Acknowledgements

After almost nine years on the road and countless kilometres of towing and exploring, the time has come to update the Caravan Survival Guide. Not surprisingly, now there are even more people going to interesting places across this huge country, towing and driving many different kinds of vehicles in which to enjoy their holidays and travels.

To those good and helpful people who supported my efforts when I first wrote Gregory’s Caravan Survival Guide, little is different yet everything has changed. As time passed, we lost some old and very valued travelling friends, especially Mike. Lots of people we met on our travels, like Graham, offered many ideas and asked even more questions; I’ve found that people on the road generally want to help, if you’ll let them. Some of the ideas in Caravan Survival Guide came from comments made in conversation with the many interesting and friendly people we met across this wide country.

My computer had occasional glitches, which had to be fixed quickly, again by Ian; when some parts of the caravan needed to be updated I relied upon Bruce for information and fast supply. Somewhere along the Queensland roads we came across Rod, doing vast miles in his huge B-double truck, who called us up on the UHF and commented about the big ‘Channel 18’ sticker on the front of our van – and now he has kindly written the foreword for this updated version of my Caravan Survival Guide.

Travel isn’t just interesting and fun, it can open up many great opportunities. During our time on the road we were most fortunate to make some new friends, many of whom will be with us for years to come. In Dubbo we met John and Marg, and travelled our many roads with them for about five years. We still talk with them on the phone most weeks. In Darwin, Bob and Margaret, who happened to be on the van site next door, actually saved us from a lot of hassle when our van’s smoke alarm went off while we were down in Melbourne. When we go north, we visit these good people, and the same applies to them travelling south. Such small things can lead to a lifetime’s friendship between travellers.

Unlimited support in every way from my wife Jess, who really wanted a fixed base, yet never tired of seeing the next town and new scenery and different people, meant we could keep on the road for a long, really enjoyable time. Now we’ve stopped for a while, built a new place, and I’ve found time to update this book. We have ideas for much more travel…

I hope you enjoy this updated version of Caravan Survival Guide and find many useful tips and ideas to keep you, your vehicle and caravan, and your travels, safe and enjoyable.

John Basham,

Melbourne 2012

Foreword

As an interstate truckie, my life, my job and my safety is on the road and on the line all the time.

If, through this book, some drivers learn skills and knowledge that help them to be safer on the road as well, then I am more than happy to support such an endeavour.

I have a serious concern that any driver can travel ten kilometres to and from work for maybe forty years, and then buy a large 4WD and a big van, a fifth-wheeler combination or a motorhome, and hit the highway. There is no driver skills testing and no requirement for proper training before purchasing these types of larger vehicles. Sadly, as we have seen on television, some people may not even complete the first 1000 km of the ‘Big One’ without a major scare, and for some it might even result in a loss of life.

Education and good knowledge from those who have done the kilometres already, like John Basham, can and will help others to travel the roads more safely and with more understanding of the totally new level of driving and responsibility.

If you are just starting out towing a caravan or driving a motorhome then the good information in this book could, at the very least, save you time, money and frustration for yourself and others on the road. At the most it could save your life, or that of others, including your partner. Even if you have been vanning for years, you will probably pick up a useful tip or two.

I make no claims to be a better driver than any other, but I have now safely travelled in excess of 4 million kilometres driving B-doubles across Australia.

In that time I have had dealings and conversations with many vanners and am still proud of starting the TRUCKRIGHT Caravan Survey and the Caravan Channel UHF 18 in 1999. For more information please visit my website www.truckright.com.au.

Communication on the road is a valuable tool and a sign on your van with ‘Bill and Sue UHF 18’, or whichever CB radio channel you wish to listen to, will help that happen. Without this communication, each driver is guessing what the other is planning, and that is not the safest way to travel. If the letters on the sign are a minimum 200 mm high, placed on the rear and preferably on the front as well, someone, be it a truckie or another vanner, will be more likely to call you up and tell you of a problem, or maybe about a good spot to stop.

When you’re driving around this country please give some thought to a truckie’s way of life – we’re working and you’re generally holidaying.

I wish you a long and enjoyable time travelling on the road; I believe this book will provide you with some of the tools and knowledge to achieve this.

Safe travelling,

Rod Hannifey.

Introduction

Caravan Survival Guide could be considered a logical follow-on to my original 4WD Survival Guide, a collection of useful ideas and hints to make setting up, using and maintaining a 4WD easier. I’ve followed the same helpful format here, but this time with caravans.

Living in a van for days, months or years, and travelling around our fantastic roads could be the best time of your life, but getting started and surviving happily takes more than money. Whether you are new or well-travelled, doing your ‘caravan travelling’ homework really begins here; making use of the ideas you will find in this book, and collecting information on your project before you commit to the dollars and the time.

I’ve written this book from the caravan user’s point of view and referred to ‘van’ and ‘you’ as collective phrases, simply because that’s how we’ve travelled around for a few years. But I’ve certainly not excluded any travellers around this great country, whether old or young, on long-term or weekend trips, in big or small motorhomes, campervans or tents, or off-road trailers, or any other form of mobile accommodation.

Most of the hints and ideas mentioned also apply directly to these combinations, or they can be easily adapted. Here you will find good use-and-care information and hints, all of which can be of real value to any intending or newer travellers. Many points will also provide new approaches for already seasoned vanners.

Some things just have to be learnt by experience through time and over distance, so I’ve looked at the wide-ranging areas and aspects of caravans in often a different and closer way than most people who write about caravans in other books and magazines. This book tells of caravanning on our roads as I see it, warts and all. Not all parts will suit all people, but at least in these pages you can read about the real world of travelling, about caring for yourself and for your mobile house on the roads.

I’ve towed trailers and caravans for a lot of kilometres, living and travelling in a van full-time for several years. There are certainly many travellers who’ve towed much more distance than I have, but perhaps I have an advantage in that I am fairly methodical and mechanical. It’s been my experience, sometimes uncomfortably, that many who tow caravans are not mechanically handy. In many cases this book can help solve minor mechanical matters, in easy or different ways. There are mechanical hints in this book, of course, but don’t let that worry you just because you’re not very handy with a spanner. Many of these ‘fix-it’ or self-help ideas are really quite easy to do, with just a bit of thought and some basic tools.

Maybe just one thing you read, or even a picture you see, will supply the starting idea for you, and make your travelling life better, simpler or easier. Travelling ought to be enjoyable for all concerned – if it’s not, why do it?

So have a wander through these pages – perhaps just one idea will be the trigger to get you really thinking about caravanning and touring. After all, somebody’s got to go travelling and help the economy…

Homework and buying

Total care, help yourself, spares

Van parks, van sites, other van parks, jacking and packing

Awnings, annexes, shadecloth

Towing, level ride bars, jockey wheels

Hitching, safety connections, departing

Reversing, backing aids, unhitching

Hints

Homework and buying

In this book when I mention vehicles or trailers they typically include, in any combination:

sedan car and suitable caravan

4WD and off-road van or trailer

Maui rent-a-van camper

High Ace home-made campervan

Trakka Troopy 4WD with a lift-up roof

luxury ‘fifth-wheel’ van and huge US-made prime mover

Bushtracker off-road caravan and top-line Toyota diesel 4WD

Swagman 40 ft mobile home and satellite Suzuki 4WD.

Whatever it is that you drive or tow, many of the comments and ideas in this book fit many of these units. A vehicle pulls, and any trailer gets pulled. Where I make a comment, if it doesn’t really relate to your vehicle or type of trailer, hopefully somewhere else in the text there will be the information you need. As a small example, if your unit is not fitted for 240V power or with 12V batteries, then my particular comment might not apply to you, but there could be a parallel idea for your particular power system.

About 14 ft long, this expanding van opens to around 24 ft, with sleeping for a family or two couples.

Buying

What type of van should you buy? Somewhere out there is an off-the-shelf van retailer, or a custom manufacturer, or a used-RV dealer, with some form of accommodation to suit your particular travelling needs. The choice in this rapidly growing industry is now very wide, and the available options list is huge. Where once there were 30 or 40 major-name caravan builders in the 1990s, now there are probably several hundred brands. Some are custom-built and boutique, or specialist-market manufacturers, with many brands showing major improvements to design and build quality; some very well-known names have fallen by the wayside. Bigger and even more luxurious mobile homes have proliferated, and the myriad versions of smaller hire-campers across this country, for on-road and off-road purposes, is amazing. Now you can have virtually any form or combination of accessorised electronic, electrical, mechanical or manufactured house on wheels, costing maybe from one thousand to one million dollars! Here are some starting points for consideration.

Do you need an expanding van that may be only about 14 ft in length when towed? These vans, generally a single-axle type, can open up to around 24 ft long when both the ends are popped out, and might well suit a travelling family, or two couples.

When thinking about options, do you want a van which is mechanically complex, or one which is as simple as possible? Would you prefer a van that you can get straight into out of the rain, or one that you have to do a few minutes work on before you can relax? Would a wind-up van or a folding van, which follow along tucked low in behind your tow vehicle, suit you quite well? A single-axle pop-top also has a low head-on profile to the wind. When you stop for the day with these sorts of vans you first need to raise the roof somehow to stand-upright height, but at least you’ve had the benefit of towing a lower trailer with maybe some fuel saving.

To go any where you choose, do you need a tough-bodied heavy-duty suspension off-road camper trailer, with a flip-over end or opening side for living in? With this type, at the end of the day you open it up somehow, and unfold or zip in the canvas and anchor it down, and when you are finished, you have secure and safe storage with a functional, lightweight and easily erected mobile tent.

Is your wish instead a 20 ft caravan, a strong full-height tandem axle van with fridge and shower and toilet and nice carpet on the floor, but capable of easily going down any gravel road and into most national parks? Or do you need a luxury 27 ft van with every appliance possible and only suitable for main road towing? At the top of the list, would you opt for a 40 ft Swagman, the absolute mobile home towing its own tandem flat-top trailer with a Suzuki 4WD and small aluminium boat on it, because your choice of lifestyle requires something such as that?

If you need just the minimum quick camping space, or you have a small four-cylinder car to tow with, your solution could be a little Jayco back-entry van about 11 or 12 ft long, with just enough room for two people to live in for a few weeks. Do you need a steel floor in your van and sub-floor protection for hoses, wires and pipes like some Evernew models, so that you can go down any gravel road with little bother? Or would you rather be able to wash your van easily, and therefore opt for really smooth plastic van sides like some of those great A-vans and big Golfs? Again, do your homework or you might not get what you want.

A typical canvas-bodied side-opening off-road camper trailer.

images VAN TYPES

There are almost as many types of vans as there are ideas on what makes a van ‘good’ or ‘not well thought-out’. At the lowest common denominator, much of this feeling is simply due to the people who work on them, who conceive and build them. Some makers, who haven’t actually lived in one of their vans for a long and hot trip, make the inside with dark or European colours, usually far too hot and enclosing for the Australian climate. Maybe this does help to disguise the red pindan dust of the west, as dirt gets inside no matter what, but that’s only a small part of most people’s trips.

If you happen to get a bad van plumber, for example, you may not have efficiently operating water supply, taps, hot-water service or water tanks. Owners, who at van buying time actually have no idea how much stuff they’ll later put in the various storage areas on a van, sometimes buy a van which isn’t entirely suitable for their end purpose, then load it improperly, or overload it, later on. Storage is critical in a van, but it needs to be in the right place.

These are just some of the problems that may arise if you don’t do your own homework, looking at different vans, colours, set-ups, ease of use and functions, build quality, storage and features. It’s always more expensive to change things, once you’ve paid the money. Ask real users or acknowledged experts what they like or dislike about their vans. They’ll usually tell you.

This van has every fitting and appliance for luxury on-road travelling for a family.

Buying a van can be stressful for many intending travellers. However, doing your homework can actually be fun, even though it does give ‘sticker-shock’ to many people. Well before intended purchase time, the logical way to begin is to buy the monthly caravan magazines on a regular basis.

images RESEARCH

Many contributors who write for caravan magazines have a fair knowledge of caravans, so their information is usually sensible. Some of them are quite clever when it comes to explaining caravan features, use and operation. Reading current magazines is a good learning resource, especially for current information.

The secret to getting a good van is to begin your research long before you pay any money. Visit caravan shows as many times as possible, to collect information and look at options, before you actually decide what to buy. Look at a number of used caravan yards, and don’t buy the first caravan you see just because you like the colour scheme, and you want to go away next weekend anyway. Do your homework properly before parting with what could be a considerable amount of money.

Work out what your basic and particular needs and options are, and find out what is actually available in the market. When you have some idea of what you want, make a specification list, and then compare every suitable van fairly, using the same list of preferences. You can soon eliminate the negatives in the search and not waste your time, or someone else’s either. Determine early whether buying a better grade of larger second-hand van is suitable, or whether a new but smaller sized van will do. Although you might already have a van in mind, sometimes you can come across such a good buy that other preferences simply must take a back seat to the new-found option. There are pluses and minuses for all types of mobile accommodation.

images TRADE-OFFS

Sometimes there has to be a tradeoff because, almost without exception, everything is dollar-driven. One way of looking at it is that needs are firm and not optional, but preferences are always negotiable and removable. The window drapes might have to go, in preference to better-quality seating; a little bench space may be sacrificed because the bigger fridge is much more important, and so on.

Every traveller’s choices are slightly different, although some are radically different. Your particular time frame, size and number of family members, lifestyle choice, preference for locations and activities, type of tow vehicle, and amount of those vital dollars will all have a serious impact on your final choice of trailer home and fittings.

When it comes to recreational equipment dealers, bigger is not necessarily better, whether buying or seeking advice. Most thoughtful dealers, and good dealers who have been in business for some time, have staff who know what really does go on and who can understand what you are trying to explain to them, or to ask. Many good dealers and repairers have prepared handouts with good information for their clients, and they usually offer very good tips and clues in these handout lists. However, the other side of the problem is that some new vanners won’t ask questions, and/or won’t accept good information or advice when it’s given.

I’ve seen quite a few examples where vanners are too proud or, sometimes, too foolish to accept advice or help from others who really do know what’s going on. Whether you are a beginner tourist, or an experienced traveller, if you don’t know enough to ask questions when something goes wrong with your vehicle or trailer, you could well end up with a bigger issue. If you are not mechanical, or don’t make notes to help describe the problem, you might not be helping yourself. In this electronic age, perhaps a few digital pictures of the item could also help explain or outline a worry to the service person, or the insurance company.

Quite apart from the considerable purchase cost, there is something very important you need to consider, when planning your van. That is, what is your purpose? How much of your time are you really going to spend outback? You need to find, perhaps, that midway point where van ability and purchase value coincide with your own and your vehicle’s abilities, and your choice of roads less travelled.

Many vans are very tough indeed, but for toughness you could equally read the word ‘expensive’. Some of the better known off-road vans, such as Kedron, Trackmaster, Bushtracker and so on, are reputed to be enormously strong, and well capable of being towed across the Simpson Desert or up to the tip of Cape York if you choose to do it.

The basic questions are, of course:

Do you have a tow vehicle powerful enough to pull such a van across such an area?

Do you have the accumulated driving skills to get to, through and back from the worst conditions?

Do you really want to do such a hard trip anyway?

Homework

Whether your van is new or second-hand, or if you have modifications or additions made to a van, check everything at the dealer’s place when you collect the van. If you are new to caravans, or if you’ve not used this particular model or equipment, they should demonstrate it for you without prompting. Reliable, ethical and efficient caravan retailers’ staff should ask you, ‘Do you know how to use this properly? We’d be happy to show you how to use it.’ If they don’t offer, and you don’t ask them to show you, you are heading for problems.

CASE STUDY

images Tension

On the site next to ours I once watched someone who was either totally inexperienced or who clearly did not get the right set-up information. When he hitched his caravan behind a Mazda and drove off, the ends of the level ride bars were perhaps two or three inches off the flat bitumen road, and each lift chain looked slack.

That amount of tension was applying absolutely no form of load-assist leverage between caravan and tow vehicle. The two safety chains were not crossed and they were also barely clearing the bitumen.

Every time that vehicle hit a bump in the road, the ends of the level ride bars and the safety chains would drag on the roadway. While this unknowing person drives forward, the incorrect tension adjustment may be just a nuisance and cause some noise and considerable wear. However, if he attempts to drive backwards with those level ride bars virtually dragging on the ground, the only result will be damage to his property.

These two towing safety chains are crossed, and have ample ground clearance without being short.

Total care, help yourself, spares

Total care

When they get to around retirement age most people don’t seem very inclined to change a tyre if the vehicle gets a puncture. The majority I’ve asked prefer to pay the yearly fee for automobile club service. All such clubs or organisations in Australia offer a service called Total Care or Extra Care. For many less-mechanical people these total- or extra-care options would be good value.

They do offer good service for brokendown vehicles. In some cases it’s not necessary that your tow vehicle be disabled, because they will provide service to your disabled trailer, if it’s attached to your tow vehicle and you are a Total Care member. If you plan to travel around Australia for a year or so, perhaps you could consider taking the Total Care option for that time, and then reverting back to ordinary and lower-cost roadside assistance membership.

Not many service personnel would be happy having to go out to very remote areas to fix your broken-down vehicle. Anna Creek Station, near Oodnadatta, SA.

For normal sedans and all-wheel-drive vehicles on bitumen roads, membership in such a roadside assistance program, as backup against the chances of vehicle breakdown, is a very efficient and comparatively cheap way of playing safe. Additional benefits in some cases far outweigh the cost of yearly membership. Where your break-down situation complies with their conditions, the automobile clubs offer usual benefits like rent-a-car and accommodation. However, make yourself well aware of their limiting conditions. Many new vehicles also come with their own roadside assistance programs included in the purchase price, and often this program is sub-contracted back to the RAC service organisations.

Help yourself

When you break down on the side of the road with a puncture or something else of a relatively minor nature, and you have phone access, by calling the RAC a serviceperson will eventually come out and solve the problem for you. In populated areas that’s fine. But if you’re somewhere in an area where your mobile phone doesn’t work, or you don’t think a regular service technician will attend or even be able to get access out to your remote area, then you should make allowances to do the job yourself.

Store important service books and guarantees carefully, as you’ll probably need them at some stage.

Have you ever tried to undo a wheel nut in the pouring rain? Sometimes it can be a difficult job. Be well aware of whether the tools in your tool kit will allow you to do a basic repair. Do you know how to use the jack in your tow vehicle? Do you have a spanner with which you can undo the wheel nuts? Did the person at the last tyre service do up your wheel nuts with an air-driven rattle gun, so tight that you may be unable to undo it with a normal wheel-brace, or the vehicle’s original equipment?

Importantly, are you in good enough physical condition to lift a big, heavy rim and tyre down off the rear door on your Toyota or Nissan Patrol, then replace the punctured wheel back up on the spare wheel carrier? Those wheels are big and heavy. They can be very awkward, and if you’re not in good physical condition you could find yourself in a difficult or painful situation. For many travellers, even just lifting a much smaller Suzuki 4WD spare wheel down is a lot of effort.

At least if you have all the right tools, plus the correct air pressure in the spare tyre and you have an appropriate jack, the chances are that someone coming along will be prepared and able to help you with the replacement if you can’t do the physical work yourself. With a more difficult problem, someone else may be able to help, but much less willing when they don’t know the exact technical or mechanical requirements. It can be really important to carry the right tools, equipment and service manuals for your tow vehicle.

The same sensible options apply for your caravan. If you have all the necessary service hand books, chances are reasonable that you could find someone around who will be prepared to have a quick look at your handbook and then help you, if for some reason you are not quite sure how to do it yourself. For example, do you have the service handbook for your van awning?

How do you take the top off your roof-mounted airconditioner to clean the wasps out? Are you carrying the handbook showing how to operate the hot-water system, or safely light the stove in your caravan? Do you know how to clean the extractor fan over the top of the stove? Have you got the right tools to undo the small screws to take the cover off, remove and clean the filter or change the light globe? Small jobs like that often need doing. They are only very basic and quite simple maintenance which, if you do them, can save you considerable money and inconvenience.

You could use a Phillips head screwdriver to lock the clamp if necessary, but the proper C-clip is better and safer.

images SMALL JOBS

Why not do the smaller maintenance jobs yourself while your van is jacked up in off-season storage? Spin the wheels, and check each one for dragging brakes, unsuspected tread wear or carcass damage in tyres. Look for any grease weep stains on the brake backing plates, or thrown-out spider-trail grease marks on wheel rims, indicating a possible bearing or seal problem. If you’re not comfortable with the idea of servicing it yourself, at least by checking your own van you will be able to make a clearer report to the mechanics about jobs on your trailer you feel need attention.

However, don’t expect instant van maintenance service from a commercial business in the few short months before the increasing numbers of travellers head north for the better weather. Quite often dealers will offer reduced workshop prices for work done in the off-peak and less pressured months. If you decide not to do your own small maintenance items, take the opportunity during the off-season to leave your van for a month or so at a reputable maintenance service, so they can work on the essential items at an easier pace, and perhaps at less cost to you.

Bundaberg Caravan Club rally, a weekend trip at Mt Perry, Qld.

Spares

Things get lost, misplaced or broken in just about every caravan. Spares are important, but sometimes the real nuisance or cost of carrying them around is much greater than the possible value they just might one day have. What are the right items to carry in case of mechanical malfunction in a vehicle or van? Unless you are going to tow your van into absolute vehicle-limit country the other side of the Black Stump, there seems little value in carrying a spare 50 mm axle, two leaf springs and four full sets of wheel bearings.

Certainly, drive belts and radiator hoses are typically part of a small and practical spares kit worth carrying for almost all vehicles on longer trips. The RAC mechanic could fit them if needed, if you can’t do it yourself. Parts availability and delivery, rather than mechanical labour to do the job, is the major delay in remote area vehicle/van repairs for travellers.

Some of the things that you could take might seem odd spares to carry, but without these small and important bits, everything could come to a stop. For example, are you carrying a spare C-clip, one of those which keep the over-centre tensioner locked in place for the van’s level ride bar chains? While it’s often quite possible to use alternate things to replace lost items, it’s usually easier to use the correct part.

Have you brought a spare clevis pin, if that’s what keeps the tow head fixed into the hitch receiver? What about a spare D-shackle for the safety towing chains on the A-bar, in case one gets lost?

Finding out what basic spares to carry for the 4WD tow vehicle is easy if you’re a member of a 4WD club. (For more information on 4WD clubs, see my 4WD Survival Guide.) Likewise, caravan club members often have a list of items which their wide experience has shown seem to break, fall off or get lost, on many vans.

If you tow and, like most travellers, you stick to made roads, chances are good that another traveller will be along within a reasonable time, and the breakdown problem could be virtually solved. With satellite phones, even a long way in the outback, reaching help can be a relatively simple exercise.

Van parks, van sites, other van parks, jacking and packing

Van parks

Whether you have a campervan, a mobile home, a tent, a caravan or an off-road trailer, you will come across all kinds of different sites if you use van parks. Some van parks are absolutely fantastic, where staff ask for traveller preferences, such as near the amenities block, or for van dimensions to help determine the rightsize site. Angled drive-through sites really make a difference to most travellers. Obviously, during peak times, unless you’ve booked well ahead you don’t always get what you want at most van parks.

In some van parks staff will genuinely offer to guide you, or even back your van into a site for you. If the staff don’t offer, and you’re having trouble backing in, there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t go up to the office and ask staff for some help. That’s not a bad option if it looks like an awkward site and you don’t feel competent. However, experience is learning, so if there’s no pressure and you feel confident enough to back your van in, try. I’m sure many van park staff offer to help some travellers because they are better at backing a trailer than many people who tow caravans and trailers. Those I’ve watched are often quite quick, can back well and know their sites.

Some ground staff really do try to make your stay pleasant, but at other parks the front-office-only staff don’t care about client van positioning. They seem to put you wherever they feel inclined – under trees, on sloped ground or in damp areas. With our 20 ft van, those are the ones we never go back to.

Van sites

If you decide to use a van park, before driving into possible difficulty, take the opportunity to walk through and check the site you’ve been offered. There are a lot of things to look for. For example, is the concrete pad for the van flush with the ground, or will you have to back the van close alongside a concrete edge? If so, watch out for the considerable damage sharp corners on concrete pads can do to tyre sidewalls. How awkward is the site to back into? Does the road in front have enough width to let you easily pull across to the front and jackknife the van back around into the site, or will you have some difficulty with trees or garden ornaments?

Some van parks have placed pot plants and similar things to outline a site, but without thought for travellers needing to reverse a 20 ft caravan into a site originally designed for a 14 ft van. Will tree branches hit the van roof or the TV antenna when you’re parked on-site, or as you turn the van when reversing in? Look at the site and consider where your tow vehicle will have to be parked. Is there vehicle room on the awning side of your van, or do you have to park on the roadway in front and across the van? If you do, remember to never leave the exposed vehicle unlocked or its windows down.

This electric-powered, low-geared and remote-controlled mover is a really efficient device for parking a van in any space.

Especially in peak periods, in a lot of van parks there is no room to park your tow vehicle beside your van’s awning because there is already another van parked there. With vans jammed in tightly as part of the money-gathering process in some parks, there is often no spare vehicle manoeuvring space at all. Sometimes there is barely walking room between the backs or sides of the rows of vans.

Which side of the van is the power supply point, and what length of cable will be needed to reach your van? Will the water hose be long enough to reach the tap, and what size is the tap thread? Where is the sullage point for running grey water from the sink after you’ve washed the dishes? Is the site fairly level, or will you need to put chocks under a wheel to change the lean angle? Are there little green treeants around which will get all over your caravan when branches touch it? Which side does the weather come from? Each of these points really should be considered when you check out any potential parking site in a van park.

images EASY PARKING

For some travellers, backing into a site is not an option. Physical disabilities may make this impossible, but there are excellent devices which can do almost all the work of backing a van into a site, without any real physical effort once the van is disconnected from the tow vehicle.

The device pictured above is controlled just by operating a remote control, like a TV handset. Battery-driven, it is fitted under the van ahead of the wheels, and moves the van quite slowly but strongly when a rough roller driven by an electric motor makes contact with the tyre tread, grips the actual surface and turns. Each side has an electric motor which can turn forward or back, so this device can put a van into a tight space, very neatly. If the drive battery runs flat, this mover can even be manually operated, to turn the abrasive roller which contacts the tyre tread.

images DRIVE-THROUGH SITES

The simplest way of parking your van, in every van park if possible, is to choose a single-row drive-through site. Along a back-to-back double-row, if there’s no-one behind your site you may be able to simply drive down one roadway, turn in and drive right through from the back to get your van into the right place on your site quickly and easily. This will save you quite a bit of effort in backing the van every time.

Some van sites are located in such a way that you must back into them. The problem can often be compounded when they have steep gutters to cross, or they are uphill to the access roadway and require quite a bit of mechanical effort to push the van back up to the site.

In many van parks some larger caravans, and most top-shelf mobile homes, can only fit on sites after much manoeuvring. Quite a few of the older van parks still have narrow van sites and roadways, with limited room to swing your van when reversing. Many van parks were designed for 14 and 16 ft vans. Currently, a lot of vans are 20 ft and much more in length, and towed by bigger 4WD tow vehicles, not by average sedans.

If you have a wind-up TV antenna and there is a branch in the way, in most cases we’ve found if you ask at the office whether you can cut off the branch, or would they rather do it, staff will usually come and do the cutting. Fortunately, most van park staff seem willing to lop offending branches. Most times it’s done quite pleasantly, because they realise if the greenery is interfering with your van it will be affecting someone else’s van as well. You’ll find that trees overhead will almost always drop sap and leaves, plus direct those ever-present bird droppings onto your van roof. That’s just the way it goes, but you can always scrub them off. It’s all a game of give-and-take.

images VAN POSITIONING

When vans are parked on a van park site, they are expected to be reversed in with the ball coupling facing the road, usually excepting drive-through sites. How hard is the gutter to back across, and just as importantly, where will the tow vehicle rear wheels have to be when it comes time to hitch up again? It can be difficult to couple a big van, when the tow vehicle rear wheels are skewed right on the gutter edge, but you can’t physically move the van coupling even a small amount into proper alignment to drop onto the tow ball.

Big 4WDs have their own turning problems, usually taking a lot more room to turn when compared with a sedan’s tighter turning circle. Sometimes when it comes time to hitch up, it can become a difficult job to back in and hook up, when across the roadway the situation has changed and there’s now a vehicle parked there, considerably limiting your options. Such a close situation can make life awkward if your van then also has to be turned sharply to clear around the front of an adjacent van when you want to leave. That’s one of the joys, or trials, of using van parks.

Other van parks

When you decide to stay at a commercial van park, you have to pay the site fees set by the proprietors. Some prices are fair; some are blatant price-gouging. I believe their prices are generally based on whatever the captive market can be forced to pay. If we pay $24 for a site, it’s understandable that the place would probably not be as up-market as that costing us $40 or more per night.

However, we have found some expensive van park sites, particularly in the Sydney area, which cost top money. These certainly are no better than many van parks well inland charging only half as much per night. But as many travellers have found to their dislike, the cost per night in general isn’t really a good guide to the van park quality.

In many van parks there seems to be a trend to either not updating, or costcutting. Certainly not all van parks have this attitude, and no-one should criticise a van park unfairly. However, there is doubtless a trend in some parks towards minimisation by not improving, or actually reducing, quality in services.

images FREE-CAMPING

Van park operators in many places have been actively lobbying for local government to erect signs banning travellers from free-camping. With certain councils, and not only in northern areas, trying to force travellers to use van parks by legislating out many free parks it’s therefore only proper that travellers ought to make it very well known to van park operators when we find things substandard. Many travellers won’t free-camp, whatever their reasons. Therefore they are simply milkcows for van parks.

You should make it a point to advise staff at the van park office if the toilets haven’t been cleaned or have not been properly serviced, or if the septic toilet system really stinks. Likewise, if the rubbish bins are over-full, haven’t been emptied regularly, or if some other undesired happening has put you offside, let the van park office know, and strongly if you feel that is necessary.

Explain what the problem is, and what you expect for your money. There’s a good reason for this. As a consumer, along with certain expectations, you do have some rights. If you buy an item and it is not of ‘merchantable quality’, you have every right, and then some, to take it back for replacement or refund.

National parks have many attractions, but some parks now have managed sites and require a pre-paid camping pass. In some parks fees are collected by the ranger.

Jacking and packing

You can never be sure what sort of surface your van may stop on, so carrying a few pieces of wood of different size and thickness can be quite handy. Put a piece of wood or similar insulation under any contact point between metal corner jack feet and dirt to help minimise rust. Any tough waterproof ply will do a good job. Forming ply about 300x300x50 mm makes a good plate for under a jack. Generally useful footplate sizes could be about 150x150x25 mm, and hardwood 25x50x100 mm makes useful packing pieces, chocks, spacers and wedges.

Occasionally on a site you will find a depression under one side of the van, or a down-slope where, for the water to even run out of the sink, the van needs to be levelled. A few packing pieces under the wheel is often enough, and by driving or backing a van tyre onto them the problem is solved.

There are plastic wedges which are made for levelling vehicles. Most are large in size and in price as well. There are also plastic commercially-made footplates that will fit most jockey wheels, something similar to those plastic leg-beds which go under corner jack feet.

Moulded plastic footplates can be filled with water to discourage ant access to the van.

Awnings, annexes, shadecloth

Awnings

The number of travellers who have difficulty putting up a normal van awning is surprising. When you buy your van, the dealer or the person who fits the awning ought to show you how to put the awning up properly. The owner’s handbook should tell you how to do it as well. If you’re uncertain ask the caravanner/ person on the next-door site – if they look like they know what they’re doing – and they’ll probably help you. As awnings are common, and operation is simple, why do many users appear to have so much trouble?

All awnings are designed to be square and parallel with the van when properly erected. Both support arms should be the same length, so counting and marking the holes for the locking pins in the support arms is a sure way to equalise the length.

To create minimum sag in the diagonal centre of the awning material the trick is to tension it evenly. The two top support arms, one at each end of the awning, need to be pulled out tight to create the material tension, and help reduce the annoying wind-driven flapping in many awnings. Pop-top vans can have some difficulty if the top keeps moving a little sideways and makes tensioning difficult. If rain is expected, merely steepen or increase the awning down-angle.

The indicator mark shows the usual awning height, but in this case the pin is visible one hole below the mark.

However, with an annexe in place this is not so simple to do. The steeper the awning is angled, the faster the rain will run off, therefore the less chance there will be for water to pool. Just like a tent, in heavy rain a loose awning roof can sag sufficiently to allow a pool of water to form, and disaster may then be only a short time away. Some longer awnings may need a central support leg and roof bow under the material to help prevent sag, but if the material is then not tensioned properly, that may still allow two water pools to form.

Skewing an awning can badly distort the fabric and water will not run off any faster than a normal awning with a slightly steeper down-angle.

A van awning is usually installed parallel to the chassis, so it always tilts the same way as the van does. No matter how good the bubble-level on the A-bar may be it’s rare to actually get the van quite level in a north–south direction. So if you deliberately make the front of the van slightly lower than the rear, the rain will cascade off the front end of the awning, because when water falls it will always gravitate to the lowest point.

To simply check this out, spray water onto the erected awning and watch the results. Loosen the tension a little and watch the weight of water create a pool in the awning material, then re-tension it properly and tilt it to see how efficiently the awning will shed water.

By making one of the lower support arms shorter than the other, this creates a skew or twist in the awning material. Many travellers still seem to do this when they expect rain, in the belief that by skewing their van awning water will run off faster.

However, rain will also run off quite quickly if the awning is in its normal position. With a skewed awning in hot sunlight, as the sun softens the polycanvas/ polycotton material of the awning it can and will stretch out of its designed shape, sometimes almost to a trapezoid shape.

As the day cools off, the stretched material doesn’t always fully return to its original shape, and when you roll up the awning the support arms sometimes won’t line up at all. Because one side of the awning has been stretched more than the other by skewing, when it has to roll around the awning roller it won’t roll up square and parallel. Thus, the legs won’t line up and fit together when you want to lock them in place against the van because the awning material rolls more tightly on one side, with the stretched side much looser. Sometimes the only way to fix this is to put the awning back out in the sun, stretched properly square and parallel, and over some time let it return to its normal shape.

Screwing the T-level to the A-bar gives a quick and easy indication of overall van level.

images MORE SAFETY

When you do roll an awning up for travel it’s important that it is safely locked. Be certain that the ratchet-lever is positioned on ‘Roll Up’, so that it can’t roll down. Bicycle toe-straps, those woven nylon straps used for bike pedal toe-clips, are a cheap and very efficient extra way of locking the awning up.

One toe-strap around each end of the awning arm and top-bracket greatly reduces any chance of any common awning coming undone. After you have closed the awning down, if you have a pop-top van make sure that all four overcentre corner roof latches are properly secured. With a wind-up type of van, when the fabric is neatly tucked in and the top is down, check the hold-down catches.

Lifting or lowering the roof on a pop-top van can be a problem, but not always due to leverage. When the door and windows are shut, the inside of a van slightly seals and pressurises. This trapped air can make lowering the top for travel difficult, as the top sometimes won’t lower very well unless the door or a window is opened to vent the air. Likewise, trying to lift the top for camping can be harder against a slight vacuum unless the van is vented.

Woven nylon straps used for bike pedal toe clips are a cheap and very efficient means of securing the awning when travelling.

images WEATHER

Awnings are designed and made to take the normal type of weather that caravanners should expect to encounter. But when, for example, the ABC Radio National weather forecast says that there is likely to be strong winds in the local area many travellers hurry and pack up their van awnings into the travelling position.

It’s common sense to put guy ropes on an awning, to help hold it down if bad weather is expected, but packing it up just because the wind may blow hard seems to be a negative way of thinking. When the awning leg is clipped to the bottom of the van in its normal triangulated position, with the top support bar pulled out and done up firmly, and with a guy rope run out diagonally from each corner of the awning and strongly pegged down, it’s unlikely that any normal wind gust or storm would do much damage to an awning. However, if in doubt, don’t put it out.

A flexible coil-spring anchored by the tent peg keeps pressure on the guy rope yet still allows some stretch and shock absorption.

To minimise concern, sometimes there may be a need for more holding-power, if you do decide to leave the awning out in gusty weather. A bigger tent peg for each awning guy rope anchor or hold-down is a practical idea. Also use a compression spring for each guy rope, so that there is some form of take-up on the rope to make it shock-absorbing and flexible, but non-breaking. To hold the tension load on the guy ropes the metal rope tensioners seem to be the most effective.

Effectively guying an awning down is easy. All awnings have an axle inside the material roller which, on most awnings, is easy to access. By putting a clip over the exposed axle, then angling each guy rope 45 degrees outwards and sideways, the one rope at each end will usually do a very effective job of holding the awning in both directions.

Some travellers seem to worry about both the awning and annexe being blown over the top of the caravan if it’s caught in a bad wind storm. If the awning is out with the support arm forming a vertical leg, so that the annexe will fit around it, use two big tent pegs in the bottom of each leg to ground-anchor it. By also using corner guy ropes to hold the leg solidly in place, and to keep the annexe nice and square so that the walls will zip or velcro together, it’s unlikely that the normal type of weather will do any damage. Adding more well-pegged guy ropes to anchor it should normally add more strength and stability to the annexe.

images WET FABRICS

Putting an awning away whilst wet doesn’t seem to have any unwanted effect apart from sharing the dirty top side surface with the usually cleaner underside when it’s rolled up. With a pop-top van, what happens when you drop the top while it’s damp? If there has been a lot of condensation, how can you best dry out the pop-top material?

images Tip

Never store a pop-top van long-term without airing the top fabric until completely dry. Many owners leave the top up if the van is stored under cover.

images AWNING TENSION

The most common means of stopping the flapping which occurs when awning fabric is not tight is to fit an anti-flap kit. This is usually some form of clamp, one or even more at each end of the material, which is then stretched or tensioned to, on or around the upper support arm. Many travellers merely toss a rope across the awning material and tie it down at each end to the upper support arm.

It’s difficult to get any tension in annexe walls, and in many cases this transfers across to the awning fabric. Thus, some awnings can finish up with a noticeable sag in the centre of the roof material and, if so, there really can be a problem in rainy conditions. One temporary answer commonly seen is a form of additional and adjustable roof bow, fitted between the van roof and the awning axle roller, midway under the awning length. This forms an umbrella-style roof, raising and helping to tension the material and shed water to the lower outer edges of the awning. Chafing can occur to the underside of the awning fabric, and some additional padding or protection may be needed at such contact points.

On pop-top vans it can be difficult to get good tension on awning fabric. If manufacturers could anchor the awning to the top of the van itself, rather than the side of the lifting section of the pop-top, the ideas for tensioning full-sized van awnings could apply. To minimise any tilt or movement for a pop-top roof an effective alternative could be to make four wooden spacers, perhaps from 50x50 mm hardwood. Each would need to be a tight fit in length, when pushed in vertically between the van’s roof surface and the underside of the actual pop-top lid, when it was fully lifted. The spacers would have the effect of making the lid fairly rigid, so the awning fabric could then be pulled tight more easily.

Another option may be to make or buy a smallish-diameter screw-jack with proper load-sharing footplates top and bottom to do the same lifting job at each corner of the roof. Again, to reduce roof movement, two permanently mounted specific-length stainless steel eye-swaged cables could be fitted at the offside two corners, and used in conjunction with two small screwjacks for the nearside roof.

If the awning has been rolled out for a while and the tree sap, birds and insects have done their usual job, the upper surface may need a good scrub. There is a practical way to access all the awning material on the common roll-up awning. Close all doors and windows on the awning side, pull the awning material fully out from the top with the lower support arms un-extended, and then unclip the arms off the side of the van. Lower the arm carefully right in underneath the van, to effectively hang the fully opened awning straight down the side.

Doing this usually takes two people, but then it makes scrubbing access to the whole fabric quite easy. Any good stiff scrubbing brush will get most of the muck off the outside of the awning. Use minimal soap or proprietary cleaners to avoid stripping out any waterproofing. We use the same gentle car wash detergent we use for vehicle and van, and so far it’s done a good job.

The awning roller axle makes a very strong anchor point for awning guy ropes.

Annexes

Annexes are a very personal preference. For some vans, or travellers with kids, an annexe may be the best way to provide adequate space to live, play and sleep in. Annexes are excellent for privacy in most cases. However, almost any annexe fabric restricts the entry of light to the side of the van to which it is attached. Some of the darker-coloured annexes can also become unbearably hot, trapping heat which can’t easily escape through mosquito netting windows or a tented roof.

As a rule, annexes take a while to erect, especially when new, and bigger annexes often need two people to assemble them. For many travellers it seems the effort of putting the annexe up is simply not worthwhile unless you intend staying somewhere for a week or so. Then, although many newer materials are claimed to be rot-proof, if the weather has been against you the annexe still needs to be re-erected at home and left to dry thoroughly, to help reduce chances of mildew or rot.

images MOULD

It makes sense to minimise preventable damage. Even the best canvas or polycanvas, with the best anti-fungal treatment, in some way will develop mould. It’s important to let annexe walls and the walls in a pop-top van roof dry out naturally before long-term storage. Even if they are put away wet, it’s common sense to put them up to air later when practical. The underside of a pull-out van awning is another place for mould, and the little dark blotches grow rapidly in high humidity.

Removing mould is relatively easy. Almost all bathroom mould/fungus cleaners will quickly kill mould, and there are products at most good van accessory places designed specifically to clean canvas and awnings.

images ANNEXE-TO-AWNING

Many annexes have great combinations of windows, mosquito netting and doors, even room dividers, but all have a big transport premium – space and weight. A drawback with almost every annexe is the method of connection between the common awning material and the annexe walls. Some connection systems are difficult to use, although effective when fully erected, so be sure to do your homework thoroughly before taking at face value the annexe supplied with your new van.

Be aware of van positioning if you intend to erect an annexe on site at a van park, where your site has a concrete pad. Not all concrete pads are the same size, nor are all annexes. You may find the annexe walls will fall on the concrete, and pegging them down or anchoring them could be a bother.

Our oztent fits neatly under the van awning and makes an excellent room for visitors.

As an alternative to erecting an annexe, or converting the dining table to a bed if you have visitors, why not consider putting an Oztent outside your van? Although most van sites in parks have just enough room for the van, the awning, and for vehicle parking but not for an additional tent, it’s actually easily done. If your van has an awning one advantage with an Oztent is that, because it has a sloping roof, it will very likely fit neatly under the awning on the pad along the door-side of your caravan. When the tent is fully erected, the slope on the tent roof is easily matched by adjusting the awning angle. They can be a very effective annexe alternative, if you need the outside space. One added benefit is that the Oztent can be also used for side trips away from the van, when your visitors have gone.

images Caution

Bat droppings are something you really don’t want to leave on any painted surface or van awning. This unpleasant stuff will rapidly bleach awning material and damage paintwork. It should be cleaned off your van or vehicle as soon as you practically can.

Shadecloth

Instead of a solid-material walled-in annexe, some travellers have chosen a simpler alternative for weather protection. Sun can be just as oppressive as rain, but shadecloth is often the answer to both conditions. While shadecloth does not entirely keep out wind, nor will it keep out hard-driving rain, it does an acceptable job at both. It is available in several densities of weave and the denser it is the more light or weather it keeps out.

There’s good sun, rain and wind protection without fixing the shadecloth to the van wall.

The clever lady who made our shadecloth walls told us an important point about shadecloth when used as a shelter wall. There are two distinctly different patterns in the cloth itself. One is warp, the other is weft. One runs horizontally, the other vertically, and it is most important that the outer weave, as you install the wall, runs vertically. Thus, any rain which hits the vertical weave is channelled rapidly down the cloth, whereas if the weave on the outside is horizontal the water becomes trapped for longer and tends to penetrate the fabric more easily.

We have two shadecloth walls for our van. The long one slides easily into the annexe track formed in the awning roller and is long enough to be laid out on a shallow angle to the ground. I use car-tube rubber bands at each brass eyelet along the lower edge, and they peg down very simply.

The other wall can be either lefthand or right-hand, fitting either end of the awning. In this case it has five velcro straps on the top edge, which loop around the awning upper support arm. Five more along the shortest vertical side can be looped around a guy rope to help keep the wall stable. The longer vertical side of the end screen fits without touching along the van wall.

With these two walls we can sit under the awning in rainy conditions in reasonable comfort, and even if the van is positioned with the awning on the west side where it catches the harsh late afternoon sun, the shadecloth makes a great light and temperature difference. If the late afternoon sun builds the heat up, but the shadecloth wall is not in place, it takes only a few minutes to get it out and slide it into place. A major benefit of shadecloth fabric is that it will fold up small, and it is very lightweight to carry and store.

CASE STUDY

images Awning

A couple with a small child bought a big Millard van in Melbourne, then virtually the next week did an express tow, with parents also on board, about as far north as you can go, to fit in with requirements for a new job. When we first saw them they were all trying to erect the awning that came with their van. In some bother, they said they hadn’t been told anything about erecting the awning or annexe. It was apparently not demonstrated to them, and their whole van experience was untried.

On their big van, the awning was fulllength, with an additional central leg and adjustable roof strut. During their non-stop travels the awning roller seemed to have moved around a bit. The small lever on the end of the roller, which controls roll-down or roll-up, had been hitting the roller axle as they travelled. The lock-ratchet mechanism inside the roller wasn’t working properly, so the awning wouldn’t safely lock in the full-up or full-down position. A lot of juggling got the awning fully down, and the legs vertical, to allow for the annexe walls. The central strut and leg helped pull the awning tight, and I showed them how to use the outer support arms.

I did find a safety problem. The gas hot-water service exhaust outlet was about two inches off the fabric at the rear end wall, when the fabric was attached the sail-track screwed onto the van. That was a potentially dangerous design fault, I felt. The annexe walls were brand new and very stiff. I explained that the annexe walls would probably jam when they tried to slide them in, unless they used candle wax or some other lubricant on the ropes sewn in for the vertical wall edges and the top edge of the main vertical wall.

When the awning was fitted into the annexe-to-awning cam-closed strut, the sharply-cut ends of this joiner put excessive pressure on the end-wall awning material. To reduce the probability of tearing or cutting I suggested that plastic tape or something similar should be stuck over the awning material and the joiner ends where they contacted.

Unfortunately, to actually fit the awning material into this strut the awning had to be slackened off, and the very suspect awning lock-ratchet lever had to be fiddled with again. Several hours later I saw the annexe walls were up, but the awning fabric itself couldn’t be pulled tight due to the adjustable roof bows not cooperating.

I suggested the annexe vertical legs should be pulled outwards fairly tightly with guy ropes, against both the occasional sharp big wind and the guaranteed heavy rain. This wasn’t done, because they weren’t supplied. I’m not sure the three vertical awning legs were even pegged down, as I didn’t see any tent pegs supplied with the annexe.

However, I did see the end of this sad episode, three days later. The centre awning bow had obviously divided the untensioned awning fabric into two parts, which in later heavy rain became two water-filled dams as the fabric sagged. It appeared from outside as though the centre vertical leg may have then buckled under the weight of water, because the awning alloy roller tube was now V-shaped, and bent downwards about half a metre in the middle. The long annexe wall was bagging out as well and the damage looked permanent.

This whole episode was a very sorry comment on what can easily happen if you don’t get or accept good advice and supervised operating practice at the very beginning, or at least have the dealer demonstrate and prove your expensive purchase really does work properly.

Towing, level ride bars, jockey wheels

Towing

It’s essential that the tow head is locked securely into the vehicle’s hitch receiver. The only safe way is with a locked clevis pin. A few aftermarket manufacturers offer strong and neat clevis pins with built-in keyed locks, but a padlock is also fine, used in place of the original small shepherd’s-crook clevis pin instead. No matter how it’s done, lock that tow head clevis pin.

The supplier should show you how to remove and replace the tow head properly when you get a tow bar fitted to your tow vehicle. Just as there are several different types of level ride bars, there are several different styles and manufacturers of tow heads. The most common brand is Hayman Reese.

When not towing, there is no value in needlessly carrying many extra kilograms around by leaving the heavy-duty tow head in the hitch receiver. Padlock this heavy item to the safety chains on your A-bar if there’s not enough storage room in the van’s boot. For better security, keep a tarp or a bag to fully cover any items chained or secured outside. Take the towing mirrors off and store them as well.

The Hayman Reese tow head is simple to adjust for most tow vehicle heights. Note the anti-sway arm ball-mount on the right of the tow ball.

images Caution

Towing mirrors and interstate registration plates clearly mark you as a tourist or traveller to an offender, and therefore as a potential target who is quite likely to have a camera and other valuable items in your vehicle.

Level ride bars

Level ride bars all work on the same principle. They provide an upwards leverage, designed to minimise sagging, at the rear of the vehicle and the front of the van. Through leverage these bars transfer some of the weight from the ball coupling over onto the tow vehicle’s front wheels. Almost every caravan will benefit from level ride bars of some type.

