. Just in case. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RECOVERY-A-FRAME-TOWING-DOLLY-TRAILER-2-5t-EXTENDED-/150685700218?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item231591507a Get one of these and a second Disco. It is a Land Rover afterall Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shackleton Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 Already said but +1 for not carrying much in the way of spares. Instead I've always carried a first aid kit, a CO2 fire extinguisher (good for obvious reasons but also to choke an engine that's running on) and this tool box. It's cheap, an easily stowable size and holds every tool that'd be practical on a Td5 outside of a workshop environment, plus a serpentine belt and some bulbs. While on the continent I always make it a habit to check the car well once a week, and I mean pulling on things and checking tightness as well as the obvious fluids etc. Fair enough I've never done proper out of the way stuff like Boydie but the worst I've ever had was loose exhaust downpipe bolts in the Italian Alps, a failed Boge unit in Greece and a blown intercooler pipe in Portugal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boydie Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 As you might have seen in my photo gallery my tool/spares box is mounted on the front of the roof rack, I carry all my tools and spares in there (including a spare head gasket) and very comprehensive winch recovery kit, spare "D" couplings, snatch belt, bark protectors, pulleys etc. Mounted on the rack for long distance touring are:- * two additional spare tyres, * 2 x 20 litre jerry cans for additional fuel (only filled if the distance between fuel points is greater than 1000 kilometres - which is quite often) * mini Jerry cans with 5 litres engine oil, 5 litres coolant and 5 litres 2-stroke for the Zodiac outboard motor. * 2.5 meter Zodiac inflatable boat and 3 1/2hp outboard motor & 2 oars. * 4kg LPG gas bottle for the cooks 3 burner hot plate. * long handled sand shovel * 2 x sand runners. * Farm high lift jack. A tip if you get bogged in deep loose sand. Firstly with your shovel dig away the sand from in front of all four tyres the make a sand anchor with one of your spare wheels. (this is what I do if I get well and truly bogged, which has happened on more than a few occasions ) the trick is you dig a deep hole, - around 1.5 metres deep, and at around just under 1/2 your winch distance from your truck, drop the spare wheel in the hole angled at about 45 degrees away from the truck and with a tyre lever behind it with as a fixture for the winch cable which is fed through the centre of the wheel and attached to the lever, then bury the spare with the sand you removed to make the hole, (pack it down) but leave a groove in the sand for the cable and then winch yourself out, recover the wheel and off you go. This isn't necessary but I learnt from bitter experience to carry a short 3 metre nylon rope cable with formed loops at each end in my recovery kit so I can attach this to the tyre lever and then to the snatch block, the winch cable then goes from my winch, around the snatch block and back to the truck, pulling the beast out of her bog hole is then a lot easier, but before I had this cable made I did it with the winch cable directly to the tyre lever. While I'm sweating away digging, usually in over 35 degree C temperatures, Julie, as the unionised fully paid up non labouring navigator and head of the catering corps, takes the opportunity to brew up a cuppa and make a snack, so its not a total lost time and its all part and parcel of the sheer joy of outback touring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boydie Posted January 20, 2015 Share Posted January 20, 2015 With a roll of the "magic" silicon tape now available on the market and at most 4WD centres you don't really need to take any spare hoses if weight ad space is an issue, if you have a burst hose, remove it give it a through clean up to remove any oil or crud and wrap the burst with the silicon tape, - as per the instructions that come with the tape - then replace the hose and off you go. Silicon tape does "go off" after a while so check it's use by date when you buy it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FridgeFreezer Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 He still hasn't said what sort of trip & where (or filled in his location in his profile, hint hint) - last time I did a many-thousands-of-km trip on mixed roads with a few tracks it was in the Freelander and the total of vehicle prep was pumping the tyres up, getting the aircon recharged and filling a couple of USB sticks with MP3's with no spares carried except perhaps an old belt left in the boot after a service, and I'd quite happily repeat that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shackleton Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 It's not us, it's him, and he's never coming back Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elbekko Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 With a roll of the "magic" silicon tape now available on the market and at most 4WD centres you don't really need to take any spare hoses if weight ad space is an issue, if you have a burst hose, remove it give it a through clean up to remove any oil or crud and wrap the burst with the silicon tape, - as per the instructions that come with the tape - then replace the hose and off you go. Silicon tape does "go off" after a while so check it's use by date when you buy it. Not all burst hoses can be repaired with tape. