Spares to carry on the road

I carried a premium aaa card and look where it got me

Before you ask, Yes

I still off my professional hauling services to those in need i.e. those vehicles found dead in any local hotel parking lot.
Carlisle special (Per BJ McKay) "A buck and a half a mile, no questions asked". Fully DOT certified and cargo insurance is for a million, we can pull a Gerd Cali Special, sweep up the pieces and split the settlement :) ~Alan

I'll vouch for Alan's car hauler - had Chris' F250 Super Duty Pickup up on there after the "Mighty Power Stroke" Diesel died as we were leaving Carlisle. Rocky Cimbrec pulled my trailer and Pearl down to Alan's house to snore while the truck was being repaired.

An incident we'd like to forget, except for the part about Cory and the Hoopty towing Chris' pickup, trailer and Pearl off of Route 11 and back into the Hotel parking lot........

Type 4's ROCK!!!!!!!

If you don't carry a spare you need a can of fix-a-flat.
Don't forget the micro-fiber towels if your speedster leaks...

you are kidding me, all of that fits in a speedster? Where do you sit and put your clothes with all that stuff?

Forget clothes. Where do you put you?

Honest to God, Jenn, all of it fits in my Speedster, tucked out of sight so you would never know it's there.

Jack fits behind the Driver's seat (I had it under the hood, but it thumped around so I temporarily moved it behind the seat 8 years ago and it's still there). Tools are in a roll-up tool caddy way up front beside the battery in the front well, along with spare rags and gloves. I have one soft tool bag (Sears) behind the passenger seat with about half the stuff in it, and another soft tool bag under the hood with a bit more, but most of the spare parts are in a Rubbermaid Picnic condiment carrier that sits in the well of the spare tire under the hood. It has several divided compartments to keep things organized. the only thing I don't bring unless it's a long trip is my spare 009 distributor set-up, but I'll have it for Carlisle, up under the hood by the battery.

Tire gauge, flashlight, ear plugs, windshield de-mister, spare sunglasses are all under my seat, along with a Leatherman multi-tool.

PLUS, even with all that on the spares list, it's all out of sight and I have room for my GPS and IPOD!!

Of course, you could always carry a VW Engine Rebuild Kit:

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f254/speedster356/rubberengine.jpg

gn

Nice list, Gordon--thanks for putting it on the site.---Jack

Jeez, with that laundry list I'd be planning a trip from SoCal down to Cabo on Mex 1.
Extra can of oil, adjustable wrench, duct tape, small ass't fuses. And the AAA card.

Let's see now, I've collected everything on the list, plus a few food items. Squeezed it all into the speedy.

How come my car sits so low? Also, the wheels are de-cambered in the back? All the tires look a little flat on the bottom? Is it safe to drive a 3000 pound speedster like this?

What a list, Should it be saved in the knowledgd section?

I find that most of this stuff is in my garage within 10 feet of my speedie. Shouldn't be too hard to locate them in the car.

Obviously there are several here that have never made a multiple day trip on a motorcycle. My wife can pack for 2 week trip in 2 saddle bags and one tour pack, along with tools gps etc. and me!!!!

I've found that there is a lot of un-used space all over a Speedster (and Spyder, too!) that can be creatively used to store stuff out of sight.

What I've also found as I get older and since you seldom use this stuff and usually on other people's cars, is that I forget what is in there and where I put it, so one of my tasks before Carlisle is to inventory what's there and where it is so I can find it in a hurry. I'll make up a list, stow it in a ziplock bag and pop it into one of the tool bags.

BTW: In Pearl, one of those bags also carries (since I looked in there last night) the remote for my stereo/IPOD, a dip stick thermometer, my carburetor synchronizer tool, two FRS/GRS walkie talkies and their charger, one VOX headset for the walkie talkies, a corkscrew, several dual velcro strips, several sets of ear plugs, Kathy's special "wind-block" sunglasses, a couple of micro-fibre cloths, my extra fuses, my stoplight finder prism, a couple of pens and an extra leash for the Jacks. The bag is about 16"L X 7"W X 7"T and there's still a lot of room left and it tucks out of sight behind the passenger seat.

For tools, I took as an example an old Porsche 356 tool kit and simply duplicated everything using modern equivalents. 1 multi-tip screwdriver takes the place of three regular ones, a single adjustable wrench will suffice, a leatherman tool is indispensible, etc. The only "special" tool I have is a 19mm bolt made into a 3/8" socket drive so I can use my lug wrench for other things (like spark plugs).

Get some soft-sided tool carry bags at Home Depot, Lowe's or Sears/K-Mart and stow stuff in them. You can fit a LOT and they don't take up much space. I'll try to find an old picture of my spare part caddy sitting in my spare tire/wheel and post it here, too. THAT holds a whole lot of stuff.....

Kathy keeps telling me that she could make up a custom caddy for everything so it would all be in one place, but I'm just afraid that it would become too big to fit anywhere conveniently. Maybe this inventory exercise will help organize everything so that might be able to happen.

Here is my Road Spares holder sitting in my spare tire/wheel. It's a Rubbermaid picnic condiment container made for chips and dip and it fits a 16" wheel (back side) perfectly. I popped a hole through the middle and use the spare tire hold-down bolt to keep everything together:

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f254/speedster356/RoadSparesHolder.jpg

And here it is with the lid off:

http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f254/speedster356/SparesOpened.jpg

Those photos are from 2004 - there's now more stuff in there and a little better organized, but you get the idea.

gn

Wow, I guess they hold more than one would think, thanks for the pictures.

After having a wrench slip and split open my forehead this weekend, might I add butterfly closures, bandaids, and antiseptic to the list. I see that Advil has already been covered. ouch!

paul

Are those Rubbermaid Picnic Condiment Containers still available?

I've looked on the Rubbermaid website http://www.rubbermaid.com/Pages/Home.aspx but was unble to identify that particular one. It certainly looks a good fit in your Spare Tyre!

I forget.......... am I prohibited from adding files?

Thanks.

hi where did you get the sparetire,i am looking everywhere for one with 4 logs,thanks for the reply.herbert hofer.

I think that condiment carrier is called a "Tag Along", and I got it at Walmart in the domestics/household/storage section. They have a couple of sizes - I have 16" rims so I just measured the backside well on the wheel and got the one that fit. It drops in like it was made for it, has four separated wells (one with it's own cover) plus a cover over the whole thing. Put a hole in the bottom and another one in the cover for the tire hold-down peg and drop it in. I have a bottom screw-on disk made from steel (from the Caddy) to hold the tire down, and a top screw-on disk of plastic (also from the Caddy) that holds the spares carrier closed.

I have Porsche rims ( 5 X 130 bolt pattern) which seem to be the same as late-1980's Cadillac rear wheel drive cars, so I got the space-saver spare from the trunk of a Sedan DeVille in a junk yard ($15 bucks). I also got the hold-down mechanism and the trunk floor cover (but I never used the cover).

If you have 15" wheels, I would wander around a junk yard and look for 4 X 130 bolt pattern spares from an Asian car. If you want to know which ones to look at, then either ask the guys at the yard counter or ask someone at a local tire/wheel store what cars use a 4 X 130 bolt pattern wheel and look at the space-saver spare for that. LOTS of them out there, most of them never touched the road.

Some of us use a space saver spare tire mounted on a 4 1/2" 4-lug VW wheel.