There are variations of the basic leverage system. They may be metal rod 75 kg bars, to support some of the A-bar down-load weight on a relatively light pop-top van. The curved end on these bars drops into a formed hole in the cast tow head, near the tow ball, and the other end is lifted up into a J-shaped hook fitted on the caravan A-bar. They could also be heavy rectangular-section 750 kg bars, essential for a big 22 ft tandem axle caravan. These bars have a T-shaped head which fits into a specially shaped trunnion slot in the actual tow head, and the other end has chain links attached.

This lightweight van has two pairs of level ride rods supporting the A-bar weight.

The chains are normally tensioned up onto the A-bar using a lever to lift an overcentre catch or tensioner. The chain catch will go over-centre and normally lock itself in place. If it won’t, you must check that there are no twists in the chain – it must pull in a straight line, without twists.

Level ride bar tension should be adjusted to the proper chain length so your van rides flat. A minimum of six chain links should be left free between the end of the level ride bar and the over-centre tensioner hook. Less than six links can mean there is not sufficient movement in them for the vehicle and van to be able to turn easily. To make backing easier, if it’s practical, take the level ride bars off, and the van will turn more easily.

The heavy-duty Hayman Reese 750 kg level ride bars are used on bigger and heavier vans.

images TENSIONER

The over-centre tensioner has a safety clip to keep the catch locked and the spring load pulling against the bars. When you put these C-shaped safety pins in place to lock up the over-centre clamps for the level ride bar chains, they should be inserted from the front. The open end facing the rear reduces the chances of them bouncing out while travelling.

If there’s a choice, always choose ease and safety. Why hurt your back lifting and straining to fit the level ride bars when you can do this almost entirely without effort? It’s easy to put the level ride bars on without using the lever tool when the A-bar is raised up fairly high. The pressure will be off the level ride chains, and you’ll be able to put them on or undo them by hand, easily. With the A-bar raised there’s little chance of the bar ends kicking down under pressure and damaging your feet, even if you are silly and put them in underneath. Once the bars are in place, then lower the jockey wheel, and let the level ride bars take the weight. Look to be sure the van and tow vehicle are now sitting properly, and relatively level.

If you don’t use the jockey wheel to help, and instead use the pipe-lever tool to manually lift the over-centre chain tensioner up in the common way, hold on to that handle firmly and properly, because there can be quite an amount of tension in the level ride bars. Keep your feet right out of the way in case something slips. Lift in a proper manner, keeping your knees together and your back as straight as you practically can, to avoid injury to yourself. Make sure you are aware of where you place your toes and fingers. It’s easy to break a fingernail, but it’s just as easy to break a finger if you’re not careful when you do this. Again, your caravan repair or towbar fitting service is normally the proper place to get sound advice, demonstration and supply for proper load levelling equipment.

images STORAGE RACK

Many travellers take the level ride bars off the tow hitch and just toss them on the ground underneath the A-bar, or place them on the A-bar for storage, when finished driving for the day. If your van has a boot, it’s a much better option to store level ride bars in there. Quite apart from the bars getting rusty out in the environment, storage this way is much cheaper than replacing them. These bars cost quite a few dollars, and thieves seem to be around in most van parks.

To safely store them on a rack, check first that the boot’s rear wall is thick and strong enough to support some big plastic-coated hooks properly. If it is, get some strong 6 mm diameter L-shaped hooks from a hardware store, and screw them into the wall but first, drill a pilot hole for each screw hook. Slowly screw in two hooks for each bar and store the level rides so they sit across those hooks. They will take barely any storage space at all, flush against the wall.

There are several schools of thought on whether you should take the pressure off level ride bars while you’re pulled up at an overnight stop. Remaining hitched up for just an overnight stay, I haven’t yet found any valid reason to let the tension off the level ride bars. To take some of the weight off the tow vehicle’s rear suspension, and to stop the van floor from moving when you’re walking around inside, are practical reasons to wind the corner jacks down, but to disconnect any of the tow hitch items for just an overnight stay seems to be almost a waste of time and effort. When level ride bars are in place and tensioned up, within reason that’s what they are designed to do.

Jockey wheels

If the van jockey wheel is removable, once the van is hitched be sure to stow it away safely and securely, then retighten the holding clamp to avoid losing the clamp bolt. Vans are normally supplied with only one jockey wheel and without it you can be in considerable trouble. In most cases the down-weight on the A-bar is far too heavy to lift manually, and on any normal van you can’t hitch or unhitch without some mechanical means of raising the A-bar.

It may be possible to use the tow vehicle’s jack to lift the A-bar, but bear in mind that however you lose your jockey wheel, you’ll be in trouble. It’s not wise to leave it in place on the A-bar when travelling, although some jockey wheels are intended to remain on the A-bar, pivoting round to a safe position and locking on a fitting specially designed for this.

This sign is most important. However, on many tow vehicles the tow mirrors do not show a safe, wide view of following traffic.

If you have a Trail-A-Mate hydraulic jockey wheel, it’s most important to nip up the bleed screw, if you store it in a horizontal position. You’ll find that if you don’t close this screw you can get an air bleed problem inside the hydraulic pump, and it may have to be sent away for repair.

The heavy-duty level ride bar chains are tightened up using this over centre clamp, which is fitted on the A-bar. Note that the open end of the C-shaped safety pin is facing the gas bottles behind the clamp.

Hitching, safety connections, departing

Hitching

If you can’t reverse your vehicle so that the tow ball and the ball coupling align themselves neatly and properly when hitching the van to the tow vehicle you need to practice until you get it right. It does require a bit of skill, and often takes patience to achieve a consistently good result. There are courses for drivers who will be towing, which include this subject. The RACs in the various states can advise you where you can do such a course. Some of the better caravan maintenance and repair businesses offer training courses on towing and all the associated things that go with a trailer.

To make exiting the site a little bit easier, keep in mind which direction you plan to drive away in, and to help make driving off easier try to position your vehicle more towards that angle when you back in to hook up, if you practically can. When you’ve backed your vehicle into place, make sure that you’ve got it aligned properly and can lower the A-bar tow coupling straight down onto the tow ball. With a jockey wheel on the A-bar you can usually push the van a few centimetres in either direction when the ball and coupling are not quite lined up. Moving any big van can be very difficult.

Chocks are a safety item, and should be used when the van is unhitched, to prevent unexpected van movement.

However, if you have a flat footplate on the ground instead of a jockey wheel, then it’s very difficult to move the van’s coupling more than a few millimetres into physical alignment with the vehicle’s tow ball. Damage could easily occur, so it pays to be accurate with your backing.

There are several proprietary devices to help align the coupling and tow ball. Some help the driver visibly align the two; some can physically move the two parts together. Remember that when you’re hitching up, if you have chocks in front of your wheels you may need to move the van a small amount to easily get the wheel chocks out.

When you hitch the trailer on to the tow vehicle, put the ball coupling onto the tow ball first. Wind the A-bar up, so that with the tow ball directly below the coupling there will be several inches of safe space above it, and you can then safely reverse into alignment without damage. Don’t reverse quickly. Many bad dents have happened because the driver has reversed too quickly, or without checking, and literally backed into the ball coupling. This hard contact often pushes the van slightly backwards, and can put a dent in the tow vehicle’s rear bumper bar or sill panels. Make sure there’s nothing attached to the van or leaning against it that will prevent you raising the A-bar, or nothing that can get damaged if you wind up or lower the jockey wheel, like corner jacks.

Before you actually connect the tow ball and coupling make the tow vehicle safe, with the handbrake well applied, engine off and transmission in gear or in ‘park’ position. It should not move when the van weight is lowered onto it. Before backing, lift the coupling handle, turning or latching it so that it will lock in the raised position. Doing this pulls the lock tongue out of the way to allow the coupling to slide down over the tow ball. Inside the coupling this tongue fits below and behind the actual tow ball, a bit like a wedge, to prevent the coupling coming off.

When the coupling is hard down on the ball, make certain that the handle and locking latch is properly and safely in place. Then to help with fitting level ride bars, jack the coupling high again, effectively raising both the van and tow vehicle. It’s far easier to work in under the coupling when it’s up high. When completely hitched up, padlocking the tow coupling latch closed helps with security.

Safety connections

A breakaway device is an electrically operated and independently powered means of rapidly and automatically applying the electric trailer brakes if the tow vehicle and van become unintentionally separated when travelling. If your van is longer than 17 ft 6 inches, it should be fitted with an electric breakaway switch or device.

For any van with a GVM of two tonnes or more, there is a legal requirement to fit this self-braking safety switch. The switch itself is normally fitted on the A-bar. A thin steel wire cable attaches a dowel pin, held in the breakaway switch device by strong spring pressure, to the tow vehicle. If the trailer coupling somehow comes off the tow ball the towing safety chains should limit the separation. In the worst case, if the van then actually detaches from the tow vehicle the cable will pull the dowel pin out of the breakaway device. That allows the built-in battery to immediately and fully apply the electric trailer brakes, to quickly stop the caravan before real damage occurs. Although these devices are required fitting on any van over two tonnes, for additional safety this device could be easily fitted to any trailer with electric wheel brakes.

In this picture the thin wire cable is attached to the breakaway switch dowel pin, which pulls out and allows contact between the two wires, causing the van brakes to activate.

Hook up the breakaway device cable, and shackle the safety chains to the tow bar. Don’t use cheap snap clips to attach the chains just because they’re easy, as they’re not rated for sufficient strength to retain your caravan. If your caravan weighs two tonnes, then you should use shackles that are suitably proof-stamped to retain or pull more than two tonnes of weight.

There should be two chains and, to give any degree of safety, tow chains must be attached to the solid part of the tow bar. There’s no point attaching safety chains to the tow head because the van’s chains are too short as, if the tow head became detached from the vehicle, so would your caravan. You must attach safety chains to strong anchors, and the intended anchor is the tow bar itself.

Cross the right-hand chain to the left tow vehicle anchor point, and vice versa. If the van coupling does come off the ball, the trailer A-bar nose should then sit in the nest formed by the cross effect of those chains, and not drag on the ground. A single safety chain cannot ensure nor do this. Safety chains must have adequate length to allow the tow vehicle to turn as sharply as necessary, and not much more. Check that they’re not too long and drag on the ground when travelling, wearing out and causing sparks.

It’s usually not possible to move the van coupling into alignment for hitching if the Trail-A-Mate jockey wheel has a flat footplate, and not a rolling wheel.

It’s simple to cut links off a chain for length adjustment. Don’t do this until you check that chains are not too long and drag on the ground when travelling, or that they are not too short and may cause problems when turning.

For length adjustment it’s simple to cut links off a chain. Extra links can be shackled on, or semi-permanently added using joiners called hammerlinks. Any caravan maintenance workshop can do this, and at the same time check the whole towing assembly is correctly set up.

The proper way to tension a D-shackle is to nip it up neatly, and then back it off a quarter of a turn. Most times, most travellers nip them up with a pair of pliers, to make sure that they won’t come undone, or that they’re not going to be stolen if left on the towbar.

When a Utilux trailer cable plug becomes disconnected and drags along the roadway, it usually grinds itself to destruction.

images 12V CABLE

Finally, plug the 12V cable from the van into the tow vehicle trailer connection. In most cases this is fitted on a bracket down near the tow ball, and centrally, to keep the 12V cable as short as practical while still having enough length to allow easy turning. Make sure that there is sufficient length in the 12V lighting and power cable from the van to the Utilux socket, or whatever connector is fitted to your tow vehicle, so that if you do turn sharply the plug will not pull out of the socket.

The spring-hinged socket cover is made so that it will engage round the back of the plug, to help prevent disconnection. With strain on it, the socket cover will simply break and allow terminal disconnection or separation.

Equally, make sure there isn’t a big loop of slack power cable hanging down which could drag on the road or get caught on something and also cause cable disconnection. Many travellers run the power cable from the van frame up through the coupling handle, then down to the tow vehicle’s Utilux socket, to help keep it out of harm’s way.

The standard type of 12V plug and socket to connect vehicle and van seems to be the round Utilux seven-pin plug. Whether the van has a flat or a round plug, they both do the same job. One is apparently capable of taking a bit more current than the other. Often included with that seven-pin plug wiring is the ‘hotwire’ or ‘live wire’ which can run direct to the van fridge, or charge the van’s battery whilst travelling.

Check that all of those power-supply wires carrying voltage are working properly. Make sure that all lights on the rear of the van work. Again, any good caravan maintenance business can do these electrical service checks for you, as there is test equipment specially made for quick stationary checking of tow vehicle electrical coupling and wiring systems. Some units have an extra and separate two-pin plug known as an Anderson plug, fitted specifically to run heavier current from the tow vehicle to the van batteries or appliances.

Departing

As a part of your systematic check before leaving the campsite, check the fridge. Be sure that the fridge door catch is locked shut, and that operating power is switched from 240V or gas across to 12V. When travelling fridge doors come open there’s usually all kinds of strife, just because you didn’t take a little extra time to make sure that everything in the fridge was properly closed and stored, and that the fridge door was fixed shut.

This tinny has been unloaded off the vehicle roof-rack while the owner travels around in the local area.

Are containers and bottles inside the fridge pushed or stacked in tight so that they can’t move much? Is everything inside shut, with jar and container lids on firmly so that the contents won’t leak out? If your fridge door doesn’t have some form of convenient lock on it, make or buy one, or check with your fridge supplier to see if one is available.

images PACKING UP

Whether it’s the canvas roof or nylon annexe on an off-road trailer, the 12 ft tinny fitted on a vehicle roof-rack or on top of a campervan frame, the pop-top roof or pop-out ends on those types of van – all of these items require specific checking as part of their different packing-up processes.

Every trailer has a specific requirement, but almost all of them have the same basic core packing-up needs. There are some particular things you need to check, if you have a mobile home for example, but which few caravans need bother with. Before you attempt to move off, if your unit has one of those excellent, expandable slide-out sides make sure that it is fully closed and locked, and if there’s an awning on the top of it make sure that’s securely locked as well.

Even such a basic thing as disconnecting the 240V power or the water and the sullage pipe is forgotten by people occasionally.

Look on the van roof, for example, to check you don’t have a tree branch caught in the Winegard television antenna, or that the green tree-ants haven’t visited overnight. The other check is the opposite – make a quick check under the van. Look for any bubble or cut on the inside sidewall of a tyre, for example. Check the ladder is still fixed into the rack underneath the van.

Be sure that the chocks are not still in place against the tyres when you’re about to drive away. Make sure the corner jacks are wound fully up before moving off, because I’ve seen people drive off with these jacks down. They don’t last very long, as a motor vehicle has a lot more power than a corner jack leg does so the leg always loses.

Footplates prevent corner jack feet sinking into the dirt and are easy to make. These are cut from an old Teflon kitchen cutting board.

images CORNER JACKS

To quickly and easily raise or lower corner jacks some travellers use portable electric battery drills to wind the screw thread. As another option, you might consider fitting hydraulic corner jacks to your van. They’re a great bonus, painless to use, and there’s no point in hurting your back needlessly. Most corner jacks have only a small metal foot, which does tend to bury itself into anything except concrete. Some form of larger, hard plate under the foot prevents this, and most van dealers now stock several kinds of very effective footplates which will fit under any corner jack leg.

When you wind up your corner jacks to leave the site, be sure you pick up all the matching loose footplates that go with them as well.

Instead of bending down to collect them you can buy plates called leg-beds, which remain on the corner jack foot. There is a bracket attached to the plate, with a bolt which goes through the end of the leg, usually with a Nyloc nut so the footplate won’t fall off while travelling. Small U-bolts can be used to attach footplates to those corner jack legs which lie close to the chassis rails when wound up. If you carry anything else on the A-bar, such as bicycles, the hydraulic pump for the van corner jacks, a generator or any other item, now is the time to check them also. Don’t forget to close the front window and/or stone cover. Many trailers carry items on the rear bumper, and they should form part of the checking process as well. Inside the van things have a bad habit of falling off or down while travelling, and though non-slip mats on a bench or shelf are good, it’s not as safe as placing things on the van floor – on the floor they can’t fall any further.

It’s useful to press van windows in from the outside to help them latch shut properly. Grit on window sills often makes windows hard to wind fully closed from inside. From experience we’ve found the only safe way to be sure they are shut properly is to walk around and check each window before moving off in the morning, and for the minute or two this takes, again it is cheap insurance. Pushing it shut takes most of the pressure off the winding mechanism as well as helping make sure each one is fully closed. When the internal latch is snibbed properly there is often a definite ‘click’ feel to the window frame as it notches shut. In rain, if a van window isn’t properly closed when towing, water is almost guaranteed to seep or be driven inside.

Small U-bolts can be used to attach footplates for those corner jack legs which lie close to the chassis rails when raised up.

The last thing we do before moving off is to check the van’s rear lights – stop lights, tail lights and turn indicators. This might take ten seconds to do, but it might also prevent you from getting a traffic infringement notice, or stop someone from running into your rear end. Clearly, it keeps your van safer when other people know your driving intentions.

Finally, allow ample travelling time during the day to get to your planned destination. For overall trip time, work out that if you’re going to tow at 85 or 90 kph then you’ll be on the road for at least X number of hours. Make sure that you have enough fuel so you can get there, or that fuel is available along your route when you will need it.

CASE STUDY

images Door keys

Although this might seem an odd item to think about, have you pulled the van keys out of the van door after locking it and made sure that you’ve put them back in your pocket, or in the tow vehicle? One chap we saw did drive off leaving the keys in the van door. About 200 m down the road, another driver tooted him, and gave him the embarrassing information that the door on his van had come open! He hunted along the roadsides and found the keys quite a way back, in the gutter. Don’t let that happen to you – check. It’s often the very simple things that can bring you undone.

Reversing, backing aids, unhitching

Reversing

Typically, Murphy’s Law takes effect and mistakes happen while you’re trying to back your caravan into a site, because that’s when people from the site next door and from across the road, and often anyone else who doesn’t have anything better to do, will come and watch you reverse. Many of the watchers may not be able to do any better than you, so close your mind to them and just back your van into your site.

The only real difference between backing into an easy site and a tight site is that you’ll just need to be a bit more careful reversing when there is less clearance around the van. Nothing else really changes, except the mind sees it as a much more difficult job. It’s very satisfying to simply pull up near your site, get out and have a look, then just back your van straight in, in one or two quick and smart moves.

If you want to back a van or trailer, looking at it from the tow coupling, think about the ‘pivot point’. When you’re backing, the combination hinges at the tow coupling, but the van pivots on the axles. If you physically push the front of the van across to the left, the back of the van will pivot round the axles and go to the right. So if you steer the back of your tow vehicle to the left that will make the back of the caravan go to the right. For an opposite example, when you want to make the back of the van move in left, towards the kerb, steer or turn your steering wheel to the right, when reversing with your hands at the top of the steering wheel. In other words, the back of your caravan then goes the opposite way to the direction you turn your steering wheel.

Some people prefer instead to reverse by keeping their hands at the bottom of the steering wheel and, in this case, whichever way you turn the bottom of the steering wheel is the way the back of the caravan will go. Reversing can get confusing, so you really need to try out whether hands at the top or bottom of the steering wheel feels best for you.

images Advice

When reversing at any time, for safety, you need to have an observer behind the van, perhaps with a small hand-held radio talking to the radio in your tow vehicle, to advise you to stop in case you back too close to something that could damage your van or other property.

images BACKING COURSES

For many drivers, reversing is a slow process to learn, and really the only way to do it is to successfully pass a professionally run course which teaches you properly how to back a trailer, such as at METEC or similar. Driving schools can probably give you advice about where you could go to learn to tow and back a caravan. Some caravan dealers or van service workshops hold caravan-towing courses. For best results, pay the money to learn with a commercial driver training company which will guarantee to teach you how to safely and correctly tow and reverse your particular trailer. Unless you’ve learnt when young by backing farm trailers or have been driving semitrailers for years, professional help is without question the best way to learn how to back a trailer properly. Almost any method will work, as long as you closely follow the proven and set steps.

Backing is a most important skill if you tow a trailer, and something that you should not skimp dollars or cut practice on. The only real way to learn is to put in quite a few hours of honest practice. Some caravan parks offer the option of having a caravan park staff person help guide you back or, in fact, back your caravan into a site. If you’re at all worried there’s absolutely no disgrace in asking for help from van park staff. In any case, it is a much cheaper option than damaging your van, by thinking that you can do something when you’re not really sure how, or if you simply don’t feel up to it.

If you are new to backing a caravan or campervan and do decide to learn your own way, find yourself a large empty car park on a quiet afternoon when there are no other cars about, and practice. For safety, make sure that both the mirrors are on your tow vehicle, and have a reliable observer to guide, watch and advise you about your blind spots.

The secret of backing is to move your combination as slowly and steadily as possible, and also to move the steering wheel slowly as well. Wait and see what happens when you do something; experiment, but do it slowly. Steering reaction of the vehicle and trailer in reverse is much sharper, faster and more noticeable for the same speed, than when towing forwards. It can be an advantage to use 4WD low range to move backwards as slowly as possible. Automatic transmission makes practising easier, because the vehicle can be made to creep back slowly and steadily.

Axle position under the van will largely determine how quickly or sharply the van turns when backing. Some vans can react quickly to even quite small steering changes when being backed. Light singleaxle vans can be fast to react, compared with a bigger and heavier tandem axle van.

Watch a semitrailer slowly travelling around a square corner at a normal roadway intersection. Check how much the inside tyres of the trailer’s rear axle group are actually dragged sideways and forwards as the truck goes around the corner. The same effect, although smaller, occurs with a tandem trailer. The front tyre scuffs, tending to resist the turning effort. A single wheel rolls much easier.

As a rule, the closer to the back of the van the axles are, and the longer the A-bar is, the slower it will react when you reverse the tow vehicle. The more overhang behind the axles, the sharper and greater its reaction to steering will be when backing. The van may reach a point where you can’t make it turn any more, because it has stopped at almost right angles to the vehicle and with the A-bar hard up against the tow vehicle’s rear bumper bar, where it will quite likely damage the back of your tow vehicle. This is known as jackknifing, so be aware of it. Just remember, if you turn your van too quickly or sharply in reverse, you can do quite a bit of damage.

After some easier practice, try to back in a straight line by only looking in your mirrors. If you see your van appearing in one mirror, turn the steering wheel at the top slowly toward that mirror. That will cancel the van’s movement in that direction, and if you’re travelling slowly it’ll bring the van back into a straight line. If you see the van quickly appear in the other mirror then you know you’ve turned the steering wheel a little bit too much, or you might be moving back a bit fast. After a while, you’ll find that you can back the van in quite a straight line by just keeping the van in view along an edge of the mirror, because as soon as you see it in a mirror, you can cancel the movement by steering towards that mirror.

images OBSERVERS

A note of caution here: when reversing at any time, for safety you need to have an observer behind the van, perhaps with a small handheld radio talking to the radio in your tow vehicle, or maybe with a whistle, to advise you to stop in case you back too close to something that could damage your van or another piece of property.

Very importantly, if you have a guide or helper, this person must understand that if you can’t see them in your mirrors and vice versa, or if they don’t have a radio so you can clearly hear them, the safety system won’t work.

To rely on hand signals you must have your observer standing in such a position that you can see him/her. There is no substitute for making the vehicle safe, then getting out and walking back behind the van to have a look for yourself. Perhaps you will see a tree branch over the top of the van that your guide can’t see. You might find that the ground slopes, and tends to make your caravan steer in that direction, something that maybe your observer would not comprehend.

The V-bracket removes for travelling, and the mounting bracket remains, bolted underneath the tow ball itself.

The thin lever winds to tighten or loosen a clamping mechanism to apply pressure to the two disc pads inside the housing. These drag along the dull-coloured carbonsteel bar, which is anchored at its front to the vehicle tow head.

Backing aids

To help with coupling and tow ball alignment there is a backing aid commonly called a ‘marriage saver’. It’s called that because the passenger no longer has to stand by and shout or signal, trying to sometimes futilely direct the driver to reverse and line up the coupling and tow ball. Made in two parts, one is a holding bracket kept in place by the tow ball bolt. The second part is a V-shaped bracket, stored away when not being used, which drops down into the fitted bracket. The Couplemate V-bracket guides the ball coupling into line with the tow ball as the vehicle backs toward the van, moves it across as needed, and centres it above the tow ball.

To line up, the coupling needs to be only an inch or so above the tow ball height. If these two heights are correct, the V-bracket also helps prevent the ball coupling from hitting the rear of the tow vehicle and damaging it, which can easily happen. With the coupling backed right into the bottom of the V-bracket, by winding down the jockey wheel the ball should fit straight up into the coupling. On vans up to medium-weight this device works quite well.

Sideways movement at the coupling is fairly easy with a jockey wheel, which can roll in any direction, but the V-guide won’t work if the van support uses a footplate instead of a wheel. In this case, if you attempt to use the ‘marriage saver’ guide to force the ball coupling across into line, you will probably do some damage. The corner jacks should be raised before you attempt to hitch, or they could also suffer some damage. Remember also, if the wheels are chocked in place properly, chocks are intended to prevent the van from moving anywhere easily.

Unhitching

If you’re going to back into a site to unhitch, and your van has an anti-sway brake fitted, make sure that you remove it. Take it off first, so that you can turn your trailer at a fairly sharp angle to your tow vehicle if needed.

An anti-sway brake is a solid steel bar which slides inside a rigid housing, and it won’t bend without some damage. The carbon steel bar has two discs quite like brake pads clamped against it. Clamp tension, therefore resistance to movement, is adjusted by tightening the handle on a screw thread to squeeze the brake discs against the bar.

This brake is anchored at each end by a small ball coupling, at the front to a mini tow ball mounted near the proper tow ball. The other end is attached to another ball on the side of the van A-bar, on a strengthening plate. This bar runs parallel to the van A-bar, and makes a roughly trapezoid shape, with the four anchor points being the tow ball, the van, and the two ends of the anti-sway brake. The hard friction on the brake tends to keep the van in a fairly direct line behind the vehicle. The rod closes up into the slide or opens out as the vehicle turns. When the van sways, from whatever cause, the anti-sway brake resists strongly and tries to prevent that movement from happening.

The red-coloured breakaway cable is about 100 mm longer than the safety chains at full length. When the chains actually detach the brakes will automatically apply.

images Tip

From experience we’ve found it best to position the on-site van just slightly below level at the front end. Then, if you have an airconditioner, the condensate will usually run forward off the van rather than pool on the roof, as will any rain, and sink water usually runs out more easily.

images A-BAR HEIGHT

Jockey wheels usually have positive-step locating bars on the vertical shaft, which are meant to fit securely into a matching slot inside the clamp on the A-bar. They can’t be easily adjusted by just loosening the clamp and sliding them. Before you get out the wind-up jockey wheel or hydraulic jack, place it in the A-bar bracket, and tighten the holding clamp – think about position and height. When the van is unhitched will the jockey wheel still wind down low enough, or up high enough, to adjust the van until it’s practically level on sloped ground? Equally, consider how much lift you will need to raise the coupling high enough to clear the tow ball.

Jacking up the A-bar lowers the tension on the level ride bars, and when the tension is off the chains and bars, it’s easy to remove them. Undo the two caravan towing safety chains, and unhook the breakaway device cable from the tow vehicle. Disconnect the 12V power cable, and that should have the vehicle almost unhitched. Lower the A-bar again. Undo the padlock from the coupling, lift up the coupling handle and latch it open. Re-jack the van and the tow coupling should just pop straight off the tow ball.

Although it doesn’t happen much, if both the vehicle and van are not fairly level, as in the normal flat towing position, when you want to take the coupling off the ball sometimes you may not be able to get them apart. A typical case is where the van has been backed up into a site and is fairly level, but the front of the vehicle is still quite a bit lower, leaning down to the roadway. The higher above normal towing angle and position the coupling is, the more difficult it can be to separate it from the tow ball. The cause is the tongue inside the coupling not clearing the tow ball, underneath where it touches the ball. To get the angle flat enough for the two parts to separate can sometimes take a bit of thought and vehicle repositioning.

Once the coupling is off the tow ball, move the tow vehicle a few feet forward out of the way, then you can lower the van A-bar down. Raising and lowering the van is easy if you have a hydraulic jockey wheel. Just pump the handle to raise, or undo the bleed screw on the hydraulic pump body to lower. With a screw-type jockey wheel winding up can be heavy work, but lowering is no trouble at all, because you merely have to unwind until the van is as level as needed.

Quick-drop corner jacks are strong and easy to use but must be kept vertical.

images T-SQUARE LEVEL

It’s simple to determine when the van is reasonably level if you have a T-square level fitted on the A-bar.

If the van is not level from side to side you may need to consider putting a packing piece or wedges under the low side tyres. This is usually as simple as moving the van back or forward a little, placing the packing in the low spot, then moving the van back up onto the packing piece. It’s best that the packer is big enough in size for the tyre to sit fully on it. When the van has become relatively level north–south, and east–west if that is important to you, wind or drop or pump the corner jacks down.

images CHOCKS

Part of the unhitching safety process is to put chocks at the van wheels to ensure that it won’t move when disconnected from the vehicle. For best results use four chocks, ahead and behind at two opposite wheels. Often after backing into a site, as you remove the tow coupling, there can still be some kind of sideways kick or other skewing pressure on the van, which can cause the coupling to jerk as it comes off the tow ball. Any kind of slope, or even a pothole in which one wheel could be sitting, can be enough to cause this reaction, usually multiplied down the length from the van axle to the coupling.

Keep fingers and shins clear when the coupling lifts off the ball. Even on flat ground, placing wheel chocks against tyres is a safety option, rather than simply leaving the van to sit there. Pull the van’s handbrake on sufficiently hard to prevent the van moving, although in general the force available on the cable from the handbrake lever is not great. The handbrake and the chocks together will usually keep the van in a safe position.

CASE STUDY

images Tow chains

Unfortunately, if you turn tightly and the safety tow chains are too short, damage will result. We came across a chap who had a brand-new caravan fitted behind his tow vehicle, and he had just trimmed the length of both safety tow chains. Apparently he didn’t like them almost dragging on the ground, so he decided to cut several extra links off. It’s clear he didn’t assess the chain length practically, and they were simply a couple of inches too short. Backing into a van site for the first time after the snip job, he did some damage to the tow bar, and to the uncrossed safety chains on his caravan.

As a rough guide, the chains, when crossed under the tow ball and fixed to the tow vehicle, should only let the coupling and ball separate enough so that the coupling will not drag on the ground. If fitted with a breakaway switch, as a general rule the breakaway cable needs to be long enough that the dowel pin is promptly pulled out to activate the van’s wheel brakes when the safety chains exceed their maximum reach.

Hints

I find it a relaxing and really interesting time, wandering around vans belonging to others, looking at some of the very clever and not so clever ideas. There are so many different little hints, tips and clues when it comes to towing a caravan that there’s possibly enough for a book in its own right. In various sections through this book I’ve listed just some of them.

At many caravan accessory places you can buy a pole carrier to carry fishing rods, van annexe poles or other long items. Usually made from PVC or polythene pipe with a diameter of maybe 6 or 8 inches, they commonly have a single hinged or screwed end-cap, and a locking facility
Most are fitted on or under the van with worm-drive hose clamps or similar. There is a drawback if you’re parked somewhere where there is restricted sideways room, as sometimes it’s not possible to pull the item out far enough to remove it. A pole carrier with double-ended caps would be an advantage, because you can just take long items out of the side of the van with the most clearance.

A common type of pump - pack handwash container has a pressdown tap attached to the bottle by a screw-on collar. Many travellers place the container on the van sink where it’s easy to access and use, but in hot weather these bottles often pressurise, dribble contents out, and make a mess. The normal reason for this is the container air-pressurising simply from heat through a van window. To prevent this, just loosen off the screwtop a few turns. Air pressure build-up will leak out round the threads on the screw-top, instead of forcing the soap out the pump spout.

When you put the awning up, in most cases the flat nylon strap which you use to pull it open with can then be removed by sliding it fully out through the groove at the open front end of the awning roller. If you take it off it won’t flap around or need tying down when it’s stored.

The full-length front section of this type of pole carrier slides out to give excellent access to its contents.

Strong, custom-made storage containers fitted along the van’s chassis rails make good use of otherwise wasted storage space.

Make sure all the paperwork and instruction booklets for your trailer and appliances are in your possession, then read and keep them. Just as importantly, compile and keep a list of countrywide repairers for every major item on and in your van, because you can never be sure where or when you’ll need them.

In the northern high-humidity areas a problem inside vans is condensation, dampness and, potentially, mould. A couple of proprietary items we’ve tried have worked. They’re actually a form of absorbent silica gel, and the material comes from supermarkets in little buckets ready to place inside the van. For quite some time they will soak up airborne moisture inside the van, and that definitely helps to minimise mould, but they do need to be monitored for replacement.

By fitting a few brackets under the chassis or frame members it’s simple to carry light items which are fairly flat under the van floor. Typical examples are fold-up crab pots and a ladder.

You may require a particular socket or wheel brace to undo nuts on your specific vehicle or van wheels. Make sure your main tool kit includes that particular tool. With locking wheel nuts, be very certain that you know where the key or socket to undo them is stored.

Some newer types of plastic footplates have a built-in moat which you can fill with water or ant deterrent powder. Generally, this does help keep ants out of your van.

Don’t put up with eating from low chairs and high tables. As it’s difficult to extend chair leg height, just hacksaw a few inches off the bottom of the table legs instead, to make non-messy eating a possibility again. Use the piece of the first leg you sawed off as a length template for the other three, and replace the original plastic caps on the newly sawn-off legs. After all, it’s not as though the camping table cost the earth and is irreplaceable, and convenience is worth much more than money anyway.

It can pay big dividends to carry a few different and useful electrical and mechanical books, as a specific reference, and more especially if you are going somewhere a bit out of the way. As I wrote in my 4WD Survival Guide, you may not be able to fix your own problem, but the chances of you coming across someone who can solve the problem, or help you fix it, are fairly good. That’s even more likely to happen if you have the books, and hopefully the tools, that you need to do the job.

Vans get dirty, and water restrictions mean that you can’t really wash your van every week. Many vans now have a slab-sided plastic or fibreglass look with no aluminium planking effect. Like a motor vehicle panel, the smooth finish has no ripples to hold dirt, and should be much easier to wash clean. After washing any van carefully, thoroughly polish it with one of those top-quality silicon polishes. We’ve found this will help keep the outside of most vans clean for a few months of normal travel as dirt doesn’t seem to stick easily to the coated surfaces.

If possible, buy a yellow fluoro globe for the van’s outside light, as it doesn’t attract insects, gives off almost no heat and gives reasonable security lighting without glare.

For backing into tight spots some travellers have also fitted a hitch receiver for a front-mounted tow ball. It’s usually mounted off-centre to give the best view preferred by the driver. The reason for this is often a need to fit the trailer into a tight storage space, perhaps along the side of a house wall, fence or similar. With the van connected off-centre, it can be pushed forward quite easily but the driver can still see and judge clearances because the tow vehicle is offset. It’s claimed to be much easier to push your trailer into a tight space rather than reverse it.

Lubricants dry out when exposed to weather, so if your jockey wheel is hard to wind up, as many are, it’s a simple job to lubricate the bolt-thread with a small squirt of Lanotec or similar long-lasting lubricant. It can make a considerable amount of difference to the winding effort needed.

Weather-wise, even if it’s a hot day to begin with, unless you know more than the weather bureau don’t leave your van on-site in the northern half of Australia with its roof vents wide open. If rain is likely or even possible, close any roof hatch down to the storm position. Close any windows enough to prevent wind-driven rainwater entering your van. Don’t risk leaving just the screen door locked for ventilation because rain can and will blow in through the insect mesh. Remember, it takes a lot less time to cool a closed up, hot van down than it does to dry out wet beds, seats, floors and cupboards.

In areas where there is burning off, be aware of floating ash and partially burnt grass particles blowing on the breeze, landing on your awning/annexe or getting inside the van through the insect mesh. On polycanvas material this often still-hot ash can damage and even melt the material surface. We kept our awning wet to prevent damage, especially in Darwin, during long-grass burning off periods.

To make sure that the 12V light and power cable between the tow vehicle and caravan won’t drag on the ground and become damaged, put the cable through the coupling handle, or consider using a strong rubber band looped over or fixed around the coupling handle, through which you can suspend the 12V cable.

In van parks electricity is supplied on a powered site, so if you feel the park’s security lighting isn’t adequate, leaving the external light on your van’s doorside wall on overnight as a safety light is sensible. To do the right thing, you need to be satisfied your light won’t annoy the neighbours.

Common seven-pin round Utilux plugs may not fit through the coupling handle, and might need to be removed and replaced, so the cable itself can be put through the handle. Flat seven-pin plugs usually go through the handle easily.

Fridges, catches, hinges, shelves, weight

Appliances, bending, sliding, packing, cooking, extracting

Railing, hanging, reading

Fire, smoke, cooling, warming

Watching, listening, seeing, locking, detecting

Plugging, pumping, watering, hosing

Filtering, tanking, in hot water, showering

Camping, sharing, freezing, washing

Convenience value, improving, seating, flooring, bedding

Balancing, smelling, steps and mats, ants, venting, mowing

Hints

Fridges, catches, hinges, shelves, weight

Fridges

Whether you have a campervan, a full-size van or a 4WD with a roof-tent, one of the most important items when travelling is the fridge. Check that the magnetic seal around the door does keep in the cold. Before heading off on your travels, testrun it for a few days, with some items inside for it to cool or freeze, to be sure that it is in good condition and will freeze contents properly.

With a three-way fridge it is important that the gas section is working correctly and safely. An accredited gas technician is the proper person to service gas appliances. For a compressor fridge, or a three-way one, checking the electrical operation is simple – just switch it on in either 12V or 240V mode. It must stay at the normal refrigeration temperature, as well as keep ice-cream properly cold in the freezer. The normal temperature inside the fridge is about 4°C, and in the freezer compartment ideally it should be close to –18°C.

Catches

When you stop for a break and check the van, it’s annoying to find that the contents of a cupboard are all over the floor because a door wasn’t shut properly, but few door catches pop open of their own accord. Almost always such happenings are due to operator error.

Consider a large pot drawer fitted under the stove across the rear wall on a rear-kitchen van. Those fitted in many bigger vans usually slide on pull-out rollers for easy access to the often-heavy contents. Every time the driver in the tow vehicle applies the brakes, the contents in that pot drawer want to slide to the front, and that’s where the catch is. That’s just another reason why it’s important all the catches in your van are sound, and do latch securely. Each cupboard needs a barrier across the bottom front of the cupboard space, against which the door shuts from outside, to prevent items sliding forward from inside and possibly opening a door.

If the eight mounting screws are put into solid timber, two standard hinges are usually strong enough for a common swing-up cupboard door, as some door weight can also be taken by the catch mechanism.

Hinges

Cupboard doors need hinges. Whether the doors swing sideways or lift up seems to be a simple owner preference. If the cupboard fascia is of chipboard or other man-made material, unless care is taken with placing screws for the hinges, they can work loose or pull free. If the door can move about due to loose hinges or a loose catch, it won’t stay latched properly, and that’s just asking for the cupboard contents to be strewn about the van.

Some of the tougher vans, capable of hard off-road use, have full-length pin hinges or piano hinges on cupboard doors. The entire door is supported along its swinging axis, and these doors seem to be very sound. For a door which swings sideways, a piano hinge is stronger than the normal two hinges, but for a swing-up door in a normal van, it’s probably not necessary.

Shelves

Most manufacturers could put more effort into the practical design of van cupboards. Whether you have a hard-top or a pop-top van, most cupboards will benefit by having a half-height shelf fitted into them. That way, things can be stored in the cupboard separately on shelves, rather than having a pile of items, and needing to sort through the pile each time you want one item.

With shelves this doesn’t have to occur. Clothing or linen, being fairly light, is best stored in any higher cupboards in the van, so the simple answer is to fit several shelves across any cupboards to be used for folded clothing or smaller and lighter items.

Half-height shelves make organising almost all cupboard contents much easier, particularly clothing, towels and similar.

Weight

Don’t load anything heavy into overhead cupboards. The further from the axle centre items are, the more they move about due to movement of the van body on its suspension, so the chances of damage can be greater. Any heavy items loaded up high also add fractionally to the leverage exerted above the van springs because of their weight. If at all possible, place clothes and things like bicycle helmets, which take up space but weigh very little, in overhead cupboards. Pots, tinned foods, vacuum cleaners and other heavy items should all be stored in cupboards as close as practical to floor level.

Appliances, bending, sliding, packing, cooking, extracting

Appliances

Appliances and equipment fitted in a van are always personal and usually determined by the kind of camping or travelling you choose to do. Most van manufacturers offer a choice of an oven or a microwave. Where an oven is fitted under the van’s normal gas stove, usually there is a griller tray taking up space below the gas jets as well, reducing room for another big drawer or two below the stove. Unless you really need the oven or griller, it seems the pot drawer would be of much more value.

The type of cooking you prefer will determine whether you need an oven in your van, but the majority of people we’ve talked with believe that the convection microwave is the best choice. Some practice and research is usually needed to find out just how foods will cook in a convection microwave.

The positioning of a microwave is very important. It needs to be at a level where the user can easily see the revolving tray. To be able to see into it, and use it effectively and safely, it should be up around shoulder or chest level. The microwave door shouldn’t be at knee level or even at hip level, for user safety. We have seen microwaves at knee height, which does not give easy access and is not safe for children. However, in many vans the location is dictated by the placement of cupboards or other items. If you can design your new van, or plan to do an update, microwave location is certainly one point which needs to be allowed for. For additional safety, microwave ovens must be firmly secured in place, by enclosing them or fixing the feet into position.

Most people we’ve talked with feel the fan-forced convection microwave offers just about every cooking convenience, and wouldn’t bother fitting an oven in their van. However, a gas-heated oven will work when 240V power is not available.

Bending

In most cases, when you fit a refrigerator inside a van, the positioning of the fridge is generally determined by practicality and cupboard layout. The bottom of the fridge is commonly on floor level. For many people it can be difficult to get down on hands and knees to get to the crisper, or to take the beer out from the bottom shelf. If you have the chance to have a van built, definitely consider having the fridge built up off the floor, perhaps sufficiently to put a pot drawer underneath it. Raising the fridge could result in the top surface of the fridge intruding into bench space, but the gain of another drawer may well be a bonus.

Insufficient or impractical bench working space in a van can become really annoying. Consider if the van has enough bench space. Is there room to put the food plates out? Is there enough room to place the paper towels and kettle and serviettes and other things on the bench?

Sliding

Space in a caravan is usually at an absolute premium, but there is almost always some way to find more storage space. For example, very often a lot of good, useable space above the tops of food containers or bottles is wasted. Measuring the wasted space over four shelves in a sliding pantry might show that by relocating the existing racks slightly a fifth sliding drawer could be fitted in. Rather than having a single slide-out pantry section containing four shelves it might be better to have a door which opens with sliding drawers to pull out individually.

For storage in a van, almost nothing beats wire baskets and sliding pantries. Some of the franchised multi-storage companies like Howards Storage World offer very good household storage ideas, and many of them could be incorporated into a van, perhaps modified slightly to suit your needs. When you’re thinking about buying a van, look really carefully at the amount of storage space for food and cooking items. If you already own a van, there are a lot of caravan maintenance and service businesses around who can resurrect and remake your old cupboards, or build new cupboards to your requirements.

Packing

Caravans move about on the road surface as they are towed along, and so do the contents inside the van. There is potential for damage to some items. No matter what items you’re carrying in storage cupboards or containers, if they can bounce up and down, then in some way on rougher roads they will chafe and may crack or break. Alloy cans do chafe through, on corrugations bottle caps pop, and on bad roads glass will occasionally break for no obvious reason. In the fridge, sometimes even those long-life cardboard milk cartons, with the little plastic flip-up spouts, will pop open if the roads are rough.

Storage containers of similar sizes should be stored on the same shelf, making measurement of unused space above them fairly simple.

Coffee and jam, in bottles, is not a good mix with broken glass. Liquid from cans of fizzy soft drink will cover a very large area in a fridge, cupboard or shelf when they leak. Plastic vinegar bottles can wear through by rubbing against a can of baked beans. Labels will easily wear off anything, and pantries can be a hotbed of destruction.

As a rule, good bitumen road doesn’t cause many chafe or wear problems at all, but don’t rely on this until you’ve done a few trips and checked things out for yourself. Harder items probably won’t be damaged, as main road surface doesn’t generally cause problems with this type of packaging. Chances are that you could travel for years without any real damage to pantry items.

However, in direct proportion, the worse the road surface is, obviously the more chance there is for stored things to be damaged. On any gravel road or even on rough bitumen the damage potential from potholes, corrugations, bouncing and road vibrations can change, sometimes greatly. The end result can be the destruction of some contents.

Gas-burner grillers make good toast, but so do pop-up electric toasters. If you don’t remote camp and use LPG, does your stove need a griller, or would another sliding drawer be more useful?

For rough road travelling, put some form of padding or protection underneath items, as well as between them. If at all possible, put heavier things, like sewing machines or generators, over the axle, or as close to it as you can get, to reduce their movement and help with van balance. Van suspension, tyre pressures and travelling speed can very much determine how easily the van contents will travel, and sometimes even a small change to one of these factors can make a big difference. If you’ll be driving on gravel roads or rough roads often or continuously, this is important to remember.

There are some easy tricks to minimise packing hassles, and it seems thoughtful travellers are always inventing more practical ways to prevent contents damage. Skill in packing things neatly into small spaces is valuable. Pieces of cut cardboard, linoleum or carpet will all act as packers between items, helping to prevent breakage. Newspaper or cardboard tubes are also effective packers or spacers. So is plastic bubble wrap, and many of the newer non-slip plastic-type materials. Inside drawers, pack or wrap food or bottles in plastic non-slip material. It can be hard to put into place, but being fairly thin, it doesn’t take up much space and it does resist chafing from movement.

Place plastic food containers or bottles between glass jars, so that glass can’t chafe or rattle against glass.

Recycle plastic bottles and reduce chafing at the same time, by cutting the taper or tops off larger plastic bottles, so that other glass or plastic containers will fit or stack inside them. Plastic shopping bags from the supermarket actually make good packers. For example, you can store plates, one to each plastic bag, stacked in a pile. Little damage will happen to them, yet you’ve hardly used any amount of packing or space at all. Wetsuit foam stubby holders make excellent packers for cups and glasses. Melamine is definitely preferable to china if you travel over anything other than smooth roads. As a rule, all packing is re-useable.

Plastic baskets also make very good storage containers, especially for smaller bottles and packets, such as the medicine-cabinet stuff. Tupperware is strong, and great for packing things in. Items packed into sealed plastic storage containers tend to keep well, generally don’t get knocked around, and they don’t get covered in dust. We store our kettle in the four-litre plastic bucket we use in the laundry for clothes washing, and several other Tupperware containers sit neatly on top of the bucket.

When travelling over really rough roads towels and seat cushions make good packers in the microwave and on top of loose items in drawers to minimise movement. So do partly-inflated empty wine cask bladders.

Cooking

If you stay in caravan parks a lot, check out the camp kitchen because quite a few have effective ovens if you want to cook a roast dinner or a fruit cake or similar, and your site fee usually covers the park’s gas or electricity cost anyway. On a van bench a basic flat cooktop takes up little room, and the newer cooktops offer a combination of gas jets and electric hotplates, a very useful option for those travellers who have or prefer to use 240V power. While some people really do like ovens for their cooking, others can’t see the need for either oven or cooktop!

There are several different types of gas cookers commonly fitted to vans. One of the most popular is the Spinflo Mini Grill four-burner gas cooker, and for boiling kettles and cooking they are quite effective. These usually have a griller underneath.

But if you’d rather barbecue or cook outside the van there are several types of excellent portable cookers. The refillable gas bottle type of barbecue, with burners heating a flat or ribbed plate, is effective as a general-purpose barbecue and also makes a good stove for cooking. Some vans have a fixed external-opening barbecue, fitted into the van wall, which slides out for use. Note that this uses up some internal cupboard space.

Another type of barbecue fits directly onto a 4 kg LPG portable gas bottle outlet via a riser pipe, onto which the round barbecue plate is then screwed. By simply lighting the gas jet underneath the plate, it works very effectively. These can easily cook a meal for four people. Weight and size can be a problem with this plate if van storage space is minimal, and as with any LPG bottle it has to be refilled at a proper supplier.

These cheap, lightweight and very efficient butane-gas-powered cookers do an excellent job for their small size, and are easy to store.

One cooker becoming more common is the cheap, lightweight gas canister type of stove, with a single gas ring and piezo ignition. There is a matching barbecue plate of the proper size to fit. These are the most efficient small barbecues and/ or cooking tools around, and are certainly adequate for two people. They give instant and high heat from a small disposable can of butane gas, and we’ve found one can is usually enough to cook about six meals. The fuel is cheap to buy, as is the burner itself. The alloy barbecue plate can be a bit hard to find so try disposal stores as well as the usual camping shops.

Extracting

Extractor fans over stoves in vans have become thinner and more efficient. They’re now usually small, slimline, goodlooking units, most with a two-speed fan and a built-in light. These little extractor fans get rid of cooking smells from the van quite quickly.