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CwazyWabbit Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 It's not us, it's him, and he's never coming back Don't make assumptions .... he may be .....hitching it to Broken Hill 800 kilometres south to get one from a wreakers yard and then hitch back to install it......So he might not have internet access t the moment Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shackleton Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 Don't make assumptions .... he may be So he might not have internet access t the moment I should have put a on my whole 'break up' skit 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FridgeFreezer Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 Not all burst hoses can be repaired with tape. Very true, that sort of thing counts as a show-stopper and either warrants packing a spare, or re-doing the part in some other form that's more easily replaced/repaired with "normal" stuff. I found some chinese outfit selling very cheap silicone hose & aluminium joiners on eBay so bought a selection for the last Ladoga trip on the grounds that even a fairly big hose failure on any vehicle in the convoy could be cut, spliced & joined with the same small selection of bits. Also carried a Davies Craig electric water pump on the same one-part-fits-all ethos, but that was in a group of ~7 vehicles from SJ to TLC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daan Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 Not sure why you can't take a tyre of an alloy rim, are the beads that tight? I would ditch the rims for that reason personally. I have taken of tyres many times in the field, always from tubeless rims using a hi jack under the car. Carry a spare inner tube and puncture repair stickers. Make sure your spare tube don't have a 13 mm valve and your wheel a 9mm hole....I do remember one evening round the campfire with a round file trying to open up the hole. a spare bleed nipple that fits in your master or a line union, so you can block 1 line in the system. steel in a paste that hardens when you apply to a hole in a gearbox. Chewing gum to a lesser extend, but has saved me once also. An electric system schematic, laminated. a paper one will wear or get wet, and will be useless. A shorter belt that allows you to carry on when idler pulley, pas pump or waterpump has died (As mentioned, these should all be a1 before you leave). wheel bearings with seals and a stub axle. How can no one have mentioned the wholly grail of off roading and motorsport: tyraps and tank tape. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boydie Posted January 21, 2015 Share Posted January 21, 2015 The Disco (OE) alloy rims fitted to my car have a double internal bead, which are very good for allowing you to run with very low tyre pressures when needed in soft sand and mud but the downside is they are a bugger to get the case off the rim, this I will admit is exacerbated with the Bridgestone Dueller A/T thicker wall Light Truck tyres that I've been using for over 150,000 kilometres (now on my second set) The question remains though why would you take spare inner-tubes with a one piece alloy rim? In over 250,000 k's of off road driving I've only had one puncture due to some idiot (you guessed it) leaving a pop rivet nail on the driveway. This was quickly repaired with the tyre repair kit that I carry. Incidentally that burst top hose photo shown above is a doodie and I agree, totally unrepairable but wouldn't there have been an inclining of the imminent disaster that was about to occur, as in a very, very high water temperature ??? All the more reason to have a low water alarm fitted into the radiator. The same comment applies to the suggestion of carrying a single hose - my Disco has intercooler hoses, top and bottom radiator hoses, heater hoses, gearbox oil cooler and engine oil cooler hoses - all of which are different diameters so which one to carry ??? it's far easier to carry spares and silicon tape for fast roadside repairs and replace the hose when convenient. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elbekko Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 Incidentally that burst top hose photo shown above is a doodie and I agree, totally unrepairable but wouldn't there have been an inclining of the imminent disaster that was about to occur, as in a very, very high water temperature ??? Nope, not at all. It was just a very old hose. I did notice it swelling up a little a few days before that, and was planning on fitting a new one. But slowly chugging along on a country lane made it go pop quite violently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FridgeFreezer Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 Boydie - if you will drive a truck with so much plumbing what can you do? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boydie Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 Errrr do a plumbing course at tech ??? but taking your point and it was well made, no thanks, I'll stick to being a retired combustion engineer, but elbekko's experience again stresses the importance of preventative maintenance, if any individual component looks suspect, change it before it causes a problem. As I said before, if you're going on a long trip, do a total service, then a full spanner check, underside and top side, inside out outside and then get a second set of eyes to go over the car to ensure that you didn't miss anything. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Escape Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Not all burst hoses can be repaired with tape. I reckon with a dozen or so rolls of tape we could have done it. :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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