Even microwave heat and smells can be lessened when the extractor fan is going. Most require 240V, but if you bushcamp and still want the effectiveness, fit a 12V extractor fan. If you have a van and you like cooking inside, as an efficient and good value item you certainly do need to have an extractor fan fitted.

images Tip

Boil the kettle underneath the extractor fan so that the steam gets exhausted instead of condensing on the walls.

Railing, hanging, reading

Railing

Towel rails in a van are very much a matter of personal choice. Maytow Caravans & RV Accessories made an expanding trellis-type, lift-out clothes-drying rack, and although they’re not cheap, they are good, easy to use and worth looking for. The two holding brackets are fixed by six pop-rivets onto an outside van wall, pop-riveting through the raised sections in the aluminium wall cladding.

Putting a blob of silicon into each pop-rivet hole helps keep water out. When fitted, the rack is very stable, and effective. The only drawback with the expanding section, which has nine strong rails, is that the fancy push-on chromed end-caps sometimes pop off, so you need to keep at least one of those as a spare.

Inside towel rails can be easily fitted by screwing a normal household rail on a wall at a convenient place, such as alongside the sink for tea towels.

For a very neat place to store bath towels, it’s simple to screw a chrome pipe rail up inside the Four Seasons hatch surround in the ceiling. Length is easily adjusted by cutting the pipe to the right length, so that it fits inside the surround with a few inches to spare, so the two chrome ends can be pressed on and screwed securely on to the surround side wall.

Plastic-coated spring wire, typically used to hang curtain flimsies, makes a very good drying hanger for smaller items. Cut to length, and with an eye screwed in each end, it can also be screwed to the surround side wall of a Four Seasons hatch, so that socks and jocks air-dry while stored out of the way.

Self-tapping screws or pop-rivets will fix the rack brackets to a van wall. To prevent any water access through the drilled holes into the van cladding, plug in and around the hole with silicon before putting in the fastener.

Hanging

Hanging hooks inside a van are generally so useful that you can’t have enough of them, and the bigger stick-on plastic type does a good job. You’ll need one hook to hang your towel on, one to hang the face washer on, one for the calendar and one for the torch near the van door. Inside cupboard doors, hooks can hold the fly swatter, washing-up gloves, car keys or your toilet bag, and on a wall above the kitchen bench a hook is a home for oven mitts.

Hooks are also good for neat routing of all those power cables stuffed out of sight behind the TV. Buy a dozen, because you’ll easily find a use for them.

Nine strong rails give plenty of hanging space for items to dry.

Reading

Almost every traveller reads books in their caravan. While you are still reading them they can be a nuisance to store, but making a tray to hold the current book is not difficult.

Find a van cupboard over a bench, where the space below it preferably isn’t vital, to locate the tray. As almost every book or magazine I’ve found will fit in them, one simple way is to buy one of those tough plastic A4-sized in/out trays used for office correspondence. Along with the tray, four small L-shaped metal brackets and a few screws are all that’s needed to make a very useful item. The brackets need to have the long leg about 150 mm in length, so that the overall depth of the bottom of the tray is only 6 inches or so down from the underside of the cupboard. If you make it much deeper, there seems to be a temptation to store bigger items than books in the tray.

To make the book rack, sit the tray right way up, on a table. On each side near the corners fix the L-brackets to the tray, with the longer leg facing vertically, and the shorter leg sticking out at right angles above the tray. Lift the tray up under the cupboard, with the tray opening facing out, and screw the shorter legs of the four L-brackets up into the underside of the cupboard. Instead of the woodscrews, if the cupboard floor is only single-thickness it might need small bolts to hold the tray up, with a large load-sharing washer under each bolt head inside the cupboard. Check that any fixings are smooth and don’t protrude where they can do damage to you, your books, or whatever is in the cupboard.

An alternative book tray, quite a bit more difficult to make but much nicer looking, can be cut from a sheet of clear polycarbonate about 3 or 4 mm thick. When it’s folded into A4 size, similar to an in/out tray with long sides and mounting flanges, it makes a very effective book rack when screwed up underneath one of the cupboards.

It always looks tidy, keeps the newspapers, books and diary or other important pieces of paper up off the bench, and makes good use of an otherwise unused space.

This very effective polycarbonate book rack makes use of otherwise wasted space under the cupboard.

Fire, smoke, cooling, warming

Fire

A gas leakage in a van is a potentially instant source of fire or explosion, which is why external doors on caravans are required to have unblocked gas vents located down low on them. LPG, being heavier than air, normally falls to the lowest point, where hopefully all the gas escapes to outside through the door vents. What if it doesn’t?

You must have a smoke detector in your van, and you must also have a fire extinguisher fitted. Using it may be a dreadful thing to contemplate, but actual fire is very much worse. Most importantly, be sure you know how the extinguisher works. Which little pin do you pull out, or what do you squeeze? How far away from the flames should you stand, and what kind of fire is it suitable for? Is it a spray, squirt, liquid, powder, foam or gas type? Read the instructions a few times, and be certain your partner also knows how to work it properly. Make sure it’s located somewhere you can reach it quickly and easily. Near the door is a good place to put it.

You may never need a fire extinguisher, but if you do, it could prove to be your most valuable tool. Check the small gauge for contents pressure at least once each year.

Smoke

Wanting the best fire safety information I asked a fire brigade officer what was the best smoke detector I could buy. Sadly, the chap said that in this current litigious climate, while it is part of their job to give advice, they were not allowed to recommend any particular make or type! I did at least get the comment that the major chain-stores stock quite good smoke detectors.

Has your van got a smoke detector fitted? If something burns, or begins to burn, while you are asleep, for early warning you must have a smoke alarm. The two types of detector are known as obscuration or optical alarms, and there are a few options for fitting them. The better ones can cost quite a few dollars. Some will regularly alarm when you burn the toast; some will even go off at the smell of hairspray.

images Caution

Make sure you have at least one smoke detector fitted in your caravan. Test it regularly, and learn to recognise the sound it makes. Smoke detectors in vans are now compulsory in some states – check if this applies to you!

images DETECTOR BATTERIES

The replaceable-battery type of smoke detector is fitted in most vans. It’s important to remember to change the battery at least yearly, and the best reminder trigger is something which is regular and well-promoted. The first day of winter, or the change to daylight saving time, or maybe the Melbourne Cup could be your own battery-change reminder.

Apparently it’s common to find a hassle with battery replacement. If your smoke detector beeps continuously or suddenly goes into alarm state, but you’ve just replaced the battery, check carefully for the type-number or model of battery fitted to it. Many detectors are very specific, and need to be fitted with a particular model of battery. Our detectors will only use a 9V battery with the model number ‘PC1604’. Be warned, because the major stores do not normally stock the specific and correct type, so you may have to hunt for the right one.

Cooling

Can you do without air conditioning? Once you’ve had an aircon unit in a van, you’ll probably find it difficult to go without one. A lot of air conditioners act as both heaters and coolers, so that can be a major advantage to travellers. An ordinary rotating fan simply cannot take away high atmospheric humidity, as typically experienced in Darwin or Cairns. If you plan to head to, or stay in, any of the hotter northern climates, then airconditioning isn’t really an option, it’s an easily justifiable necessity!

Short tempers and small sharp niggles seem to be more common in vans without air conditioning units. We’ve noticed that the occupiers of some of the older vans without aircon units can often be seen wandering about in shops and shopping centres, where there is air conditioning.

Even so, there are some drawbacks to air conditioning, and one is that it can physically take time to get used to it. Walking from a high-humidity and high-temperature outside into a chill and breezy van with a sealed-up interior is often asking to get a damn good cold, or much worse. Headaches are an offshoot of sharp hard cold, and we’ve seen quite a few examples of people going down with flu-like symptoms from such a situation. When we’re inside the van we run the aircon at the lowest setting, which is usually ample to dry off sweaty skin. If the heat is really wicked, we simply close the external door for a short time while the aircon runs.

When the temperature drop inside becomes noticeable we turn the aircon off and run the fan at low speed for some time, and that’s usually enough to keep the van pleasantly cool, not cold.

It doesn’t have to be a breath-taking 19 degrees cold inside on a 35 degree day. Five or eight degrees down is very noticeable, often enough of a temperature drop, and not such a shock to your body system when you walk back outside. Some travellers find that constant use of aircon inside a van really does dry out sinuses and can make life uncomfortable. That’s easy to fix – just turn it off for a while.

Don’t make the mistake of going out shopping and leaving the aircon fan on high speed with the van sealed up. Sitting on cold, damp upholstery and feeling cold and damp bed clothes on your return should remind you not to do it again. Just like the water droplets of condensation collect on the outside of a cold can of drink, so can the moisture droplets condense on your van’s interior. Condensation dribble marks down the inside of windows and on the outside of the microwave oven glass door are also giveaways.

images AIRCONS

Air conditioning units generally seem to be in two classes: roof-mounted and wallmounted. Some wall-mounted units can be very noisy and will disturb neighbours. Other vans have a split-system, with some of the unit fitted below the van floor. Some vans have household-type air conditioners slotted in through various windows, maybe surrounded by aluminium foil or plastic. Owner modifications, permanently fitting aircon units to older vans, can lead to unsafe or unstable results if workmanship is poor.

Some domestic air conditioners fitted into vans by owners are not well engineered. They may actually be over capacity for a caravan interior.

Travelling with this type of contraption can be a risky business, and I have seen one actually fall out of a van window onto the roadway. Equally, some owners carry their temporary aircon unit inside the van when travelling, but have made proper sliding panels in windows, and support arms, fitting the aircon unit neatly into the prepared space later when they stop.

images Advice

For remote camping or when away from regular mains power, virtually the only way to provide sufficient electrical power to run an aircon is with a generator which has enough output. Around 2kVa is considered ok, but for a caravanner the penalties are weight, size and cost. Larger mobile homes often have a big generator built in as part of their package.

images EXTRA FEES

To use an aircon definitely can have a high electrical operating cost. In a van park, you’re paying the site fees to use the electricity, but it’s not unknown for van park operators, when they spot a roofmounted or side-mounted aircon unit, to charge extra fees because they figure you will use more electricity.

images PLANNING

Because aircon is growing in popularity despite its cost, many van manufacturers are fitting the metal framework and heavy electrical wiring for aircon units into all vans they build as standard practice, with the knowledge that it is virtually impossible to add the necessary components after manufacture, and inclusion gives a valuable sales option.

Reverse-cycle heating warms the air in a van very effectively. We’ve found it often helps to reduce coughing, if your breathing is also affected by cold night air.

Warming

On any cold morning, warmth inside a caravan can be important. Heaters are an essential part of a caravan, but all heaters impose some level of fire risk. Like most experienced campers, we’ve even used the gas-stove burners to add heat quickly to the tent or van on a wickedly cold morning, but that can chew through gas reserves.

Gas-fired heaters quickly warm up the inside of a van, but are considered to have a high fire potential. The properly-designed gas heaters are great outside. They should only be used inside with great care, if at all, and never without proper supervision or ventilation, especially where kids are present. Naked flame inside a van is not a good thing, and some of the combustion fumes given off can be deadly.

With 240V power and a reverse-cycle air conditioning unit you have built-in heating and cooling, so you could use the aircon unit as a heater.

At good electrical stores you can find one of those safe, extremely effective little 240V ceramic micro-furnace electric fan heaters. They retain heat well, and they are very efficient, although expensive to buy.

Diesel-fired heaters are available, and although they are usually found in the bigger and more expensive mobile homes, these very efficient space heaters could be well worth considering in a caravan.

For last-resort warmth, the other fuelpowered heater is often made by Nissan or Toyota, and requires only a key to start. We’ve had to resort to that method as well sometimes when it’s wet, the generator won’t start, and we’ve run out of gas… The seating position makes getting dressed quite difficult!

images Caution

If your van has a roof-mounted aircon, carefully measure the overall height of the van. For safety, make a note of the minimum height for bridge or doorway clearance, and put a sticker with the height written on it somewhere easy to see on the tow vehicle’s dashboard.

Watching, listening, seeing, locking, detecting

Watching

Most people don’t seem to like being without television, so before going away again for the next trip the van’s TV also needs to be checked for operation. Antennas and leads, power supply and speaker leads are some items to look at. It’s quite amazing how things can deteriorate when they’ve only been stored in the van under the carport for six months since you last used them.

Television antennas and temporary no-speaks seem to go together in some caravans. Often, when setting up the antenna, the person on the inside yells at the one on the outside, while the one on the outside turns, lifts, twirls and moves the antenna about looking for the best, or sometimes even any, picture!

There isn’t a real option when it comes to TV antennas – all it takes is money. There are a lot of different makes and types of TV antenna, each with claims of fantastic signal reception and minor miracles. Some are mounted on wobbly plastic or homemade aluminium poles; some have a solid tower made of thick pipe and are fitted into a second jockeywheel clamp on the A-bar. All seem to take some time to erect and/or tune in. Ask around, find a satisfied traveller whose antenna has to work in lots of different places, and check out that particular make.

Probably the most common built-in roof-top antenna is the Winegard, as convenience and ease of operation makes this amplified antenna a winner.

To find out what a masthead amplifier is and does, ask at a reputable television antenna shop. It can make the difference between just getting a signal and getting good TV reception. Pop-top vans can often be fitted with this kind of antenna, but there are other alternatives, such as those directional and reflective types which can be mounted on a mast outside the van. The market is big and the choice is wide, so ask around before buying. I’d estimate that over time almost every traveller buys at least three different portable antennas before finding one that gives satisfaction with reception quality. If you like your TV, buy only the best quality TV antenna.

There are no TV repeaters out in these areas, but the satellite dish pulled in the essential programs, ensuring domestic harmony.

TV signal reception is poor in some surprising places, even quite close to major population areas. Some van parks recognise this problem, and provide a free network, where travellers can plug their own TV into the park’s cable or satellite feed. Usually a coaxial cable or jumper lead is provided, often from or near the site’s power point, and mostly after paying a deposit fee for the 75 ohm coaxial cable.

images Tip

Always buy a TV with a completely automatic selftuning function if you have a choice, so that when you pull up for the day it’s only a matter of putting up the antenna, programming the TV to auto-find any local channels, and leaving it to do the job by itself.

images CABLE INLETS

Unless you want to pull the lead directly in through a window or flyscreen, your van must have a permanently-fitted through-the-wall TV cable inlet fitting of some kind. There are a few types of this neat little device about, but be careful when you drill a hole in the van wall to fit one, that you’ve not drilled through other vital wiring.

Some are actually a pipe with caps at each end, through which the external cable and plug will fit. Another type is a solid fitting, where the external cable plugs into the outside part and a jumper cable fits on the inside. Once fitted, they are all simple to use.

Instead of the normal antenna lead plugged into the TV as usual, in this case just plug either the van park’s network lead directly into the TV, or onto the outside of the fitting and then on the inside wall just plug a jumper-cable from the fitting across to your TV’s normal antenna inlet socket.

For just a few dollars you can buy a jumper lead of sufficient length. Be careful what you buy, as the two ends look alike but are usually slightly different sizes. One end has to fit over the inlet fitting, and the other plug has to fit inside the socket on the TV. A decoder isn’t needed because the van park operator’s own decoder is supplying the signal to your van. You will probably need to put your TV onto an AV channel to pick up the signal. If you buy your own stand-alone satellite TV, the external lead-in from the dish will also plug into this through-the-wall fitting.

Digital satellite television is as good as you can buy and, without question, if you are remote camping and like TV, then for the five minutes usually needed to set the system up the satellite result is worth it every time.

images DIGITAL TELEVISION

Many Australian TV stations broadcast digital pictures and the analog system is due to be phased out in the future. On the outer edges of the receiving areas, where the digital signal is presently borderline quality, there may be some signal loss, shown as pixelation. The screen partially and occasionally dissolves into tiny squares, but with a strong signal this doesn’t occur. If this happens consistently you may have to resort to analog broadcast pictures or opt for satellite feed. There are more than 20 free-to-air digital channels available in many areas.

Digital TV can be watched on an analog TV but will need a decoder. This decoding device is known as a set-top box and it converts digital pictures into a format which the analog TV can use. Late-model TVs do not need this decoder because they have the conversion facility built-in.

Picture quality on an analog TV can be quite good, but compared with current LCD or plasma screens, it is clearly low-grade. The difference is vast, and the picture improvement is well worth the change-over cost. The digital picture quality, without snow or ghosting, is so good it’s almost a pleasure watching the ads! There are plenty of smaller flatscreen TVs to choose from, of suitable screen size for caravans.

images BROADCAST TELEVISION

Regular broadcast TV covers a huge area, but is aimed at population centres in general. In main city areas, cable television is often available but to a traveller this is of no value. Away from major populations, the only certain reception for prime quality TV is celestial TV via satellite, a brilliant alternative to regular terrestrial TV. No matter where in this country you are, with satellite TV and a flat-screen LCD TV, you can just about guarantee two things – great signal reception and best picture quality.

If you intend to travel in areas where TV reception will obviously be poor or non-existent, and you can’t do without watching TV, buying your own satellite receiver system is the sure answer. The cost is not great, and once you’ve bought the unit, there are no ongoing costs to watch free-to-air TV via the satellite. For the sheer convenience of digitally-perfect TV when travelling, nothing else comes close. As a bonus, along with perfect-picture TV you can usually get several dozen perfect-reception radio channels.

By contacting the various television networks, via fax or phone, your legal satellite access will be authorised. Note that this can depend on your current location and destinations, as there are some conditions that apply relative to the areas these providers are allowed to transmit to, but it’s easy to work out. In Australia the common channels are ABC, 7, 9, 10 and SBS. All these are free-to-air and there are quite a few other national and specific free-to-air choices to watch from the satellite, including some overseas channels.

If your need to watch the Discovery channel is top priority, you can even take your legal payTV card with you and use it in the van’s satellite decoder, assuming you make suitable arrangements with your provider.

Inside the van you will need some room for the satellite decoder, mostly about the size of a small VCR. As these decoders are usually 240V, to provide operating power a small inverter will be required if you bush camp with a 12V van power system. You won’t need any other digital decoder device. Satellite TV signal will operate on just about any TV, and the usual grainy picture will totally disappear.

There’s some small inconvenience, having to carry a receiver dish, and spending the five minutes or so it takes to set it all up. Set operation is relatively straightforward, and signal reception is normally 100 per cent perfect. In some cases, atmospheric interference can cause a peculiar pixelation effect. It rarely lasts long, maybe only a second or two, although in storms the TV signal can be lost for quite some minutes. Digital satellite television is as good as you can buy and without question, if you like TV, then the satellite result is worth it every time.

CDs are cheap, fairly tough, and offer excellent sound in vehicle and van stereo systems. Some music is still available on cassette tapes, and reception is often too difficult to listen to on normal radio in outback areas.

images Tip

The usual free-to-air TV channels are: ABC, 7, 9, 10 and SBS.

Listening

Most travellers like music or entertainment, in whatever form takes their particular fancy, canned or manned. If you have a ‘seek’ function on your 12V normal broadcast radio in the van, make it find local stations for you. How else can you listen in to Macca on a Sunday morning unless you find the local ABC frequency? Remember that you can often use a TV antenna to listen to FM radio, and that all digital decoders and TVs also receive music, even if only from the ABC or SBS.

Australia has many places where, without satellite, there is simply no radio or TV signal worth pursuing, and that’s where the old faithful audio cassette player comes into its own.

The single-CD player or six-stacker is a marvellous invention, and with good quality speakers the sound of music from CDs is superb.

TVs often come combined with a VCR or DVD player, and most laptop computers have CD/DVD movie capability. Some laptop or desktop computers can have TV capability as well. So there is no reason to do without entertainment in remote areas, if that’s your need.

All sound quality depends on speaker quality. If you like good music, buy the best possible speakers for your van, and take care positioning them.

images EXTRA SPEAKERS

Not all TVs have speakers really suitable for slightly deaf people so often the volume is turned up fairly high. Many portable devices have only basic sound capability, but that can usually be overcome easily. The cure is not expensive and not hard to set up.

Speakers don’t have to be huge and expensive – two 6 inch triple-cone speakers will easily provide great sound for almost any van. They can be fitted a few metres apart into almost any cupboard door, or into the space between doors if the speaker shape will fit. Try to fit speakers so they’re about head level when you are sitting listening. Cupboards will usually act as a base enclosure for the sound. Also, it’s easy to conceal the speaker wiring inside cupboards, to run it back to the amplifier. By supplying 12V and an on/off switch to the amplifier, the whole job is done.

If you’re only ever going to stay in van parks where 240V is supplied, then you can certainly use a standard amplifier to feed speakers. Perhaps the simplest and easiest 240V combined amplifierspeaker setup is the type intended for use with desktop computers. They’re cheap, small and often very effective. If you are not handy with tools, any competent TV or radio tech could install this kind of equipment for not many dollars. The small but effective addition is well worthwhile for the all-round sound improvement it gives. Your neighbours will also thank you, because instead of running the TV sound up high, the much better sound spread and quality usually allows considerably lower volume to be used.

In many cases it’s possible to fit external speakers for your CD player or radio. There are really only two options. The best is that weatherproof external speakers can be built in when the van is being built, which makes pulling in the speaker wiring relatively simple. The other is that, on a completed van, some visible or conduited inside wiring may be needed to get speaker leads to the best position where connection sockets could then be put through the wall. Plugs for the removable outside speakers on their removable brackets can then be put in when wanted. Installation can be an awkward job, especially picking up the correct points to take off the parallel speaker wires, and is probably best left to experts.

images Advice

For a few dollars you can buy a small 12VDC amplifier, suitable for boosting the radio sound in a motor vehicle, and run it through good speakers. The input signal to be amplified in the van can often be taken from the 3.5 mm headphone socket on your TV. This same amplifier lead can be plugged into other devices, like laptop computers, to vastly improve their sound output also.

Seeing

Windows can play a large part in controlling the inside temperature of a van. The polycarbonate dark windows seem to do a quite effective job of managing interior heat, but double-glazed windows are certainly the best barrier against all weather and noise. An average van with all glass windows can weigh about 40 lbs more than the same van with all acrylic windows.

Our experience has shown that flimsies and drapes make excellent dust collectors. A very efficient and easy way to obtain privacy inside a caravan is just to use micro venetians. Form follows function, so without losing our pleasant van interior we’ve gone entirely away from fabric window coverings, and even the original window pelmet boxes have been discarded in favour of these micros.

The newer ones are so well made that they don’t need pelmets to look good. They are easy enough to clean, they weigh nothing and they’re remarkably effective. To be honest, like everything else in a van, the micro venetians do collect dust, but nowhere near as much as a big bunch of fabric around and over a window.

Generally speaking, polycarbonate windows will not break and are quite impact resistant, but the surface does scratch easily, even from cleaning. To keep it smooth and clean, we’ve found a product which is specifically made for polycarbonate and which really does help. It’s called Plexus, and it seems to fill in the smaller scratches from everyday use and wear, and coat the windows with an antistatic coating. It does last for ages and is good value, but like everything good, it’s not cheap.

The fabric may match the curtains, but it also blocks most of the view out of the screen door.

images SCREENING

Many vans seem to come with a two-piece fabric slide-curtain idea on the inside top half of the Camec flyscreen door. When the outer panel door is open and pinned back, it can be difficult to fully see who is standing outside the screen door, because even when opened this fabric blocks out much of the view. Fixing this is easy, the result is much more efficient and attractive, and it also offers improved security through the better vision available.

On the inside top of the flyscreen door it is quite simple to fit a replacement Holland roller blind. These blinds are now available in many very attractive prints, finishes and colours, and may even match your particular van colour scheme. Discard the original curtain fabric entirely – even if it does match the upholstery – and the slide springs and hooks.

Fixing the new blind’s mounting brackets to the top inside of the aluminium screen door frame can be with pop-rivets or self-tapping screws. Before you put the fixings in to hold the brackets at each end of the blind at the top of the door, check that the blind material is fully rolled up to maximum diameter. If you don’t, you may mount the blind brackets too high, and when you try to open the door the blind will not clear the underside of the door jamb.

Make sure the mounts are absolutely square with the window frames, or the bottom and edges of the blind will not lie parallel. Instead of fitting the spring-loaded blind model, consider the cord-operated roll-down blind, as there’s virtually nothing that can go wrong with them. In length, the blind material only has to come down to the same place as the original fabric did, so that when the outside panel door is closed the blind then makes a complete block-out screen. To keep the bottom of the blind in place, screw two screw-eyes into the original bottom spring holes and tie a length of elastic between them. The blind will tuck in behind the elastic and stay in place. By doing this swap, when the outside panel door is open with the Holland blind on the screen door wound fully up, you can see out the entire flyscreen door. From inside, it makes for a much nicer environment.

When mounting the replacement Holland blind to the screen door, make sure the supporting brackets are located so that the rolled-up blind fabric will not rub on the door frame as it’s opened.

Locking

Some earlier-model caravan doors have only one centre-locking lug. Generally this lock catch is a small wheel with several cog-teeth round the rim which, as it is pressed shut, meshes into the receiver in the door frame. Many travellers leave their caravans with the external door pinned back and only the flyscreen door locked, and some of those vans have been robbed because a levered screwdriver will pop this type of lock. Even if they are snibbed or key-locked the single-lock door can usually be forced open. Many of these locks have the nasty habit that, when mistakenly locked from the inside then pushed closed from the outside, they will not open with the door key.

Current Camec van doors have a triple locking system. Down the opening side of the door there are three locking lugs: at the top, centre and bottom. Three concealed hinges also hinder anyone from forcing the hinge side of the door, with a captive pin in the hinges. A neat interlocking pin prevents the door catches from being incorrectly locked, and these doors are now much harder to force open.

Because many Camec doors are interchangeable, or only minor modifications are needed, the interesting possibility is that a straightforward van door replacement job may be very worthwhile. If you’re serious about making your van much more theft-proof, consider contacting your caravan service centre and checking if this sensible change-over could be done to your van.

images SPARE KEY

Coming back to your caravan, then realising you can’t get inside because the keys have been lost somewhere is a rotten feeling. How many keys do you really need for the van door? Apart from one on the tow vehicle key ring, and one for your partner’s keys, you should really have a spare one planted somewhere outside the van. Store it where you can access it relatively easily and without any tools just in case you do lose the usual van key. Hiding location can take a bit of working out but there are many good hiding places underneath a caravan where you could plant a spare key. A length of clear nylon fishing line will tie a spare key inside a pipe, or a piece of black duct tape can disguise a key located in a hole.

As an example of usefulness while you’re away from your van, if the van park operator notifies you that something serious is wrong with it, you could reveal where your spare door key is located. This will provide simple access to the van, to enter and turn off your smoke detector alarm or some other fault occurring while you’re not there. Unfortunately, such things do happen. The expensive alternative to avoid potential damage to your van in this case would be to pay for a visiting locksmith to unlock the door.

Detecting

Installation of an alarm system in a caravan may cost quite a bit of money although as a minor side benefit, an alarm may earn you a small discount on your insurance. Visible signage that an alarm is fitted can help deter offenders from breaking in to your van. Check with a reputable alarm company or supplier for detectors best suited to your particular van. Some kinds are better than others, or perhaps they go into a false-alarm state less often.

Open windows and air movement can be a cause of false alarms, but as most travellers leave van windows slightly open for ventilation, there needs to be some allowances made. Recent alarm technology has made motion sensors and heat detectors and other clever devices very small, and when mounted they usually look unobtrusive inside a van.

For entry protection and movement detection, perhaps a combined microwave and infrared type detector will suit. As polycarbonate windows are very hard to break at all, with glass windows you could fit a break-glass detector. A knockdetector will enter an alarm state if someone bumps the van hard enough, or perhaps a tree branch falls on it, and a tilt-alarm switch will operate the siren if someone moves the van in an attempt to steal it or the wheels. A top-quality 12V vehicle alarm could be quite practical to install, as the van battery can supply main power to the alarm system. Only you, the owner, can determine whether the cost of an alarm system is valid for your van.

An integrated alarm system could be a valuable tool in preventing theft of van contents.

images Tip

As a good test, and without damaging your van, secure and lock it properly, then seriously try to get in without the door key. If you can, so could a thief. Van security is essential.

Van keys – typical lock or padlock locations on many vans

Plugging, pumping, watering, hosing

Plugging

Externally, almost all vans are supplied with one 240V weatherproof powerpoint, usually under the awning and about centrally on the nearside. For practical use it would be very handy to have another 10A outlet on the offside, as in many van parks the vehicle can’t be parked on the awning side. When working on the right-hand side of the van an outlet would save having to run a cable back under the van to the usual outlet, to operate an electric power tool or appliance if needed.

If possible, specify power outlets which are spaced well apart when wiring your van and/or fitting out power points. To minimise nuisance, you could consider a row of separated single power points. Around the kitchen bench is not the only place power points are needed. There are never enough outlets in a van, and the best option for inside seems to be to put a double GPO (general purpose outlet) in any place which could likely be used to plug in a heater, phone charger, light, sewing machine or laptop.

Even though it looks sufficient, there is not quite enough room to plug the toaster in beside this phone charger plug-pack.

Many current electrical and electronic devices are powered by a mini-transformer called a ‘plug pack’. These transform normal 240V power down to perhaps 3V or 7.5V to operate specific devices. Some devices can be alternatively battery-powered for use as they have a very small current draw, often only in milliamps, so they usually need a plug-in battery charger. Unfortunately, due to the size of most plug pack transformers and chargers, when you plug one into a double GPO it’s common to find you then can’t plug anything else into the other socket.

Because the plug pack is so big, or fits on such an angle, it prevents anything else from being put into the second three-pin socket in the regular double power point. Plug pack chargers for the big torch, most battery chargers, the portable TV and many phone chargers are typically guilty of this. In comparison, most normal 240V appliances are fitted with the regulation two-pin or three-pin round plug, and all will fit properly in a standard power point, or GPO.

An effective option is to buy several top quality surge-protected four-outlet distribution boards, and allow for the bigger plug packs to be fitted into them. That way, the two general purpose outlets could become many, and perhaps solve the awkward plug problem.

Pumping

There’s a common type of 12V powered water-pressure pump in many vans called a ‘Shureflo’. It pumps water from a water tank underneath the van up to the sink, for the tap or mixer. They work very effectively, and maintain pressure on the tap line so there is always good pressure at the tap.

When you turn a water tap on the pipe is normally still pressurised from the last use, so you quickly get water electrically pumped to the sink tap. Line pressure then drops, because with the tap turned on there’s no resistance to water flow, so the pump operates. When you turn the tap off, the pump senses there’s been another change in water pressure because it builds up in the closed-off pipe line, and when the pressure reaches a preset level the pump switches itself off. You should be able to hear the pump slowing down, as it pumps and works against the line pressure, until it automatically stops.

If the pump delivers water for a short time but then will not shut itself off, this is usually due to an empty water tank, because when the electric pump has no pressure to work against it just keeps on pumping. The simple fix to stop the pump is to turn off its 12V power supply until the water tank is refilled.

The very common manual lift pump found on most caravan sinks allows water to be pumped by hand from the tank up to the sink. These pumps usually work in both directions, steadily delivering water on the lift and press strokes. Some vans may have a foot-operated pump, often a shallow rubber dome set in the floor near the sink which, by foot pressure down on it, does the same job as the lift pump on the sink.

A 12V Shureflo water pump (just visible behind the pipe) can run off a 240V/12V power supply transformer. Being fairly small, they will fit in most cupboards easily.

Watering

Many travellers with two van water tanks often seem to use one tank for drinking water and one tank for washing. In many cases, the powered pump supplies the washing water from one tank, and the hand pump supplies the drinking water from the second tank, but it’s also common to find the two tanks both pumped by the one pump via a changeover tap.

Using the normal in-line water filter when refilling any water tank from whatever source will help ensure the minimum amount of unwanted dirt and potentially debilitating bugs can get into a water tank. It is common sense to always use the filter, because any grit or rubbish you can keep out of a tank will help prolong the pump and tank life.

images CONTENTS GAUGE

For almost any water tank fitted underneath your van, a contents gauge can be fitted. Some gauges will only reliably indicate that it’s time to refill the water tank, but will not accurately indicate content. Keep this in mind if you want them fitted when new or as an aftermarket fitting to your van tanks.

images Tip

If you do have water tank level gauges, make sure that they’re working and do show contents accurately.

images OUTSIDE TAP

You can easily get water to wash dirty hands from a water tap on the van’s A-bar. Depending on how the van plumbing is set up, water to that tap could be pumped from the van’s own under-floor tank, or could run directly through from the connected town water. In some vans the A-bar tap can be part of a main hose connection and inlet for town water, where water runs in reverse direction past the tap to the sink. If your van does have a drawbar tap, screw a brass Gardena-type fitting onto the tap thread to protect it, because stones thrown up by tyres and from the road will certainly cause thread damage. Some van builders fit the tap on the inside of the drawbar, or put an angled metal stone deflector just ahead of the outside tap to try and prevent this damage.

The A-bar-mounted tap joins into this van’s water inlet system.

Hosing

Most vans have a specific connector for water inlet on the offside or driver’s side of the van instead of on the A-bar, usually up towards the rear, to connect a hose to provide water between van and town supply. When you run the water-supply hose from the van site tap back to your van, and there is spare hose length, feed the excess back in underneath the van. Don’t leave it out in the sunlight to heat up and deteriorate, but place it out of the way where others are less likely to tread on it.

Hoses for water supply to vans are important. Plastics can be manufactured in different grades, and the common plastic reinforced 13 mm garden-type hoses are not really suitable for continuous use for drinking water. One problem which occurs with them is the gradual breakdown of molecules in plastic, due to regular exposure to sunlight and ultra-violet rays. This taints and affects the drinking water, and some medical opinions claim it may be hazardous to your health. The bad taste alone, and sometimes unpleasant water smell, is a valid reason not to use normal plastic hose. Ordinary green garden hose, or the pigtail curly green cheap hose, is definitely not recommended for drinking water use.

A common connection point for water supply inlet to a van is at the rear, on the offside. This one is under the van floor and well protected by the van’s mudflap.

Caravan equipment suppliers can supply hose of proper ‘food grade’ quality to connect your van to the tap. Blue food grade water hose, which is UV stable and doesn’t taint taste, is available at most caravan accessory places. This is generally a bit stiffer than the normal garden hose, so coiling it up can be quite a job, and storing it can be a nuisance. A coil of this takes up room in storage and to avoid a mess from water dribble it does need to be drained before storing.

One of the most effective food grade hoses is the Flat Out type of woven, canvaslike hose, which fits on a flat reel when stored, taking very little space. Winding it up for storage squeezes the water out of the hose, although it’s much easier if you squeeze the water out of the whole length first, before winding it into the holder. A minor drawback is that the whole hose length must all be unrolled off the reel before use. The fitted tap connectors are brass, and the hose doesn’t seem affected when kids ride over it with bikes. It’s best to order the correct matching brass Gardenatype snap-connectors when buying this hose.

Over a few years travelling I’ve found that the normal plastic snap-on fittings don’t last long at all. By searching in many different shops I’ve finally collected what has proved to be an effective group of brass hose fittings. Buy only brass; they are usually strong and reliable fittings. Most hoses around today are 13 mm, or halfinch. Adapters can be worth their weight in gold. A screw-on reducer from a big tap (1 inch) to normal size (3/4 inch) is important to carry. In many van parks, not enough taps are provided, and a double-hose adapter is a bonus. A Y-shape double-hose adapter is very handy, as often it allows the van water supply to continue, and another hose to be fitted for washing the truck or van.

Adapters from male-to-female thread and vice versa, in both common sizes, can be invaluable. A few spare rubber washers for tap fittings are vital. PTFE plumber’s tape is really handy if you find a tap thread which leaks, and a trigger-operated hose nozzle is a must, as it minimises water usage.

Filtering, tanking, in hot water, showering

Filtering

Travellers must use many differing water qualities around this country, and prevention of illness is essential. With the health problems that occurred due to cryptosporidium and giardia, two nasty little intestinal bugs which made a lot of people in Sydney very sick, many thousands of households hurriedly fitted water filtration units.

Across Australia the actual taste of water varies greatly. From pure mountain spring water to heavily-mineralised artesian bore water, the various additives give this fluid differing taste and smell. Bore water can be a problem. It may have peculiar or unpleasant smells, often like hydrogen sulphide or rotten-egg gas, or a strong sulphur smell. Sometimes it feels slimy on your skin and soap simply won’t lather. No filter practically available for use on a caravan can fully get rid of the waterborne smell of chlorine, or other natural chemicals.

A short length of hose plugged into the normal water filter outlet can be inserted into the tank filler inlet. This one has a right-angle fitting in the short pipe, to make it able to hang on the filler lip.

images DUAL FILTERS

To fit a water filter system to your caravan is relatively simple. There is rarely sufficient space under a van sink to fit the preferred filter housing and still have good access to it, so it’s easy to locate it outside at the point where you connect the caravan park water to your van.

Connecting the filter in-line externally, on the end of the hose from the van park tap and before the inlet to your van, allows an adaptable system. To make more use of the filter unit, it can be used to screen all water being put into the van’s water tanks. Just disconnect it from the regular van inlet, and put a short hose from the filter outlet, to the water tank inlet.

For best water filtration, it’s definitely better to use two filters, in sequence, either in connected housings or one outside and the other inside, mounted below the sink. The first, and coarser filter should get rid of dirt, particulates and other foreign matter normally in water. The second very fine half-micron filter, if it’s combined with carbon granules, will get rid of almost everything else that’s undesirable in water. That can include taste, chlorine, fluoride, various heavy metals and the very unpleasant waterborne bugs.

The first, coarser filter in a dual-filter set-up removes waterborne grit and sediment. The second, finer filter is for chemical and bacteria removal.

For the very fine filter to work best, it should only have to filter tiny matter, not comparatively large dirt particles. Compared with microbes, the dirt normally found in water is coarse, and in a single filter unit this often has the effect of blocking the finer filter pores quicker than intended or desired. It’s also common to find that a remote local water supply may not have quite enough pressure and flow rate to force water through a fine bacterialevel carbon filter. Water flow can be soon restricted. A spare five-micron plastic filter changed over temporarily will still get rid of most unwanted turbidity.

These half-micron carbon filters are often more than $80 each, but the coarser five-micron plastic-foam filters are only around $15. The sensible idea is to change the coarser filter every six months, for not much cost, and the fine filter once a year. Just like remembering to change the smoke detector battery once a year, pick some date that reminds you to change the filters.

To reduce the chances of theft, engrave your driver’s licence number and state identifier on the front of each free-standing filter housing, clearly and in big visible letters. Some pink or other bright paint on it will help to highlight the identification marking. A fine-tipped hot soldering iron makes a good marker for plastic items. If you decide to do it yourself, the mark doesn’t have to be even and beautifully engraved, just clearly legible, but remember that plastic melts.

Tanking

Although there are occasions when it could be worth the effort, consider whether it’s really worthwhile carrying full water storage tanks from van park to van park. For example, good quality Melbourne water is well worth carrying across to Adelaide, known for having lower-grade water quality. But if you’re travelling up the Australian east coast, almost everywhere you go water is of quite good quality.

Carrying tanked water has a hidden cost. A full 15 gal water tank, about 70 L, weighs about 150 lbs or 70 kg, and in order just to tow it your vehicle must use a small amount of extra fuel. With the everincreasing cost of fuel, it may be worth running your van water tank with only a small amount of back-up water in it, or occasionally even just some tank cleaner to keep the water inside the plastic tank clean and bug-free, ready for flushing and refilling when practical later.

There are several proprietary products to put into a van water tank to flush it or help clean out the garbage which must eventually collect inside the tank. One easy way to clean out a plastic van tank is to use a product called Milton’s Baby Bottle steriliser. Read the instructions. Put some in the tank and wait a while, flush it out several times and then refill the tank with good quality water.

In hot water

Operating the common caravan gas hot-water service is very simple. Turn the gas on at the gas bottle and flick on the little hot-water service (HWS) ignition switch, which starts the heating process. A red light in the on-switch, usually mounted on an inside wall, glows to indicate that gas is flowing. It generally shows for about 15–20 seconds, by which time sufficient gas has passed across the electricallyheated ignition element to ignite. You can often hear a ‘whoosh’ as the burner starts and should also feel heat if you check the HWS exhaust.

Should the bottled gas supply run out, the red light will come on again to warn that, whatever the cause, there is a flameout. Turn the HWS and gas supply off first and fast, and then check out the cause. It might be as simple as one bottle emptying and the other needing to be turned on, the selector tap switched over, and the heater re-ignited. Then again, it might not. Check your gas hot-water system, to be sure it’s safe to use. If you have any doubts at all, take it to a recognised gas fitter or to your caravan maintenance workshop. Unless you are appropriately licensed, gas is something it simply does not pay to play around with, even if you are fully confident and knowledgeable.

This hot-water element conversion on a standard caravan gas HWS is unique and very efficient.

images RETRO-FITTING

Dishwashing for two is relatively easy, especially if the meat is cooked elsewhere, such as on the van park’s barbecue. Washing up in the van sink generally needs a 4 L bucket of hot water, mostly obtained by a quick trip across to the van park laundry to collect it. When it comes time to pack the cupboard ready to move on, we’ve found that the kettle is a good fit inside the hot-water bucket. On-site we keep the bucket in a plastic shopping bag and hang it outside, easily accessible on the end of the van’s rear bumper.

If you have a family, washing-up is often easier in the camp kitchen or at the camping sink, where hot water is usually provided. For many travellers this is much easier and cheaper than using the van’s own hot water.

Unless your HWS is electric or dualheat, an option is to run the gas all day to keep the water hot, or to wait about 20 minutes for gas to heat the water around tea-time, then remember to turn it off again to save the gas.

Hot-water services now come in a surprising range of types for many different campers and usually all they need is a gas bottle or generator. Most motorhomes and campervans, and a lot of caravans, have hot-water services built into them. There are several different types, but the most common one seems to be the basic 20 L Suburban LPG-operated unit. Many vans have their HWS as a combined gas/ electric hot-water service from new.

External measurements are identical, so retro-fitting from a gas-only unit to a combined HWS is quite practical and fairly simple. With a dual-heating hot-water service you can use van park electricity to create hot water and when bush camping you can use gas heating in the same unit to provide hot water. In any camp situation hot water on tap at the van sink is a great benefit for every traveller. It’s very much better than boiling water in a kettle on the gas stove.

Instead of complete replacement of the original gas HWS unit, a small Swissmade electric HWS unit known as a Rezi or similar can be added in parallel to the original hot water pipe to the sink tap. Two T-connectors and a 240V GPO are needed, and actual hot water temperature is controlled by limiting the water flow. These units are available from many caravan parts suppliers.

In Coffs Harbour, a very resourceful chap invented a really efficient alternative to changing the HWS unit, or even fitting an additional heater. His concept replaced the standard anode with a unique element, a sort of immerser unit, like the sealed heating element in an electric kettle. For those HWS units without an anode, the electric heater element screws into the drain plug hole, so just about every gas HWS could be converted to dual-heat if required.

An external shower takes up virtually no space, and uses hot water from the van’s own HWS.

A worthwhile alternative to a gas HWS could be an engine-heated HWS unit. These use the vehicle’s engine as a heat source, pumping cold water through a form of heat-exchanger to provide almost unlimited hot water when the engine is running. Several brands offer good benefits, and when not in use they can usually be simply unplugged and removed.

Hot-water heatexchangers using engine water temperature as the heat source are efficient and can provide virtually unlimited hot water.

Showering

An internal shower in a van can be a very handy facility. Bush camping, your hot shower is often worth every dollar it cost but it uses gas for heating, unless you have a gas/electric hot-water service and a big generator to operate the HWS. Yet quite a lot of travellers have vans with showers and don’t use them, because they find it is cheaper and more practical to use the hot water showers provided in van parks.

Consider whether you intend to always camp in caravan parks, because a drawback with unused showers and toilets in a van is that they can become a space thief, and the space could probably be much better used. Extra venting in the roof is also needed for them, creating another point where dust or water perhaps could enter the van. There are other practical options.

To save space, if you really want a shower for your van, it may be worth fitting an external shower. Fitted on a side or rear wall, a handheld shower is very effective. A cheap nylon shower curtain on a removable metal hoop frame, fitted into brackets fixed on the van wall, will provide any needed privacy. Even so, not many people are going to worry what you look like if you have a shower when bush camping!

Camping, sharing, freezing, washing

Camping

Few ‘information’ places have any form of helpful information in their windows or on noticeboards to assist travellers when the office is closed. If the commercial van parks are full, does the local council have arrangements for overflow van parking at the local showgrounds or similar? How do you find out where to go when the time is already well after five o’clock? Almost every long-term traveller is confronted several times a year with where to stop overnight. In Australia there is normally no great need for concern, but for some travellers who are worried about security, and perhaps some of the more elderly travellers, not camping overnight in a van park can become a very worrying thing.

For many outback travellers the decision is basic. What do you do for a shower if the van’s tank water capacity is low? Should you pay the money and go into a van park for the practicality of showering, being able to use 240V power and perhaps watch TV for the night, or even to boil up some more drinking water?

images BUSH CAMPING

It can be good value to stop at a ‘bush camp’ or an off-road park. Many sites for overnight stops are often not on coastal roads. Good local councils allow travellers to camp at many common-use or declared roadside camping sites overnight.

These spots are a practical place for travellers to stop for a fatigue break when driving during daylight hours, but late in the day plenty of them are also big enough to allow an overnight camp. In many cases, the camping area is just a basic clearing, but often there is a toilet, and sometimes there is tank water. At some sites there may even be shelter and perhaps also solar-powered lighting.

If you’re happy to bush camp, most times where to stay is not a problem, and in many cases someone else has already spotted and used the same place. Away from towns, normally it isn’t hard to find a little side road or track, or a section of old road, where the van or camper will be out of the way of passing traffic. There may be a space to turn around where you could reverse the van into a scrub clearing and camp overnight, well off the road.

There are many side turnings off this sandy and isolated road, and almost any one of them would be suitable for an overnight camp spot.

It is sensible to back your van into the site. Although not common, should you decide to drive away at some stage during the night because something really causes you concern, you will want to be able to drive out quickly. If it has been unhitched, you will also have to connect the trailer before you can leave. Where the van corner jacks have also been wound down for floor stability, before you can drive away, you’ll need to lift those as well. Although unpleasant camping occurrences are unlikely to become a major problem in reality, we know some travellers and tourists do get very concerned about matters like this.

This roadside stop in central northern NSW has good signage advising in ample time that a rest stop is ahead. There are no facilities, but it is shaded, well off the road, and would be fine for an overnight stop.

Sharing

To avoid hassle, which sometimes does occur, I believe it’s proper that travellers do not use designated truck-parking-only areas as an overnight campsite. Trucks don’t seem to use van stops, often because the access tracks are too tight or there is not enough clearance under or around trees. Although a tow vehicle and van is big, almost every truck is bigger, needing much more room than a van to stop or park.

Unfortunately, some travellers feel they own a good camping site because they got there first. Some occupiers are not necessarily pleasant to other travellers who pull in and also would like to use the site overnight. Previous travellers, the shire council, the RTA or perhaps a service club most likely provided the facility. Yes, it may be yours to use, but you do not own the site. With using the campsite there comes an obligation to share with others.

Freezing

Unfortunately, some campers fiddle with the temperature control in the refrigerators provided in many van park camp kitchens for travellers to use. In many cases they are turned up so that they freeze rapidly, then when they ice up, they have to be defrosted.

In one case in Darwin, a van park employee decided to defrost the fridge, without advising campers, by just pulling the plug and disconnecting the 240V power. The person then cracked the freezer and fridge compartment doors open, and left. Obviously they didn’t look inside, because the freezer was nearly full, with many dollars worth of meat stored in it. The fridge compartment had quite a bit of foodstuff in it as well. Fortunately this fridge was in the barbecue area and just across the road from our van. When we checked our meat about lunchtime, to decide what to defrost for tea, we spotted what had happened and alerted other campers to quickly recover their food. Still, these provided facilities can be very useful, so you might as well make use of them.

Washing

In a huge mobile home coach, where a small amount of extra weight is not really a major consideration, a washing machine may have value, because such mobile homes can easily camp in non-serviced areas. But do you really need to carry a washing machine in your caravan or camper trailer? A washing machine requires a certain amount of water to operate and it takes up storage space; both add weight, which you must carry and tow.

As an alternative, you could:

use the washing machines at a van park

use a commercial laundromat

carry one of those little hand-turned tumble machines

carry a 20 L plastic drum with some detergent in it, which bounces the clothes up and down as you drive along.

The actual extra cost of carrying water and the machine itself, plus buying detergents, may even equal the usually small dollar cost for each weekly wash using commercial washing machines. You can buy several tankfuls of fuel for the equivalent purchase cost of a washing machine. Despite the weight penalty, is the machine really a worthwhile benefit?

images Caution

Be aware that food theft does occur. Some parks have begun to lock fridges and issue travellers with keys as a means of control. Other van parks lock the camper fridges overnight to try and minimise theft.

Convenience value, improving, seating, flooring, bedding

Convenience value

Good vans are one of the few things, providing they’ve been well looked after, which at present are holding close to their original value. Further, everything you put into your van in the form of comfort will repay you when re-sale time comes around. Remember, it’s usually much more expensive and difficult to later add something to or modify a van, than it is to build in or include the item in the first place.

There are some items which could be considered essential and, despite their often high cost, they should be seriously considered for your van if you intend to do a lot of travelling. Through experience, and discussions with other long-term travellers, you may find the items in this checklist important enough to originally include as needs, rather than as options.

Improving

Due to our ongoing use and experience, and to recent changes in technology and other new developments since we had the van built, we would now update several original items (see checklist).

Seating

Seating inside a van is a personal preference, but there are many options. For most travellers, there will only be two people using the van. Why provide permanent or fixed seating for six? Before deciding on the inside layout of your van, think about these variations and possible choices:

Are you going to have four visitors in your van regularly?

Do you really need that extra divan or bench seating for visitors?

Could they sit on those chairs that you use outside in the sun?

What could you use that unwanted other seat space for?

Could you put cupboards, a wardrobe or some other useful thing there?

Why not just have two good quality lounge chairs instead?

Do you sit and watch television or listen to music very much?

What about a different type or shape of seat around the table?

Do you need a table that has a sliding expander leaf in it for visitors?

Could you have a table with a swingout expanding leaf?

images SEAT COVERS

Almost every van has bench seats which have foam or rubber contoured seating, with separate bolsters around the back. Many have first-class brocade material covering, and it’s a pity to get these seats grubby. To make a very effective seat cover, go to any major fabric supplier and buy ribbing. This is just a tube of knitted material, like an oversized cuff on a jumper. Ribbing comes in different widths, and is not expensive. Pale grey colour seems to suit the inside or colour scheme of many caravans.

With this very neat and effective idea 50 cm width ribbing is the best size that we’ve found to cover seat squabs. If you buy the right width, you can actually just pull it over the van seat as a sleeve or a sausage skin, and pin up the ends, to have neat and very effective seat covers. When you’ve got visitors coming and you need the seats to be clean, just slip them off, turn them around 90 degrees to a new face and replace them on the seat. Toss the ribbing in with the clothes washing in the washing machine when it comes time to clean them. They generally shrink a little, back to their original size.

Flooring

Lawn in a van park is great to look at and walk on. However, when it’s mowed, grass is always tracked inside the van on any feet. As most of this great country is still covered with dirt, in any dirt areas carpet on a van floor can be a nuisance to get clean and keep clean. Carpet traps dust, but vinyl floor covering doesn’t. In a van it’s well worth considering not having any carpet at all. Really good-quality vinyl flooring or that remarkable Flotex thin carpet have much to recommend them when you are considering what to look for in an easy-care van floor covering.

Also think about loose floor mats, or carpet pieces with overlocked edges, over a good quality, attractive and hardwearing floor covering like Pegulan, Flotex or similar. If something gets spilt on these it won’t stain, plus it’s easy to sweep or vacuum. Floor mats seem to be a very good option. Changing mat colours is easy, and doing this removes some of the ‘sameness’. For example, if you have a green bedspread one week, you could have yellow the next week, and change the floor mat colours to match. Storing the alternate mats is easy; just slide them in underneath the bed mattress.

Triple bunks would allow three youngsters to sleep in comfortable beds.

Bedding

When it comes to beds, everybody’s preference is different. Depending on van layout, beds in many sizes are fitted in many ways:

along the centre line of the van

across the van

king, queen or double bed size

two single beds

maybe one long and one short

double or triple bunks

fold-down wall-mounted beds.

Whatever your preference, you can have it built or you’ll quite likely find an existing van to suit. Bunks can be a great space-saving option for families. For obvious reasons, waterbeds are not practical in a caravan, although perhaps some of the huge mobile homes might not notice the weight penalty. Many foam beds seem to suffer from a sweat problem after a while, so now there is a thick and coarse nylon mesh which will fit underneath them to help with air flow. Specialist makers can supply inner-spring mattresses to whatever size, width and particular shape you want for your caravan.

For practical seating reasons, or even just to accommodate everyone, in many vans it is necessary to convert seating into bedding, and vice versa. Lowering the table to become the base for a spare double bed, or as a bed for younger children, is a common choice. What looks like a small van can be very effective with alternative bed seats.

Where space is at a premium, an expanding bed which has a packing bolster at the head can be an answer, as the bed length can be shortened or closed up to give more apparent van space during the day. The bolster looks just like another pillow when not in place as part of the mattress.

The trend to vans with flip-out or expandable ends creates a very roomy and efficient van for many travellers and where sleeping accommodation is just as important as daily living space, this idea could be a very viable alternative to towing a full-size van.

This clever fold-out bed hinges down out of the van wall, and is partly supported by the van’s normal seating after the table is lowered.

images MICROFLEECE

Even a sheet can be too much cover as bedclothes, in the top parts of this great country in the hotter months. In general, a doona or duvet is enough for most people inside a van, but if you’re in the high country along the Great Dividing Range sometimes you want all the extra blankets you can get. In warmth value for their weight, lightweight microfleece blankets seem to give the best degree of warmth for their thickness, and they store easily.

Balancing, smelling, steps and mats, ants, venting, mowing

Balancing

What are your storage options if your van doesn’t have a boot or big enough storage capacity? To have a custom-built metal box made up and fitted onto the A-bar can be quite expensive, although often relatively simple. This can also be done at the rear, if the rear bumper bar is suitable for carrying weight. It may be quite practical to move the van’s rear bumper bar out far enough to fit a full-width box across the back.

Remember that when you increase the weight at the front or the rear, you’ve changed the van’s balance from what the manufacturer intended. It’s important that your van is designed and intended to be able to carry that extra weight, if you need the additional storage.

This rear bumper bar is designed and intended to carry a considerable amount of extra weight. In their original form, many vans are not able to do this.

Smelling

It’s not difficult to fit a storage pipe or two of suitable inside diameter and length up under a van chassis to carry and store sullage hoses.

For alternatives, consider coiling the flexible sullage hose around the rear bumper bar, or perhaps store it in a bag tied to the spare wheel or on the tow vehicle roof, or simply coil it into a wire basket down between the bars on the van’s A-frame.

But in any event, it’s not a sensible practice to store a smelly sullage pipe inside an enclosed van boot. A lot of travellers appear to do this, but think about it for a moment. That boot is supposed to be waterproof, so it’s also probably fairly well airproof, and on a hot day the inside of the boot can act like an oven or pressure cooker. With a sullage pipe stored in there, it’s going to brew up, and probably smell. If you’ve got a front-mounted bed in your caravan, remember your head could be just on the other side of the wall from where you store the sullage hose.

Steps and mats

Wiping shoes on the doormat helps keep grit and dirt out of the van. There is a really good non-slip mat called Nomad, available in several colours, which does a great job of collecting fine grit and dust from shoes, instead of it being tracked inside. Once you have cut the mat to the right size, stick-on velcro is a good way to fix it to any steps. Using plastic zip ties is another neat way. For vans with a doorstep well, cut a piece of this great mat to the right size to fit the entire step and velcro it in place, as the van floor’s first-line defence against grit. For safety it’s best to positively locate the mat if you can.

Not all vans have fixed doorsteps; some have the metal fold-down doorsteps which swing out from under the van door. Perhaps the most common van doorstep is a separate strong and light plastic step-stool, but in the wet weather we’ve found this type of step can become slippery. Using Nomad or any good type of rubber mat it is easy to remedy this slipperiness on the step itself. Cut the piece of mat just a bit smaller than the outside top of the step, as this makes it easier to see and judge the step, adding to safety. Threading plastic ties through the holes already in the step, up through the mat and back down again to tighten and trim off, is simple. We used ten ties, two at each end and three along the sides. Due to the tight weave of the Nomad mat fibres you might need a skewer or similar to make an easy hole for each plastic zip tie through the mat.

Below the doorstep itself we place a heavy and thick rubber mat, whether on dirt or on a concrete pad in a van park, because you’ll only need to walk out the van door once and find the step missing or moved before you will quickly work out some way of keeping the step in place. Some vehicles have access steps which are unlikely to comply with uniform safety regulations but are quite practical once you become used to them. This is certainly one place where non-slip steps are important.

For a bigger doormat in dirt or grass areas there are several options. We’ve used a double-thickness of shadecloth for several years and it has worked well. The piece is 2x4 m, folded in half and pegged down with a U-shape coat-hanger-wire staple at each corner. It certainly does help keep much of the unwanted dirt and grass out of the van, and is a neat place to leave the shoes or thongs. In the rain, it also helps prevent too much mud getting inside.

These high steps, without rail or landing, have no non-slip tread surfaces, just the alloy checkerplate. The only safety support is on the edge of the door frame, and it would not be suitable for unfit persons.

images ANNEXE MATTING

There is a thick type of open-weave, tough and spongy plastic mat often called annexe matting intended for use beside the van. It is available from most van accessories suppliers. A piece big enough to cover an average concrete pad makes an excellent floor for a van annexe. It also works well on grass sites, and an offcut big enough to lie on top of is very handy when working under your van, as it help absorb some of the bumps from pebbles.

If you haven’t bought an annexe mat and you need one, buy one of the new-type grass mats where the grass is able to grow through the matting. A lot of caravan parks now frown on the old-type closerweave plastic matting because it leaves a big white patch on the grass, which is very visible when the mat has been pulled up after a few days. Some parks will require you to move sites every few weeks, to let the grass recover, if you have any form of matting or tenting which can kill their lawns. As an option in dusty places, shadecloth will act as a good temporary annexe mat.

This tidal inlet mudflat is surrounded by mangroves, and is probably the site of the Midge Training School. Caution: mudcrabs frequent this area.

Ants

In many northern van parks, when you stop on a site, try to make sure no part of any tree is touching your van. Apart from the annoying scraping sounds on the roof, a branch is often a freeway for ant access. Coming back from shopping to find several million green tree ants covering the entire van is not a happy thought. If there are no water restrictions, a strong hosing will get rid of almost all of them. Some ants will get onto the van via the water hose, the power cable, sullage hose or just about anything leaning against or touching the van.

Corner jack legs are a gift to ants for access, but there are ways to stop this. Plastic footplates which have grooves that can be filled with water seem to work well. Spraying or pouring commercial antiant preparations around any part which contacts the ground will help prevent their access. Crawly Cruncher spray will stop ants. It is the only surface spray we’ve found that will absolutely get rid of ants, but it is not easy to find in many supermarkets. So far it has a 100 per cent score on any ants we’ve found, including those really tiny black ones which seem to get into a van even through a closed window.

By accident, we also seem to have found a way to minimise those nasty little midges, the ones which bite round the ankles and lower legs. These leave nasty bites that really sting and itch, and to me they seem identical to those midges found around mangroves and mudflats when fishing. After spraying the small green tree-ants there was a little Crawly Cruncher left in the bottle so we just used it up, spraying it over the lawn in a metrewide strip round the concrete pad. For the next four or five days we had no nasty little sandfly bites at all. This idea is pending, but so far it does seem to work. Added to its undoubted ant-killing properties it is also an excellent ant deterrent. Remember, this spray is a poison, so wear latex gloves and wash carefully after you use it.

We’ve also found that ants don’t seem to like rubber. Even with the 4WD parked on an anthill, they didn’t climb up the tyres to get into the truck. However, it seems that ants do like salted cashew nuts, and we have lost a few carefully stored packets. If the sealed plastic bag has been opened, then no matter how many careful folds you may put in the bag with clothes pegs or rubber bands to seal it, those tiny brown ants will get into the cashews. To retain your sanity, store the cashew nuts in a Tupperware container, or at least in an airtight zip-lock plastic bag.

In full-height vans a Four Seasons hatch, or other roofmounted opening hatch, is an effective way of getting air into and circulating through a van.

Venting

Safety laws require that the outer panel door has a vent to the outside, so that if there’s a gas leak in the van, the heavier gas will pool at the lowest spot and vent to the outside of the van. That’s a sound idea for safety. But that same vent is a large opening for road dust to enter and also for the cold night air to seep back into the van. A piece of stiff cardboard or plastic sheet cut to the same size as the door vent, and hung in front of it by some duct tape or similar, makes an effective flap to close the vent when travelling, as the inner screen door helps hold it in place. This idea does keep most dust out. If you do block off the van door vent, make very sure that the LPG supply will not leak inside your van while you’re asleep!

As an alternative, one of those thick and tough paper towels, like a Chux, also makes an ideal inside cover for the van door vent. To help keep dust out on long sections of dusty roads, Chux can also be stuck over the external fridge vents, microwave louvres and similar. Don’t forget that the same idea applies to the airflow vents in the tow vehicle. Duct tape will keep it in place over or against vent slots.

images PRESSURE HATCH

Some vans have a pressure hatch or vent fitted in the roof. This is usually about 100x150 mm, opens to the outside weather, and is either snapped open or snapped shut and held there by a strong spring.

The idea of fitting one is that a small amount of air being collected and forced inside the van through this hatch will slightly positively pressurise the inside of the van as it is towed. As such, this pressure increase keeps out external dust, which can’t overcome the slight internal positive pressure and enter the van. Because this forward-facing vent is on the roof, often centrally located, and normal dust laminar flow is along the sides and lower down on the van, the small top vent seems to collect little dust.

When intending to stop with this pressure vent open, slow down gradually if possible, because dust swirls madly everywhere in a sudden stop and it might then find its way inside the van. The roof vent idea seems to work as we get very little dust inside the van when travelling. However, we have made several quick dives into the van to snap the vent shut when rain is imminent, because I think it would funnel some of the roof water inside.

images AIRFLOW

In vans most microwaves are mounted or vented to an outside wall. The most common vent for these is a louvred panel on the side wall, or a mushroom vent in the roof. There is a small benefit in roof-mounted vents, as in average dusty conditions the air laminar flow carries dust onto van sides or rear much more than it does to the roof, but there’s little you can really do to filter dust entering a rooftop mushroom vent. Shower vents, Four Seasons hatches, and any other roof-vents can be sources for dust access as well. If you have any doubt about dust sealing in roof-vents, it’s usually simple to run a few strips of easy-release masking tape round the vent edges, from the inside, to help keep dust out. In every case of additional dust sealing, it’s important that the area where duct tape or masking tape is to be stuck is firstly washed or wiped clean, and dried before applying the tape.

Dust will get into the hose and tap container if your van is fitted with an external shower, and from there can usually get into the van through the hole in the inner wall, where the hose is stored. The best practical way to prevent this is to use some of that fine black stick-on foam sealer strip to seal the inner edges of the external cover door.

A Four Seasons hatch or similar is an effective way of getting air circulating and into a van, through the roof, in many fullheight vans. However, if your van has a full-size hatch fitted in the van roof, before travelling be very sure each vent is fully shut. Any strong moving-air pressure which may get inside your van can do damage. Internal air pressure generated inside the van can create considerable force and an open hatch can collect a lot of air when moving. Some fairly small forward-opening hatches are designed to remain open when travelling, but the front-facing flap on a Four Seasons hatch is certainly not intended to do this.

On dusty roads a pressure hatch can help keep most dust out of a van by slightly pressurising the inside against dust access.

Mowing

It seems most travellers will happily go out, leaving the portable residence with open windows and hatches, and with just the screen door locked. This is a freeway for dust entry. One of the most annoying things in a van park is to return and find the inside of the van covered with a film of dust, but it is even more annoying if the van was cleaned just the day before. Quite often the dust coating is due to some van park employee mowing the lawn or blowing the dust off the roadway. This is normally done in most parks without advising travellers that mowing or blowing will be done at a nominated time, therefore not giving them a chance to close trailer windows and vents. Van park managers or proprietors, please learn well from this!

Hints

In most cases the space above whatever is stored in the bottom of a cupboard is just wasted, or the jammed-in contents develop into a jumbled pile. To avoid the wasted space, it’s often possible to fit a number of containers inside various cupboards, to occupy the whole space. Use light, strong and clear plastic containers with snap-on lids. Obviously, containers might need to be different sizes, so the cupboard is used effectively. It’s easy to see the contents and simple to remove a few containers to get the item you specifically want.

For storage of many items in the one cupboard, those clear plastic press-on containers are great. To use all the cupboard space, just use different sized containers and stack them in.

If there’s not enough room in the wardrobe or hanging locker, why not put clothes you aren’t using now into a suitcase? It does give a good option to keep and store a change of wardrobe, if you need such a thing. They’ll keep safe and dust-free there, and can be reached easily when needed, if the suitcase is stored under the van’s bed.

In some drier areas letting sullage run out onto the garden or lawn, or to the base of a tree if there is one, is better than wasting it.

Paper towels can be used for just about any job round the van. Keep a roll tucked out of harm’s way on a wall holder somewhere in the kitchen area. There is also a tough and very handy paper towel which comes in a box like ordinary tissues.

We’ve found a noticeboard is very handy for scribbling quick notes or action reminders, and for sticking papers onto instead of leaving sticky marks on the van wall. A piece of shiny white laminex cut to size and screwed in place does a good job.

Next time you look around the ceiling inside your van and you find a stain on the roof, maybe around the edge of a hatch or around a cupboard edge, inside as well as out, it’s quite possibly a water stain. If that’s the case, you could have a few problems. To be most effective, take your van to a reputable caravan maintenance and repair workshop, and get them to do an investigation. They should have all the expensive Hilastic 88 and other specialised silicons to properly do the job of waterproofing your van. In general, proper van waterproofing is a job for professionals.

If you have an ordinary gas stove with an oven, when not using it, maybe when you’re travelling or on site, the oven can be a good place to store bread, biscuits and cakes. Because it’s usually fairly well insulated and sealed, it helps to keep these things cool, as well as crisp and make them last a bit longer.

To literally see the remaining amount of gas, if you’ve got gas bottles, buy one of those stick-on colour-change strips, available from most camping stores. They are a very handy invention, easily removable in most cases, and they change colour in graduations to show gas content level. Another method is to fit a dial-gauge, which screws into the gas delivery line on most standard van-type gas bottles to also indicate gas level.

If you buy the right sized bench-top rubbish bin those thin plastic bags, which typically come from supermarket fruit and vegetable sections, will make very good bin liners. Being a smaller bin, it can be emptied out each day, helping to minimise van smells.

Plastic non-slip material can be damaging to some surfaces. For wrapping bottles or many breakables it’s great, but it can damage some items. For example, if you store clear, hard plastic CD/DVD cases wrapped in non-slip, perhaps with rubber bands to keep the package tight, after a few months there seems to be a transfer of the material pattern into the surface of the cases. It is permanent, and no amount of scrubbing with detergents or solvents will restore the plastic surface back to a smooth, clear and unmarked condition. Likewise, don’t put non-slip on top of a TV, as an aid to keeping the remote control or a small speaker in place, because the same marking can occur. Be aware of this potential, if you do wrap or store good items in non-slip material.

This is an often-used item in our van. Make your own whiteboard, cut to your particular size from white laminex, and screw it to the wall. Use soapy water to clean it.

Does your van have one of those one-piece glass-topped stoves, but no lock-down latch to stop the glass top bouncing when travelling? There is an easy way to keep it in place and down. Many of these stoves seem to have a lid with an alloy front lip, where the extrusion has a sort of hooked lower edge. A narrow rubber band cut from a car tube, or made from some strong elastic, will stretch across and around the inside the lip. Before moving off, stretch the rubber band down underneath all the gas burner knobs so it pulls down on the lid, which will then stay neatly shut under tension from the rubber band. Just make sure each gas knob is properly turned off.

Running hot waste water randomly out onto the ground is not a great thing. Hot water can kill grass. Leave it to cool in a bucket, or toss it widely to dissipate the heat.

Gas bottles are often mounted on a van A-bar, but in some vans they’re actually located instead in the van boot. If you only travel a few weeks each year that probably won’t matter very much, but if you live full-time in a van, storage space taken up by the bottles in the boot can become most valuable and important. Keep this in mind if you’re in the market for a van.

One product which might be well worth looking at is heat-resistant paint, as advertised in caravan magazines. Some of those do-it-yourself paints claim some quite remarkable benefits. It’s claimed to be fairly well resistant to hailstones, making the roof very much tougher, as well as creating a heat barrier. It isn’t cheap, but may be good value for the protective and insulation benefits.

Health, fitness, doctors, prescriptions

Medical, innoculations, bugs

Eyes, teeth, feet, talcum powder, hands, gloves, backs, injury, first aid

Bad temper, sleep, goes-unders, sullage

Washing, rubbish, insects, food, foodstuffs, cooking, cleaners

Kids, people, social order

Mail, internet, books, bikes, phones, pets

Insurance, money, wishes, paperwork

Crime, government

Odds and ends

Health, fitness, doctors, prescriptions

Health

In the beginning, everyone has their personal reason to travel. To keep warm, to explore new parts and see more of this great country, to meet people with similar interests or meet again with friends and family – these are just some of the reasons we’ve been given when talking with other travellers. Personal well-being is essential for maximum enjoyment, and nothing can take the edge off a trip quicker than feeling off-colour, no matter from what cause or reason.

There is no doubt that unless you really make yourself active, you can and will get out of physical shape, put on weight, and lose condition when travelling in a van or motorhome. This lethargy has a tendency to make you feel a bit less well than you ought to, no matter how old you are. Health is perhaps our single most important life factor – even more important than how well any shares or superannuation are doing if you are retired, even though the one may well be linked to the other.

Stress reduction is vital, and exercise will help. All physical exercise can help you live longer and enjoy life more. Ride your bike instead of driving the car to the shops. Try to walk to shops or bowls or the beach, instead of taking the vehicle, if the distance seems practical.

For the first few weeks after you begin riding you could be quite sore in a few muscles, because you might be doing unaccustomed movements or exercises. But they will eventually help you feel better, and being in good physical condition can be very addictive.

While it seems the better start to a healthy life you get, the better the later years should be, there are still many ways to improve your present health. Good health is clearly what you make it. Nothing happens quickly, and noticeable change could take months, but perseverance will get a good result.

Riding bikes is a healthy activity, and a great way of exploring the locality.

Fitness

Sitting, looking, travelling – many of us do this, and our fitness rapidly goes out to lunch. What easy ways are there to keep fit? Three easy choices are walking, riding a pushbike or going for a jog. Even walking around a shopping centre for an hour or two does help in a small way to keep you fit, but sitting in a chair browning your body in the sun has no fitness benefit.

There are some exercise systems like pilates and yoga which really can help get or keep your body toned up and in good condition. I’ve seen some flat rubber band devices which you can buy, often known as ‘physio bands’. They are so simple, weigh nothing, occupy almost no space and yet when you read the little booklet that comes with them, you’ll find you can use those rubber bands to stretch and exercise almost every muscle in your body.

Just don’t sit there – get out and walk, because you will live longer, and you might as well enjoy your life more, whether you are 17 or 70.

images EXERCISES

‘Use it or lose it’ definitely applies to your health. Keeping physically flexible seems to be more important the older you get, so to avoid chances of muscular damage, why not combine your PT exercises with your shower?

We have found this idea works very well. Because your body is already warm, and your muscles are nice and flexible, so your body usually moves more easily. With warmth you can sometimes, and maybe unexpectedly, lift your arms a bit higher than your shoulders, or your fingers will move a bit easier or your knees don’t hurt as much. For the extra minute or two under the shower the benefits can be great.

Use the hot water to warm up your muscles before exercising, reducing the water temperature when you’re finished to cool down. Work at exercise consistently over quite a few months, because improved flexibility can take that long to be obvious – then maintain the effort. Most chiropractors, doctors or physios can provide a few basic but important exercises to do on a regular basis, to help keep your body in good condition.

Doctors

Before you go away long-term travelling, consider having a really thorough check-up with your own doctor to make sure that you are, and will likely remain, in good physical condition. What happens if you get sick, but you are several thousand kilometres away from your base or anyone in your family who might be able to quickly help you? Be aware of this, and look into what is necessary, should you be faced with a bad medical situation away from home.

Consider arranging with your doctor that, if you do get sick with some pre-existing medical condition while travelling and you have to visit a strange doctor, if necessary this doctor will at least be able to ring your GP and get your specific medical information. With the current civil liberties-supported personal privacy laws, there are now some stringent conditions for passing on personal information. Doctors are not exempt from this requirement. Perhaps you could arrange that your doctor must be given your faxed written approval, or hear a pre-arranged password, before he will pass your private details over the phone to another person who claims to be a doctor.

If you felt it really necessary, any medical doubts or misunderstandings could be eliminated if you carried a brief report provided by your personal doctor outlining your specific medical history. These ideas may seem extreme, but they are simple and could help you stay alive, like the information wristbands worn by many diabetics.

Most good health-food shops stock the different additional vitamins we usually don’t get enough of in our diets.

Prescriptions

If you take multi-vitamins, as many travellers do, it’s easy to get omega-3 fish oil capsules, glucosamine, calcium tablets, evening primrose and other needs at any health-food shop in most shopping centres. But check to be sure that wherever you travel you can get supplies of whatever personal food, prescription medicine, pills or tablets you require.

It’s not sensible to get a 12 month supply of specific pills from your own doctor before you travel, if they have a shelf-life of three months. Get a prescription with several repeats instead, but check if there is an expiry date that may conflict with your travel time.

Remember, it could be very difficult later to get your normal prescription medicine from another doctor, unless you’ve got some kind of written information which you can produce to show what you need.

Find out what alternative medication you could use if your preferred brand isn’t available in another state. Medical preparations which might be available in Victoria may simply not be available in Queensland, and vice versa. Strangely, some items which are prescription-only in some states are available over the counter in others.

Medical, innoculations, bugs

Medical

Hospital costs can be horrifying – there is no other word for it. Are you covered by private health insurance? Will it be to your benefit to have full private hospital insurance, or should you have gap insurance instead, to cover the often large difference between what Medicare pays and the amount the hospital charges? There’s an awful lot of current discussion about waiting lists at public hospitals, so this is just another area to consider when travelling.

A hose and filter unit sticking out like this could be damaged by passers-by.

images AMBULANCE COVER

You may believe you’re properly covered for ambulance transport and care when you become a pensioner, but that’s not necessarily the case. The basic ambulance cover, which the government pays for, is quite a different matter from what you get if you’re a paid-up ambulance fund member. Should you be in the ambulance subscription fund? If you’re outback and you need the Royal Flying Doctor Service you won’t be properly covered unless you are in an ambulance subscription fund. Enquire about these things, and check your particular position carefully.

Innoculations

Like it or not, medical prevention is always much better than curing an illness. Almost all capital cities have an overseas medical service which can keep you advised about some of the peculiar diseases that you can get if you travel overseas.

Yet locally there are so many bugs going around that it’s quite difficult to keep up with them. Strangely, many people travelling around Australia seem to ignore this vital matter. In Australia, for example, we have Murray Valley Encephalitis, Ross River Fever and some other very nasty illnesses.

Two quite common but important innoculations for travellers around Australia are anti-tetanus and hepatitis shots. Are your innoculations all current? Remember that adults get different diseases to children.

If you have children, are they also properly innoculated for some of the nasty illnesses that it’s possible for them to catch? Just as importantly, are you aware of the common symptoms for some of these awful diseases?

Once a year, usually about March, if you are in the age group at risk, consider getting the Fluvax, a tiny but essential vaccination. Influenza takes many forms, none of them pleasant, but this important yearly prevention may need to be allowed for whilst travelling. What items must you take with you, if you’re subject to some bronchial problems? Perhaps you should consider having the pneumonia vaccine at the same time as the Fluvax.

images INSULIN

Many tablets and prescription medicines need to be kept below a certain temperature. Can you store and maintain them at the required temperature in your van, camper trailer or tow vehicle fridge?

For example, if you’re a diabetic and need to inject insulin, how do you keep that insulin cool if you decide to take a desert trip 300 km to the west of Coober Pedy? Is your vehicle fitted with a fridge that will maintain the proper low temperature necessary for insulin?

These things are all a part of our vital health, but this essential knowledge should fall into your trip preparation category as well.

Any water filter will give obvious results. The inside of our stainless steel kettle is clear evidence of water filtration benefits. Keeping the unwanted out of water is keeping it out of you.

Bugs

Humans are made up of over 90 per cent water, and clean water supply is absolutely vital. Water carries micro-organisms and diseases, some of them very debilitating or harmful. For information on those common and nasty bugs cryptosporidium and giardia , check with your doctor. Keeping unwanted things out of the water supply equals not getting them into your system.

The easy answer to eliminating almost all unwanted waterborne matter is filtering. There are many suppliers who can provide quite reasonably-priced filter set-ups, from basic filters right through to those which eliminate taste, smell and every kind of granulated stuff and unwanted bacteria. The actual filters themselves have a wide price-range, depending on what you want to achieve.

With a water filter in your van, one obvious benefit is keeping the inside of the metal electric kettle clean. We’ve had a water filter in our van for almost five years and the kettle is remarkably clean inside, and so is its heating element, considering the amount and different types of water we’ve boiled in it.

That’s almost certainly due to properly filtering water before we put it in the kettle. Some white scale builds up round the lid, but it scrubs clean fairly easily with a stainless steel scourer.

An alternative to filtering is to boil every bit of water that you want to drink. There are definite health benefits, although the drawbacks of always boiling water are the time and effort involved.

Eyes, teeth, feet, talcum powder, hands, gloves, backs, injury, first aid

Eyes

In politically-correct language, I am described as ‘visually-challenged’. In fact, if I lost them I might never find them again, because I need them to find them! What about your spectacles? Do you have the written prescription for your present glasses?

If they must be replaced, but you don’t know the right prescription for them, you will have to go right through the whole measurement, selection and manufacture system again. That always takes time, so it’s much easier to carry a spare pair of glasses when travelling.

Do you need prescription sunglasses as well, and have you allowed for those? Inside your tow vehicle, if you wear prescription glasses with photochromic or colour-change lenses, they won’t work. This is because the light value changes when it enters the windscreen of your tow vehicle, and then doesn’t have sufficient value or intensity to cause your glasses lenses to change as well.

There are recent technological developments with photochromic lenses which will allow them to change colour rapidly and easily inside vehicles.

So if you require prescription glasses to drive, on very bright days you may also need prescription non-changing sunglasses. This can be very important, because eye-strain from squinting into the light rapidly causes driver fatigue.

Teeth

Teeth can be a problem, especially if you’re a long way from your regular dentist, so get a good check-up before you start travelling. Toothache can be one of the very worst pains known to man.

Mouth ulcers can also be very painful, especially when trying to eat, but we’ve found an effective cure for most of them. As with many cures, it just takes a bit of experimenting and thinking outside the square to find the one that works for you. It’s a simple everyday blue mouthwash, found in most supermarkets, and it specifically addresses mouth ulcers. Within a few days all traces of the ulcers should go.

If you have dentures, there are repair packages you can buy to fix a broken plate or lost tooth, and they usually include the specific glue needed to re-join broken pieces.

Feet

No matter how clean the van park toilet block looks you will get tinea, the dreaded footrot, if you don’t wear thongs in the ablutions-block showers. That’s a virtual guarantee. It seems the really virulent type of tinea thrives in van park showers and it often takes a doctor’s prescription for the right ointment to get rid of it properly and quickly.

Don’t be foolish about this – buy a pair of good quality rubber thongs, keep them for the shower and wet areas, and always wear them. Why rubber? Because plastic thongs usually have a slippery surface, and after you’ve slipped a few times and lost a plastic thong walking back to your van, you’ll realise the more grippy rubber thongs are the better choice.

There’s another benefit of tougher thongs – bad weather. Rather than get good shoes wet, and track wet footprints inside the van, it’s far easier to just wear thongs. It’s easy to kick them off at the door and dry your feet when inside. In fact, we store our rubber thongs under the doorstep when stopped at a van park.

Leaving a five-dollar pair of thongs outside under the doorstep is much less worry than leaving out an expensive pair of good runners. Besides, it only takes a piece of paper towel to dry off the feet and the thongs, but it might take a day or two of good weather to dry out the runners.

Talcum powder

Talcum powder is great stuff – it will usually ease the burn from sunburn. Dust it on any burnt skin and pat it on gently. We’ve found that applying it several times a day can help get rid of normal painful sunburn in just a few days.

It’s also great to minimise tinea cruris, and for that nasty unisex prickly heat rash, including the armpits; just dust it on morning and night.

Hands

Some public toilets are so dirty you would not willingly use them. However, if you need them, you need them. In this situation, hand washing is usually a major problem, and trying to keep your body clean after using one of those toilets can be very difficult.

There’s a product called Aqium, which you can buy in any good chemist shop. It’s an ethanol-based evaporating liquid used for waterless hand-sterilising, or on other external parts which may not be at all sterile.

Get into a good health safety habit every time you stop along the road, for example at morning tea or lunch time, by washing your hands with Aqium or similar antibacterial product. As a quick anti-germ wash for a skin wound, I’ve also found it excellent, but be warned – just like iodine, on an open cut it really stings!

Gloves

Wearing gloves when working is wise, because the older we get the easier it seems to be to bruise or knock a bit of skin off. Often, from taking some particular medication, it also gets harder to stop the bleeding and, for many, it takes a far longer time to heal.

For almost any form of work on or around the van, gloves are a cheap and simple way to prevent damage to your skin, fingers and any other part of your hands, no matter how old you are. It’s far easier to wear gloves than to growl for a week or two about the pain and the missing skin on your hands.

Those green and gold gardening gloves are very good for most work around a van. Hitching up on a cold and damp morning, condensation doesn’t get through the rubber face on the glove fingers and palms to freeze your hands. Despite the rubber palm coating, they seem sensitive enough that with finger tips you can feel enough to screw up the safety-chain D-shackles. But they’re also sturdy enough that if you bang your hand against something you may bruise but shouldn’t lose skin. It’s important – gloves are good value for hands, and therefore your health.

images Tip

Wearing gloves when working is wise, because the older we get the easier it seems to be to bruise or suffer injuries.

Backs

Sadly, the older we get the more easily it seems we can do ourselves an injury. Any wind-down corner jack or wind-up jockey wheel can be a perfect source of injury, from bending, twisting, winding and reaching, and often all at the same time.

Without question, mechanical effort saves sore backs, time, effort, broken fingernails and it surely saves bad temper. Low-geared side-winding jacks are much easier to wind than the more conventional horizontally-winding threaded shaft on a jockey wheel. Pumping a lever on a hydraulic jack is very easy, compared with winding up a bolt-thread jockey wheel. Of the two choices, I’ve found that the hydraulic jack is the easiest.

I took the easier path, and bought a hydraulic jockey wheel, right from the start. It came with two different feet: one is the usual roller-wheel and the other is a flat footplate. If you can afford to buy a caravan, you can most likely also afford the few extra dollars to buy a simple hydraulic device designed to lift the A-bar, and really save both your back and your effort.

As another intended benefit, with the proper bracket welded in place on the van chassis, the same hydraulic jack also lifts the van for an easier wheel change, if needed. Hydraulic corner jacks and jockey wheels are two of the all-time best labour-saving devices money can buy for your caravan and your back. Convenience does cost money, but usually money can’t afterwards buy away the pain from a twisted back or pulled muscle, which mechanical efficiency can often prevent.

Wind-down corner jacks and wind-up jockey wheels can cause personal injury from bending, twisting, winding and reaching, often all at the same time. If you forget to wind them up they can easily be damaged.

Injury

As I see it, health also ranges from potentially injurious situations, right up to what happens if the worst possible scenario occurs. Consider the sudden pressure put on an inexperienced travel companion having to drive the tow vehicle and trailer out from some awkward or remote location, perhaps carrying a badly injured person for urgent medical assistance.

Do you have some form of communications which will reach, with certainty, from where you may be out to wherever medical help is available? It might require a satellite phone. Although this situation may seem unlikely to you, it definitely happens and is something to consider in any remote area.

Can you understand and readily use the first aid kit and instruction handbook carried in the tow vehicle? Is there a basic supply of bandaids or similar help quickly accessible in your kit? It’s so easy to injure yourself slightly, and the older you get the more easily it seems to happen.

images MENTAL TOUGHNESS

On what may be a more common problem for older travellers, what would happen if you put your back out, and almost every physical movement is agony? Would your partner be physically able to hook the trailer to the tow vehicle, and then drive it wherever necessary?

When it’s been raining for some time and the annexe or tent is saturated, and when it comes time to pack up it’s raining more, but you still have to pull it down and pack it away, despite your bad back – could you handle that? It takes a certain degree of mental and physical toughness to cope with this temporary situation, but these things certainly can affect your overall health.

First aid

Because first aid kits hopefully aren’t used, the items in them usually age and expire without being noticed. The normal use-by date condition applies, most importantly, to your first aid kit. If the kit is kept inside your tow vehicle, chances are that the vehicle’s inside temperature will be over 60°C on any hot summer day, and heat normally degrades medical supplies rapidly.

When you buy supplies, write the purchase date on the package. At least once a year, take the supplies out of your first aid kit and carefully check the use-by dates. If that’s not obvious, look at the instructions on the bottle or the box, and determine if the contents are likely still safe to use. Very little medicinal material has a lifespan much greater than one year.

Some gauze bandages in sterile packaging can last several years, but eye wash, for example, in some cases only lasts a few days after the bottle has been opened. Even if you don’t open the bottle, in most cases it still has a use-by date of less than a year.

Headache tablets and cough medicines all have use-by dates. Generally speaking bandaids don’t, but after a year or so they very much tend to lose their stickiness, and become more of a nuisance than an asset.

Those kinds of things definitely need to be monitored. Generally speaking, with any foodstuffs and medical material, there is a very definite safe limit date and you will be unwise to ignore the declared use-by dates. Health is certainly an issue where good maintenance doesn’t cost, it pays.

Bad temper, sleep, goes-unders, sullage

Most campers in van parks are usually pleasant and willing to help make everyone’s life a bit easier, although some people make life unnecessarily difficult.

Bad temper

High blood pressure is caused by many things, and one certain source is bad temper. If you have a UHF radio fitted in your tow vehicle, to really help with backing into a site go to a Dick Smith or Tandy store, and buy one of those small handheld UHF radios. Then when both your UHF radios are on the same channel, the person guiding you can hopefully talk to you quietly and give you as much information as you want. Only you will hear the comments on the radio inside your tow vehicle.

Using a handheld radio to give private advice will help reduce public displays of bad temper, as heard or seen in some van parks, for example when putting up a TV antenna, or when someone is being guided, often by a partner, into reversing into a site. As another option to help avoid bad temper from reversing arguments, try to borrow someone else’s partner to help you back into your site. The benefit is they won’t yell at you, or at least you can ignore it with no consequences.

When the observer uses a handheld radio to guide the driver backing into a van site, the job can be much easier.

images COOPERATION

So that you can back into a tight site more easily, if you ask the driver across the road from your site whether they’d mind moving their car to give you more turning room, they’ll pleasantly do it in most cases. But don’t be surprised if you just get a blank look and grudging movement, or if you are ignored. This can be a problem, and it is unpleasant, but it does occur in some van parks, especially in peak season where perhaps the majority of caravanners are not travellers.

Sleep

Magnetic underlays, pillows and so on – they can cost a fair amount of money but do they work? We feel fairly sure they do have some good effect on us. As this book isn’t a scientific document, the word is we ‘think’ they have a benefit. Amongst other parts, my left shoulder, well bent in an off-road motorcycle competition in the seventies, really did ache most mornings. Now it doesn’t ache much, and is certainly less painful since we’ve had the magnetic underlay and pillows. They’ve also helped to reduce pain in various other broken but repaired bits and pieces of my body.

However, in the same mysterious vein as the Bermuda Triangle, I’m not sure if this magnetic effect could have something to do with my wife’s stainless steel watch inconsistently losing time, but it does seem that this occurs overnight. For those of you with an enquiring mind, check this one out.

Most portable toilets are simple to use and easy to empty, and new chemicalfree liquids can make their use more environmentally friendly.

Goes-unders

Many vans, those without a fitted toilet/ shower, have a small access door to the under-bed storage area generally intended to fit a stand-alone portable toilet. Port-a-potties normally require specific chemicals to make them operate, and keep them sanitary, but there are some new environmentally-friendly liquids which can be used for the same job.

In current vans fitted with showers and toilets, one of the most common toilets is the Thetford cassette toilet, with an external access door for cassette removal. Cassette toilets are quite reliable and a straightforward item to use, with a spout which swivels around and allows easy and neat emptying when needed.

As part of technical progress, some of these toilets are now electrically operated, but most still have a shut-off mechanical slide on them. About the only part that wears is their O-ring seal, where the close-off blade slides to and fro each time it’s used.

To lubricate that neoprene seal is relatively simple to do, as it just requires a wipe round with cooking oil. You can pull the seal out and reinsert it quite easily. It only needs a screwdriver and a pair of pliers, and the manual or some commonsense. Use gloves and wash your hands very carefully when you’ve finished the maintenance.

There is a benefit in watching what books other people use for reference and ideas, as these might also give you good information. One useful book is Explore Australia by Caravan and Motorhome. Among many different travelling routes and stops, this book lists known dump points. Other good resources are Budget Camps & Stops Australia (lists free and low-cost rest areas near highways) and Camping around Australia (describes camping spots and facilities around Australia).

Sullage

Most van parks do provide sullage inlets, or a gully trap, where you can tip sink water. Used sink water, or grey water, should run out through the sullage hose to a proper drain point if at all possible. Some uncaring tourists, particularly in hired campervans, merely put a bucket under the sink drain outlet and don’t seem to care when the bucket overflows onto surrounding soil. This is not good practice. It’s much better to get a sullage hose and pipe the used water away to a garden bed or tree.

images Advice

Important – don’t empty toilets down the camp park sink. If possible, when you empty port-a-potties or cassette toilets, find an intended dump point, which is normally a toilet without a pan. A lot of councils and many caravan parks now have proper dump points. They usually have a stainless steel bowl, and almost always have a good hose to clean out the cassette and to wash the bowl down.

Washing, rubbish, insects, food, foodstuffs, cooking, cleaners

Washing

Many smart travellers have said that the first thing they do, before their actual clothes washing, is to carefully wipe the van park washing machine’s bowl clean. On the odd occasion what you put in to wash in a van park laundry may not come out much cleaner than when you tossed them in. We have seen clothes ruined, entirely due to dirty washing machines at van parks. Be sure to check each machine out for bowl and top lip cleanliness, because not everyone is as neat and tidy as you may be.

The majority of van parks don’t provide hot water for washing machines, so we take a bucket over to the laundry when we go to do the clothes washing. The one we use to collect hot water for washing the dishes works perfectly. Although van park proprietors might not like the practice, if you want a hot-water clothes wash, bucket the water from a hot tap at the trough across into the washing machine. Besides, the hot water is great to dissolve the water softener in.

Using the laundry troughs in many van parks can be a problem if someone has ‘acquired’ the sink plugs. A simple fix for this is to cut a disc of rubber, about 4 inches (100 mm) in diameter, from a piece of car tyre inner tube. Use a plastic food container to trace a circle on the rubber, and cut it out with scissors. Cutting several of these ‘sink-sealers’ takes only a few minutes. We keep two permanently in the basket with the clothes-washing detergents; they take up no space and solve a common problem. At least if you forget one, it’s easily replaced.

Keep several 35 mm film canisters for holding twenty-cent, one-dollar and two-dollar coins to use for washing machines and driers in van park laundries. Not having the right coinage can be a considerable inconvenience and really annoying.

Some parks place signs advising or asking you not to leave your washed clothes on their clothes lines overnight. Common sense says they wouldn’t go to this effort if there wasn’t a good reason. The most common sign displayed in caravan parks is probably: ‘You may be on holidays, but thieves are not.’

images Caution

Don’t buy one of the cheap sullage hoses, corrugated on the outside and inside as well. Sullage hoses really should have a smooth internal bore because all those inside corrugated ribs will trap unpleasant things which pass through the pipe, and they will smell.

Rubbish

Not all van parks have recycling facilities, if you’re used to doing the right thing and sorting your rubbish into plastic, glass and paper. By no means do all van parks even have rubbish bins which could be called sanitary. To get to some rubbish bins you might have to walk some distance, and have to toss your rubbish into a full-sized dumpster, later to be taken away by those enormous compactor-trucks.

Insects

One of the really annoying things about being a traveller and camping near the beach can be midges, mosquitoes and other tiny biting insects, which all sting and irritate. Many unfortunate people are quite allergic to bites by sand flies and midges, often ending up with skin covered in some very angry purple and red bite marks, some of which don’t fade for weeks.

Although midges don’t seem to be attracted to that ultra-violet blue colour, which does attract mozzies and flying ants, it could be worth considering buying an electronic bug zapper.

images MIDGE MESH

A really very fine type of nylon mesh, known in some places as midge mesh, can be fitted to most van windows and screen doors. It’s not too easy to find, but look for it at good hardware stores. One alternative I’ve seen, and which is reported to work well, is to buy the finer mesh and cut pieces a little larger than the original insect screens on windows and doors. A few bits of duct tape or masking tape will hold it in place temporarily over the original mesh. When the tiny biters have gone, the very fine mesh can be removed and stored for the next time – because there will certainly be a next time. Perhaps a simpler method is to buy low-irritant residual bug spray, and carefully dose the normal flyscreens with this. The drawback is that it is slightly sticky, and it attracts and retains dust on the mesh.

images CITRONELLA

Citronella seems to work as a general insect repellent. For many travellers it might be practical to use a citronella burner, or an open bowl of citronella oil with a wick in it, but when those things burn they give off all kinds of peculiar smoky residue. So do the proprietary brands of mozzie coil, which smoulder away for ages, and you virtually need to sit in the smoke given off during burning for them to be effective.

Spray-on insect repellents certainly work, but effective duration does vary considerably, and some stronger brands can certainly sting sensitive skin.

Keeping the midges at bay is a major problem because their bites can be so itchy. Unfortunately many people scratch the bites, and they become inflamed or infected. We have heard of, and tried, several folk remedies for keeping these nasty little insects at bay. So far, none have worked consistently.

images HOME BREW

We made up a 1-2-3 home-brew insect repellent, and whilst it’s unfortunately quite oily, collects dirt and will leave marks on the van’s upholstery, it seems to work for a while. The recipe is one part of pure citronella oil (which you really have to buy from a chemist), two parts of Dettol and three parts of good quality baby oil.

images REPELLENTS

By trial and mostly error we have found a few ways to help reduce the lasting irritation from the sting or itch. Antihistamines seemed to work a little, but for the antihistamine group to work best they need to be proactive, that is, already in your system when you get the bite. As we were being reactive by applying something to a bite just received, antihistamines were not the real answer.

Chemists will sell you any number of proprietary products to prevent or reduce insect bite itches. Checking the chemist shops for the dozen or more different creams, sprays and lotions we bought whilst looking for the right one, we found that they usually contain a chemical called lignocaine, in various percentages, from the common 2 per cent up to 5 per cent. This chemical is a local anaesthetic, the same stuff in the numbing injection you could get from the dentist. It does numb the skin for a while.

A wily old Darwin doctor suggested a product for us to use, and so far it seems a good itch-reducer. As it’s not cheap, and only available on prescription, you’ll need to be sure you aren’t allergic to it. It is a cream called Elocon and, as the instructions say, use it sparingly. We’ve found it good for the job; it does work for a while to relieve many of our bites.

We’ve even tried a freshly-sliced onion for midge/sandfly bites, rubbed vigorously onto the bite. The stinging goes away a bit with the smell, and the bite does seem reduced, although the bite mark remains for some time. A recent idea is to administer a number of tiny electric shocks to insect bites. This small device has a piezo electric spark, just like a cigarette lighter, and is claimed to even reduce pain from jellyfish stings. We tried the clicker on both midge and mosquito bites, and it does work very well, although some might not like the tiny sparking shocks.

Sometimes the cure might seem worse than the complaint, but remembering that very itchy midge and sandfly bites can last for many days after the initial bite, almost anything is worth it to prevent or minimise them. The ‘morning-after pill’ for midge bites is the stuff of legend. It varies from using only the purple version of ‘Mum brand’ roll-on deodorant, through to pouring on metho or Scotch whisky, or strongly scrubbing the fresh midge bite with a nail-brush under a hot shower. So far, the score is midges ten, visitors one!

images MOZZIES

As they can carry some dreadful diseases, mozzie defence is very important. It seems the types of mozzies and midges change from area to area. Some local shops stock spray-on and roll-on bug protectors which over time have apparently been found suitable for the local area. Kakadu in particular often has a very bad mozzie problem, but there are a number of good preparations which will keep mosquitoes away.

This repellent effectiveness doesn’t apply to sandflies, sadly. At dawn and dusk, and in damp grass, there doesn’t seem to be an effective and long-term answer to these pests other than to fully cover up. When you are outside, good, loose, lightcoloured clothing, right down to wrists and ankles, and right up around your neck, might be the only practical answer.

images Caution

Do not scratch insect bites. Because their bites can be so itchy, unfortunately many people scratch them and they easily become inflamed or infected.

Food

This book is not about the subject of cooking. But here’s a recipe for the standby of many blokes – fruit cake. This is such a simple and easy recipe; I just had to include it. Making it is almost foolproof, in fact. Here’s how to do it:

Buy a kilo of mixed fruit and pick out the mixed peel if you don’t like it. Make one and a half cups of black coffee and add half a cup of whisky to it. (You can substitute tea for the coffee, or use rum if you don’t like whisky, or delete the grog and use just coffee or tea.) Soak the mixed fruit in the liquid overnight, but two nights is even better. Thoroughly mix in two cups of wholemeal self-raising flour to make a good cake mix, and try to get the fruit evenly distributed. If it’s too dry, do the obvious – add coffee, and if it’s too soft, add a wee bit of flour. Bake in a lined big log tin in a slow fan-forced oven at 160 degrees celsius for about 90 minutes, maybe a little longer. Test it with a skewer – if the mixture sticks to the skewer, then it needs more time cooking. To avoid the top burning, cover the top with alfoil about halfway through cooking. This makes a very rich fruit cake indeed, with a really good taste, and it doesn’t seem to dry out at all.

You just know you’re in for a bad time when the campground kiosk has a shelf filled with rows of insect repellent products.

Foodstuffs

Don’t make the mistake of leaving food in your van long-term, while it’s in storage. If you must store food in the van for future use, remember to replace it on a regular basis to be safe. Food has a definite and often clearly-stated use-by date. For example, it’s not a wise thing to leave boxes of soup you bought on a ‘store special’ stored in the van, because in June next year when you go away again, you’ll likely find the use-by date was the previous December. It’s often false and foolish economy. Give any unused food to the Salvation Army. Otherwise all you may have done is waste your money, when perhaps somebody else could have made good use of the almost-out-of-date foodstuff. If you really don’t want to give the food away, take it inside your house and use it up before restocking to go away again.

Teflon sheets are one of the all-time best inventions for cooking on BBQ plates and in frypans.

Cooking

As travellers pay quite an amount in site fees we feel it’s more sensible to use the van park facilities, including electricity and gas, than ours. Besides, using the van park barbecue to cook on means our van doesn’t smell of cooking.

Do you cringe at the thought of putting your nice bit of steak or chicken on a barbecue plate that isn’t clean? To bypass the mess is a simple trick. Buy a roll of non-stick baking and cooking paper like GladBake or similar, found at any supermarket. Use an alfoil sheet as an under-blanket between the non-stick paper and the barbeque plate to absorb some of the contact heat out of the metal plate. Tear off a bit of paper, plenty big enough to fit all your meat on it, then double it in thickness, because depending on how hot the barbeque gets you may need two layers for best results.

Fold up a small lip on the downhill side, to prevent the meat juices running off the paper into the plate drain hole. If juice does run out, we’ve found the best thing is to lift the paper lip to run the liquids back under the meat. It helps to keep the natural taste. As a healthy bonus, you don’t need any cooking oil at all, because the paper is non-stick.

The non-stick paper will often char with hot temperature, but it’s a throwaway item. At the edges, usually the paper won’t even burn your fingers. Cleaning up is simple: just pick up the paper and bin it. If you decide to use just the alfoil directly instead of paper, you will need to spray cooking oil onto it, because the meat will stick to it otherwise. There is no doubt that meat really has the best taste ever, cooked this way.

images TEFLON

As a really effective alternative to always buying baking paper and alfoil, some camping stores sell a sheet of thin flexible Teflon. Our Teflon sheet is almost two years old now. It was a bit expensive, but it will withstand an enormous degree of heat without melting. It won’t burn on a barbeque plate, it rolls up into a small tube to store, and it’s easily wiped clean with a paper towel. It can be used on top of any barbeque, and is supposed to last for several years of hard cooking use.

To use it, just put it on top of any barbecue plate and cook normally, as though you had a perfectly clean barbecue. It’s a very clever idea, and a safe and hygienic way of cooking, including on a dirty barbecue which you would otherwise not even consider using. You don’t require fat, or any other form of cooking oil, just put the food on it and cook away. When finished, to clean it you can often just wipe it clean with a piece of paper towel. If you’ve marinated the meat there is usually some sticky residue, so then the sheet will need to be properly washed.

images Advice

Refrigerators are provided in many van park camp kitchens for use by travellers. Unfortunately, some campers fiddle with them and in many cases turn them up so that they will freeze rapidly. Therefore they ice up, and need defrosting.

Cleaners

Ordinary white vinegar is very handy stuff. As a last resort to keep the midges and other bugs off you can spray some over exposed skin. Pour it on your thongs when they get a bit aromatic and it will help to freshen them up. Vinegar and bicarbonate of soda are two of the simplest and cheapest things to use for cleaning. Instead of paying high prices for some of the current ‘kill-every-microbe’ antiseptic cleaners for inside the van, vinegar and bicarb soda will do a great job. It’s much cheaper than supermarket sprays, and this mixture apparently won’t kill off all the ‘good’ bugs.

images VINEGAR

When your vehicle’s front windscreen gets filthy with insects, and the wiper blades and detergent in the screen washer bottle just won’t remove them, try scrubbing them off with a mixture of equal parts water and vinegar.

CASE STUDY

images Rubbish bins

The better van parks have rubbish bins with plastic liner bags, one for each van site and emptied at least every second day. In a van park in central Queensland, I saw an older lady trying to reach high enough to put her bag of rubbish into a homemade rubbish bin high on the back of a trailer. It was located about a hundred metres away from her van, near the entrance, and was the only available bin for the entire van park.

Kids, people, social order

Kids

It’s probably true that great grandkids are God’s reward for not throttling your own! Kids are one of the very best reasons to go travelling. We’ve had the really good experience of seeing a three-year-old and her younger sister before, during and after their two-year trip around Australia. The difference in attitude between them and their city friends when they returned was absolutely amazing.

Pre-school children are often unsettled for some time, until they develop a new routine, when travelling on a long-term trip. Kids, especially little ones, need more pit stops than adults generally do. This is just something that has to be allowed for in the day’s travel itinerary. Whilst it might seem a nuisance at the time, extra pit stops make the driver have more breaks from driving concentration. Everything needs to be based on compromise – maybe fewer miles for the day, but more peace and better behaviour from the little ones in the back seat. The old fallback game of ‘I Spy’ still seems to work for a long time with most kids of younger ages.

Perhaps there is something to be said for occasional use of electronic audio and video entertainment for the young back seat brigade, at least while car sickness is absent. One experienced couple I know divided their activities when arriving at a new site for the night stop, and while one unhitched and set up camp, the other took the little ones to the playground to unwind after the day in the vehicle. This system worked well.

It can take some organising for kids to remain current with schooling, if this is needed on a long-term trip. Many schools have resource officers, who can advise on how this can best be done. Lots of travelling kids do it, so it can’t be too hard to arrange!

Many van parks have really great play and entertainment facilities for kids. At parks right across this country you can find activities from huge air-filled rubber jumping bags to really classy pools specifically designed for kids of all ages. Sometimes, in the occasional bad weather that does occur, the undercover games rooms and areas with TV and table tennis are the most popular. In just about every van park there are playground areas and good roads for kids to ride their bikes.

Not every van park resident obeys the 8 kph speed limit in most parks, so all kids do need to be made well aware of the danger of speeding vehicles.

It seems that in many cases adult supervision often disappears inside van park fences, and that many parents believe kids are safe inside the park. Unsupervised children are at serious risk at the swimming pool, and parents should monitor them properly at all times because any pool can be a dangerous environment. Other parents shouldn’t be expected to supervise every kid in the water or around the pool. In this day and age, never let your kids play around the amenities blocks, and educate them fully about the ‘Stranger Danger’ program.

Bad weather can quickly take the fun out of camping for kids, but often they can put the water puddles to good use.

images YOUNGER FAMILIES

Younger families travelling around do seem to gravitate together at van parks and compare notes on their experiences, often brought into contact by their icebreaking kids making friends with others of their age. This is one of the best parts of travelling, meeting other people with like experiences and ambitions, and happily, it does happen with interested travellers of every age.

Van parks generally charge for kids once they reach three years of age; the average cost is about $10 per child, per day. Smaller kids are very unlikely to use $10 worth of water and electricity on any day. If a van site typically costs $26 per night for two adults, then three youngsters in the four-to-ten age bracket would more than double that cost. Doubtless that biases many travellers with younger kids against van parks, and affects the length of stay or overall trip duration for them considerably.

People

There is an old saying that you can’t pick your family, but at least you can pick your friends. With a van, if the people on the next-door site are really annoying enough, you can at least move away. It might be cutting off your nose to spite your face, but it certainly can be done.

So far, after a few years on the road, we’ve only had minor annoyances, like aircon units running all night, loud doofdoof music or rude rug-rats running under our van awning to get to their playground. Domestic disputes clearly heard late at night are another nuisance, but these disturbances are generally few. Commonly, and perhaps sadly, some ‘neighbours’ won’t talk and some won’t even reply to a polite ‘good morning’. In most cases, either they or you move away, and the problem is solved. Fortunately, we’re all different.

images INTERACTIONS

‘Interpersonal relationships’ and ‘group dynamics’ sound like terms used in university management-level courses. OK, they are, but they generally refer to how people relate to and behave with one another, and this can be quite a critical area for some travellers. Travelling with friends or associates can often be disastrous for enjoyment, and the whole trip, unless those involved work at being easy to get on with.

Holding a few informal group meetings to consider personal preferences, genuine needs, and realistic timings before going on a trip with others can be very important. Sometimes all it takes to become a serious matter en route, for example, is a very minor disagreement over a schedule when one group is on a tight time frame and the other is not.

In some cases a complete change of attitude from all those involved can be needed. Often one couple seems to prefer the high life while the other is happy to sit for hours on end with a fishing rod or book. We know of instances where the social pecking order of partners involved caused some simmering and unpleasant discussions between the whole group, when all the males had previously been away together minus their partners, without any hassles at all.

There are many instances of couples travelling together, where lifetime friendships have been lost due to minor irritations from close contact and not enough consideration for others. Best friends can soon become very standoffish after a few short days when simple tolerance and prior agreements or understandings are forgotten.

images AGREEMENT

As a wandering brown-grey nomad, tolerance and a pleasant outlook are essential to survive in a close environment over a long period. Living in a van does take a bit of effort to keep harmony with a partner. For example, we’ve decided that the easy way to maintain our caravan is basically that the inside belongs to my wife and the outside belongs to me. I’m the one who has to go out in the rain first, hitch and unhitch the van or climb underneath to fix things, and that’s fair because she does most of the cooking and cleaning. Those are simple divisions and responsibilities, but you’ve always got to be willing and able to swap and add or change if there’s a bigger, unusual or difficult job to do.

images NEEDS

Males have an entirely different set of social needs to females, a subject worth doing some general reading about before setting off on a long trip. The book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus would be a good place to start. You do need to talk with someone else occasionally, not because you don’t like your partner, but just to get a different point of view.

Talking with other travellers really can be a great way to learn about new places to go, or potential problems along the road you plan to take, because they’ve already been there. We’re lucky to have met some really great people through our travelling, and made real friends with a few couples, who from pure chance and our great good fortune just happened to end up on a site next-door to us.

Social order

Question: are you choosing the new caravan for your own enjoyment, practicality and efficiency, or for selected other people to later look at with envy or as a work of art? As one example, some top-shelf caravans have matching and expensive cupboard handles and latches. Yet some of the more basic push-button easy-use cupboard latches on many doors and drawers do exactly the same job, are very efficient, and will not come undone no matter what kind of road surface they may be bounced over.

Basically, some of the more expensive and exotic push-button handles work no better, but can cost ten times more. If it’s a visual thing you need, then buy the expensive cupboard catches. But when you’re after a practical and efficient result, check the cupboard and drawer latches fitted to some of the better quality off-road and 4WD gravel road caravans.

One personal point to consider carefully is the need for reality and practicality in living, especially inside the van. Some internal colour schemes, brocaded upholstery and quality artisan woodwork remind me quite strongly of my grandmother’s house back in the late 1940s. Superb dark wood van cabinetwork and imitation leadlight glass cupboard doors may look great, but heaven help anyone who puts a cup of coffee or a damp beer can down on the wood, because it might leave a nasty mark!

Will you always travel along main and major roads, with fine bitumen or concrete surfaces? Pelmets and fancy fabric curtains are rotten things to clean, and a bit pointless if you travel down dusty roads. Superb leather upholstery or expensive brocade seat fabric is likely to be a wasted resource if you normally sit around in shorts and thongs after being out fishing in the car-topper and the mud.

Unless you are really into bush camping a dishwasher or washing machine could be considered serious one-upmanship by many travellers. However, if your normal travelling lifestyle is sitting beside the pretty lake with crystal wine glasses and party platters for cheeses, like many cover photos in monthly caravan magazines portray, so be it. For most happy travellers washable seat covers, melamine crockery and wet-suit-material stubby holders do exactly the same job, and are a much more practical option.

When mangrove mud is hard to wash off your legs or clothes, just imagine what it could do to good upholstery.

images TOGETHERNESS

The various very expensive, big motorhomes certainly tend to congregate one with another. Even people with similar types of registration plates from the different states often seem to congregate or flock together. For example, in one Darwin van park I saw 15 dissimilar and apparently unconnected vans and latemodel 4WDs parked along the same row of sites, with the vehicles showing by their advertising numberplate surrounds that they had been sold by four Nissan dealers within a 20 km radius in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. There was clear social traffic between many of these campers. Whether intentionally or not would be a good question for the shrinks. Social distinction applies in lots of majorroad van parks.

images GETTING ALONG

Social etiquette is alive and well and living in many caravan parks, but in quite a few of them, so too is social ostracism. There is a very definite social pecking order in some caravan parks. We’ve talked with otherwise sensible people who have let the seeming exclusivity get to them, to the extent that they’ve become quite sour on some of the other people in the caravan park who don’t associate or don’t want to talk with them. I’ve always thought that was the idea of going for a holiday. You didn’t have to talk to somebody, and if you didn’t like your neighbour, you could move. However, that doesn’t happen all the time.

images WHO DO YOU WAVE TO?

There definitely seems to be a vehicletype hierarchy on the road when you’re travelling. Who do you wave to? Asking this question of many travellers, plus careful observation over a number of years reveals the following: travellers in the more remote areas all wave, and most are in 4WDs with tougher-duty caravans. Sedans towing pop-tops along normal highways seem to wave to other sedans. Occupants of 4WDs towing full-height caravans do seem to wave to others of their type. Campervan people wave to many other of the myriad little Mauis and Keas, and so on, but those piloted by overseas drivers apparently have fixed focus and seem to wave to few.

In a lot of cases, despite what may be said, occupants of Swagmans and other similar huge mobile homes do not often seem to wave first to people in sedans towing small pop-top caravans. Reasons may not be spoken, but there certainly is a minor form of class distinction and, strangely, it is clear that not every traveller openly feels the joy of travelling along the Australian roadways. Some, who obviously do, wave to any other travellers – more power to them.

CASE STUDY

images Chris & Josh

One couple’s school principal advised them to buy some of the textbooks being used in the particular school year for their two boys, Chris and Josh, so they could at least follow the curriculum in maths and english. The principal felt that their wide experiences would contribute greatly to their overall education. In fact, on their return to school one gave a talk on the history of the $20 note, and the involvement of Rev. John Flynn with the Royal Flying Doctor Service, which they learnt about at the RFDS museum in Cloncurry, QLD.

Walkmans were limited as travelling entertainment, and instead these two older children were often involved in discussion as their trip progressed. They read maps, guidebooks and tourist brochures to provide local knowledge and suggestions as they travelled, contributing information as some of their involvement in the trip.

At campsites, their duties and responsibilities included helping set up the overnight camp, family food preparation and other small jobs.

They each kept a good diary of their activities as their trip was almost a year, but for a short trip, say six weeks, the parents felt that might not be worth the effort involved to keep a diary.

Mail, internet, books, bikes, phones, pets

Mail

Everybody needs somebody, and almost everybody gets mail. You might want to get the messages from the grandkids or the monthly wood-working club newsletter. Grandma will often not leave home unless she is guaranteed to get mail from the granddaughters and family. The problem for a lot of travellers is how to get their postal mail at different locations, whilst on the move.

Various commercial mail forwarding companies advertise in caravan magazines. For a small fee your paper mail can be sent to their address and they will forward it on to you, whenever you notify them and to wherever you might be. Check into the mail forwarding services. They may cost a few dollars, but you do need your mail and they offer reliability.

For a fee, redirected mail can be automatically forwarded by your local post office to another chosen address, temporarily or long-term, and this person in turn could easily forward it to you as advised or needed. A family member or good friend near your original address could perhaps clear your post office box, and then send your mail on.

By forwarding a bundle of the accrued mail in an envelope to a particular post office near your present location, addressed to you and clearly marked ‘Hold For Collection’, you can collect it by showing some form of proper identification. We have found the plastic Express Post envelopes to be quite efficient.

Be careful if you do have your mail forwarded to a post office in some larger cities, because there can often be several general post office locations, plus those for sorting or for commercial mail only. Which one was it addressed to? Be sure to get the correct postcode for where you want the mail sent. Go to your local post office, if you’re going to stay in the one place for a few weeks, and ask for their correct mailing address. Sometimes it’s at a central town post office, but many post offices are now privatised and can often be found in shopping centres.

Don’t expect overnight delivery from a capital city to a big outback town either – it does not usually happen. Two days mail delay for major cities is common, even if you pay for express postage. Three or four days seems to be the average delivery time along the populated coast but, virtually anywhere off the main roads, a week for mail delivery is quite common.

Internet

Instead of using what is commonly known as ‘snail mail’, on the internet you can send out and receive electronic mail very easily and virtually instantly. Learn how to use the internet. At rare times, when it’s running slow or not operating properly, it can be frustrating and a real hassle, but it really is well worth learning how to use a computer for internet access. Whether you are 35, 55 or 75, the internet is not hard to learn, or to use.

You do not actually need your own computer, because you can go to an internet cafe to compose, send and receive email. The cost is small to use their computer terminal for all forms of electronic mail. There are many people and businesses around who specialise in helping anyone to learn how to easily use the internet. Two ladies, I think a mother and daughter combination, have written a book specifically designed to show ‘computer-illiterate’ folk how to use computers and the internet, and it was well-reviewed in several magazines I’ve read.

If you’re not sure about your computer abilities, don’t be too fussed. Many TAFE colleges run basic courses. Almost all internet providers are happy enough to show you how to use the equipment, if you’re a bit unsure. The internet is a good, useful tool. It can be a very quick and easy way to keep in reliable touch with anyone else anywhere in this world who also has access to the internet.

Even in remote areas it’s easy to send and receive emails, and all it takes is a an internet connection. If you decide to use your own laptop in your trailer, you can use the internet as long as you have either digital wireless or satellite phone access. Broadband data transmission is amazingly fast, and there are small transmitters which plug directly into the computer’s USB port to send data to your service provider. Mail, pictures and money management are three good reasons for having internet access.

What did we do before the days of instant gratification from digital cameras and the internet?

images DIGITAL CAMERAS

When you get used to the various computer programs you can very easily send pictures to anyone who has an internet connection. It’s quite practical, for example, to send some shots to the grandkids showing grandma and grandpa riding a camel along Broome beach just a few hours before. Just as easily, your own children can send you pictures of the grandkids getting an award the previous night for playing keyboard in their music class at school. When you receive them, these pictures can be printed out, exactly like a normal photograph. A colour printer and some photo paper is all it takes.

Books

Books are great things, and from books we learn. Almost every town away from the coast has a book exchange. Some dealers are a bit tough on price, and some shops have old material or a limited choice, but obviously it depends on what you want to read. Whether you read murder mysteries or adventure, science fiction or romance novels, most exchange shops have a fair range and are good value. Country book exchanges are usually well worth the visit if you like books.

Travelling around usually gives you plenty of time to read books and monthly magazines. In most van parks, especially those well inland, the laundry is often the library as well. There you can often find last month’s magazines and books, usually caravan or 4WD magazines, some travel brochures or a few of the many women’s magazines available.

It seems that you just take some magazines or books, put some back, read and swap them, and if you can find a crossword puzzle which hasn’t been done in a magazine, just do it. The done thing appears to be to put your current magazines, those which you’ve read but don’t want to keep, over in the laundry for someone else to also enjoy.

images MONTHLY MAGAZINES

To get good information and keep up to date, read the monthly caravan magazines. Clubs have magazines like the Campervan & Motorhome Club of Australia’s The Wanderer . Apart from the articles themselves, you can find a lot of useful knowledge in the advertisements in these periodicals. Searching for some particular idea or fitting, you’ll often find it amongst the ads and text in those magazines, so it does pay to buy them. Articles are usually fairly current and generally reasonably accurate.

For example, the Caravan &Motorhome monthly magazine had a Tips and Techniques issue, with a good fourpage article titled ‘Pre-trip Checklist’ (see Appendix E). The No. 11 issue had a useful article titled ‘Rebound’, dealing with different types of suspension. Rod Hannifey had a regular column in the Caravan World monthly magazine, looking at caravans and other travellers from a truckie’s point of view. Such magazines can cover quite a range of subjects and be a useful source of up-to-date information.

Bikes

Apart from bike riding having really good health benefits, bikes are an efficient and cheap way of getting around. When you arrive in a town which has good bike paths or interesting roads, a bicycle can have great value. Is it worth the hassle to carry bicycles when travelling? Does the end use justify the effort and inconveniences? If you like bikes and physical fitness, we believe the answer is definitely ‘yes’.

For low-care bikes, carriage and storage can be the same place, simply on an external bike rack. However, unless you put some care into doing it, some damage will surely occur to your bikes whilst you are travelling. There doesn’t seem to be a quick and easy answer, other than to take a cheaper bike and accept the occasional damage which normally goes with carrying a bike on an outside rack. For us, that would spoil it completely, as we really do like the feel of a good bike and the personal satisfaction of a smooth ride. For bikes you value, carrying them on the back of a caravan or a trailer is not a great idea.

The easy-access front-mounted bikerack makes loading and unloading bikes easier.

Being at the back, the leverage effect is greatest, and the bike will move and possibly chafe on most racks or mounts. Behind the van you can’t see it, and we’ve seen a few bikes seeking owners on the roadsides. Sometimes the bike-rack has stopped there as well.

To help minimise the grit problem you could fit a fabric cover over the bikes. There are zip-up fitted covers for bikes, but most good ones I’ve seen have been purpose-made. If the covers are fairly waterproof and dustproof then there may not be much bike damage from the elements. A protective cover will usually keep prying eyes away, and most rain off, but unfortunately it still won’t stop all the dust getting in.

Cost begins to be a factor once you have to use a specially-made rack to carry the bike in a particular spot. Mounting it on a custom bike rack on the van’s front A-bar there is normally little movement, and it is easier to see and check in the rear-view mirror. But the same things still apply regarding dust and damage, rain and theft. As well, I’ve seen some examples where front-mounted bikes stick out wide, and backing the van is made more difficult. Some custom-built front-mounted van racks have a swing-away function, so that you can still open the van boot without removing the bikes.

Roof-mounting on the tow vehicle does solve a few problems, if there isn’t a roofrack already there doing another job. You can practically carry bikes on the roof of a vehicle or trailer and there are some very good commercial racks or custom-made installations to allow several bikes to be carried this way.

A risk of carrying good bikes outside a van is that of theft. It’s not uncommon to find quick-release seat posts and wheels stolen. Accessories like seat bags can also be a target for thieves, so removing such parts when stopped and vulnerable may need to become part of the owner’s storage job.

To minimise any possible hassles, we carry our bikes inside the van. The way they are stored inside, we can still use the van for an overnight stop without putting the bikes outside. For any stay of more than a night we simply put them under a cover out under the awning, chained to a van wheel.

Storing them inside a van or camper isn’t hard, presuming you have the room. Most larger vans I’ve looked at can fit two bikes upright in the walkway between the table and the opposite seat.

There are several specialist bike-rack manufacturers who make really efficient carry racks for roof-top transport, and these can be adapted as needed for the van’s floor. Two of these, faced opposite ways and fitted on cross-pieces made of tough plywood, are really all you need.

Four threaded T-nuts fitted into the van floor from underneath will anchor the frame to the floor using cap screws and body-washers through the plywood crosspieces. We take our two good bikes with us, and even though rides might be several weeks apart and we have to put them in and out each day if we’re travelling, we still feel the result is worth the effort.

Commercial bikeracks can be easily adapted to secure bikes inside many larger vans, if you prefer to carry them inside the van.

images BIKE-RACKS

Sometimes there are potentially great bike paths around, but they are practically too far from the van site to ride to the start. For a quick and simple alternative, there is a bike-rack that will simply insert into the hitch receiver on a Hayman Reese towbar, as fitted to many tow vehicles.

With one of those you can carry your bikes anywhere within reasonable distance, and not have to face the extra riding back to the van site afterwards. For vehicles not using a heavy-duty tow hitch, there are plenty of other bike-racks around where a permanent bracket can be fitted under the tow ball, to which a quickfit carrier can be fitted easily, and which won’t impede towing a trailer.

If you’re not sure about fixing methods for the bike frame inside the van, ask your regular van maintenance business to fit the rack properly. The longer bolt holds the rack in place; the smaller one covers the unused hole.

images FOLDING BIKES

Instead of a normal bike, there is a practical alternative if you decide to transport your bike inside a vehicle or van. Several manufacturers offer fold-up or expanding bikes. These often fold down to perhaps a metre square and about 350 mm wide, and some folding bikes come with good padded carrying bags. Although lifting and moving a folded bike in a padded bag can be a little awkward, in most cases two of those would quite easily fit in the back seat of any standardsize sedan.

Remember that in any bike size, minimum weight and maximum function costs money. If you expect racing-bike lightness, strength and fine mechanical technology in a folding bike, be prepared to pay the high cost. The internet is a good source to find such bikes, if you can’t find them in stock at specialist bike shops.

For a generally handy five-gear one-size-fits-all expanding or folding bike, there are several choices available for about the same cost as a standard bike. So if you really want to do it, it is not at all impossible to take two good bikes with you as you travel, still look after them properly, and get the enjoyment and benefit of the physical exercise.

images BIKE PATHS

So far, we’ve found that Melbourne and Darwin have the best bike paths. Adelaide also has some very good ones along the beach – they have many kilometres of good-quality, safe and fast bike paths to take you just about anywhere in and around the city. Many other main towns, such as Wagga Wagga, have good bike paths as well. If you camp a few miles out of any major city, it’s worth considering taking the bike on a bus or train in, and riding back out to your van site. You will need to check with the relevant operators, because some places still won’t let you take a bike on a bus, even if it is almost empty and in off-peak time. Helmet laws vary between states, so the best decision is to buy a good one and wear it all the time. You’ll get no hassles that way, and be safer as well.

images Advice

Behind moving caravans there is a low air pressure area, which sucks grime in, and it tends to coat and cling to your bikes. Every part of the bike will be covered with dust and grit, which ultimately will be mechanically damaging, and the bike’s condition will deteriorate rapidly, unless you’re prepared to carefully wash it each time before you ride it.

Phones

Most of us have and use mobile phones, those essential items long-distance travellers use to ring the family on weekends. If your mobile phone stops working while you are travelling, do you know where the service agent is, or what phone number to ring for repairs?

Did you know that to ring a 1300 number on the landline from anywhere in Australia costs the normal price of a local call, and that ringing a 1800 number costs you nothing, as the company you ring pays for the cost of the call? On almost every mobile phone if you ring a 1300 number, or a toll-free 1800 number, you’ll still pay your normal contract call rate. There are many hidden costs with mobile phones.

Always check if the business or person you are ringing has a toll-free number. If not, get through to a non-automated person, and politely ask them to ring you back on your mobile phone. Most good businesses will return your call.

images NETWORKS

As a traveller, consider the type of mobile phone you have, matched against the areas you plan to visit. At present, if you intend to stay between Cairns and Adelaide on Highway One there is probably no reason to have other than a normal digital mobile phone. But if you want to go anywhere along those great roads less travelled, the phone signal may not have got there yet. The proposed high-speed National Broadband Network will eventually provide realistic coverage to a major proportion of the country.

images CAR KITS

No matter what kind of phone you may have, if you’re a traveller you will always be far better off, for both signal reception and transmission, with an amplified drop-in phone cradle and charger in your tow vehicle, and a properly mounted highgain mobile phone antenna.

Compared with ordinary mobile phone output, power car kits for mobile phones make an enormous difference. Mobile phones will often then work in areas where proper phone coverage is not provided, according to the Telstra signal distribution diagrams. These useful signal-coverage maps are available free at any Telstra office.

If you’re going somewhere right off the beaten track there is no realistic alternative but a satellite phone. The matching power cradle kit is not cheap to install, and they’re not cheap to operate. But if communication is essential to you, consider hiring a satellite phone long term, because they cost quite a few dollars to buy. However, when the chips are really down money doesn’t matter any more, because if you’re dead you can’t spend it. What price would you pay for additional safety?

A high-gain antenna providing vast increase in output and receiving abilities, and amplified hands-free speech, are benefits of a powered drop-in phone cradle.

images Tip

On almost every mobile phone if you ring a 1300 number, or toll-free 1800 number, you’ll still pay your normal contract call rate.

Pets

If you have a pet, what travelling options are there? There are caravan parks that are definitely pet friendly. A few books have been written especially for travellers, advising which caravan parks will accept your pet. Some van parks have pet sections. For example, in Darwin some of the bigger caravan parks have an area set aside just for the increasing number of travellers who take their dogs with them. Other van parks have a sign up at the entrance which says ‘pets at management discretion’, which means if you have a silent Chihuahua which doesn’t chew ankles, then it’s quite possible you will be allowed in. However, if you have a bigger dog which barks non-stop and seems threatening to older folk or kids riding pushbikes, you can almost certainly bet that you won’t get into that discretionary van park.

Unfortunately, some tourists still won’t accept that pet ownership also brings pet responsibility. If your dog is a bit of a rough-head, it’s up to you to keep the dog under control and quiet, to get along with your neighbours in camping areas. We’ve found a few dogs that simply should not have been in van parks at all. Unfortunately, we have also come across quite a few clearly well-behaved dogs who weren’t allowed in van parks, when they were entirely inoffensive and their owners obviously cared for and about them. There is no hard-and-fast rule, it seems. Buy a good book that advises about pet-friendly van parks, if you have pets.

Insurance, money, wishes, paperwork

Insurance

Make sure you understand exactly what your van is, or is not, covered for. If you can’t understand the fine print on an insurance policy, it can be vital to find someone who can explain it to you properly. When you read the specific conditions carefully, some types of van insurance may be unsuitable for you, because they can require certain things which your van might not have or you may not want. Worse, you may not be fully covered for what you believe or expect. Be very careful when you check out insurance policies before you sign them, because they are not all things for all persons.

For example, what is a flood, and how is it defined by your selected insurance company? Is your van covered for market value or for an agreed sum? The difference is important to understand. ‘Market value’ merely means that if you had to sell it today, what bottom line price would some independent person looking to buy a similar van be prepared to pay for it? ‘Agreed sum’ is where you tell the insurer that the van is worth $65,000 to you, so you will pay whatever premium it costs to make sure that you get a $65,000 payout if the van is destroyed totally, or pro-rata. Note that each year the insurer normally downgrades the agreed value unless you specify differently.

Be well aware of the ‘excess’ premium. If, for some unfortunate reason, your van gets damaged and it costs $650 to repair, is it worth paying the $500 excess payment, just to claim the $150 balance on your insurance policy? Will any claim you make now cause your next premium to be increased? With insurance, it can be really to your benefit to take the time and try to get the insurance company staff to properly explain what the different clauses really mean.

It will pay you to shop around widely before buying insurance. The caravan insurance companies with the biggest advertising budgets do not necessarily offer the best deals. Do your homework carefully. In some cases, insurance companies have been known to not pay out because your van or vehicle system does not comply with regulations or with some of their fine print exclusion clauses. As a rule, insurance companies are reluctant to pay out.

For example, some insurance companies may not cover you for items stolen from the van’s soft-walled annexe, or, if you don’t have an annexe, things which are stolen from underneath your awning. Look for small details like that. Check carefully for what your insurance will cover, and just as importantly, what it excludes. When it comes to insurance, be careful that you are getting what you expect.

Money

Do you use a Visa card or something similar when it comes time to do your shopping and banking? When you get a credit card statement from your bank, if you need to record something, this printout is probably one of the most reliable ways to recall which day you bought the new kettle, or what day you paid for your tow vehicle’s mechanical service, and so on. That proof could be useful in warranty claims.

images CASH

I am not a fan of commercial banks in any way at all but unfortunately there seems to be little other practical choice. Cash is often the best option, but carrying considerable amounts of cash has associated risks. If you decide to carry cash, there is a small, very tough and lightweight polycarbonate safe which can make money storage somewhat safer. Before cash can be stolen it has to be discovered, and it is quite possible to place these safes in a number of unexpected hiding places. The brand is Hide Away Safe, and the Victorian company has a website. However, don’t let your van burn, because both your plastic safe and your plastic money will melt.

images BUDGETING

As a traveller, you really do need to budget. To do most things costs money, so when you run out of money you will probably be in trouble. No matter what your financial circumstances are, a budget can help you plan ahead and survive financially. Used as a methodical check to show how much has been spent and how it was distributed, it can become an excellent guide to managing future spending. Budgeting isn’t hard to do, but not everybody knows how to do it, and not everybody wants to do it either.

We started travelling from scratch, with a given amount of money, so for a while we had to guesstimate how much we’d spend per week. In itself that acted as a sort of limiting factor. We could have been a long way out from home and found ourselves short quite often but, fortunately, as a general rule we lived within the allowed amount. We needed to prove the money was going to be enough to sustain us for a few years so we had to be careful with the initial figures.

For example, in the beginning we wrote down literally every single thing we bought. This included an ice-cream or a new tyre for the 4WD, a site fee or something at a local market one Sunday morning, weekly fruit and veggies or regular fuel, the current caravan magazines or a haircut. Then when we averaged out the first 52 weeks we knew our typical daily and weekly living costs. With examples of present costs you can work out, as a yearly indicator, what it’s probably going to cost you to live.

We found it best to divide the budget into a few parts, primarily regulars, luxuries and extras. Site fees at the caravan park, food on shopping days and fuel for the tow vehicle are always there, more or less the same regular weekly costs you had at home. Site fees are much the same as rent, or council rates. If you go out every Friday night for a meal, is that a regular weekly cost, or is that a luxury? When things are tight the luxuries simply have to be sacrificed.

images FUEL COST

Increases in fuel cost frighten most travellers because fuel is quite a significant part of most people’s budget. By adding up fuel costs, and noting the many different driving conditions we encountered, we could work out as a rough guide how much future fuel would cost us. You can allow for normal expenses but something somewhere has to be reduced or forfeited when fuel keeps costing more and you have only a certain amount of money. Budgets can be as basic or as complex as you need to make them, but the bottom line is that to take away some of the financial worry, for even a short trip almost every traveller needs a budget.

‘Opportunity cost’, roughly speaking, is what you could do with ‘x’ amount of money if you weren’t already doing something else with it. Could it be more effectively applied? Travel budgeting really begins early on with making realistic assessments. For example, consider whether you are most likely going to stay in van parks throughout your trip. Do you really need to pay for a van with off-road capabilities and two tanks for carrying drinking water underneath it? If you are only ever going to travel on bitumen roads, is it important to have a big diesel 4WD to tow the caravan?

If you don’t have a 4WD to tow your caravan but you do still want to go miles out from Coober Pedy into the desert, as an option is it possible to tow your caravan to Coober Pedy with your Holden/Falcon sedan, and then pay a local tour proprietor to go on a desert trip with him in his 4WD? Whilst at first it may seem unrelated, this kind of long-term planning ahead really is another part of budgeting.

Seen on a tour out from Coober Pedy, these Painted Desert colours are all natural, SA.

images FALSE ECONOMY

When a plane flies from Sydney to London non-stop, it carries over 50 tonnes of fuel, of which about 15 per cent is a penalty for carrying that huge weight. That is, some of that fuel has to be carried in excess and burnt, simply for the effort needed to carry the amount of weight! Whilst in this example that additional fuel penalty is totally necessary to enable non-stop flight, what real cost is attached if you fit and use an auxiliary long-range fuel tank to your vehicle, when fuel is readily available at 200 km intervals along the route you plan to follow? Fitting the tank may really be a form of false economy.

This consideration applies to food as well as spare parts. There are valid points for both sides in the economical issue of what spares and food to carry when travelling. Is it foolish to buy 47 packets of soup at a discounted price of 88c, just because it costs $1.20 per packet 1000 km further up the road? In the end it really just comes down to why and how much you want the item, and how much you are prepared to pay in weight, space and dollars.

images Tip

If you’re paying tax is there a way to write off some of your travelling costs? It can be essential to have good financial advice, to be advised whether and how much of your expenses might legitimately be written off against your tax. Our budget became much more complex when the taxation situation had to be considered as well.

Wishes

In a worst-case scenario, what would happen if you were involved in a serious and totally incapacitating accident while travelling, and your partner or children then needed to be able to speak and act on your behalf? Do they have the correct power of attorney to allow them to do that?

Have you made out a will and, equally importantly, is that will current? Does your family or your executor know where your will is kept? If you die unexpectedly, will your partner or family be looked after the way you intend? If it’s a few years since you’ve made out a will, and you’ve got new grandchildren or changed family circumstances, are these people going to be affected because you haven’t updated the clauses?

Dying ‘intestate’, that is, without a will, can be messy for those you leave behind. In your absence, a statutory formula will allocate who gets what among members of your family. To avoid this, make sure your solicitor and/or executor really know what you want to occur, and how, when you die. Unpalatable as these subjects may be to most of us, you really should pay attention to them, because it just happens that they are a vital part of the very real world.

CASE STUDY

images Insurance

What is ‘fusion’? Several years ago there was a major problem with 240V mains power, and a lot of electric motors literally melted, caused by a fault in the particular electricity supply system.

A number of people, with good legal advice and information, successfully sued a major electricity supply company. The power supply company apparently didn’t maintain the proper voltage that they were supposed to, and many different electric motors were ruined, along with the contents of most refrigerators, commercial and private.

This case was quite protracted, because the electricity supplier and the insurance company behind the payout had a lot more financial resources than the claimants.

If the caravan fridge motor or other electrical appliance is important to you, make sure these things are properly covered in your particular insurance policy.

Crime, government

Crime

Crime, in many different guises, is always present. Read this section carefully, and then consider how you could improve your own security, because in the end we are all managers of our own destinies.

In the traveller’s world there are numerous crime and behavioural problems. Drunkenness, offensive behaviour, vandalism, violence and theft occur everywhere in society. Get used to the idea, because if you visit certain places, such occurrences can be very obvious. Whilst they are certainly not restricted to one ethnic group or region, these offences are more common in some areas.

A number of popular places across Australia have these problems, in some cases now with increasing frequency. The reasons for such behaviour and the ways of managing and getting rid of it cannot be solved in this book. What should interest travellers is the absolute reality that crime occurs publicly and often. If you don’t like the thought, or cannot handle the potential, don’t go there.

images SECURITY

As travellers, we certainly need to consider security. If you believe your bike or chair or towel or even your T-shirt is always safe when left outside your van – think carefully. Sadly, now more than ever before, we live in the era of ‘opportunity crime’. There are dozens of ways to make it much harder for thieves to interfere with any of your property. Some of the domestic security ideas that police offer are excellent and some suggestions could be useful for your mobile house as well. Police Crime Prevention sections will provide lists of sensible ideas and essential things which you can and should do before you leave on your travels.

For example, if you have a gas hot-water service and there’s going to be no-one living in your house for some time, have you turned the hot-water service pilot light out? Do you have reliable neighbours who will keep an eye on your house, and do all the other obvious things? Have you made such basic arrangements as putting a stop on your mail, milk, newspapers and so on? All police forces have crime prevention officers – find one and ask plenty of questions. Get your Neighbourhood Watch person to organise a guest speaker on this subject. Remember – preventing theft of your property starts with interest from you.

There is a good van park almost in the middle of town in mid-western New South Wales. It has now replaced all the park fencing with high security mesh, barbed wire-topped fencing on concreted steel poles along the rear perimeter, and new corrugated steel Colorbond fencing in the public view. Their entry gates are now card-access barriers during daylight, and at night entry is card-controlled by a barred steel sliding gate.

Does this sign indicate an insurance issue?

Eighteen months before we had stayed at the same van park and noted that the fencing was of poor standard. This time, when we looked at other van parks around the same location we found most of them were also in the process of greatly updating their external fencing and internal security.

The much publicised phrase ‘Lock It or Lose It’ really does have meaning if you are a traveller, whether in a van, a tent or a motorhome. A few seconds to lock up, and a small inconvenience to carry your keys with you over to the swimming pool or toilet, is a cheap price to pay for improved security.

While you’re unhitching, your attention is probably not on your vehicle and its contents. Don’t leave your tow vehicle unlocked, or the windows down. Whilst you’re wandering around the back of your caravan, and your tow vehicle is 40 ft away at the other end with no-one watching it, don’t leave your vehicle and its contents exposed. It’s a foolish thing to do.

Unfortunately, some people who walk past your tow vehicle or van in van parks will have a look to see if your valuables, such as wallet, mobile phone, GPS, handbag, expensive sunglasses, etc. are available. And if they don’t happen to grab them at the time, it’s not uncommon to find that information has been filed away for future reference.

Campervans, off-road vans and tents are not exempt from theft, and are a soft and easy target in many cases. Whilst a caravan may perhaps have more expensive items fitted than usually found in a tent, at least the owner can lock a van fairly securely.

In travelling survival terms, ABC is an acronym for Accept nothing, Believe no-one, Confirm everything. While this might seem a bit harsh to some travellers, quiet and consistent application of this policy really could help keep you enjoying your lifestyle and possessions a lot longer. There are two wise sayings which apply directly in van parks: ‘Lock It or Lose It’ and ‘You might be on holiday, but thieves are not.’ Opportunity crime is certainly on the increase everywhere. Until you’re satisfied about character, it’s not wise to openly trust anyone in a caravan park, regardless.

Security also includes making sure you or your partner can safely walk to the toilet block at any hour, day or night. It includes locking your pushbikes with a chain big enough and visible enough to really be a deterrent to thieves. Closing van windows enough so that small persons can’t easily squeeze in through the flyscreen is also good security.

If your windows swing out wide, perhaps you need to judge carefully if they really must be left wide open. For sliding windows, consider fitting those key-lock slide limiters where an extra hole is drilled in the aluminium window sill to lock the window partially open for ventilation, or use Romak adjustable sill clips. If your van is an older one and the screen door has only one lock, there are replacement inner and outer doors of much higher quality now available with triple-locking which may suit your van.

images VAN THEFT

If you’ll be away for some time, perhaps weeks or months, secure your caravan or trailer quite carefully. The chance for theft of prime caravans is always present. Not long ago in Melbourne, six top-quality vans were stolen around Christmas time from dealer yards and private premises. If you have to leave your van for even a short time, lock it.

Thread a cut-resistant cable through the wheels, springs and axles, or use a strong chain with a brightly-coloured padlock. On any item acting as a deterrent bright fluorescent colour makes it obvious you have done something to minimise theft. Lock the ball coupling and the tow chains together with a hardened steel W-shape barrier-lock that encloses the tow-coupling.

Wallet, keys and mobile phone – loss of these could bring your travels to a sudden and unpleasant stop. Don’t leave them in easy view or reach.

Even just locking the towing safetychains round a coupling makes it less likely someone may consider your trailer for a quick removal job. Best-quality security items are essential. Lock it or you will lose it!

There are a number of simple things you can do to make your van a much harder target, and much less attractive for thieves. The simplest one, if it’s in storage, could be to remove the wheels and jack the van up on blocks. Place jack stands or solid blocks under the chassis or frame rails, because in any case this does take some of the weight off your suspension. While it is jacked up there is also a maintenance opportunity for you to grease the suspension and check underneath your trailer for damage.

Jacking it up can make it more difficult for someone to try and move your van if you’re going away from your house for some time. Simply by removing a hub or brake drum and wheel bearings, theft can be made very difficult indeed, as even if a replacement wheel was tried the wheel studs are fixed through the hub or drum. Without them, van removal would be much less likely unless the opportunity is too good, or the thieves have a specific target and are stealing to order.

Theft also occurs in the van park camp kitchen. Your food, stored in the fridges provided, is often an easy target for thieves. Some van parks provide lockable fridges, with a deposit for the padlock key. Most park fridges we’ve come across are not locked, and that unfortunately makes it much easier to lose your food, particularly beer and other easily-disposable items like bread and meat. Labelling food as yours doesn’t make any difference to a thief.

Once complaints were never heard, but over the last few years there has been a clear increase in such piddling but really annoying thefts. Perhaps the victim might advise the van park staff of a theft, but that will not get any real result.

It seems to me that almost no-one is prepared to take the trouble to report thefts to police. However, by reporting the theft you are probably also complying with insurance requirements to report the crime. Do the right thing and make the effort to report theft, because only by doing that can police get a chance to investigate, or to determine a trend. While I have heard several agitated and believable reports of clear police disinterest and/ or non-action, most police members will make a proper effort if you ask for help and provide good information for them to work with.

Most importantly, if you have only a possible suspect, be very sure that your allegations are well-founded. Unfortunately for the general public, there are also practical police staffing limits and certain departmental policies, government rules, and civil liberties requirements which can now make some types of police investigation unlikely to achieve any useful result.

images Caution

Don’t leave your portable DVD or MP3 player sitting in full view on the table when you go away from your van in any van park. Make it a routine to always put wallets, handbags and mobile phones away in cupboards – out of sight, out of mind. Even with darkened windows, seeing van contents inside is not difficult.

images HELPING OTHERS

Sadly, some unpleasant or bad things have happened, and will continue to happen, to some good people travelling around Australia. There is increasing reluctance, on the part of many experienced and otherwise helpful travellers, to stop and help someone who appears broken down by the side of the road. Unfortunately, some unpleasant people have in the past soured things for those travellers who might otherwise be willing to stop and help. The thought of someone driving off after you’ve freely put in your time and careful effort in the heat or dark to fix their problem, without them even saying ‘thanks very much for your help’, spoils the whole ‘good Samaritan’ idea for some good people.

Whether through personal caution, or the basic innate selfishness of many tourists, the end result is the same – we find that the apparently-broken-down vehicle is now often bypassed. We’ve talked with some long-time travellers who feel quite comfortable with stopping to help. One chap we met – about 190 cm tall and weighing around 107 kg – claimed he usually stopped to help anyway because nothing really worries him. Nonetheless, in some areas perhaps you should still ask yourself the question before stopping: is that vehicle actually broken down, or is the driver pretending to be broken down? Unfortunately, even if no physical harm does occur to you, in this present climate stopping to help could become a personal safety question.

This hardened steel coupling lock is hard to remove, and the padlock is shielded from easy access. Locking the safety chains under the lock’s cross-pin can help make theft even more difficult.

Government

There are many financial allowances which the government provides. Every person has a different set of circumstances and therefore could be entitled to different allowances or pensions, or parts thereof, and one of the many different types of allowances may very well be applicable to you. To benefit, you need to get good, reliable advice on what benefits may be claimable. A lot of travellers are very savvy indeed, and claim from the government every conceivable type of benefit, but unfortunately many also are receiving benefits to which they are not properly entitled.

There are pensioners and/or retired persons organisations who really keep their ear to the ground about benefits for the older generation, so it could be well worth joining one of those. As such groups are usually goldmines of good information, don’t be too proud to seek advice, or don’t be foolish and miss out on what you could be properly entitled to. They are often listed in the various White Pages, or you could go onto the internet and search for them.

If you are retired, that can mean you’ve paid tax for a working lifetime, so you might be entitled to claim some form of government support. Why not go to Centrelink and ask? Centrelink can be a very useful ally. It’s often just a matter of finding out or knowing your rights. However, before any payment can occur you must meet Centrelink criteria, and you must also maintain it.

Nothing is perfect, but when Centrelink works, it seems to work quite well. Be warned however, for you to be paid a benefit Centrelink can require you to divulge very personal and private medical and financial information, which they share with other government departments.

images RENT ASSISTANCE

If you’ve sold your house outright, for example, and you then are not a householder, your mobile home could be your permanent place of residence. Staying at a van park, you must pay site fees, so as you pay site fees to somebody else, you may be entitled to rent assistance. To claim rent assistance there are required forms to be filled out by both the claimant and the van park staff, to certify time on site and money expended, which need to be taken into Centrelink for data entry. Blank forms are available from most Centrelink offices. When you take this form along to Centrelink, and when the data is entered into their national computer system, you could be paid a benefit.

You may find that some staff in various caravan parks are not familiar with these rent assistance forms, or will not sign them. Obviously, being the government, there is another form. On this you can declare that you stayed at a certain place but the van park person refused to sign it for whatever reason. So while it apparently doesn’t really matter if they don’t sign the first form, life is just simpler and easier if they do.

Based on experiences of several travellers, it seems generally accepted that if you have site fee receipts for a week or the days thereof, and at least once a week if practical, take them into Centrelink. Ask the Centrelink staff for advice, because there are some good people who are prepared to talk with you, and find out what they really can do to help you. It is possible to free-post some claim forms, as Centrelink provides envelopes. When you’ve been travelling in less populated areas where Centrelink has no offices, no matter what you may be told by various staff at the office you attend next, they are required to enter your data onto their computer. You will probably be given conflicting advice from different employees.

For travellers who arrive at a van park about four o’clock, trying to then ring Centrelink to advise them as they require, via their abominable automated phone service, is not even practical. Centrelink very often keeps clients waiting on the phone, although in fairness, they may receive hundreds of phone calls into their offices late in the day. In any remote location, waiting on your mobile phone and paying the cost for half an hour in a phone queue whilst kept on hold, is no joke. Nobody should have to do that.

Centrelink’s job is to help you. In truth, this organisation can certainly be one of the most frustrating bodies to deal with. There is a complaint process in place that you can follow if you feel aggrieved, but the overall benefits of persevering with Centrelink can be worth the effort.

CASE STUDY

images Four events

While camped a few hours north of Mildura we heard of a couple who had a bad experience with a car-load of offenders. Apparently, whilst they were pulled up on the side of the road having a cuppa in their van, a vehicle containing the offenders pinned their van door shut with the unwelcome vehicle’s front bumper bar. The couple were effectively locked in their van. The offenders rapidly stole belongings from the couple’s tow vehicle before quickly driving off.

Another incident with nasty potential allegedly happened when someone apparently watching a van took the opportunity to place a small stone under several valve caps, against the tyre valve, and then screwed down the caps. This pressure caused the valves to leak slowly, and many kilometres down the road from nowhere, the driver realised the van had several flat tyres. Unwilling to leave the partner alone with the van, the driver opted for abandoning the van on the roadside, so both persons headed to the nearest town for tyre repairs. This created the opportunity the offenders intended, and they ransacked the van when the owners departed.

In a van park, when we pulled in there for the first time we heard that a chap had walked to the toilets, about 50 m from his van, just up from us. He had not locked his van, and his phone, wallet and car keys were on the table inside the door. Someone was obviously watching. An unknown person took the wallet and keys. When this chap returned, to find the theft, he was so upset he rang the NRMA and had a flat-top truck pick up his car immediately. It was taken away to have all new ignition, door and boot locks fitted. It seems he had no duplicate keys for his vehicle anyway. He lost quite a few dollars from his wallet as well.

Two overseas tourist girls in Cairns, travelling in an older Toyota campervan, left their passports and purses on the dashboard of their usually unlocked van in a van park, despite my warnings that this was risky. Their wallets were stolen. The theft wasn’t noticed until they went to get food money for tea. They had no money for food, as their cash and credit cards were also stolen. This theft, which was quite preventable, caused them a large amount of trouble, especially getting their passports replaced.

Odds and ends

This stronger-framed aluminium chair has a useful side-table, and seems sturdily built, but its folded shape does take up storage space.

When you’re thinking about overall van weight and looking for space saving as a long-term traveller, if you haven’t used or worn an item of clothing for a year, then you probably don’t need it. Toss it out, or parcel it back home for the family to mind until you stop travelling. Of course, this rule doesn’t apply to tools or vehicle spare parts or anything like that, because they are useful, and you need to keep them just in case. I try to use what’s been called the ‘1, 2, 3, 4, 5’ everyday-wear good-weather clothing system when it comes to maximum space saving. This system could work quite well for many other blokes. That is: one jumper, two pairs of shorts, three pairs of socks, four shirts, and five pairs of underdaks. In the practical world you can usually wash them regularly enough and most blokes could easily make do with that.

We’ve seen many different types of fold-up chairs used by travellers. Buy carefully, because some can be difficult to fold, use or store. Many of those cheaper ones found at disposal shops are not really worth buying, as they soon break with constant use. The good quality but more expensive chairs, like almost everything else of better quality, are the better option in the long run.

We’ve found a camping company which happily honours its warranty period for chairs. Our two original Coleman chairs were bought in Melbourne, used daily, and the framing broke over a year later in Cairns. Mitchell’s Camping Store staff pleasantly had them replaced under warranty, and eventually the next pair as well, when the seat stitching came undone about a year later. They were replaced in turn with super heavy-duty 130 kg-guaranteed models by a pleasant chap at an outdoor and camping shop in Maroochydore. Because we kept the receipts, and we chose to upgrade the chair models under warranty, we just paid the cost difference between models. So far, so good, and whilst physically replacing the chairs may have been a nuisance, the people we dealt with and the company itself were at least quite pleasant about replacing them.

Planning for the unexpected is a good way to have minimum hassles. Keep a small torch handy; you never know when the lights might go out. We store a small powerful torch near the van door, for quick grabs. A battery radio in the van is another simple safety item. Placed in a regular spot like in the bottom of a cupboard, with easy access, a big and powerful handheld spotlight is also another safety factor. Like any tool or item which relies on batteries, you should develop a regular re-charging program. A half-full battery in a tool is very similar to a blunt knife – not reliable, safe or effective when you really need it.

There’s a bumper sticker on some cars which reads, ‘Don’t vote. It only encourages the buggers.’ Although a humorous sticker, a lot of people actually like voting. If you want to vote but you’re away travelling, you only need to attend your local electoral office, where it’s simple to make arrangements for state or federal postal or absentee voting when you’re not at your regular place.

Local council elections are the same. If you are a ratepayer you’ll need to notify your local council if you will be away, and can’t vote, or you will be fined. The requirements are quite specific if you choose not to vote. You can do that by notifying your local electoral office and complying with those requirements. However, to be removed from the electoral roll requires meeting a number of conditions, filling out several forms and writing some letters.

When muscles really protest one of those heat rubs like Dencorub can make a noticeable difference. If you haven’t already found out the hard way, don’t rub this kind of product into skin too hard. It can really burn, but as a last resort to ease the heat away, try lightly rubbing your skin with a small amount of olive oil or light cooking oil.

This torch is regularly charged and located near the van door for safety and easy access.

Imagine how hot the inside of darkcoloured vehicles must be after sitting or travelling in the sun for several hours, when compared with the temperature difference inside a white vehicle. In Australia’s northern climate, why would you buy a dark-coloured vehicle? On a hot day, put your hand on the roof of a darkcoloured vehicle out in the sun – black, dark green or dark red for example – and feel how hot the roof is. Then put your hand on the roof of an adjacent white vehicle, and compare the noticeably lower temperature. The external roof temperature obviously transfers to the inside of the vehicle.

Tiring, driving, mirrors, legalities, registration

Towing, following, overtaking, speed, convoy

Trucks, big trucks, buffeting, anti-sway

Van actions, clearances

Radio

Tyres, fuel

Safety outback, road safety, road work, road damage

Camping, roadblocks

Hints

Tiring, driving, mirrors, legalities, registration

Tiring

Fatigue kills; don’t make any mistake about it. If you’re going to tow a van and try to cover 500 km in a day, you are going to get tired. If you start off the day in a nasty mood at 8.45 am, stressed because you wanted to be away by 8 am, then you are probably in for a bad day all round. If you tow the van and drive from 9 am until 5 pm, that is a long day indeed. You should allow a minimum of three breaks in such a distance. Two hours driving is the recommended time until a fatigue break. Take at least a quarter of an hour break for morning and afternoon teas, and a much longer time for lunch. Eating is important to maintain energy levels, as is drinking plenty of water to remain hydrated, especially if you are running the air conditioner in your vehicle.

Sitting with your arms hunched up over a steering wheel in a tiring position is dangerous. There’s no point sitting awkwardly when you can have the seat back a bit and get a nice relaxed driving position. When driving any vehicle you need to be in a proper position to control it. The only sure way to do that is to be sure that the seats and mirrors are properly adjusted to suit you. Adjust the seat for leg length and height, and the steering wheel height as well, if your vehicle has this function. Make sure you can reach all the controls easily.

Even a 15 minute break will help the main driver to refresh for another stint at the wheel. Rather than get tired, and possibly take chances, change drivers every hour or so. As most people don’t tow all day every day, they’re going to get more tired, and more often, until they become used to longer-distance driving.

Many roadside rest stops are not signposted and it’s easy to drive past a good one. On some roads there is virtually no safe place to pull off the road for a break, other than at road intersections.

images Tip

Taking a fatigue break can also be a good chance to perhaps get out your metal detector for a short time, or just to go and have a look at the local wildflowers, animals and birds.

images STRESS BREAK

While stopped it could be an opportunity to get out the camera and take a picture of the area where you are, to document The Book of The Trip. If you have a digital camera take plenty of shots and delete the unwanted ones later. It’s simple to download the pictures to a computer, or take them direct to a K-Mart or a photo shop where you can edit them, and print only those shots you want. Photos really help make a good story later on, when you’re telling the grandkids or the neighbours.

Driving

If you, as the driver, happen to have a heart attack or become otherwise incapable of driving, your passenger will likely need to be able to drive well enough to get you to medical help. Therefore, it is incumbent on you to teach your regular passenger how to competently manage and drive the tow vehicle and caravan, or Swagman, or whatever you travel around in. Experience, lots of it, is the best teacher.

To begin to learn and experience on-road towing, you should really find a piece of road where you’re absolutely satisfied there’s no-one else around, and try some simple braking and steering tests. Test everything from gentle braking to some full-on panic stops, so that you know what happens and how your vehicle and trailer, and you, react under different braking conditions.

images Tip

Always remember the five Ps:
Proper
Preparation
Prevents
Poor
Performance.

images TOWING EXPERIENCE

The combination of heavy van and underpowered tow vehicle, or small sedan and big van, is common along the roads. Many travellers may be fairly experienced car drivers, but still quite inexperienced trailer towing persons. Yet regardless of the unknown conditions ahead, some clearly begin travelling with the intent of on-the-job learning. This is a dangerous attitude. There is obviously no consideration of the potential risks to themselves and other road users.

Drivers with little towing experience certainly include those who only tow once a year for a few days getting to and from their holiday destination. Things change, often without you being aware of them: mechanical conditions, road conditions, legal requirements, personal eyesight and health conditions, and perhaps others.

If truck drivers, who in the majority are very skilled, are only permitted to drive certain classes of vehicle when properly licensed, why should travellers towing sometimes quite big trailers be different? Why not apply the same logic to private motorists, who in many cases are actually driving a large trailer combination? I’d really like to see a national standard and additional driving licence category, introduced in every state, to tow any form of domestic trailer. As I see it, on the roads and in van parks, the overall standard of driving skills, ability and knowledge can only be described as poor. In many cases, driver attitude, but certainly not just of those towing trailers, is simply apalling.

Would a caravan towing licence and compulsory training course have prevented these bars being used this way?

This picture shows a worrying example of why caravan licences could be so important for the safety of other road users. It was apparently taken by an unbelieving NSW van park proprietor. Those level ride bars are upside down! The two people towing this van allegedly claimed their service person said this was correct! They would probably have experienced some difficulty with the jockey wheel dragging.

Mirrors

Trucks often have a sign on the back of the trailer which reads, ‘If you can’t see my mirrors, I can’t see you.’ That’s very important, and certainly also applies if you’re towing a trailer behind your vehicle. For safety, you must be able to see who is behind you, so the wider your rear view is on the tow vehicle, and the more often you look, the better chance you have of seeing what is following behind your trailer.

To get the best picture, and for the safest rear view, you may find that you really do need to have tow mirrors on each side of your tow vehicle. The cheap add-on mirrors which many travellers fit onto existing door mirrors to extend the towing view width are often not a real success. As the original mirror surrounds vibrate and move on the car, that multiplies the effect of the cheaper add-on mirror. It is better to buy mirrors that fit firmly onto the driver’s door by a ratchet seatbelt strap or magnetic pad, that clamps to the mudguard, or which fit on a bar completely across the bonnet. One strong type of mirror arm has an expanding lattice effect, and can be bolted directly onto a bull bar.

Only the best possible rear view when towing gives you the best information to make the safest driving judgements.

When you fit additional wide-view mirrors to your tow vehicle, make sure they’re adjusted properly for the best sight-picture. Try to fit the towing mirrors to the vehicle the afternoon before you go, because then you don’t have any reason to hurry and can set them up properly. When you’re towing, what you should be able to see in your right-hand towing mirror? Ideally, you should be able to see the back wheel of your tow vehicle, and quite a few feet above the top front corner of your van. You should also be able to see everything along the side of the van right back to the rear end, and everything in any traffic lane to the right of your tow vehicle.

What works well for me, and is cheap to buy, is a 100 mm stick-on wide-view mirror, best fitted in the extreme outer and lower corner of the original mirrors. These great little mirrors, when you become used to them, can provide an excellent picture of the gutter alongside the vehicle, so that left-hand parallel parking becomes a breeze. They also show a very wide view of any left-hand traffic lane, and a good view of the front lower left corner of the van, to easily check how close the van is travelling to the road edge.

There is an inherent safety flaw with convex towing mirrors. Any convex or wide-angle mirror has the effect of making things seem further away, so be aware that convex mirrors don’t give a true picture of the following distance to vehicles behind you. If you think the vehicle behind looks to be some distance back, you may very well be cutting across right in front, so be careful when using convex mirrors. Now apparently required by law, there is a sticker on all convex left side mirrors on cars recently made, which reads, ‘Objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear.’

Checking a mirror takes just a part of a second. Whilst in a convex mirror the sizeview of following vehicles may be reduced, it isn’t normally necessary for you to know in some detail that the car behind is a Presley-purple 1981 Peugeot sedan with two occupants. Only when you recognise that there actually is something now in the otherwise blank mirror sight-picture do you really need to fully focus and make a decision about this object’s size, speed and position.

It is important to be able to check who’s behind you or about to overtake you. The safe way to do that on a normal single-lane road is to use the right-hand mirror, checking maybe six to ten times a minute in heavy traffic. On almost any curve in the road you can easily see what is behind the van using the mirrors. Even though when travelling you can’t normally see what is directly behind your van without one of those excellent rear-view closed circuit television cameras, if the road has any bends in it then each time as you go around a corner you can look in your inside towing mirror, to spot if another vehicle is closely following you.

images Advice

On most bright and sunny or cloudless days, if you look in your side mirrors and there is a vehicle reasonably close behind you, this vehicle will throw a shadow. You may not be able to actually see the vehicle behind your caravan, but you should be able to see its shadow on the roadway behind the shadow of your van. You only need to be visually aware that another vehicle of some kind is following your van.

images ROAD ETIQUETTE

One of the most important things about towing a caravan is road etiquette. In order to allow other drivers to smoothly overtake you, you do need to keep a constant check on your mirrors. If you’re quietly towing a caravan at 85 kph, and in your mirrors you spot someone coming up behind you, it’s important that you move to the left and remain there as long as is necessary, so they can safely overtake you. Be aware that there is someone already behind you and in a position to overtake, or that another vehicle is clearly gaining on you from a distance behind.

This overtaking vehicle is obviously going faster than you, or it wouldn’t have been able to catch up and appear in your mirrors. Maybe many drivers decide to ignore this point. It is common sense, if not common courtesy, and even simple safety, to move left so that the car behind can go around you. On some of the more remote roads in this country, where the overtaking vehicle may be a huge semitrailer, moving over to the left is even more important for the safety of both vehicles.

Legalities

Legally, all use and roadworthiness of all motor vehicles on all gazetted roads in Australia is governed by legislation, acts, regulations and any amendments to them. Whilst compliance may not be precisely the same in each state, each one of the individual regulations mentioned here will be in your particular state’s road traffic regulations. You need to be reasonably familiar with the many and varied traffic rules, as when you go to another state, pleading ignorance to their laws is not a valid defence. If you make an incorrect turn, for example, you can be prosecuted because the presumption is that you should know the rule, should have checked or should have seen and understood the instruction sign.

One general rule that you should be aware of and which applies everywhere to a vehicle is that you should drive as close as practicable to the left boundary or side of a carriageway:

unless signs prohibit this

unless you’re overtaking

unless you have signalled and you intend to make a right-hand turn

unless you’re completing a right-hand turn.

When driving, you should be driving as nearly as practicable within a single marked laneway. You’re not permitted to move laterally, that is, left and right within that lane or across into another lane, unless it’s safe to do so. And the onus is on you, so it’s pretty obvious that if you drift lanes and a collision results, it wasn’t safe for you to do so.

If you have a combination long vehicle, with a sign reading ‘Do not overtake turning vehicle’ displayed on the rear of it, it can be exempt from some regulations. For example, if your vehicle is within 50 m of making a turn and it’s not practicable to make the turn within a single marked lane, and any divergence can be made safely, you may be exempt and can make that turn using more than one lane. Of course, the onus is on you to make sure it is safe to diverge, although other vehicles behind you, as you move across, should give you right of way. Don’t rely on this happening.

images FREE TOWING GUIDE

For more general-purpose towing advice, a most useful free booklet is the National Caravan and Recreational Vehicle Towing Guide, produced and published by the Caravan and Camping Industry Association of NSW. It contains some easy-to-understand legal definitions. Because it’s well written, easy reading and covers important points, I’ve listed some of them here.

It defines a ball coupling, and the amount of weight that needs to bear down on the tow ball if your caravan is properly designed and set up. It also mentions braking systems. Every trailer intended for use on roads in Australia and weighing over 750 kg must have electric brakes. Some states don’t permit hydraulic or lever override couplings any more.

This booklet from the CCIA in NSW also talks about towing preparation. It includes how to load a caravan or a trailer or a camper the proper way, to keep your weight low and central, with medium weight at the ends where you practically can, and all the light things such as clothing at the top in cupboards. Towing your trailer, the proper way to tow down the road and what to look for are also covered. One important point it mentions is why you can expect some trouble from the effects of leverage if you load a caravan or a trailer tail-heavy. Importantly, it also mentions the subject of caravan insurance – you actually do need insurance. For the condensed but current information it contains, it’s well worth the effort to find this small, free and very useful book.

Registration

The legal world, for a traveller, can be confusing. In the beginning, it’s the caravan manufacturer’s job to ensure the new van complies with the current legislation, for width, lighting, weight and the myriad other registration and roadworthy requirements. A description plate should be affixed to the trailer somewhere, and all the needed details should be written or stamped on this plate. When you buy a van, more legal conditions become yours to comply with, as the owner.

Other than on trailers already fitted with such devices, or on certain classes of trailer, hydraulic and mechanical override braking systems are not permitted any longer in most states.

Quite apart from roadworthiness requirements, which can be a real minefield for some owners to understand, there are normally six measurements which form part of the registration conditions applying to trailers. The onus is on the owner to be aware of, and comply with, all legal conditions. Do your own research or you may pay the penalty. Some travellers have reportedly had unpleasant brushes with the law, receiving infringement notices for not complying with some of these conditions.

All details for registration must be specified on this compliance plate, including the mysterious GTM, ATM, TARE, downweight, axle capacity and VIN.

In simple language, relative to a caravan, I’ve listed the six points here. Adapt them to your particular trailer, but be aware that certain other types of trailer have additional or specific conditions you may need to research.

As it came from the factory, and not attached to a vehicle, what does the finished but empty van itself weigh? That’s what ‘tare weight’ is.

The confusing ‘gross trailer mass’ is next. If the fully loaded van was put on a weighbridge and measured with only the van’s body and wheels on the scales, and the weight actually down on the jockey wheel was therefore not included, that would be GTM.

To really confuse the issue, next is the ‘aggregate trailer mass’, or ATM. This is relatively easy however – put the entire van, fully loaded and filled to the max, on the scales and weigh it.

If you want to find the van’s downweight, subtract the GTM from the ATM. The difference will be the downweight on the A-bar coupling, which is normally about 10 per cent of the van’s entire loaded weight. When you combine these measurements with the vehicle towing the van, things can become a bit tricky.

The vehicle’s ‘tare weight’ is essentially the same idea – what does it weigh as it came empty from the factory?

The next logical measurement is the vehicle’s ‘gross vehicle mass’, as defined by the manufacturer. Fully loaded with fuel and water, and carrying the maximum occupants and full allowable payload, which includes all the accessories you may have put on it, how heavy is it? In some cases, remember to allow for the down-weight of the van on the towbar adding direct weight to the vehicle’s GVM.

The last of the measurements is GCM, the ‘gross combination mass’ of the whole unit. Find a big weighbridge, drive the entire combination of fullyloaded van and vehicle on, and weigh it to get GCM.

There are defined ratios which may limit how heavy the towed van can be in proportion to the towing vehicle, and the generally-accepted figure is 1:1.5. That is, the braked trailer can generally be half as heavy again as the tow vehicle. Obviously it would not be sensible to tow a 20 ft tandem caravan with a small 2 L front-wheel-drive sedan, whereas a fullsize diesel 4WD would hardly be affected when towing a small domestic 6x4 trailer. Trailers may be allowed to carry a certain weight and may also be exempt from braking requirements, depending on their weight and purpose.

Towing, following, overtaking, speed, convoy

Towing

Towing a van for the first time can be difficult for some drivers. In many major cities it’s possible to hire a caravan, campervan or off-road camper trailer for just about any length of time. This is a very logical, sensible way to start to learn about travelling with your house on your back. Before parting with what can be a significant amount of money, it’s definitely best to hire a vehicle and/or trailer of the size and type you want to buy and test-drive them. Whilst that could be expensive for a week or so, it’s guaranteed to be far less expensive than purchasing an unsuitable trailer. You could even find that towing a caravan is not for you at all, but driving a big motorhome is absolutely what you wanted.

images RENT-TRY-BUY

Buying a nice caravan, but finding your normal vehicle simply won’t practically tow it up big hills and against head winds, can be a very expensive mistake. You may need to adjust your thinking about the van, or even need to upgrade the tow vehicle for acceptable performance. This can entail serious cost, and the rent-try-buy idea can be essential to remove chances for mistakes. To buy, or not to buy – that is the question. Opinions of other experienced travellers can help a great deal in your decision, but the only sure test of enjoyment is to try it for yourself.

Don’t punish yourself; make plenty of allowances for the fact that it can take some time to become accustomed to new experiences, and give yourself the time and opportunity to do so before making the final decision to buy.

images TOW SPEEDS

No matter what speed you decide to tow at, it will be dictated by a combination of many different things. Some are:

vehicle capacity

terrain

speed limits

location

weather conditions

load weights

traffic conditions

driver’s physical condition.

The type of tow vehicle, its power and weight, and the weight, balance and handling of your trailer are all major factors in your safe towing speed. It’s been my experience that 85–90 kph is somewhere near the best speed to tow at on most good roads. This rate doesn’t usually cause enormous fuel consumption, and generally gives plenty of time to turn and stop and avoid things if necessary. Most times it doesn’t require intense concentration, nor cause much driver fatigue. Towing speeds are really a matter of personal choice, plus common sense.

Towing any kind of trailer creates a new set of circumstances you must quickly become adjusted to. In the beginning, if you’re towing a full-height caravan, it’s much heavier, taller, wider and longer than the vehicle you’re used to in normal conditions. Remember to make allowances for the often considerable increase in size and weight over the single tow vehicle. However, providing it is set up properly, as I’ve outlined in this book, a trailer will turn, tow, follow and stop quite well. You’ll find that towing a caravan is not such hard work after all.

Positive driving, clear observation and logical evaluation of road circumstances will minimise disruption to both yourself and other road users. In many reports, slow vehicles seem to be a major factor in road rage. Just because you feel like driving at 80 kph out on a country road does not mean all other traffic wants to do this speed, nor should it have to do so, merely because you control the lane in which you are travelling.

With towing a van comes extra responsibility. As the driver of a larger-than-normal combination, it really is incumbent on you to make sure you cause as little hindrance to other vehicles as possible. You, and your properly-balanced vehicle-trailer combination, should be able to maintain a steady 85-plus kph in any road conditions. Use every chance to let others overtake you. Plan for what you can see and allow for what you can’t. The majority of other traffic is driven by courteous drivers, and if you signal intent to change lanes early, most drivers, though not all, will let you into the other lane. I’ve found this is more often the case if your van registration plate shows you are from another state, although an interstate plate does seem to antagonise some types of driver.

images FLOW DRIVING

Good all-round visibility can be critical in heavy traffic, but you also need to understand what the mirror picture is showing you, and to be able to judge rear distances accurately. Where you can see a gap in traffic behind you, hang back and make use of that space to change lanes without interfering with other faster traffic. Likewise, where you can see an orange traffic light ahead, slow down well before, and quietly coast up to the lights for easier braking. You won’t lose any time, and you will save fuel. There is a real skill in smooth, clean driving in heavy traffic, especially when towing a trailer. Skilful driving is also required to make best use of momentum, good observation and planning, and knowledge of your vehicle when driving on country roads. Nothing beats good instruction combined with plenty of practice, to master these abilities.

In town or city driving you must plan your route ahead as far as you can see. When there’s a turn at an intersection coming up, position your van in the lane which will give you room to turn, in the same way that a semitrailer makes a wide turn. If there are two turn lanes, choose the wider one. Be sure to check your mirrors to be certain there are no cars that might try and slip up on the inside of you as you turn.

With a large trailer combination, for example a 20 ft caravan towed by a big 4WD, you really should have a sign across the back saying ‘Do not overtake turning vehicle.’ There are legal precedents for this. In some states, such a sign gives you the right to be able to use more than one lane when turning. For example, in a built up area where turning is allowed from two right-turn or turning lanes, and you have to turn perhaps from the left lane in order to get around the corner, your van often cuts across into the right lane. Having this warning or cautionary sign on the back of your vehicle is a very sensible idea.

Keep left whenever practical. In busy metropolitan traffic this does not mean you should always defer to other vehicles, because if you do you could find yourself locked into a dead-end lane with little hope of escape for some minutes. At peak traffic time you can cause, or get into, quite some bother merely by being in the wrong lane. Vehicle lane positioning can be critical, as you may have to make a turn where you don’t want. Once again, remember the five Ps (see Tip).

If you are in a strange town, you won’t know if the left lane becomes left-turn-only, or if the lane ends or merges. In a two-lane metropolitan road where you are unfamiliar with turns and intersections, use the right of your two lanes to avoid getting trapped. However, this may not be any better choice than the left lane, because the same problem could apply to right-turn-only and other exclusive lanes as well. On a threelane divided road, the choice of the centre lane is made simple for you.

images UPHILL

When you’re towing uphill, unless they are a straight climb and you can gain some momentum from run-up, be prepared to travel steadily. Most tow vehicles will pull most vans up most hills in this country given time and good driving skills. However, it’s certain that at some time you’ll come across really big hills, and you will have bother getting up them. The only option here is to change your gearbox, manual or automatic, into a gear that’s suitable for pulling your combination up that hill. Drive your engine at fairly good revs, so that it’s developing enough power to pull the load up the hill, and be prepared to just sit in the left-hand lane and work your way steadily up the hill.

Except for competition drivers, almost all drivers are afraid to really accelerate and push an engine hard to make it develop maximum power. For the comparatively short time in an engine’s life it has to work hard, even up close to redline on the tachometer, as long as the engine is in good condition it generally won’t be harmed at all. The worst thing will probably be a higher-than-normal fuel usage for that short period.

Few tow vehicles have sufficient power to overtake at will, so be prepared to stay in the left lane, at sensible engine revs and in a flexible gear until the climb ends.

images OVERHEATING

Most current vehicles, if they have automatic transmission, are now fitted with transmission coolers, so there’s usually little trouble from overheating of automatic transmissions. Naturally, older gearboxes and clutches can cause some hassles due to normal ageing wear in some cases, but change-over and replacement items are often easy to find. Where older vehicles suffer from problems with transmission overheating, retro-fit coolers for most vehicles can be supplied. Manual vehicles don’t seem to be affected very much by transmission overheating problems when they’re used as towing vehicles.

images DOWNHILL

When you’re driving downhill, don’t be afraid to use the gearbox to help keep the vehicle slow. To help maintain control of the vehicle on the way down, and to save using your brakes as much as you can, make the engine do the work. If you have an automatic, and the downhill is steep, drop back from Drive into Second, or even Low gear, in a similar way to a normal downchange in a manual gearbox. Obviously, in any manual vehicle you can drop down from fifth or fourth, right down to first gear if conditions require, to continuously help hold and control the vehicle on a bad downhill.

A little bit of braking, just enough to do the job, is the way to get the final amount of stability. On winding downhill roads you may need to brake an extra amount as you approach a corner, to get your speed down even lower for the bend. The correct gear, along with supportive braking, will help hold your combination against a downhill load. Again, make the engine do the work. Why keep a dog and do your own barking?

Smaller vans and camper trailers weighing noticeably less than the tow vehicle commonly have a minor effect on handling or braking for the tow vehicle. When you have a big caravan on the back of your tow vehicle, you’ve often more than doubled your original vehicle weight. That can become an exponential factor; that is, one and one can make three, not two. Just doubling your weight does not merely double the effort required to brake. It may increase it by as much as four times, so when you have little experience in towing you do need to be quite careful.

Following

For some time a good road traffic safety slogan was promoted: ‘Keep away from me for two seconds.’ If you’re travelling at only 60 kph, that’s about 30 m each two seconds. At least 30 m gives you some safety space if something goes wrong in front, perhaps enough distance to be able to safely stop or at least take evasive action and steer out of harm’s way.

images SEPARATION

On highways, most vans will tow quite easily. For safety, in any line of follow-the-leader traffic, allow a lot of following distance. It is an offence to travel too close to another large vehicle. You need to check your own state’s regulations to determine what the correct following distance is, but the general requirement is that any proceeding long vehicles should remain a minimum of 100 m apart. Make 100 m your minimum following distance. With any less space than that a vehicle that wants to overtake you could find it difficult, and therefore dangerous.

Common sense says that if you travel with your van 20 m behind another car and caravan, no-one travelling behind you will practically be able to tell how much gap there is between you and the van in front of you. Therefore, they can’t overtake safely. Many drivers simply don’t seem to be able to gauge the remaining distance in front of the vehicle they are overtaking until they’re already committed.

images SLOW TRAFFIC

Almost every traveller, at some time or other, has been unnecessarily held up when following another vehicle, which has had ample opportunity to pull to the left and allow overtaking, but did not move over. I’m sure that many of these occasions have happened simply because the driver in front is stressed for some personal reason. Causing this obstruction may even be some peculiar form of powerplay for the offending driver. There is no doubt that such attitudes have led to the current increase in what’s termed ‘road rage’. Unfortunately, in this day and age, a lot of people develop road rage if they can’t immediately get what they want.

Leave at least 100 m between you and the van in front. It’s not always possible to do it, but try. Every time it seems that you leave a decent following distance, some other driver will pop in and occupy your precautionary or safety space. If that’s the case, just drop back a little bit more. It’s most important to leave yourself plenty of following distance to be able to safely stop, and it helps to reduce fatigue and driver effort. The same requirement goes for semitrailers as well.

There is a significant difference in most cases between most of today’s big trucks and a current sedan towing a caravan – present-day big trucks usually have a huge amount of engine power. Matched gearboxes can be up to manual 15 speeds or more, or automatic, giving an excellent spread of gears for any road speed. So good truck drivers rarely need to slow down in good conditions. Many of them simply do not want to slow down much below the maximum allowable speed, nor do they often have to, with so much available power.

Overtaking

Years ago, when there was far less traffic using the roads, and drivers were far more polite, it was the standard thing that a slower vehicle in front of you waved you to overtake with a hand signal. The majority of current drivers are unaware that the original idea behind one flick of the right-hand blinker was an indication that the driver ahead and indicating knew there was a vehicle behind, and felt that conditions in front were safe enough for whoever was following him to move out and overtake. Most truckies know of this signal, which is now apparently unlawful. The liability of someone signalling in that way now would have to be put to the test in the court system. Clearly, it should be a very considered decision whether you helpfully indicate for a following vehicle to overtake.

As we should all be fully responsible for our own actions, it is proper that the responsibility is on you, as the overtaking driver, to be sure that it actually is safe to do so. When a driver in a slower vehicle in front is thoughtful enough to give you a flick of the right-hand blinker, showing they believe that it is safe for you to overtake, the first safe move is obviously to drift out into the overtaking lane and check, before you even consider accelerating.

Moving out into the right-hand lane without changing speed at all makes it very easy to smoothly drift back into the left lane and fit back in, if you judge that conditions are not right to overtake. Liability on the road is a very difficult question. Should you overtake? Should you advise people that you believe it is safe for them to overtake? Put careful thought into the decision before you do either.

As a general towing rule, it’s not wise to overtake a vehicle in front of you unless you have a lot of spare power, or some other advantage. In a perfect world that advantage would be a kilometre or two of good straight road, a clear view downhill, a tail wind and no oncoming traffic to worry about.

When towing a van, whether or not to overtake a slower vehicle in front of you can be a hard decision. Most tow vehicles don’t have a huge amount of power in reserve, and therefore to overtake someone in front of you requires quite a bit of careful thought, plenty of room to build up overtaking speed and get around, plus room to return back to your own traffic lane. Caravans are generally fairly heavy and clearly affect the performance of the vehicles towing them. This overtaking consideration also presumes that, because the road has improved to the extent that you have a safe overtaking opportunity, the driver in front does not also increase speed on the better road.

Mount the microphone and radio controls for easy access.

Speed

Average speeds are often a mystery to drivers. If you drive at 85 to 90 kph it’s quite surprising, if you can maintain that speed, how short a time it will take to get to your destination. With a GPS you can easily determine an averaging speed. If you’re travelling at a steady 90 kph, the truth is that in normal driving you may be covering the ground at 70 kph by the time you speed up, slow down, go around corners, and lose way on hills and so on.

Surprisingly for many drivers, as a general rule in areas of normal traffic density on ordinary roads along the eastern coast of this country, if you take three reasonable fatigue breaks over the day, you’ll probably find you’ve averaged a much lower speed than you imagine for the day’s travel time.

Naturally, this distance per hour will change entirely if you are driving north from Coober Pedy towards Alice Springs, because out there you can often maintain average speeds close to your actual travelling speeds. If you have a GPS fitted in your tow vehicle, studying the times and distances are interesting, and these accurate figures certainly can help you work out the most efficient speeds at which to tow your trailer.

Convoy

If you’re travelling with another van, don’t be foolish and try and keep even pace with it. Very few drivers and combinations travel at the same speed. If the vehicle in front decides to move away a bit, let it go. With UHF radio you can keep in touch with it for quite a few kilometres along the road.

Sometimes it’s a good reality check to see the actual travelling-difference between 85 kph and 90 kph, in minutes. If you are travelling at 85 kph and someone else is travelling at 90 kph, that’s only a theoretical 5 km difference after an hour’s drive. As 85 kph is about 1.4 km per minute, in theory the marginally slower vehicle would be just under four minutes behind. What does it matter if the other van gets to the morning tea stop two minutes or five minutes before you anyway?

Trucks, big trucks, buffeting, anti-sway

Trucks

Unless an overtaking truck driver comes up on your UHF radio listening channel and advises you differently, don’t make the mistake of slowing down as the truck approaches the rear of your van. The truckie normally bases his overtaking speed on his appraisal of your constant speed. A truckie will rarely overtake you unless he believes he can do it safely, and he’s simply not allowing for you to slow. If you do slow down as he runs up to you, you may even balk him, and then you could find yourself in an uncomfortable situation.

The best option is to do nothing different. Braking can drop you back far too close to him, much too quickly, and make his steering out to overtake you much more difficult. Acceleration can throw the truckie’s distance, speed and time estimate out. As a general rule, once the last trailer has reached your driver’s position it is safe to decelerate and let the truck move clear easily, because then when he moves left across into the lane in front of you there will be a bigger gap between the two vehicles.

A road train is always bigger and more powerful, far heavier and often much faster than your tow vehicle and van. With road trains, might is right.

Big trucks

Sometimes when a triple- or quad-trailer road train is oncoming, you will see that the last trailer is obviously flicking side to side a bit. Various dynamics cause the last trailer in line to move or be deflected more than those closer to the prime mover. If you can, quickly move well left, and give the truck space. On the more remote roads, especially those with narrow single lanes and bad edges to drop over, if you see any big truck at all coming toward you and there is opportunity, back off early and move right out to the side of the road. By far the safest thing to do is to get right off the bitumen and leave the truck to the entire hard surface.

In these circumstances a huge truck will not, and practically cannot, move off the road for you, the smaller unit. There are quite a few reasons why road trains don’t want to pull off the hard-surface road.

If they’re carrying livestock, every time they brake and slow down or quickly change direction, it jolts the load around considerably. And when they slow down and lose momentum with very heavy loads it can take them a long time and considerable effort to get back up to cruising speed again. So they tend not to slow down or move very much, especially if the shoulders might be wet. A road train is always bigger and more powerful, far heavier and usually much faster, when compared with a normal tow vehicle and caravan. It’s all very well to have the right of way, but first of all someone has to give it to you! With road trains, might is right.

Buffeting

On an open road a caravan has a fairly large profile in all directions. Whether it’s a pop-top or a fixed-height van it will be or can be buffeted by any cross winds, head or tail winds or sideways gusts. These can come from natural or man-made causes. If you have an anti-sway brake fitted on the van’s A-bar it can help reduce the wind effect. When coming out into open land from behind the protection of buildings or a group of trees on a windy day, you should expect to find that the caravan will be moved about by wind.

An oncoming B-double semitrailer won’t usually blow your combination tow vehicle and van around on the road all that much, although your additional towing mirror is sometimes pushed out of position by the onrushing air.

Oncoming trucks don’t cause anywhere near as much buffeting as large semis that overtake you from behind. Don’t be bothered by it, just make allowances for it.

A big road train rapidly overtaking you from behind is pushing a lot of air ahead of itself, and that will usually buffet your trailer around, creating the effect of ‘the tail wagging the dog’. If you’re not paying attention to your mirrors the sudden feeling of your steering wandering without warning can give you a fright, as the air-buffeting first hits the van you are towing. A singleaxle van is sometimes disturbed by the buffeting, but even a bigger and heavier tandem axle van is slightly rocked by most overtaking big trucks.

If you watch overhanging tree branches as a big truck drives past them, you can see they are virtually sucked in over the roadway behind the truck. This is due to a big low-pressure area or partial vacuum left in the disturbed air or wake behind the truck. In the same way, sometimes there is a mild tendency for a van and its tow vehicle to be slightly drawn or sucked inwards towards the overtaking truck by the conflicting airflows. This is another reason to be more careful when being overtaken.

Maintain your same speed. As you decelerate, your own trailer becomes looser and less stable for a fractional time until it becomes balanced and effective again, and if it has no motive power on, it’s more easily deflected. There doesn’t seem to be much benefit in slightly applying your trailer brakes, as though by dragging to ‘stretch out’ the trailer, it could become more stable. Trying to do this just as you are being overtaken by a huge truck promptly results in an immediate loss of concentration on the real and immediate issue – that another vehicle, a huge truck, is driving alongside you and is overtaking your combination.

This wide-view towing mirror is not disturbed by oncoming vehicles. The backing plate has adjusting bolts to retain the mirror position.

Anti-sway

If you have a large van it can be very much to your advantage to fit an antisway bar. Any good caravan repair and service workshop will be able to fit them. Hayman Reese is one common brand. An anti-sway brake is simply a friction brake, where screw tension by a lever increases or reduces compression on what are effectively two brake pads, along which a high-carbon flat-section shaft slides. The shaft forms a parallel arm with the A-bar, fitting between the towbar at one end and the A-bar itself at the other end.

An anti-sway brake acts as a strong damper to minimise wobble between the caravan and tow vehicle. For those who don’t regularly watch their rear-vision mirrors, in many cases the first indication that they have of a big truck about to overtake is when their steering wheel moves slightly without warning. The steering effect lightens, and they wonder why their tow vehicle has moved slightly on the road. The huge amount of air being pushed ahead of the overtaking truck naturally moves the unpowered, towed trailer first, and so the tail virtually wags the dog. An anti-sway brake can greatly minimise that effect. It’s well worth doing some research on them, as they are a very effective way of making your van much more stable when you tow it.

images Caution

Trying to brake or change vehicle course just as you are being overtaken by a huge truck promptly results in an immediate loss of concentration on the real and essential issue – that a huge truck is driving close alongside you and is overtaking your combination.

Van actions, clearances

Van actions

If your van is set up properly, with correctweight level rides if it needs them, and is adjusted so that it sits properly level and tows at the right height, there will be virtually no mechanical trouble towing your van.

Cornering and turning in normal road conditions when towing a trailer is basically simple. However, in tight spots there are some subtle changes in handling and bigger vans sometimes have bigger problems. If you have a van which has a large amount of overhang behind the wheels, remember when you turn that the rear of the van will swing out quite wide, further out across the road than you may imagine or expect. You need to be very aware of how much your van moves when you turn through a normal intersection.

This Winegard amplified TV antenna is popular, probably because it works well in most locations and is easy to use.

As a typical example of a van swinging out when turning slowly, consider this: in a normal site at a van park there is a row of trees along the right-hand side of your site; you drive slowly forward, steering left to get out of your site, but your big tandem van has a large amount of rear overhang; as you steer the vehicle left, the rear end of the van moves towards the right, towards the trees (that is, opposite the way you are steering, because the van pivots round the wheels in the effective centre of the van); for a short distance the rear will get closer to the trees, until you have driven forward and left far enough that the van clears the trees.

Even though it may look like you have sufficient rear clearance, be careful that the van’s rear overhang does not swing too far out and perhaps contacts one of those trees. The sharper you turn the vehicle, the more the rear end will swing away. The first rule of towing in any tight situation is very simple – drive slowly, and if you’re in any doubt at all about clearances, get out and check. The other option could be expensive.

Burnside Shopping Centre in Adelaide deserves recognition for its efforts to supply larger and declared parking sites for larger 4WD vehicles.

Clearances

How tall is your van? For safety you need to be aware of the true height, and not just where the side-walls appear to finish. When you pull into a van site will you be able to wind up your Winegard TV antenna without it fouling a tree branch or other foliage? Although there is now a shift to fitting roof-top aircon units to pop-top vans, they usually have a low roof and less height clearance bothers than a fullheight van.

Remember that with a full-height caravan you will not be able to get into most parking bays at a shopping centre unless the roof clearance is made specifically for trucks and other high vehicles. We’ve seen one example of this, and it took almost half an hour for the flustered driver to get himself out of the problem, including driving his van over several concrete kerbs and median strips.

Think of this awful possibility: you drive down an unfamiliar but fairly level road, only to find an old railway bridge ahead of you, displaying a sign which reads: ‘High Vehicles Detour. Caution – Very Low Bridge Clearance – 3.45 m’. To make matters worse, you are travelling at 60 kph when you suddenly spot this bridge, and there are seven vehicles close behind you. Although this would certainly be an unpleasant position to be in, such situations do happen.

But if you have measured your van carefully, and you know it has an accurate total height of 3.26 m on flat ground at the top of the air conditioner, then the outcome should be fine. Even so, exercise caution here. Look for any recent road surfacing or repairs which may not have been taken into account, making the height even less than the sign indicates. Perhaps the sign itself might not have been updated.

As an even less certain situation, think what might happen where this same railway bridge is in quite a dip or low spot on the roadway. If you must angle sharply down to go under the bridge and sharply angle up again to exit the short crossing, could part of your van still touch the bridge underside, even though it would have 19 cm clearance on a flat road? Whilst this may not be a common situation, east of Melbourne on a well-used suburban road there is such a bridge showing many scars, and I know it has trapped many an unwary driver. Know your van and vehicle dimensions.

What the van looks to be in height when you are standing beside it may not be correct. If you have hatches, a television antenna, an air conditioning unit and other things on the roof that you can’t easily see, they add more height to your van. Walk around it a few times, hitched and unhitched, to learn its real size, so you’re satisfied you can gauge the height and the width. It’s important that you do have a good picture in your mind of how tall the van is. It can be expensive driving under a tree that has branches facing down, if you only think the roof will clear. Get out and check.

Those great parking spaces for big 4WDs seem to have grown little cousins!

It’s just as important to know your van width. As we drive on the left side of the road, the left side of your van is your blind side from the driving position. If it has an awning fitted on the near or left-hand side, remember that it sticks out another few inches, when you’re driving closely past an obstacle.

If your tow vehicle is a 4WD, there can be another annoying dimension problem. You could well have bother using normal car parking spaces in a shopping centre. It is usually not a simple one-turn job to park a full-size 4WD in a parking space most likely designed for a smaller sedan. 4WDs often don’t even fit fully in the painted bay outline.

Due to parking area road width, it will often need more than one attempt to turn into the space, even if there is the bay width you require. Sadly, you should also add the roof clearance problem to many 4WDs. With a roof-rack fitted, many large 4WDs will not fit under the height-warning bar at the entry to shopping centre car parks. Get used to walking across to the entry doors in the rain.

CASE STUDY

images Roof clearance

One driver who stopped at a shelter shed in an outback roadside stop, for a cup of coffee for morning tea, paid the price for his dimensional uncertainty. We watched the episode from beginning to almost end. Trying to get the most possible shade he drove closely parallel with the edge of the overhanging corrugated-iron roof, and his van slid in about a foot under the un-guttered and sharp edge. If he’d stopped right there he should have been ok. Not thinking, after his pit-stop and coffee break, he went to drive off.

The iron roof was strongly built and looked quite level, but the ground sloped, with the roof tapering in slightly as he drove off.

End result – the full-height van became tightly wedged, and the corrugated iron cut into the aluminium-sheet van roof. He stopped sharply when we yelled, but not quite quickly enough. Unfortunately, this happened right where two sheets of iron overlapped, and one of them made a sort of barb into his roof, so he was about to do more damage if he forced the van backwards. From standing on the table under the shelter we could see the metal had only cut in about an inch or so. This chap was not a happy camper, at all.

He thought bending the corrugated iron sheets up a few inches was one way to make clearance on the van roof. Instead, the easier and simpler answer was the best – we let his tandem van tyre pressures down as low as we dared, and with only a tiny bit of clearance he was able to back out.

Understandably, he was fairly irritated. However, he did have an old handoperated tyre pump to put the air back in his tyres. We left him there, more hot and bothered than before his coffee break…

Radio

Radio

When there is no one jamming or polluting the frequencies, UHF radio is very quiet. Gone can be the days of VHF hash hiss, sideband squawk and continuous or breaking squelch noise. To a traveller, UHF radios can be important.

If you have a ‘Ch 18’ sticker displayed clearly on the back of your van, many road transport truck drivers are prepared to come up on that channel to contact you. The idea was started by an interstate truck driver named Rod Hannifey – more power to him.

As well as on the rear, we have a large ‘Ch 18 UHF’ sticker on the top front right-hand side of our van. Four times now on the road I’ve spoken with Rod, who reckoned that the front-mounted number more than doubles the chance of someone, oncoming as well as following traffic, being able to give you information. The Caravan and Motorhome Club of Australia recommends that members use UHF Ch 20. Various club bodies offer radio channel stickers for sale, and any computer-cut sign-maker can supply you with them.

Regardless of channel persuasion, if you have a clearly visible sticker on your van indicating your monitoring or listening channel, truckies know that they can come up on air and talk with you if they choose or need to. Sometimes they’ll call you up from several hundred metres back, when you may not even be aware they are behind and closing on you, just to warn you that they will soon overtake. Heed the advice, and move or keep left to make the overtaking quick and easy.

If you’re listening in on Ch 40, instead of scanning or just monitoring Ch 18 or 20 in your tow vehicle, why bother? It’s a free world, but all you will probably get on Ch 40 is a lot of bad language, slang and ocker accents that are almost unintelligible, and an equal amount of dubious information. Ch 40 is commonly accepted as the trucker’s road channel, although in specific areas they have adopted other channels.

The ‘Channel 18 UHF’ sticker on caravans seems to be recognised by truckies just about everywhere now.

Likewise, if you are still listening to 27 Mhz AM CB on the old VHF frequencies, most transmissions will not be understandable to the average adult. Unfortunately when you have the UHF on scan and pass through anywhere there is a collection of people, you’ll very likely hear some of the strange users who seem to love ruining the CB airways. It just goes with the territory, and there’s little you can do about it except switch the radio off for a while.

UHF repeaters provide very wide coverage in some of the more remote and flatter areas. Learn how to use them as they can often provide communications when mobile phones are well out of reception area.

Most of Australia, from Perth to Cairns, and certainly around the major eastern coastal roads, is fairly well covered by Citizen’s Band UHF radio, via repeater stations. UHF stands for Ultra High Frequency, in this case, a clean radio signal about 468 Mhz, for those who deal in technical terms. Repeaters are merely a means of remotely and automatically multiplying your signal power, so that the signal you transmit can be heard a long way away, and not just by local listeners.

Basically, the radio in your vehicle usually has about 5W of power and when you speak your radio transmits this relatively small signal, which is hopefully picked up by a repeater station. These quite often have 100W of power, and they will re-transmit your signal out at 100W over a great distance.

UHF radios all come with a good handbook, and learning how to operate them in many cases is just a matter of listening for a while to see how the protocols operate. If you listen on UHF and your radio has a scan facility, quite often as you travel you can hear farmers and commercial firms going about their daily businesses. On less-travelled roads, from time to time it pays to see if your UHF will pick up a repeater station. That’s a good indicator to remember that sometimes, if you get into trouble and your mobile phone is well out of range, UHF radio on the repeater channels can make contact for you.

All repeater stations are mounted on high spots, usually somewhere up where there is a trig point, or along the top of a range, or on the highest available point way out on the plains. The technicalities of UHF and repeaters are best covered by books specific to that subject. It can be a very interesting area, as radio communication almost silently plays a large part in safety around this country.

An excellent subject for discussion is the merits or otherwise of satellite phones, versus the 4WD HF radio network VKS737 or other commercial providers on the lower frequencies. In a really nasty situation, both can be lifesavers. It can become a hard choice to work out the best option. Do you want to spend several thousand dollars to fit a high-frequency radio system to your vehicle? The 737 network is very similar in a lot of ways to the old Royal Flying Doctor Service high-frequency network. Instead, should you pay about a thousand dollars or so, plus a recurring monthly service cost, for a satellite phone? Most have a higher initial purchase cost, but you can also lease a satphone instead of buying one. The satellite phone is virtually guaranteed to access someone else with a phone, as long as your battery is fully charged. It’s then possible to have a fairly normal phone conversation and is great, apart from the high cost per second for each call. But unless someone specifically rings you, unlike radio you won’t get incoming information.

Purchase of HF sets, antennas and installation costs can be quite high, although they can also be hired shortand long-term from several specialist businesses. Apart from the low costs of yearly membership and any licence fees, you can use the HF radio as much or as little as you want, and its continued use is free. A benefit of the VKS737 network is that you can tune in on the daily ‘galah sessions’, and just listen. You will hear other users in probably similar conditions to you talking about their track conditions, their locations and so on. You can contribute as you choose, but it’s important to learn the protocols for HF transmission first.

Tyres, fuel

Tyres

Checking tyre pressures for every day running up and down a highway is another simple part of basic maintenance. In my Nissan Patrol 4WD, when not towing the van, I inflated the 265.70R16 tyres to 36 psi (248 kpa), front and rear. When using it as a tow vehicle I ran 40 psi (276 kpa) in each tyre. Those pressures suited me fine for the load the truck normally carried. In direct comparison, my smaller and lighter Jeep is fitted with 245.65R17 tyres, and the best tyre pressure for it, when towing the van, seems to be 36 psi.

Fully loaded, our Evernew van weighs near enough 2.4 tonnes, and from towing experience, I generally run 40 psi (276 kpa) in each 235.75R15 tyre on the tandem van axles. Fitting new tyres to the van, or to the tow vehicle, will mean experimenting again with air pressures to determine the best apparent pressure for towing. Different sizes of tyre and make of vehicle, with a different towing or carried load, will need slightly different air pressures to get best possible mileage.

Smaller caravans, camper trailers and huge mobile homes all need attention to tyre pressures to get the best results from those vital tyres. All good tyre service businesses will advise you what their recommended pressure for your particular use and size of tyre is, so that makes the starting pressure easy. Make any air pressure changes small, make a note of the change for comparison, and run it for a long enough period to actually notice any handling differences. Try to be consistent when you are judging results, and use the same tyre pressure gauge for setting pressures. A fast run down a long interstate freeway will give your combination entirely different handling to a run on any short and sharp winding road.

If you plan to tow your van down a rough gravel road for any considerable distance, it’s worth letting the tyres down to around 30 psi (207 kpa). Common feeling for many years has been that tyres heat up when pressures are low. With modern tyre technology and development, and common sense, that’s unlikely. Obviously, with lowered pressures you need to drop your speed proportionately. Speed has to vary with a driver’s estimation of road conditions, but generally 40–50 kph or less on a bad gravel road is ok.

Lowered tyre pressures on rough gravel roads can make a big difference to vehicle handling and tyre life.

Little kids have a different way of letting off steam, and to them a puncture is just a chance to get out of the vehicle for a while.

A tyre that’s running at a slightly lower pressure than normal is able to absorb hits and bumps from stones and rough road surfaces much better. The lower speed tends to knock the tow vehicle or the van contents around less. The subject of tyre pressures is going to be a permanent debate for a long time for many travellers. However, there is one thing which is clear – if you’re going over rough roads, to save your tyres, slow down and lower your tyre pressures.

On the sharp stones along the rough Lake Julius Road, north of Mt Isa, a big F-truck with a GVM of around 4 tonnes regularly towing a heavy ski-boat on a big tandem trailer and travelling at sensible speeds with all eight tyres about 30 psi, had no tyre problems for several years. The owner, an experienced tyre-service proprietor, experimented till he found satisfactory pressures, then maintained them.

Some tyre companies offer a guaranteed high mileage from their brand, but if you check out the conditions, the reasons are obvious and common sense. If you fit five top-quality heavy-duty tyres to your tow vehicle, then rotate them every 10 000 km, and balance them all at the same time, you should expect long tyre life. Rotate all five tyres for value. I use a clockwise shift, with the spare going down to LHR, all the others moving around one to the right, and the RHR going up onto the spare rack. Keeping them at proper pressure is important, so weekly pressure and condition checking should be done.

As an example, towing the van probably more than 60 per cent of the time I’ve got over 80 000 km out of each of my last three sets of BFG A/T 265.70R16 tyres. I’d estimate about 25 per cent of the total distance was on bad bitumen or sand or gravel, so it is practical to get good tyre mileage, but in fairness, it takes some care and effort. However, tyre maintenance adds to vehicle safety. Always check your tyres, because there are few things more annoying, or perhaps frustrating and dangerous, than to puncture or blow a tyre. There’s quite a bit of work to mend it. If you have a spare wheel, or tyre and tube, and you have all the tools to be able to fix the problem, it’s still a job that you don’t want to do. Preventive maintenance is far and away the best thing.

With a complete spare wheel you can keep travelling and leave the puncture fixing until you’re camped for the night.

Fuel

If you keep an accurate logbook of fuel usage you’ll soon learn what tow speeds best suit your vehicle. Over several years my fuel logbook shows that where possible or practical 85–90 kph seems the most efficient speed at which to tow our 20 ft full-height caravan with a big automatic diesel 4WD.

For best information you also should note some conditions – for example, whether you were:

going through hills, as in along the Great Dividing Range

out on the flat plains, such as from Hay to Renmark

faced with very bad head winds, like driving up the WA coast

in a rainy situation, typically in Darwin in January

travelling much faster than normal, typically on freeway distances

travelling slower than normal, typically in heavy holiday traffic.

(see typical trip)

From that kind of information it’s easy to determine what kind of fuel usage figure your vehicle is returning. If you are placed in a bad situation, this knowledge could be important, and quite apart from the emergency aspect, with the high fuel cost now these figures can help you work out the most efficient way to use your vehicle. Only by keeping careful figures will you be able to properly determine that.

Safety outback, road safety, road work, road damage

Safety outback

If you’re going to go bush, tell someone. The old saying is ‘let someone know before you go.’ Don’t think it’s silly to report to the police station at Birdsville if you’re going to travel across to Bedourie or somewhere similar towing your off-road van. In remote areas it is important that somebody knows you are out there, and it’s equally as important to tell somebody at the other end that you’ve made it through successfully. I’ve been involved in searches for what could politely be called fools. In a lot of cases if they’d merely told someone where they were going, instead of just disappearing off into the wild blue yonder, emergency services management people would not have been called in, and dozens of willing volunteer searchers would not have been activated.

If you happen to break down, stay with your vehicle. It’s most unlikely, if you’re in a remote area, that you’ll be able to walk out safely, even with a GPS. It’s very difficult to spot a person walking along an outback road from the air. It is a lot easier for a satellite or a helicopter, or even a 747 aircraft up at 30 000 ft, to spot your vehicle.

In dire emergencies or life-threatening circumstances, an EPIRB/PLB may be your salvation. This is a last-ditch option for serious trouble in remote areas. EPIRB is an acronym for Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon. PLB is short for Personal Locator Beacon. When activated, these amazing little devices, some as small as a pack of cigarettes, transmit a specific radio signal identifier to a special satellite.

The particular unit identifier code must be registered to the buyer, and the monitoring body is advised of the purchaser’s details. There are specific EPIRBs for different purposes. An EPIRB is generally intended for maritime operation, and a PLB is for land-based use. Frequency for all these devices is now around 406 MHz. This frequency is monitored 24/7 by commercial aircraft and the Canberra Rescue Centre, amongst others.

Two other watching bases are in coastal northern Queensland and on the mid-coast in Western Australia. Any irresponsible use of these emergency beacons can result in stiff penalties, but if an accidental activation occurs there is a 1800 phone number which must be contacted immediately to cancel any official search actions or responses.

On roads like this in remote areas, where you can drive for hours on end with little variation, the road surface can get far too hot to walk on.

This broken wheel stud was replaced with a Ford Falcon stud of the same dimensions, but with a different bolt thread and nut.

Road safety

Driving along the Stuart Highway towards the Northern Territory–South Australian border, for example, on really hot days the road temperature can be above 60°C.

Imagine how hot the engine bay on your tow vehicle would also be in those conditions. When you pull up for a break, a simple idea to help your vehicle cool a little is to lift the bonnet up, and let some of the trapped heat inside the engine bay escape easily out into the atmosphere. There’s no need to do it every time, but on very hot days the extra venting will help your vehicle. While it’s propped open, have a brief look that all under the bonnet is correct.

images Tip

At a roadside stop you may have seen a truck driver walking around the vehicle, kicking at tyres. He’s probably listening for any tyre which sounds different to the others, because if it does, chances are it will have different air pressures. The same applies for the tyres on your van or vehicle.

images A QUICK CHECK

While at a service station pumping up a tyre, as an easy part of your maintenance, kick the tyre sidewalls on your vehicle or van and listen to the particular sound each makes. 40 psi makes a different sound compared to 30 psi. Likewise, walk around your van, use a knuckle and just tap on a window. If you know it is properly shut, then you can learn the sound it makes, for a quick easy check later along the road.

When you stop for your two-hourly fatigue break, it doesn’t even take one minute to walk around your van or trailer and have a look to make sure that everything is alright. Do a quick check of each van door and window and wheel, as a simple safety precaution. Kick the tyres to determine all have even air pressure. Walking around also lets you see if a reflector has fallen out, or perhaps a tail-light lens has been hit by a stone and cracked. Check the A-bar and the various items hooked up to it. Look at the grease caps on the end of each axle to check none have become loose or been knocked off.

Remembering that you’ve probably put the van brakes on to pull up in the rest stop, and that heat will rapidly transfer from the brake drums into the whole hub, feel the hubs for unusually high temperature which might indicate a wheel-bearing problem.

Thrown-out grease making thin spider tracks across a wheel can indicate a leak, perhaps from a loose cap or a hot bearing. If your wheels have a dress-up hub cover in the centre, it’s not as easy to feel or notice changes. Again, you’re looking for the one thing which is different from the others. Then you have to ask yourself why that might be, and whether it needs prompt fixing.

As an example, heading towards Bourke in NSW, at a normal stop I did the routine van check and found a wheel stud missing. The broken remainder was still easily visible in the hub, and I felt it was not likely to drop inside the brake drum and cause further problems. As I still had five of the six studs intact on that wheel, I continued on into Bourke at a steady rate, and later spent a few hours repairing the problem.

Not all mechanical malfunctions are desperate but knowledge of them will at least allow you to make a sound decision. Knowing that everything looks and sounds alright should allow you to drive for the next few hours, fairly confident that nothing you could prevent ought to go wrong with your van, because you’ve checked it.

Road work

If a van tyre goes flat there’s usually not much height between the rim on the ground and the underside of a spring plate, or even under the axle, which are both places to put the lifting jack. Some vehicle jacks are so awkward to use that it takes a physically fit person to be able to operate them. Will your tow vehicle jack fit under the van or trailer axles, yet still lift high enough to allow you to replace a fully-inflated wheel and tyre onto the hub? This is a weak spot for many travellers.

If the vehicle jack is no use for this job, are you carrying another jack of perhaps a different type, so that you can in fact lift up either the axle or the van easily and sufficiently to allow you to do a wheel change, if you get a puncture in a van tyre? Of those around, the Trail-A-Mate hydraulic jack, which doubles as a jockey wheel, is one of the best and easiest-touse lifters.

Roadside assistance services are great, but when you are in a fairly remote area, and/or your mobile phone doesn’t work, whatthen? The word is ‘self-reliance’. Perhaps the most confusing thing for many people who get a puncture on their van or trailer is not actually knowing how to physically change the wheel. If you’re not sure how to do a van wheel change, go to your reliable caravan maintenance and service centre, and ask them to show you how to safely and correctly change a wheel. Do an actual test run with your particular van jack if it has one, or test whether your tow vehicle’s jack will do the job. Don’t go away unprepared, thinking all will be perfect. Although 99.5 per cent of the time it will be fine, the missing half-percent can bring you badly undone.

The lifting bracket is welded onto the van chassis, usually behind the wheels, and the removable bracket on the Trail-A-Mate jack shaft lifts the van body and not the actual wheels.

Road damage

If your route is strictly bitumen-only roads, you might get away without improved mudflaps, but even main bitumen roads often have loose blue-metal screenings on their surface. Road work leaves lots of loose gravel and stones on the road surface. When it comes to stone damage to the front of your van, this is not much different from driving on a normal gravel or stony road. Situations like this need some caution to avoid stone-chip damage.

Stones flicked up by rear tyres have a nasty habit of hitting the front of the van or trailer, and ricocheting forwards to hit the back doors, windows or boot of the tow vehicle. The bigger 4WD tyres can toss up a formidable amount of gravel, and sand-blasted or broken rear windows, or damaged paintwork on these vehicles is fairly common without some type of prevention. The same damage will apply to the unprotected van, because the stones hit it before deflecting.

In road work, hanging well back from the vehicle in front is always sensible, as is lowering your own speed to try and keep down any flying flicked-up stones. This is a common area where long or additional mudflaps are a bonus.

The further to the vehicle’s rear the mudflaps or stone-guards are, and the closer to the ground, the better they seem to work. A sort of sweeping and dragging effect seems best. The next level up in protection is a proper stone-guard, as often seen angled and tilted across the front of off-road trailers and campervans.

These are available for normal caravans as well, and most issues of caravan magazines carry advertisements for them. Generally easily fitted and removable, they usually bolt onto the A-bars and can be adjusted for user preference.

This well-made shadecloth van stone-guard is fitted in a good position and has the right angle to deflect stones flicked up by vehicle tyres.

Camping, roadblocks

Camping

Some commercial van parks are of a low standard and travellers bypassing them is quite understandable. Out in the more remote areas, where van parks are less common, bush camping is accepted and practical. However, there are some tourists who clearly do not support the populated-area caravan parks. When travellers are on the increase, yet van parks are reducing both in number and in available caravan sites, this is a peculiar and unfortunate situation which could contribute to even fewer van parks.

Many campervan tourists, usually in those highly-advertised vehicles of all sizes, don’t stop in van parks. For example, at a major intersection near Palmerston, for two nights in a row we saw the same medium-sized and expensive campervan cost-cutting by being parked overnight on the grass edge, behind a thin screen of bushes not 10 m from the traffic lights.

Some tourists actually park adjacent to the fences of van parks, particularly in beachside areas. Adding salt to the wound, I’ve seen occupants from these vehicles walk into adjoining van parks and use their amenities blocks. It’s not surprising van park operators are hitting back, providing keys to their toilets and showers for paying clients. Those most inconvenienced by the outcome, of course, are the regular travellers who have to pay to stay at the van park and also have to comply with the key regime. Coolum and Stockton are just two parks that quickly come to mind where I’ve seen tourists, in both caravans and motorhomes, who have blatantly camped overnight in public car parks next door to the van park.

I have seen large numbers of campervans and motorhomes, obviously free-camping, parked in shopping centre car parks, schoolyards and grassy paddocks. I’ve noted them in vacant house blocks, on metropolitan roadsides, uncompleted housing estate roads, residential streets and in riverside and beach car parks all along the eastern and southern coasts and even in a busy innercity waterside car park.

There seems to be no nationwide consistency in camping rules at all. Council by-laws officers are conspicuous by their absence. Yet some municipalities regulate travellers camping overnight with signs at many council-engineered country sites or rougher common-use bush camping places.

Some people reportedly believe that if you don’t have your caravan corner jacks down, and the door step out, you are not technically stopped for overnight camping in the real sense. I’ve not been able to find support for that idea. Where a van is parked on a roadside, in the same manner as it would be in a van park, that would most likely be defined as camping.

Many RTA-approved roadside camping sites are now limited to maximum stop durations of 20 hours. Typically, this will let you pull in at four o’clock in the afternoon, camp overnight and be gone by nine o’clock the next morning, which is probably just what most travellers need. May there be many more of them created to cope with the increasing need.

In most cases, these roadside camping places are quite a few kilometres out of town, well away from settled housing and commercial areas. This ‘free-camping’, in areas, duration and definition, seems to still be a bone of contention for almost all concerned – van park proprietors, councils and travellers alike. For current opinions and recent changes to locality regulations, be sure to check out updates in the caravanning and motorhome monthly magazines and on various websites.

Travellers with a pet do have limited access to campsites in many places, including national parks and commercial van parks. For many of us the dog or cat is a family member, and simply would not be left behind when we humans go on holidays, but travelling with a pet does create a double-edged sword. Perhaps this particular no-pet restriction is one reason some tourists will camp in any car park or quiet areas they can find, especially in coastal areas.

Equally, those who choose to travel in huge fifth-wheelers, or in mobile homes with small attached vehicles to act as a tender to the mothership, have created their own restrictions in many cases. Sheer size limits their access to many van parks, and dimensional clearances stop them using a lot of the gravel roads where vans and camper trailers go. These usually self-supporting combinations are often seen on riverbanks or in local showgrounds, although many older converted buses can be found seemingly permanently located in bigger van parks.

These tourists, camped in the busiest park almost in the centre of the city, hung their washing on a rope between the light poles and spread the rest out on the lawn to dry.

Roadblocks

Few travellers seem to give much thought to agricultural roadblocks and their intended purpose. Many years back I lived in a major and declared fruit fly zone, with a barriered two-lane roadblock on a main highway. All traffic out of the area was stopped and checked by officials, to seize any fruit carried, and prevent it being taken into non-fruit fly areas. The idea was great in concept. However, I expect it failed in execution because the check point was closed at 5.30pm each day, and opened at 8.30am next morning.

I don’t imagine that this system has changed much in the interim and I also doubt many travellers now would know of or understand the reasons for such inspections. That is, to act as official traffic stops for inspection of travelling vehicles to potentially stop cross-border transport of the ubiquitous fruit fly or some other agricultural pest.

Prevention of spread of these diseases by confiscation of possibly infected foodstuffs or plant matter, on the border of some arbitrary area, seems to me a valid idea. To those directly involved, the idea is certainly important, although I feel it still falls down considerably in the execution.

This excellent booklet is essential reading for all interstate travellers.

You can find a few manned major roadblocks around Australia, often near state borders. Going into South Australia from Victoria, but east of Renmark, there is a main stop for fruit and vegetables. There’s another near the start of the Nullarbor, near the SA–WA border. Heading west from Katherine, over the WA border before Kununurra is another stop, and here honey is added to the list of banned substances for travellers to carry. Even cardboard cartons that have had fruits or vegetables in them, which you might be using only for storage purposes, may be taken by the inspectors. Not all types of these foods are taken. Apparently any raw prohibited item can be seized, but if it is cooked or containered this can be acceptable and may not be forfeited.

Whilst the intent behind the roadblocks is proper, motorist annoyance at these fruit and vegetable collectors is not at all surprising. Part of this is probably because there is very little fruit fly information available and/or strongly publicised at major shopping towns or information centres nearest these roadblocks. We’ve not seen any very visible warnings in van parks or supermarkets, nor heard warning advice on local radio stations or TV. No-one really makes the effort to advise travellers that they should not bother buying specified items because they will be confiscated at a future roadblock. It’s no wonder travellers get very irate when they are told their foods are about to be taken by some official.

Be warned - if you have to cross state borders, or travel in fruit fly areas, make early enquiries about restricted foodstuffs.

We’ve seen and heard of people parked, some even for a few days, at roadside parking sites which have developed just prior to some roadblocks. Many have become so annoyed at the official actions involved they prefer to waste considerable time stopped in the middle of nowhere, and eat their expensive fruit and vegetables, rather than surrender them to sometimes officious fruit collectors a few kilometres ahead. I’ve seen that same confiscated fruit and vegies tossed into open bins, where the flies at the roadblock had a great time.

Penalties can be severe if you don’t comply with requirements, and staff usually go through your tow vehicle and van thoroughly. Be warned – if you have to cross state borders, or travel in fruit fly areas, make early enquiries about restricted foodstuffs. You could save yourself a lot of money, effort and irritation.

These notes have been taken from various websites and condensed for your information.

[If you plan to travel into another state, you really should check out the relative quarantine website, then print out a current list of the actual items (they’re all specifically named) which are prohibited to be transported across different state borders.]

Australian state regulations vary, but as a guide, the following groups of fruit and vegetables cannot be taken into the Fruit Fly Exclusion Zone, including the Greater Sunraysia Pest Free Area - *Pome fruits such as apple, crab apple, pear, quince, etc. *Tropical or temperate fruits such as avocado, banana, berries, feijoa, fig, guava, grapes, loquats, mango, passionfruit, pawpaw, persimmon, etc. *Any fruiting vegetable such as capsicum, chili, eggplant, tomato, tamarillo, etc. *Citrus fruits such as cumquat, grapefruit, lemon, lime, mandarin, orange, etc.

South Australian regulations also include beans, potatoes and any members of the allium family – garlic, leeks, onions, shallots, spring onions, etc. Western Australian regulations are quite tough, even including honey, and list many more specific and wide-ranging items.

Hints

Keep your speed down when you’re driving in van parks. Most caravan parks have signs up saying 8 kph, or 5 mph when driving on their roads. Little kids can, and often do, run or ride out in front of you without thinking or warning. Equally, many older people don’t seem to give way to vehicles, for whatever reason. Maybe they think that vehicles can stop almost instantly? Clearly, the lower your speed is, the easier you can stop.

Look at speed-humps in van parks and check the gouge marks where some parts of vans and vehicles have made strong contact – then don’t add to them yourself.

Keep well left if you tow a trailer, and try not to cause interference to faster vehicles on hills and approaches. Overtaking lanes should start some distance before the bottom of the hill, and not part-way up, where the traffic has already been slowed and begun to choke into a single lane.

To help take some of the weight off the tow vehicle’s rear suspension, and to stop the van floor from moving when you’re walking around inside, are both practical reasons to wind the corner jacks down if you remain hitched overnight.

After a few hours of driving, unwanted eye strain is just another factor which adds to your fatigue. Something as basic as clean vehicle windows is very important. Equal parts vinegar and water spray, and a piece of newspaper, will do a good job to clean most baked-on bugs off most external glass.

In normal metropolitan traffic and common road situations a van is generally not difficult to tow if you make allowances for the extra towing weight, and more physical clearance that’s needed, plus an amount of extra safety stopping distance.

When driving across service station driveways or similar, with any real degree of speed, a normal on-road van chassis can flex considerably and it is quite possible parts of the van will contact the roadway or kerbing as it crosses. Drive slowly when crossing any irregular surface, so that mudflaps, safety chains and tow assembly parts are not damaged. Damaging the bottom corners or underneath parts of a van on a concrete crossing is unfortunately easy.

A tow vehicle and trailer can move off the road usually much easier than this big and wide vehicle.

In almost any situation on relatively level ground, big and powerful trucks can overtake most travelling tow vehicle and van combinations, virtually at will. They almost always maintain much higher average road speeds than travellers do. Be very aware of this next time you’re happily using the middle of the narrow road, thinking you’re on your own on some long and quiet stretch of road somewhere – keep a regular watch on your mirrors!

Some small trailers can be exempt from registration, but the rules are tight. In general, if an exempt trailer is to be used on the road it must comply with three conditions: less than a certain weight, shorter than a certain length, and narrower than the vehicle towing it. In Victoria virtually the only such trailer would be one towed by a motorcycle. Even those little fold-up small-boat trailers are not exempt. Check the registration requirements in your particular state.

Most vehicles have plastic fittings inside the cabin, and plastic apparently gives off peculiar vapours, which seem to coat the glass. Sometimes it takes a bit of rubbing effort, but on the inside of windows methylated spirits seems to get rid of that slight film.

There can be a very strong roadway camber in the left-hand lanes in some cities and towns. Be well aware of this, as it tilts your caravan very much to the left at the top. In Adelaide, for example, there are actually traffic signs on some roads advising that large trucks and caravans should not use the left-hand lane because there are electricity poles and other roadside furniture close to the kerb. There’s a chance that as your van is tilting left, because of the big camber, you could do considerable damage to it if it collides with roadside items.

There are several schools of thought on whether you should take the pressure off level ride bars while you’re pulled up at an overnight stop. For just an overnight stay, I haven’t yet found any valid reason to let the tension off the level ride bars. When these bars are in place and tensioned up, that’s what they are designed to do. Obviously the trailer needs to remain coupled directly to the tow vehicle if, for whatever reason, you should later want to get away in a hurry.

As the sign and dotted line for the ‘Left Lane Ending’ appears on a slower vehicle left lane, signal and move decisively into the overtaking and continuing right lane. Often some impatient driver will accelerate hard to pass you as you diverge because he doesn’t want to be stuck behind a caravan. Watch carefully for such common and dangerous behaviour, and be prepared to slow sufficiently to allow passing without danger to either vehicle.

This isolated oil-derrick is in far south-western Qld.

Knowledge, choice, type, towing, gearboxes

Replacing, adjusting, level rides, weight, sagging, levelling

Fuel, batteries, radio, security

Knowledge, choice, type, towing, gearboxes

Knowledge

The National Caravan and Recreational Vehicle Towing Guide defines what a tow vehicle is and gives a general guide to legal requirements in most states. There is good information about the tow vehicle, what it needs to be able to do, and the weight percentages it must have. In most states, the effective weight limit means that if your tow vehicle weighs 1 tonne, you are permitted to tow a trailer of 1.5 tonne. In other words, as a general rule you can tow at a 1:1.5 ratio. You should be completely responsible for your own actions, so you do need to be aware of your own state traffic regulations concerning tow vehicles and towing.

Choice

If you are considering buying a new tow vehicle, quite often the well-proven ability of some popular vehicles to easily tow some common types of caravan or trailer makes the choice of the new tow vehicle an easier decision. However, when you are buying a vehicle to tow bigger vans or those made for tougher use, you must do your research. New or second-hand, without homework you may not get quite what you expected, and any option from there on could prove unpleasantly expensive.

When choosing a tow vehicle, the selection is considerable, and complex. You can currently buy part-time and full-time 4WDs, AWDs, and two-wheel-drive vehicles driven by front-wheels or rearwheels. Each type of vehicle has benefits when towing. Body types may be sedan, utility, wagon, twin-cab, extra-cab, or simply huge, with or without canopies over the rear tub.

In shape they can also be a station wagon, hatchback, cab-chassis, truckchassis or normal sedan car. Even two tow vehicles which look virtually identical could have very different towing abilities from manufacture, and a typical example is any vehicle offered in either two-wheel, all-wheel or four-wheel drive variants. There is one thing you must remember when choosing a tow vehicle – buyer beware!

This model of Jeep is full-time 4WD (4H), with front, centre and rear diff locks. Low range can be selected as needed (4L).

Type

Should you stick with tradition and tow with your rear-wheel-drive V8 Commodore or your XR6 Falcon sedan? Would the conventional rear-wheel-drive sedan, or a common front-wheel-drive vehicle, take your caravan everywhere that you want to go? Chances are, if you stay on the bitumen, it will do a perfectly good job. When you want to drive along average gravel roads, it will tow adequately on those as well, but nowhere near as effectively as the current crop of AWDs.

Towing abilities for AWD vehicles like Subaru and Ford Territory, for example, are quite acceptable for the majority of outback roads. There seems to be a strong movement towards AWD vehicles for towing. Improved safety, good fuel economy and predictable on-road manners has made the AWD vehicles a favourite with many travellers towing up to mid-sized vans. Yes, they do drive with all four computer-managed wheels but no, they are not a 4WD vehicle in the common interpretation of the word.

When it comes to towing in potential or actual nasty weather, and on wet roads, rough surfaces, bad gravel roads and of course the myriad of off-road tracks to visit and explore, nothing else practically available comes close to a proper class-A 4WD. The bigger and more powerful vehicles include various Nissan Patrols, 60/80/100/200 series Toyota Landcruisers, Jeeps, the Land Rover collection, and their slightly smaller relatives in those 4WD families as well. These are not necessarily all full-time 4WD but all are able to be switched to 4WD if such becomes necessary. Playing around outback, or even just travelling through the more remote roads, you can never really be sure when you are going to have a need for a big strong vehicle.

This was typical of the floodwaters near Julia Creek, towards the QLD–NT border.

Towing

Strangely, a few top-class imported vehicles are effectively limited for towing, apparently by manufacturer decision. These are usually fitted with independent rear suspension and, to our standards, a peculiar type of tow bar which has a quite low down- or ball-weight limit. Australian caravans as a rule have a much higher down-weight than European vans, and are balanced much differently. In European countries, some of these excellent vehicles are permitted to tow 3500 kg, which they could quite easily do with their very high power output, but here they are restricted to much lighter loads.

Some locally produced vehicles, though amply powerful enough to tow big vans, are somewhat limited in towing by their body type. A few require body panel stiffening or strengthening framework, combined with special tow bars, before being really suitable to use for towing. If you are considering those excellent living quarters commonly called ‘fifth-wheelers’, you are usually even more limited in your choice of tow vehicle. These generally require a larger utility- or truck-type of prime mover to tow them, and they have very specific kinds of tow hitches, often quite expensive.

The actual type of tow bar you need very much depends on the combination of your tow vehicle and the load that you want to tow. Bars vary from a simple tow bar only really suitable for pulling the normal garden trailer to the local tip, up to fullstrength load-sharing heavy-duty hitch assemblies. Every standard tow bar has a limit imposed by its maker, limiting the load it can pull, as well as carry. Regardless of actual tow capacity, almost all vehicles in Australia are restricted to 750 kg tow capacity where the trailer is un-braked, and a typical example would be a normal 6x4 ft garden-variety domestic trailer.

Tow hitches for fifthwheeler trailers are often specially made, and expensive.

Another towing limitation imposed by some vehicle manufacturers which seems unwarranted is the large tow capacity difference between a manual gearbox and an automatic gearbox. In one instance where two vehicles are identical, except for gearboxes, there is almost a 50 per cent tow capacity reduction against the automatic vehicle, down from 3500 kg to 2500 kg.

Changes in gearbox technology and production have introduced different types of gearboxes into the towing world, and the tip-shift, automatic style of gearbox, which can be manually operated, is amongst the best.

Gearboxes

Historically, some five-speed manual gearboxes had design or mechanical weaknesses, and using fifth or overdrive to tow was inviting physical damage.

Some older model automatic gearboxes without transmission coolers commonly suffered from overheating, affected severely from continually operating in Overdrive with a large amount of towing load on them.

If you travel with your automatic tow vehicle in Overdrive, and you come to a climb, flick the Overdrive out early and let the transmission drop back to Drive. Try treating the automatic gearbox as a manual gearbox. Manually change back in much the same way as you would a manual vehicle, to Drive or Second, or even Low if necessary, especially when climbing or descending hills. Your transmission will probably thank you for it.

Currently there seems to be no hard and fast rule, stating that you shouldn’t tow with an auto whilst in Overdrive, or that with a manual gearbox you must always tow in fourth gear and never fifth gear. Many of the current and very effective AWD vehicles now used for towing are fitted with automatic gearboxes with adaptive shift patterns or with constantlyvariable transmission.

Some have ‘tip-shift’ – quick-change gearboxes where the automatic shift is meant to be used as simply a clutchless, almost-manual gearbox. This same gearbox can also be put in Drive position, and left completely alone as a fully automatic transmission, dependent on driver’s choice or need.

Technical and production developments in mechanical components, and in electronic vehicle systems management, has now progressed so much that in a lot of automatic vehicles when towing, the driver just puts the power switch on, the transmission in Drive, and leaves it all alone to sort itself out. In fact, it probably knows better than the driver what its operating pattern and load capacity is.

Sadly, in this day and age many manufacturers or suppliers seem to be looking for any loophole they can find to avoid paying out on insurance or warranty claims. When it comes down to the nitty-gritty, it’s always a wise move to get the service manager’s advice on any worrying aspects of proper operation of your vehicle. In this case, does the workshop manual or service handbook actually say you must never tow in manual overdrive? Or that you must always tow in Drive, or that you only need to use just the ‘power mode’ when towing? Don’t just accept his advice either – it pays to be cautious. See it written in black and white. Write down and keep details of who told you what, and when and where. Be careful that somewhere in the future if something goes wrong and, for example, you’ve been towing in Overdrive, the manufacturers don’t abandon you and claim that your actions have voided their warranty.

Replacing, adjusting, level rides, weight, sagging, levelling

Replacing

If you’ve kept your tow vehicle, but bought another caravan, it’s foolish to expect that your entirely new caravan will fit onto your tow bar and tow just like the previous one. That is most unlikely to happen unless you have it fully set-up and re-adjusted. The ride height may be different, the ball weight is probably quite different, the braking effect may be totally different, and it’s possible the wiring circuit will be different, even amongst the same make of caravan. For any replacement van, before serious use each of these aspects needs to be checked and correctly set by a competent caravan maintenance and supply company.

Adjusting

Setting the level for the van and tow vehicle is relatively easy, given an adjustable Hayman Reese-type tow head or similar. Many caravan maintenance places also stock a range of different offset fixed height and length tow heads. With the tow head in place on a loaded vehicle, if practical, measure the tow ball height from ground to the top of the ball. On level ground, sit the van level, and then measure the ball coupling height, to match the tow ball. If there is a difference, adjust the vehicle’s tow head to move the tow ball to the same level as the van ball coupling, because to tow properly and safely the van needs to tow at its designed and intended position. Level ride bars then stiffen this level position, greatly reducing the amount of dip and sway at the coupling.

For the most efficient and easiest towing, the van and vehicle need to be matched and adjusted to sit and travel level.

Level rides

As part of a load-sharing tow hitch, level ride bars more or less change the downwards leverage exerted on the ball by the van weight. They apply or redirect some of the caravan weight along the tow vehicle body, onto its front wheels.

Properly fitted and tensioned bars make the combination into a more properly balanced unit. Apart from helping make the tow vehicle and any trailer sit practically level and tow with stability, they can also help to prevent light steering or wishy-washy vehicle movement. Such systems don’t cost, they pay.

Correctly fitting and adjusting them is a skill, so they should be properly fitted by qualified fitters. Whichever brand of level ride bars you use, they must comply with government standards, which control or determine proper manufacture, fitting and capacities of tow hitches, tow balls, level rides, anti-sway brakes and so on.

This specially built and well-made but relatively short A-bar has a permanentlyfitted and springloaded dolly wheel, apparently minimising down-weight on the vehicle.

Weight

On the subject of ball weight, many travellers seem to get very confused and anxious. Ball weight is the actual amount of effort or weight pushed directly downwards at the A-bar coupling onto the tow ball on your tow vehicle’s tow bar. Simply put, it’s the heavier end of the seesaw, where the van wheels are the seesaw axle. In general, it’s accepted that ball weight should be about ten per cent of the total weight of your caravan or trailer. If the ball weight is not heavy enough the van may bounce, drift or move on the roads too easily, making towing the less stable trailer a tiring experience. If it is altogether too heavy, it can impose considerable strain on the rear suspension of your tow vehicle, notwithstanding even tow aids like strong level ride bars.

As an example, if your caravan weighs 2 tonne, then there should effectively be about 200 kg of unsupported weight actually pressing down on the ball coupling, sometimes called ‘heavy-on’. This is what you are aiming for, if the van is correctly loaded. Place weighing scales directly under the tow coupling at the end of the A-bar to measure this heavier end of the van, and the weighing dial should show close to 200 kg in this example. Sometimes the ball weight could be a small amount more, but for a caravan it really shouldn’t be much less than ten per cent. Fitting level ride bars supports the weight, and transfers it into the vehicle.

Sagging

Some tow vehicles sag in the rear end when towing a caravan. This sag at the coupling is often caused by a combination of heavy and incorrect loading in the front of the van and also in the rear of the tow vehicle. Level ride bars can transfer some of the van’s weight back into the tow vehicle, but it’s really only effective if the van is towed at the correct height, sitting practically level at the ball coupling. Excess gear loaded into the van’s boot can easily change van balance, and it can take some effort to relocate or mount these weights where they ought to be for level towing.

If you are carrying a big load in the rear of the tow vehicle as well as towing a trailer, that’s another matter altogether. Unload the tow vehicle back to standard, and check the tyre pressures are at the setting you’ll use when towing. I use 36 psi towing on bitumen roads, for example, in my 2.45/65R17 Jeep tyres. Carefully measure the height from the ground to the underside of the front mudguard wheel arch, vertically through the axle. Do the same for the rear wheel, and note these distances.

Then reload the vehicle with all the travelling gear, including passengers, and measure the new amount of sag in the rear wheel arch. Equally, the front wheel arch will have lifted, to offset the rear drop. Fill the fuel tanks as well, to measure the biggest amount of rear drop. That drop needs to be allowed or compensated for to retain correct vehicle handling.

The gutter is level, and the camera was level. The van is sagging badly at the front, and the sedan towing it was well down at the back. Despite the lightweight level ride bars the unit was very poorly set up.

Levelling

To stop the vehicle sag continuing, aftermarket rear booster springs or extra spring leaves can be fitted to the rear suspension, but they can also have the side effect of making the suspension stiffer when the vehicle is not loaded. Fitting supplementary airbags, like Polyairs, is a very efficient way to restore and manage ride height. These airbags have nothing to do with the added downweight of the van – their job is only to support and offset the additional load weight in the tow vehicle.

A water tank, tool box and gas bottles all helped make this wind-up van’s downweight extremely heavy.

They are strong additional airbags, which can be fitted between the axle and body, in either leaf-spring or coil-spring vehicles. When you need to boost the rear suspension, it’s just a matter of pumping up the airbags sufficiently to keep the vehicle at the wheel arch heights you measured, as it was before the load was added.

Some drivers think that these bags can be pumped up when the load is already on them, but that could lead to damage. The right way is to pump them up fully before the load is added and, after loading, then let them down till the vehicle level is right.

CASE STUDY

images Very ‘heavy-on’

We came across an old chap at Sofala, who had been gold prospecting, and who was towing a wind-up van with a Hilux ute. He had added a large water tank under the front of his van. The weight on the coupling was so heavy that his jockey wheel would not wind up and lift the A-bar high enough to put the coupling on the tow ball. The screw thread was stripped from being forced. He did not have electric brakes, and it’s doubtful if the old lever override brake worked at all. We spent some time with a crowbar lever and rock fulcrum trying to lift his coupling onto the tow ball so that he could get home.

Fuel, batteries, radio, security

Fuel

The bogey of operating cost applies to the type of fuel your vehicle uses. In most cases, with gas at about perhaps a third the cost of petrol, it can be a very attractive proposition to have your tow vehicle running on a combined gas/petrol system. Even if you get low fuel mileage from gas, if it costs one third the price of petrol but you get half as many kilometres per litre then cost-wise you’re ahead on gas, disregarding the installation costs of the gas system itself.

With a diesel vehicle you can gain by low maintenance and service costs but at present you are paying a premium price for diesel. However, diesel is available virtually everywhere in Australia, whereas LPG is not. Running a fuel additive, an intelligent method of reducing the chances of possible fuel contamination, further increases the actual cost per kilometre of fuel.

Virtually microscopic surveys by some motoring organisations have tended to show that the cost of operating a diesel vehicle is higher than that of a petrol vehicle. Some difficulties can arise due to the sheer complexity of any newer vehicles, and the need for specific service tools and computer resetting. But if you are reasonably handy or thoughtful, and can do your own basic maintenance and grease and oil changes, say at the 5 000 and/or 10 000 km distances, then diesels can be a very sound proposition to own.

Technology is at the stage where really long mileage and absolute reliability from a well-maintained diesel engine, with regularly filtered and cleaned fuel and air, is expected as normal. Vehicle warranties are not voided by using firms other than the original brand-name dealer to do prescribed services for current vehicles, providing they do a proper job, so maintenance costs can be considerably reduced without jeopardising vehicle reliability.

Like everything in this world, you get only what you pay for. If you drive an efficient 3 L petrol Subaru AWD you should get very acceptable fuel economy, and provided you tow a van that’s in the correct towing range of that vehicle, then you should have a very good combination. If your choice instead is to tow a 20 ft van weighing about 2.5 tonnes with a 2.5 tonne Nissan Patrol, for example, you will pay the money in fuel costs. Increases in vehicle and trailer size almost totally equate to increases in initial and operating costs. There are simply no free lunches when it comes to the world of towing trailers, no matter what type.

To ensure that both batteries are fully charged, and that only the auxiliary battery can be used as a power supply, an isolator system is needed.

Batteries

Many travellers operate the trailer interior lighting, fridge, and radio or television from the one battery, but do not understand how the 12V supply system works. Knowledge is power, but it’s also safety in many cases, and there are several basic, but excellent books around on this subject. Some travellers seem to rely heavily on a live 12V connection between tow vehicle and caravan, so that power from the tow vehicle’s single battery must also provide lighting and power to the caravan.

With only one battery in the tow vehicle, especially off the beaten track, you really could be putting yourself at unnecessary risk. Overnight, when camping in a caravan, so much power can easily be drawn out of a battery that next morning there will not be sufficient current left to start the engine. Cold weather makes engine starting even harder for the battery. The more practical way is to have the battery actually in the caravan or campervan. Many caravans are not fitted with 12V batteries.

While it’s not cheap, for a lot of people fitting dual batteries in a tow vehicle can be the safest, easiest and most reliable way to provide power to a caravan, campsite or trailer. Safety and convenience from a vehicle installation involving a battery, the cradle, a proper battery charging and isolation system and wiring, costs quite a few dollars.

If you have dual batteries fitted to the vehicle, professional installers wire them so that when the ignition key is turned off the primary or starting battery is isolated. That way the primary battery is unused overnight, and still charged up for the essential job – to start your tow vehicle. The secondary or accessory battery in the vehicle can supply 12V power for camping needs. In a worst-case scenario, both batteries can still be hooked together if there is a real need.

Relying on the tow vehicle’s single battery to supply lighting and power at a campsite can easily leave the battery with insufficient power to start the motor.

Radio

Where you locate any radio antennas on your vehicle can be critical. As a rule, the further away horizontally you can put a UHF antenna from the vehicle roof, from a battery or any electrical field, the better. For example, mounting a UHF antenna far forward near the left-hand headlight, a common location on 4WD bull bars, is usually an effective location. However, some 27 Mhz antennas do work best when mounted high up in the centre of the vehicle roof, because the roof becomes a ground plane, acting as a signal reflector.

The higher you mount any antenna, the better. The lower you position it, the more it’s in signal shadow from some part of the vehicle, and generally the lower is the signal reception quality. With smaller CB antennas, locating them poorly can make a noticeable amount of difference to your signal reception and transmission output.

Security

If your van or tow vehicle has aftermarket wheels that you value highly, there is a good chance that somebody else likes them too. If you leave them unsecured in some parts of this country they can be a target. Sadly, in many places that’s the way things are. Be cautious, and fit lock nuts to them. Lock nuts are not cheap, but if you pay a lot of money for good wheels and tyres that’s even more reason to fit them with lock nuts. Be very careful not to lose the special shaped nut or socket key which locks and unlocks them, because key replacement can be a difficult matter. On some more remote 4WD trips lock nuts can be a nuisance, if punctured wheels need to be removed for repair much more than normal, and life is often simpler if you replace the original wheel nuts for that trip duration.

For more information on tow vehicles, see Appendix A, for an extract from my other book, 4WD Survival Guide.

Knowledge, pre-trip maintenance, travelling services, tools, multimeter, spares

Towing, Utilux connection

Braking, design, doors, wasted space

Gas regulation, gas safety, gas protection, gas content

Fridge types, fridge operation, fridge vents, transformers

Water supply, water filters, HWS

Power needs, power provision, power cables, power cable problems

Power safety, power supply 240V, power generation 240V

Power supply 12V, power payback, solar panels, power costs

Lighting 12V, light globes, van lights, visibility

Batteries

Roof, pop-tops, screens, mesh, shadecloth

Wheels, wheel bearings, lubrication, ride balance, ride height

Suspension, spring specs, springs, U-bolts

Underneath, handbrake, chassis rust

Stone-guards, jacks, sullage hose

Rear bumper bar, bikes, tent pegs, rubber bands

Hints

Knowledge, pre-trip maintenance, travelling services, tools, multimeter, spares

Knowledge

For your own safety there are some basic skills you really should have, whether you decide to tow some form of trailer and go long-term travelling around Australia, or to go camping just a few hundred kilometres from home. Many of these topics are dealt with in my 4WD Survival Guide.

To be safer and sensible, and no matter your age or sex, contact your local TAFE college well before you go to find out if they run entry-level mechanical and/or electrical short courses. Possibly your local automobile club can provide such information as well. For not very much money you could find yourself a long way ahead in important knowledge and skills, by doing just one course, perhaps taking only a few nights at a TAFE college.

Any beginner’s mechanical course or car course ought to teach you in general detail about the six very basic things to always check on a vehicle – PETROL. The acronym stands for Petrol (or fuel), Electricity, Tyres, Radiator, Oil, Lights.

On most simple mechanical short courses you should at least learn how to use spanners and other common tools, how to use a multimeter and soldering iron, and various other straightforward mechanical points and vehicle checks. As well as adding considerably to your feeling of security as you tour, passing one of these courses can be many things – a cheap form of self-insurance, an interesting way of learning something new, and a great way of enhancing your own self-satisfaction and abilities.

Knowledge is power, and the mechanical skills and abilities you could learn in a short TAFE course will benefit you.

Pre-trip maintenance

There can be many different things to do for your van’s pre-trip maintenance before you head away for warmer weather. Basic maintenance simply begins with having a look at something to see if it seems different from the last time you checked it. It is almost that simple.

It’s most important that you do keep a good eye on your van mechanicals. At least once a month when travelling, take the time and effort to get under the van properly, and have a careful look at what is there. Doing this weekly is better, because then it sticks in your mind that something may have changed from the last time you looked. In itself, this is part of basic maintenance. Even if you are not mechanically handy, this does not mean you can’t save some money and avoid some trouble by doing these small and very basic checks yourself.

There is comparatively little cost for a few general and easily acquired items at a tool shop or a hardware store, and after that all it takes is a little of your time, some thought, and maybe a few ideas from this book. In many cases, the van is likely to have been stored, unloved and unattended, since the previous year. It usually needs service, maintenance, checking, probably flushing and cleaning the water tanks, cleaning out the spiders and all those different things. It’s certainly not hard to do much of this yourself.

Habit and system are good mechanical practices. Used effectively they can save you money, give you good results and peace of mind, and minimise the chances of things going wrong. The small cost in time is nothing at all.

For example, around the start of each new month I routinely check a number of items. It can really be surprising that some part has become loose, or fallen off for no apparent reason at all, but on any trailer, vibration and movement can do strange things.

The maintenance-free batteries in the van might have loose wires, terminals or mounting, so along with the electrolyte level in the two batteries in the tow vehicle, they get checked. I plug in chargers for the smaller batteries, especially my satellite phone, digital camera, video camera, metal detector, spotlight battery, etc. Unless they’ve been used within the month, I run the air conditioners in vehicle and van, because aircon units do need to be run regularly to help ensure the various seals remain lubricated.

Inside the van I test the smoke alarm to make sure it beeps properly, and check the contents pressure gauge on the fire extinguisher. The generator gets a short run, to make sure that it starts easily and has fresh fuel in the carburettor. Part of this check is to see that there is enough fresh fuel, oil and/or two-stroke mix in their containers. Although fuel conditioner definitely minimises chances of water and particulates corrupting fuel, petrol does become somewhat stale after a few months storage, especially if kept in a small, occasionally hot container.

A strip of masking tape, with the date of fuel purchase written on it in permanent pen and stuck on the fuel container, is a good idea. Getting rid of a small amount of unused and suspect stale fuel after about three months is much easier than solving generator-motor running problems later. It might seem a tough list, but doing the jobs listed here so far could take about the time to peacefully drink one cup of coffee.

Sliding in under the van, I check that it all still seems correct, with no pipe or wire or cable or water tank or tyre looking broken or damaged. Likewise, I check on the van roof, for any problem with the aircon unit or roof hatches. I check all the van tyre pressures, including the spare in the boot and the five on the tow vehicle, as well as looking for obvious faults in sidewalls or tread. Almost finished, I check around the tow vehicle to make sure that nothing else seems broken, has fallen off or looks damaged. Once a month - system and habit. Finding nothing out of order pays dividends every time.

Once or twice a year I go round the entire van to check every screw and nut and bolt. There are dozens and dozens of them, and it takes an hour or two. Who cares about the time? The cost of doing this is nil, and the benefits could be great, especially if I find a loose or broken one. There is a lot of flex in a van, and vibrations also make things work loose.

There are stainless steel screws around the boot door on the front of our van – 27 of them in fact. The 240V electrical outlet has four screws, each 12V width light or riding light has one screw in the middle of the lens, and each reflector has two screws. There are several dozen screws around the bottom moulding, 12 along the awning sail-track at the top, and so on. Your van probably has a similar number.

If a screw doesn’t tighten, then it probably doesn’t need any attention, but for each screw which is a wee bit loose that’s an opportunity for water to get in. How hard is it to remove a small screw, put a dab of silicon in the screw hole, and replace the screw? Doing this can provide two benefits – the silicon will help hold the screw in place, and it will also help prevent water entering. Apart from being sound maintenance, it’s also a simple way of keeping the value in your van.

Maintenance-free 12V batteries don’t need regular checks to top up the electrolyte level like normal wet-cell vehicle batteries.

Travelling services

Occasionally when you’re travelling something small goes wrong, perhaps not critical, but rather something which should be repaired or replaced when you can find a suitable service workshop. In some of the more remote places always go to the information centre, post office or police station and ask where you might be able to find help, because sometimes it’s quite surprising who could do the job you need.

From time to time you can come across an absolute wizard mechanic or welder or other tradesman in your travels, but not all towns have good and widebased mechanical service facilities for travellers. For example, in South Hedland, in the middle of the west coast of Western Australia, their light industrial area was well outside the town. If you didn’t know it was there, you might really begin to think you were in trouble because you couldn’t find a plumber, a radiator place or brake specialist or similar help.

Out-of-town light industrial areas are not generally a common thing on the eastern side of Australia, where industry is often absorbed and becomes part of the town. However, over in the west many towns seem to be designed with a light industrial area nowhere near the town, and it’s not uncommon to find the industrial area a few kilometres outside the 60 kph sign.

The unusual rounded-corner shape and appearance of these spanners contributes to the very efficient way they hold onto nuts and bolts.

Tools

Do you need to take tools with you when travelling? Tools are an absolute must to include on any trip well away from home. Buy a decent tool kit. If your vehicle is not metric (most Japanese vehicles are metric) be sure to buy the correct imperial tools. Common terms for imperial tools, including nuts, bolts and threads are: SAE, AF and Whitworth. Land Rover (British) and Jeep (American) are normally imperial, but not always. Imperial applies to nuts, bolts, threads and tools which are measured in inches, e.g. 9/16-inch AF (short for ‘across flats’, which means across the two parallel flats on a bolt head or nut) is a common size for the heads of 4WD nuts and bolts.

Metric tools, bolts and threads (including a type known as ISO) are measured in millimetres or parts thereof. As a general rule, metric spanners will fit sufficiently well onto imperial nuts and bolts, but this happens less the other way around. Spanners known as ‘metrinch’ will cope well with both metric and imperial items, and are a very good investment, even though using them can at first feel different to a normal spanner.

To be safe, the dollars spent on any tools or workshop books is another form of insurance. What price would you put on avoiding the combination of (a) being broken down on a road, (b) with sufficient tools, (c) a good chance of being able to fix the problem, (d) and another driver to help you, but (e) no specific information about your vehicle’s mechanical problem? Perhaps you have all the right spare parts, and enough tools, but you still can’t get going. The odds of finding another driver who can help, and one who knows enough about the particular trouble, are fairly good. But without the necessary manual, your chances are a lot worse. Like good tools, having a service and repair manual for your vehicle and knowing how to use it is another worthwhile investment.

Multimeters can be a really handy tool, and most medium-price and function meters are ideal for use by the average traveller.

Multimeter

A multimeter is a device for measuring electricity in various forms. It usually has two leads, with metal probes at the end. The red one is always positive and the black is negative. Newer multimeters often have digital readout, but many still show an analog scale.

As an example of using one, when switched to measure 12V direct current (12VDC), place the red probe on the ‘+ve’ or positive terminal on your vehicle battery and the black one on the ‘–ve’ or negative symbol on the same battery. If the battery is full, the scale needle or digital readout should show about 12.3V battery content.

Another simple example of use, and a common problem, is checking a suspect wire, which might be broken but the break is not obvious. Check this by setting your multimeter to read ‘Continuity’, and putting a probe on each end of the length of wire. When the meter emits a steady beeping sound, or it reads ‘C’ for continuity, or a high-pitched sonalert beeps continuously, that is a common indication to show proper continuity along the length of the wire. Knowing there is nothing wrong with that piece of wire, you could then look elsewhere.

Multimeters can measure voltage for 12V and 240V, amperage, resistance, heat, continuity and lots of other things depending on purpose and type. Size and features vary for appropriate price. You can buy quite good meters at Dick Smith, or you can buy top-class multimeters at Lawrence and Hanson. Simple jobs, like wiring a light into a van or checking whether a globe or fuse really is blown, are quickly and easily done with help from a multimeter. A multimeter is a tool well worth having if you are or want to be a handy traveller.

Every picture tells a story, in this case a travel-stopping gearbox incident along the Great Dividing Range, NSW.

Spares

You can break various spare parts into three classes: musts, shoulds and coulds. There are some things you must take, like a spare tyre. There are some things you should take, like a pressure pack puncture repair kit. There are some things you could take, like a spare anode for the van’s hot-water service. But if your automobile club Total Care service is within reach, most of the things that go wrong on many tow vehicles are generally fixed on-site by the service mechanics.

If not, they will usually put the brokendown vehicle on a flat-top tow-truck, tow the caravan or trailer behind the truck, and convey you back to some agreed place where the parts are easily available or can be obtained.

Any spares list is really a matter of research, sitting down and sensibly thinking about the possibilities. Do this before loading up your van with several hundred kilograms of perhaps useless spares, or filling the rear of your tow vehicle with a lot of tools and things which you’ll probably never use. Obviously the spare parts you might carry right around Highway One are considerably different to those needed if you plan to drive your 4WD and tow an off-road trailer across the old Gunbarrel Highway.

The desert is effectively a hostile environment, where things really can go wrong, and there is no real form of immediate outside help. You should belong to a good 4WD club for some time before planning a major desert or remote trip, because the great range of membership experience in such things can be to your benefit. Your club-level 4WD driving experiences will also be invaluable. In the end only you can determine your own spares ‘musts, shoulds and coulds’, but most 4WD clubs can provide you with good lists of essential long-trip or remote-trip spares.

Towing, Utilux connection

Towing

To help make sure that your Hayman Reese hitch continues to work properly pull the tow head out of the hitch receiver for cleaning. Use a bit of emery cloth or a wire brush all over to scrub off any residue, and then give it an anti-rust treatment. I use Lanotec or similar. Make sure that the hitch-pin is also properly treated against rust.

If you have a key-lockable pin, which is more secure than just a clevis pin, be sure that the lock works and that you have the key for it. These usually have a plastic push-on cover, to help keep dirt out of the keyway. If the cap is missing, use a short length of electrician’s plastic tape to protect the internals.

A new-style multiposition tow ball coupling.

images DIFFERENCES

When first setting up your vehicle for towing, remember there may be a difference in hitch receiver internal size with some tow bars. Many ‘genuine’ brand-name tow bar receivers are a standard 50 mm RHS inside diameter and in some cases if you try to fit a different type of tow head, it might not easily fit. For example, Hayman Reese tow heads often will not slide into a factory-fitted Nissan receiver, without grinding the solid shaft a little and rounding out the shaft edges. That’s because the Nissan receiver’s diagonal measurement is smaller than the bar section on the Hayman Reese head. Hayman Reese hitch receivers are commonly 51 mm.

Two heavy-duty, multi-purpose 12V connectors for an off-road trailer.

images COUPLINGS

Almost all caravans now have straight in-line couplings, to suit the standard 50 mm tow ball. The tow coupling itself may be integral with, or bolted directly to, the van’s A-bar. The tow ball is mounted on the tow head in the vehicle’s heavy-duty tow bar hitch receiver, and this is virtually the standard towing connection.

There are different sizes and types of tow bar fittings and couplings, to do different jobs. One off-road brand is the Treg coupling, made from a solid neoprene block. With both a vertical and a horizontal locating pin running through it, there is virtually a complete universal sw ive l. Whi lst the trailer remains properly attached to the tow vehicle, this articulation allows the trailer to be towed through virtually any combination of up, down or sideways tilt angle.

This kind of multi-directional coupling, used to tow an off-road camper up to the top of Cape York for example, is not really suitable for towing a normal 23 ft tandem axle caravan. There are a few other less common coupling variations, including a 50 mm ball flexible coupling which has some fore-and-aft movement, and an amount of sideways rotation. One antivibration coupling lets the tow ball move in a spring-controlled arc, yet still fits onto a normal 50 mm tow coupling.

This custom-built turntable hitch is for a mid-sized fifthwheeler.

images SHACKLE PINS

It’s sensible to tighten shackle pins up slightly when fitted on safety chains joining a towed trailer to a tow vehicle. They don’t have to be tight, just nipped up sufficiently that they won’t come out easily. Whilst a small pair of pliers is handy to do this, one easy way is to use one of those small bo-peep or shepherd’s crook pins used to secure the tow head clevis pin. Push one leg through the hole in the shackle pin head to tighten or loosen the pin. Store the useful small pin down on the handbrake cable fitting, inside the A-bars. It will ride there securely, never fall off, and always be handy to loosen or tighten screwed shackle pins.

The recommended way to tighten up a shackle is to screw the pin up neatly, and then back it off about a quarterturn. This is because if a lot of tension is applied to the shackle, the eased pin will allow a small amount of give in the D, yet you’ll still be able to remove the pin. If the coupling ever comes off the tow ball whilst travelling, there will be a lot of pressure on the safety chains so the shackles may well be distorted anyway, and need considerable effort to undo them.

images PLASTIC BAGS

You can make good use of various types of plastic sheeting, or re-use plastic bags, as a great towing aid. Many plastics in their own right are lubricants, and common plastic bags are derived from oil. Instead of putting grease on the tow ball, for several years now I’ve been using plastic bag material as a lubricant. It seems to me to work very well, and is quite simple to do. The plastic takes up some slack in the ball coupling, as well. Less clunking, no hassle, easy, environmentally clean, and simple – how much more benefit do you need? I figure it’s a practical use for unwanted plastic bags.

Clean out every trace of grease from inside the tow coupling, and from the tow ball surface, using a rag with some petrol on it. It’s important that the tow ball is as smooth as possible, so if there are any little gouges or nicks, file them smooth. Next, find a common supermarket shopping bag, or any other type of smooth and oily-feel plastic sheeting. Because some plastic shopping bags are quite thin, I fold them double, using four sheets of this plastic each time. You could use a supermarket plastic bag for several days by moving it around to a new spot daily, but I cut off the excess bag because I don’t like it flapping around. It’s not as though there’s a shortage of them.

Typically, those thicker-wall and very tough fertiliser or potting mix plastic bags are ideal. If you use this thicker plastic sheeting, I’ve found a single thickness piece cut about 6 inches square is right. One cut piece of better quality and thicker plastic sheet per day does the job. Cover the tow ball fully with the plastic before you put the coupling on, and try to make sure the plastic coverage is even over the ball as you lower the coupling carefully down. Change it each time you hitch up. Efficient recycling, that’s what it is.

This loose 12V light and power cable is stored in the vehicle’s boot, and in use is pulled out under the boot lid, held in place by the rubber weather seal, and then connected to the trailer plug.

Utilux connection

There seems to be a trend with many newer vehicles towards not permanently fitting a 12V lighting and power socket, even in a provided bracket on the tow bar. The various plastic used in current rear bumper bars may not be strong enough to mount a connector, but a steel bracket on the towbar has proven its value.

Instead, many dealers or tow bar fitters opt for the cheaper and quicker alternative of supplying a short wired-up length of flexible seven-wire cable, with a Utiluxtype socket attached. The loose cable is apparently tucked away somewhere inside the back of the vehicle when not in use. This is intended to be flopped out under the boot lid or tailgate door from inside, jammed in place by the rubber weather seal, and then connected to the trailer plug.

I’ve seen some vehicles which have had the vehicle’s power cable protruding out just a small amount near the driver’s side lower corner of the boot lid, yet still connected to the trailer cable. Imagine what the result could be when the vehicle turns to the left – unless there is a long spare length of trailer cable, the connection almost certainly will break. Poor location of the fixed 12V socket can also be a reason for disconnection, allowing strain on the cable.

As a rule, the closer to the tow ball the socket is, the less strain can be imposed on the cable itself as the vehicle turns. Dealers should be responsible for teaching new users the correct way to do basic things like this.

Connecting power from the tow vehicle to the caravan can be a bit of a problem. There is a special plug made to connect heavy-duty 12V wiring, known as an Anderson plug. It can only be joined one way, so it’s not possible to confuse positive and negative, and it is available in several sizes for carrying different amounts of current. Ask your caravan maintenance place or electrical supplier about this type of plug if you want to run a lot of 12V power between the vehicle’s battery and your trailer.

These heavy-duty connectors can also be used to provide an easy connection for jump-starting your own vehicle, or to help another. Instead of having large crocodile clips on each end of the jumper leads, one pair can be replaced with an Anderson plug connector. By hardwiring cable directly from the battery down to the other half of the connector, mounted on the vehicle’s front bumper for example, the leads can be plugged quickly into direct 12V power. This same idea is used at the rear of the vehicle, but with proportionately smaller wiring and plug, to supply 12V power back to the trailer.

Braking, design, doors, wasted space

Braking

Almost every tow vehicle pulling a caravan is fitted with an electronic brake controller. The old type of hydraulic override brake coupling is now not legal for vans in some states, other than on particular vehicles already registered, or with a loaded trailer weight of less than a certain amount. Boat trailers, which often get dunked in water, are permitted to use different trailerbrake operating systems in some states. Most vans use drum brakes, although disc braking systems are available in some cases. Air brakes, once common on large vans, are now rare in our touring and camping van and trailer world. Most vehicles now tow caravans which are fitted with electrically operated brakes and therefore they have electronic brake controllers.

There are several well-known and quite different types, and some controllers are definitely better than others. Ask around; check others who actually use the kind you might buy. There are known faults in some particular models. Talk with your caravan service and maintenance business staff to find out which unit should best suit your combination and needs. Ask staff how controllers work, why they work and how to set and use them effectively.

Towing any trailer, camper or caravan, it is most annoying when the brake controller is not set or won’t work properly. Learn to adjust your model of controller so it works in many different circumstances, quickly and easily. Read the set-up and use instructions carefully, although some brochures do not give clear guidance. One good way to learn is when the controller is first fitted, by having the installer do the initial on-road brake testing and set-up, then show you what to do and explain properly how to make the normal adjustments for your controller and combination. If you feel staff can’t satisfactorily advise you, consider taking your custom to another reliable van service business which can provide good answers to satisfy you.

The newer Prodigy model is expensive, but once set it is probably the best operating and most stress-free controller currently available.

This Tekonsha brake controller is just about the most common type, and when adjusted correctly works well for almost any trailer.

Some of the current model electronic brake controllers are very effective, but all of them only work best when they are properly adjusted. It is possible to buy some kinds of electronic controller where, once it has been set, manual adjustment is not often needed. As a general rule, when set correctly the more expensive controllers will provide the most efficient braking with the least input or adjustment from the driver.

Most brake controllers work on a pendulum effect, and can give a different braking reaction to a normal vehicle, which many towing drivers initially take time to get used to. The pendulum mechanism within the controller needs to be close to vertical for the best reaction, and even a slight adjustment can affect braking efficiency and result.

The harder you brake the tow vehicle as it travels forward, the more the front end dips down, due to weight transference in the vehicle. The pendulum tilts in parallel with the vehicle, and the more it tilts, in effect the more electrical current the controller allows to pass to the braking mechanism. With more current available, electromagnets in the wheel brakes can then apply more leverage on the brake shoes, making the wheel rotate slower and therefore braking the van speed down.

There can be a fractional delay in braking reaction. Depending on how the controller is adjusted, if you put your brakes on you could feel the trailer automatically drag or slow, maybe half a second before the tow vehicle does. In general, that’s desirable, because the trailer then acts as a tail drag or stabiliser for the tow vehicle. When that happens it’s not likely to do anything unexpected, merely staying in proper line behind the tow vehicle, and making it relatively easy to stop the entire combination.

In many controllers there is a red LED braking indicator light, which varies in intensity parallel with brake pedal pressure. Exactly the same as with ordinary vehicle braking, if you stomp on the brakes hard you’ll get quick and powerful brakes, and the LED will glow very brightly. If you press them, you should get an easier and slower response, and the braking light will glow softly. By manually operating the actuating lever on the brake controller you can cause the braking effect by applying only the van brakes, not those in the tow vehicle.

With some braking systems there may be a small surge or snatch in the trailer when the footbrake is applied. Even expensive options, such as changing all the brake shoes in each wheel, may not eliminate this surge. Short of replacing the controller itself with a more technical model which has the latest electronic control developments, unfortunately sometimes there’s little that can be done to fully eliminate this nuisance. In the coupling itself there is often an adjustable bolt, which can be screwed in far enough to just contact the tow ball, which may help eliminate actual mechanical slack.

images ANTI-SWAY BRAKES

An anti-sway brake, linking vehicle and van and fitted parallel to the A-bar behind your tow vehicle, chatters and can make quite a noticeable noise when it gets wet. The noise is just something which happens when you drag disc brake material under pressure over a high-carbon steel bar. There’s not much you can do about it. If you loosen it slightly to silence it, the anti-sway brake can’t do its job properly because it relies on resistance to keep the van alignment straight. When you are about to reverse into a van park site, make sure you take the anti-sway brake off first, because it’s stiff, and will drag as you turn. When compressed in length, it can prevent you from fully turning your van, but if you leave it in place and force the issue it’s probable you will damage it. Remove it before backing.

images BRAKING PRACTICE

When you find a good caravan maintenance and repair centre or other commercial provider who offers a caravan course which includes van handling and braking practice, the advantage of doing the course can be worth every fraction of its cost and your effort. Learning about tow-braking is another reason why membership of a caravan club could be an advantage.

To teach yourself is not the best idea, but if you decide to do so, carefully read the small brochure which comes with the controller. Make yourself familiar with its operation and adjustment before trying to use or set it. Find some quiet and safe road with no other vehicles around. Experiment, but carefully! If you travel too fast for the circumstances, when towing, you can easily experience some trouble stopping your van and tow vehicle combination safely. Driver inexperience, inattention, and/or too much speed, are common problem causes.

In many cases, where your combination will brake smoothly at 40 kph in slow and thick city traffic, without some adjustment it may not also brake strongly when pushed on hard at 90 kph. Practice a number of trailer braking tests at different speeds, with the gain adjustment set differently each time.

Design

Some van manufacturers put wind-out windows right where the van door will hit them when it’s opened, apparently unconcerned that owners often leave doors open and pinned back against the van. Other makers put in a sliding window to prevent this happening, so the van then has three wind-out windows and one slider.

We’ve seen other careless manufacturing examples. One was a new van which had an awning added by another firm for the buyer. The new awning support arms had been fitted in such a way that the owner could not open one of the wind-out windows when the awning was closed and still rolled up against the van. The other example was similar, but in this case the storage locker door in the side of the van couldn’t be opened unless the offending awning arm was actually unclipped from the bottom bracket. It happens – caveat emptor, or ‘let the buyer beware.’

Awning support arms are designed to either remain clipped in the normal triangulated position, or unclip to form a vertical leg, when an annexe is fitted to the van.

Doors

On those very popular Camec triple-lock van doors it’s common for the two doors to slam back together when the panel door is separated and clipped back against the van wall to allow airflow through the screen door. It’s easy to prevent the doors closing together again by making a small plug to fit into the latch holes in the screen door. A simple blocking plug can be made from a flat-headed threaded screw of the right head size to fit into the latch hole, with the head diameter small enough to fit through and be held in place by the latch wires.

Press a rubber grommet over the screw thread. Cut the screw length off so that when the door blows closed only the rubber grommet will touch the panel door, where it will block out the matching latch hole. The thicker the rubber grommet is the better. When the doors need to be joined together again, just lift the separating handle and pull out the blocking plug.

Wasted space

Near the entry door many rear-kitchen vans have a slide-out pantry. There is often a good amount, maybe 3 or 4 inches, of useful space wasted between the side wall of the pantry and the actual outer wall of the van. There’s an easy and handy way to make use of this space for storing important brochures and instruction books, one which can be readily adapted for any similar wasted space in most vans.

Remove all the pantry drawers to give best access to the inside of the van outer wall, and measure the front-to-back distance from inside the pantry door to the rear wall.

Cut a suitable length of 50x25 mm hardwood, and into the 50 mm face screw in two 25 mm L-shaped cup-hooks about 230 mm apart. If there’s enough length, screw in another pair of hooks, but keep the inner two hooks about 30 mm apart. If possible, measure up from the floor to get a level line for the 50x25 mm hardwood. About 350 mm above the floor glue the timber onto the inside of the van wall so that the L-hooks protrude. It’s relatively simple if you use plenty of a quick-hold glue like Liquid Nails or one of those other very strong construction adhesives, but before starting, work out some way of propping or strongly holding the hardwood in place against the wall for a few minutes until the glue sets.

A piece of A4 paper is 210 mm wide and 297 mm high. By making up a strong vinyl bag a little larger than A4 size, and punching in some eyelets or sewing in some fabric loops at the top of the bag, so the vinyl won’t tear on the metal L-hooks as the bag hangs down, you will have a very useful storage bag. In two of these you can store just about every handbook relating to your caravan.

In our van these documents include the guarantee certificates for every electrical item, plus books showing how the six-disc stacker is programmed, lubrication points for the Winegard TV antenna, instructions for the air conditioner, and the troubleshooting list for when the hot-water service won’t light properly. When you replace the sliding pantry drawers back into place, no-one would guess that such good storage exists, effective yet easy to access, in that otherwise wasted space.

The hardwood and two L-hooks are visible between the two vinyl bags, a very neat solution for storing smaller handbooks and papers.

Gas regulation, gas safety, gas protection, gas content

Gas regulation

To operate almost any gas bottle, there should be a gas pressure regulator of some kind. LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) is stored inside the bottle at a much higher pressure than when it’s being burnt, so a means of reducing the pressure is essential. Legal requirements for gas regulators specify a low-pressure regulator for LPG on most trailers. Any licensed qualified gas fitter, or perhaps a good caravan repair and maintenance workshop, should be able to advise you.

Occasionally there are changes to gas regulations, and you need to be aware of them. For example, in some states it’s apparently not legal to use hard piped lines in the pig-tail curl from a gas bottle down onto a chassis rail, and there must also be a flexible hose line to connect the gas bottle to the regulator. Where a pipe is not supported, it should be replaced by the correct flexible hose. There are neoprene lines, and braided metal-covered lines which are flexible, and these can be used to replace the original hard copper piping. Any licensed gas fitter or plumber can do the job.

The two-part regulator, gas bottle selector and flexible hose are each part of a proper and safe gas installation.

Gas safety

Make sure that your van’s gas hoses and gas bottles are firmly mounted. The gas tap should turn on and off easily, and the support frame needs to locate the bottle correctly on the van A-bar, or in the boot. If bottles are stored in the front boot, be sure that they are safely and easily vented to the outside atmosphere.

With two gas bottles, there is normally a changeover tap to choose which bottle to draw gas from, as needed. Learn which way the switch pointer goes. Usually it points in the direction of the tap that you open to draw from that particular gas bottle.

The selector tap usually points towards the gas bottle you want to use the LPG from.

It’s a foolish thing to play around with LPG. Never ever travel with the gas turned on in your trailer. I’ve heard of people with the common three-way gas/12V/240V fridge who have apparently run their fridge on gas while they’ve been driving along! This is extremely dangerous. Before you move off, make absolutely certain that your fridge gas supply is turned off properly, and the fridge is switched across to 12V.

images VALVE CHECK

Many years ago a fireman taught me a simple and quick safety check for any screw-type valves. Do not turn a screwtype gas tap hard on, fully open to the end of the thread. If you do this to the extent that the gas bottle valve is wide open and can’t be turned more, then by briefly touching with your fingers to see whether the valve is on, you can’t quickly tell whether it’s open or closed. The proper thing to do is to turn the gas tap or valve fully open, and then wind the tap back toward closed about one full turn. It won’t affect the flow of gas at all, but it will mean that when you touch that valve you can feel it move, and you will then know that the gas supply is turned on.

images GAS LINES

Before heading off on a trip check under the van to see that all the pipes and plumbing are still correct from the last trip, and that the plumbing doesn’t show any leaks, breaks, or fractured pipes. Turn the gas on and light up the hot-water service and/or stove, to be sure that they work. Even more basic, make sure the bottle does have gas in it, before trying to light the stove!

Because gas seems to have a habit of draining out of pipes, or if it has been a good while since the gas was used, it may take a minute or two for the gas to pressure through the lines to the stove. If the stove won’t easily start, to help with gas flow open up both gas bottles if you have them and light the stove, then if you still want to use the gas turn off the reserve bottle and continue to use the selected one. Operate all the stove burners at the same time to make sure that you’ve got good gas flow. Putting the van away into storage, after testing stove, fridge and hot-water service operation, turn the gas bottles off and operate the stove burners until they cut out, to deliberately leave the gas lines empty.

For a simple gas bottle stone-chip protector, a 50 L rubbish bin from a hardware store is the right size for 9 kg bottles.

Gas protection

Gas bottles mounted on the A-bar should have some form of stone protection, if you’re travelling on any of the interesting but lesser-quality roads around this great country. One main benefit of a properly fitted and angled mesh-type stone guard on the A-bar is that it will tend to deflect downwards any stones thrown up by the wheels, rather than cause or allow them to ricochet back and up into the tow vehicle. Buying and fitting a mesh stone-guard for the front of the van is easy.

However, if you want to make another simpler form of gas bottle protection, it’s quick to do. A plastic rubbish bin of approximately the right size cut in half, and shaped to sit around the top of each bottle, with a webbing strap or two to hold it in place, will make a very neat and simple stone protector. If the bin is tapered, you might need to trim it and remove the taper, so it will sit squarely down the sides of the gas bottle.

images BUFFER

Even when clamped, a heavy LPG bottle still vibrates when going over quite rough roads. To help minimise damage to the galvanizing or paint from a gas bottle mounted on the van A-bar, cut a strip of plywood or a piece of thick rubber fabric belting to the right size to fit fully underneath the gas bottle, to act as a buffer. A few blobs of contact adhesive between the buffer and the A-bar will help keep it in place. Slide it in under the gas bottle, so that the edge on the bottom ring does not chew a hole through the galvanizing. Replacing the buffer is simple if the gas bottle rim wears a groove in it, compared with making repairs to the metal, galvanizing or paint finish.

images BOTTLE CLAMP

Because it’s more convenient when tightening the gas bottle clamp ring most vans seem to have the bolt location on the outside. You can do some minor injury when you reach into the van boot, if your leg rubs against the outside nut and bolt, or the highfield-clamp lever for the bottles.

There’s much less chance of personal damage just leaning against a smooth tightening bracket. How many times a year would you need to do up that clamp compared with the number of times that you get something out of the boot? If there’s a choice, make sure that the tightening mechanism is put on the inside part of the holding clamp rings, for gas bottles mounted on a van A-bar.

images BOTTLE LOCK

Need a simple and effective way to lock gas bottles onto your A-bar? Get a piece of string, and poke it through the slot in the bottom of the gas bottle where it sits just on top of the A-bar. Drop it down either side to join under the A-bar, to measure how long a piece of stainless steel wire you would need to do the same job. Then go to a ship chandler, yachting supplier or any place that will make small wire slings. For each gas bottle get a wire sling made up, at the measured overall length, from about 3/16ths or 3 mm stainless steel cable. So that it can be padlocked, swage a small eye in each end, maybe no larger in diameter than your little finger.

Remember that if the ferrule is too big when swaged, it might not fit through the slots in the bottom of the gas bottle. Push the sling through the rim slots, and lock it around the A-bar with a small padlock. Fit a piece of bicycle tube tightly over the padlock to stop it being banged around, and tuck it up on top of the A-bar, a safe and unobtrusive gas bottle lock.

A small padlocked cable is a neat and effective way of locking valuable gas bottles in place on the A-bar.

Gas content

Some travellers seem to buy a van with gas bottles, but don’t appear to use the gas facility much. Gas is a good and fairly cheap energy source. Weighing the bottle, or using a graduated stick-on strip which changes colour, is a neat way to check bottle content. To find the remaining contents of a gas bottle, from many camping stores you can buy a stick-on strip, which changes colour according to temperature. Where the liquid gas is cold, for example, the strip is dark blue. Where there is only space inside the bottle, there’s a higher temperature so the strip shows a different, lighter colour.

An alternative is to slowly pour a small amount of boiling water down the side of the bottle of gas. The colder gas causes condensation and makes an obvious line around the bottle showing how much liquid gas content remains. Most hardware stores or LPG suppliers sell a small gas contents gauge which screws into the gas line on the top of the bottle, so you can read it like a fuel gauge, to determine the contents.

It’s common sense to place the gas bottle tightening clamp in a location where you won’t lean against it when reaching into the van’s boot.

images Caution

Never ever travel with the gas turned on or gas fridge operating in your trailer.

Fridge types, fridge operation, fridge vents, transformers

Fridge types

There are several different types of travelling fridges. Current-model caravan and camper fridges almost all use a 12V power supply, often through a transformer from 240V. The very common Electrolux three-way fridge will operate on 12V, 240V or LPG. The majority of 4WDs run portable Engel or Waeco 12V compressor fridges, which can also run on 24V and/or 240V. Instead of the usual 12V, 24V is a common voltage supply for semi-trailers, many boats, and a few older models of 4WD. Six-volt electrical systems are probably extinct. Generally outfitted with ample generator power, many big motorhomes can run a standard 240V-only domestic or household refrigerator.

Most 12V fridges are available in compressor models, and Danfoss is one of the better-known makes of compressor. There’s some belief that compressor-type fridges make operating noises, easily heard while dozing off. We haven’t found our Waeco to do that, although in silence I can hear the small 12V cooling fan, and it certainly is an extremely efficient van fridge.

Three-way gas fridges can be a very economical facility to run on gas. With two big 9 kg gas bottles fitted to the van you can run a fridge, provide hot water and cook on a multi-burner gas stove for quite a long time. Economically, gas can be quite an attractive proposition. However, when operating, a gas fridge must be positioned with virtually zero tilt sideways, or front to rear. If you need or expect it to work effectively in a van, go to some effort to make the van floor as level as you can practically get it in all directions.

Many gas fridges won’t pull right down to freezing if the ambient temperature is well into the thirties, but most compressor fridges will operate effectively in high temperatures around 40°C. Remember, without aircon, the temperature inside your stationary vehicle can easily be 50–60°C, on a really hot day. A travel bag does provide extra insulation for portable fridges, quite apart from protecting the exterior from dents and scratches, and seems well worth the extra cost. Depending on brand, there can be an extra step to lifting the fridge lid, as the travel cover top often has to be unzipped first.

A travel bag provides extra insulation and does help the fridge remain cooler inside the vehicle.

The opening door in the outside wall allows ample airflow into the rear cavity for our Waeco compressor-type fridge. A small automatic 12V computer-type fan also helps push exhaust air out the door and through several vents.

Fridge operation

Many travellers do not have effective fridges for proper and safe storage of perishable food items. As a general rule, the fridge compartment needs to be kept around 4°C, to safely store most things needing refrigeration. To work really efficiently the freezer section needs to be close to –18°C or lower. Unfortunately, in high humidity areas most fridges require defrosting every few weeks, because they really do ice up.

To monitor fridge efficiency buy a temperature-measuring sensor, or a proper fridge thermometer. Engel and Waeco both make electronic sensors, and some portable fridges now have a digital temperature read-out screen built into the control panel. The wire cable from the small portable temperature sensor is quite fine, so you can run it out through the magnetic door or lid seal without damage or losing any freezing effectiveness. Fit the sensor head inside your fridge, run the wire out and check the internal temperature on the digital read-out.

A refrigeration engineer we met in Darwin told us a good way to make sure that the van fridge can work more effectively. He suggested we take the gasket off the freezer door at the top of the vertical fridge. His logic was that it doesn’t need to seal properly because it’s probably vented at the rear anyway, and it’s already the coldest part of the fridge. The bottom of the fridge compartment itself is normally colder than the top, as cold air falls due to convection, so when even more cold air from the freezer compartment falls to the bottom it should help make the rest of the fridge run a bit more effectively.

For Darwin, a very high humidity area during the Wet season, he also advised us to remove the condensate tray below the freezer compartment, to help air circulate more freely in our Waeco compressor-type van fridge. The fridge did get much colder, so I expect this idea should work the same way in many other brands of upright portable fridge.

If your freezer has a shelf below it to catch the condensate run off there is a trick to help prevent the tray freezing into place. Lanotec is a wool-based lanolintype spray, and it doesn’t seem to create any smell or taste inside our fridge. Smear a little bit onto a paper tissue, and then wipe it onto the runners of the tray under the freezer, and around the freezer door seal as well. Ice won’t generally stick to Lanotec, so getting the compartment door open or the tray out is easier. By wiping a small amount of Lanotec over some of the underside of the freezer compartment, when it next comes time to do the messy defrosting I’ve found getting the encrusted ice off the underside is easier.

The two vents show a typical vent installation for a three-way fridge, with the upper vent for heat exhaust.

images FRIDGE AND FREEZER

The same refrigeration engineer showed us a good idea to make a portable fridge into a basic fridge/freezer. All it requires is a piece of polystyrene foam, about an inch thick. The lid from one of those white fish boxes or fruit boxes usually found at markets does nicely. Cut and trim the polystyrene to shape to make a neat, tight-fitting divider about halfway along the fridge compartment, including fitting neatly up under the lid of the fridge. What you’re trying to do is to make two entirely separate internal compartments, divided by the polystyrene wall.

He explained that the end of the fridge compartment which has the compressor fitted is normally slightly warmer by five or six degrees than the end away from the compressor, which seems to have maximum cooling elements running around its inside wall. With the polystyrene wall in place the compartment end away from the compressor tends to become more of a freezer, while the other end of the compartment acts as a refrigerator. If you put a sensor probe in to check the internal temperature, you can usually measure six or eight degrees of temperature difference between those two sections. It doesn’t take long before the freezer part is down to –10°C. Although it might sound strange, this simple idea does work.

images FRIDGE DOORS

Sometimes you might see a condensation patch which has collected on the outside of the upright van fridge door overnight. There’s nothing wrong with the fridge, it’s just airborne condensation. Because the fridge itself is colder than the outside air, and it actually condenses any airborne moisture which touches it, the fridge door can become damp. If, like many travellers, you’ve got pictures of your grandkids or family stuck onto the fridge door with little magnets, you’ll likely find that the back of the photos can become mouldy. That’s just a drawback of having pictures stuck on the fridge door in a high humidity area.

images LONG-TERM STORAGE

When it’s in long-term storage, if possible test run your fridge a couple of times each year, as a part of preventative maintenance. Importantly, run it to be sure that it will freeze items, and keep the main compartment down at the correct temperature for at least a few unmonitored days. Check that the magnetic door seals all around the edge are clean and still do seal properly, and that it doesn’t draw excessive amounts of battery power or mains current when operating.

Fridge vents

In a van fitted with the common three-way fridge there is a requirement for two vents – the lower one for cooler air inlet, and the upper one for heat exhaust. In a lot of vans the lower of the normal two vents is adequate because that lets cooler air in. However, in many cases in older vans, the upper vent is not placed high enough to create convection or what is effectively a chimney effect, so that it will naturally draw the exhaust heat up and out of the van.

There are ready-made kits available at most caravan accessory suppliers for this and some fridge manufacturers actually provide brochures indicating the proper position to put the vents. Many good-quality caravan manufacturers and builders now know that the external top exhaust vent needs to be raised above the actual height of the three-way fridge, to ensure that the exhaust air is properly ducted out of a van. Some owners are also opting to fit a small automatic 12V fan to force the exhaust air out.

To minimise dust access when travelling, any vent panel in a van wall can be covered with a Chux paper towel, and sealed there around the edges with duct tape. While compressor-type fridges, which are usually 12V/240V operated, may not need venting to the outside, in really hot weather it is certainly a benefit. Rather than a fixed louvre vent panel to help reduce dust access, our van has an opening panel door for fridge venting, which we unlock when camping in the hotter areas.

Heated air from around the underseat transformers is exhausted through these vents by a manually-switched small 12V computertype fan.

Transformers

Transformers run much more efficiently when cool, and temperature can make a considerable difference to transformer stability. If there is an external vent door for the back of the fridge, definitely keep it open for cooling air access in hot weather.

When you plug into 240V at a van park, the built-in van transformers supply the proper current for your 12V fridge, or perhaps to charge the 12V batteries in your caravan. The higher the ambient temperature, the harder a van fridge has to work, sometimes creating another problem, because for some fridges continuous operation means the electrical transformer often runs very hot.

In many cases, for practicality, this separate 240V/12V transformer is located in an airless hidey-hole, typically somewhere down under the van seats. They usually have ribbed heat sinks on them to help radiate the heat out into the atmosphere, but any trapped air has to flow across the transformer and away, to lose built-up heat.

It’s often possible to fit and use a small electric computer-type fan to push air across the transformer, and make a basic heat exchanger. It is a good idea to buy a small illuminated on/off switch, located somewhere visible to clearly indicate that the fan is operating. For picking up 12V power to operate the fan, consider using the 12V fridge wiring itself, as it returns from the van battery. Wiring from the battery to the fridge is almost always live.

However, you need to get air into the transformer location before you can push air out. Air inlet and exhaust could be through rows of breather holes drilled in the front face of the wooden seat. Down in the under-seat compartment the fresher air will be pulled into the lower-pressure area by the 12V exhaust fan. As hot air rises through convection, mount the pusher fan up high in the compartment if possible. Alternatively, by simply raising the seat cushions about an inch on some strips of foam, the small fan could draw air in under the seat cushions on top of the wooden seat, and down inside through a gap made in the plywood seat top.

Water supply, water filters, HWS

Water supply

In a van park the mains-pressure water supply is usually adequate, and if you have a tap on the sink then you should also have water. If your van has water tanks there are two common ways of getting the water up to the sink – manual or electrical. Perhaps the most common way is a manual pump at the sink. It’s normally bi-directional, pumping on push and pull actions.

Instead of hand pumping, an alternative is to use a foot-operated pump. This is sometimes a rubber blister, perhaps the diameter of a tennis ball, fitted into the floor near the sink. Instead of lifting and pushing a pump plunger by hand, in this case you just repeatedly tread on the blister and it does the same job of pumping water up to a spout on the sink.

Electrically, the most usual way is via a 12V/240V pump connected by hose to the water tank or tanks on your van. When you turn the tap on, the pump senses a drop in line pressure and switches on, continuing to pump until you turn off the tap. When the line pressure builds up again, the pump senses this and switches off. As a helpful giveaway to indicate that your water tank is almost empty, if the pump can’t build up line pressure and pump to a stop when you turn off the tap, it may continue to run, and run, and run. So that’s when you simply turn off the 12V power supply to your pump and then refill the water tank.

The stainless steel bracket holds the two filters, and also acts as the mounting plate when hooked over the two screw-heads.

Water filter

Dual water filters normally come with the housings linked together, often mounted on a stainless steel plate with two figureeight holes in the mounting lip.

Mounting the filters to the van can be simple, and I mounted ours on screws down on the chassis rail, well out of harm’s way. The job was straightforward to do. Hold the stainless steel plate in the selected place, hard against the chassis, and then carefully and accurately mark the figure-eight outlines with a pencil or scriber. To eliminate guesswork for the centre of the hole, just centre-punch the six o’clock position on each outline mark.

Carefully drill a small pilot hole, remembering that the chassis rail may be made of hard metal. Then drill a correct-sized hole to take a self-tapping screw. This screw must have both a head size which will slip neatly through the bigger figure-eight hole in the stainless steel plate, and a shank over which the smaller hole can slide. If you don’t drill the screw hole spacings exactly you may find that the two holes in the stainless steel mounting plate will need to be filed out to fit. When screwed in the right amount, the screws will let the filters hang close to vertically down on the chassis rail and not fall off, yet the plate will be easy to remove and replace over the screw heads.

images BRASS CONNECTORS

Assembling this water filter setup is not at all difficult. Normal plastic Gardena-type fittings do not last under high pressure and regular tough use around a van. Actual inlet fitting design in some cases is poor, and exposes them to easy damage. I found I had to discard all plastic hose fittings and use only brass, but the clickfitting idea works well. Neta fittings are expensive compared with plastic, but they do not break. Brass hose connectors, and brass screw-in fittings to connect to the water filter is the only way if you want to do it properly, and only do it once.

In this position the plastic water inlet hose connector is easily broken by passing pedestrian traffic.

HWS

To help minimise scale or rust, when you stop at a new van park site or connect a new town water supply to your van, remember to flush and fill the van’s HWS tank. Turn the hot water tap on and run fresh water, particularly if the residual tank water is alkaline, like most bore water. Wait until all air and residual water are purged, and then run the cold water as usual. Try to get rid of air out of the hot-water service. For corrosion or rust to occur requires oxygen, and the more water you keep inside your hot-water service tank, the less air can get inside.

If you’re not mechanical, then you do need to take your caravan to a reputable caravan service business yearly and have them make sure that the sacrificial anode in your hot-water service is correct. Should it need to be replaced, they’re not expensive, and this prevention is very much cheaper than having the hot-water service tank replaced. HWS sacrificial anodes should be checked about every six months, but they may last much more than a year, depending on the type of water you’ve been putting into your tanks.

Made of a compressed mixture of magnesium and other metals, they’re designed to be sacrificed, eaten away by impure water, rather than the water corroding the actual metal lining of the water tank. Not every brand of HWS has an anode, but most common models usually do. Later models generally have the screw-in anode accessible from outside the van, inside the external HWS cover. Some models only have anode access through the HWS from inside the van, and may be quite difficult to get to.

Check your HWS handbook for specific instructions on correct removal. In most cases it’s a matter of undoing the bolt head, carefully sliding the anode bar out, and checking how much it has been eaten away. To do this only needs a socket to fit the hexagonal head of the anode bolt, and enough physical effort to undo and remove the anode. If it has not been removed for quite some time, and it seems very hard to undo or turn, it’s definitely best to leave removal to experts.

Sliding it out, try not to let the wasted material on the anode touch the inside of the tank, or the edges of the hole you’re screwing it out of. This material should be properly flushed out of the tank. When you replace the anode bar, be sure to wind some plumber’s PTFE tape round the screw thread, to make removal easier next time. Flush the hot water storage tank thoroughly a few times, get the air out before heating the water, and test run it when you’ve finished. This is one job you really should list on your annual service and safety check.

images Tip

On every screw-in fitting, for gas, air or water, wind PTFE tape around the thread as an extra seal when fitting permanently together.

Power needs, power provision, power cables, power cable problems

Power needs

Electrical power to a van is an interesting subject, because there are multiple choices. Every owner’s need is different, so vans are usually designed to cater for most people. As far as I can tell, the majority of people I talk with or see spend better than 95 per cent of their time in a van park. For those who only use van parks and powered sites, then having all 240V appliances is quite likely the most practical way to go. Many vans seem to have dual-function power wiring, in that the white electrical switches operate 240V, and the black switches operate 12V. That is almost a redundancy function in fail-safe mode. If the 240V power goes out, just switch to 12V, assuming your van has batteries.

Generally speaking, microwaves, toasters and electric kettles are all 240V operation, but these appliances can also be bought in 12V, and that provides some interesting options. Almost any electrical appliance can be run from 12V. The catch is that it takes a fair bit of money – and usually some big batteries. Many mobile homes, where weight is generally not much problem, are largely 12V operated. A current-model van may well be directly powered by 12V only.

Inverters come in a large range of shapes and output capacities. As a rule they are not cheap, and price is generally in direct proportion to capacity.

Power provision

A common power supply choice for regular travellers is to use direct 240V appliances with power provided by a generator of sufficient capacity when not hooked up to 240V mains power. Aircon units can be easily powered by a generator of correct size. If you do plan on remote camping often and you want to use only 12V power, almost every van appliance can be bought in 12V, including rangehoods and microwaves, kettles and refrigerators. Doing this can be expensive, but could be very practical.

Solar power and sufficient 12V batteries are a very sensible combination for a van. With ample 12V battery power you can still use most 240V appliances through an inverter. These devices are not cheap to buy, but they are effective in what they do. With sufficient battery power, a large inverter can run a 240V microwave, kettle or heater. Overall it may be more practical, and cheaper, to buy 240V appliances and run them from an inverter, so do plenty of research before finally deciding on any trailer power supply.

Once you’ve paid for the hardware, if you have sufficient solar power to keep batteries well charged, the cost of maintaining batteries can be very little. There are some businesses around who specifically handle 12V power and solar set-ups, and they can work out necessary components and sizes, all dependent on your needs and wallet thickness.

Some of the options, or combinations now available, could be:

a bank or number of 12V batteries, with sufficient amperage to run a big inverter to power those 240V items not made in 12V

a 240V/12V automatic battery charger of enough amperage to correctly maintain those batteries

solar panels with sufficient capacity to automatically charge the 12V battery bank

a generator to charge 12V batteries, and also directly run the 240V aircon unit

all lights 12V, automatically 240V transformer-powered

a refrigerator of auto-selection 12V/240V operation.

For many travellers, these options are high on the price list, but it can actually be done for little money.

Electrical cable is best laid out flat, with the excess cable laid under the van, out of harm’s way.

Power cables

I’ve seen many travellers toss out their long coil of power cable, pull out one end and plug it in to van park 240V power, then find the other end and plug it into their van’s power inlet. The remaining snarled mess of cable usually gets kicked in under the van somewhere.

If you’re going to use a 240V cable you should really lay it out in a long straight line first, then plug one end into the van inlet, and the other into the power outlet. Store the main length of the cable in a sort of a figure-S laid safely alongside or under the caravan.

Electricity can be a complex subject. If you just leave the van’s power cable all coiled around like a coil of rope lying on the ground, what you have actually created is a form of induction coil. As a basic rule, any long 240V cable left in a coil or a bundle or knot creates some electrical resistance, unwanted heat, and may not carry the current draw as effectively as it could.

Experience has shown us that for normal caravan usage, three heavyduty lengths of 15A-capacity cable are sufficient. One 20 m and two 10 m lengths have covered every power supply circumstance we’ve so far encountered in any caravan park. The 20 m length will often fit between the power outlet pole and the inlet socket for your van. Two 10 m lengths will almost always be long enough together, but sometimes you will even need to join all three. Rotate them all in turn so they wear equally.

These sensible cable joiners will prevent accidental disconnection, when two cables need to be joined to reach the power outlet from the van inlet.

images CONNECTORS

When you plug cables together, always think whether it might rain overnight. You can buy relatively waterproof plastic snap-together covers for joins in two 240V cables so that they won’t be accidentally pulled apart. Keep the cable join up off the ground. Use a piece of wood, or a plastic bucket or bottle, to keep the join out of the nightly grass condensation. If rain does look likely put the joiner on a piece of dry wood underneath a plastic bucket or similar, or hook it up under the van, well clear of any rain.

Try to keep joined cables out of bad weather. Water will easily get into open joiners in 240V cables and can cause damage. Personal safety is something that you always need to consider, and if you’ve got water in the plug and socket joiner on a cable, it may be externally conducting electricity. This is a typical place for an earth-leakage device to operate, but if your 240V power cable is wet, consider the electrocution potential.

The female cable socket, the one that you push up into the angled plug on the side of your van or camper, has to remain firmly on the three pins to make good electrical contact and allow full power transmission. With the weight of several metres of unsupported power cable dragging it downwards it may not make the needed good contact.

This also applies to the male cable plug where you push it up into the power outlet socket on the van park’s power supply pole as well. On the power pole there might be a hook or loop, known as a ‘strain loop’. This hook is intended for the cable to loop onto, to take the strain off the plug where it goes into the outlet socket.

To help hold the cable weight on the van, some travellers use a bootlace, tied around the cable below the plug. When the plug is pushed home into the inlet socket they simply tie the bootlace up around the hinge on the socket cover flap. Alternatively, lay the cable along the top of an adjoining external window frame, if possible, so that it drops down to the ground at the other end of the window. That way, some of the cable weight is taken by the window frame and not the 240V socket pins, so they can make best contact.

If there is a window near the power inlet, for a more permanent and better job you can make a little clip to slip the power cable behind, to take the weight off the inlet socket pins. Windows are usually screwed in, so it is a simple job to remove the outer screw from each end. By making two small brackets, with holes to suit the window screws, they’ll be held in place when you replace the two screws. Use silicon to reseal the screw hole and around the screw heads.

When the brackets are bent to a suitable shape, the cable can be tucked in behind them along the window frame, and won’t fall down. If you are a regular user of satellite TV, exactly the same idea can be applied to support the external coaxial lead-in from the dish, with a smaller bracket made to suit 75 ohm coaxial TV cable size, again retained by a window screw.

Another alternative for the power cable is perhaps just a cup hook screwed solidly into the van wall somewhere near the inlet socket. The cable can be looped round this after it’s plugged in, and again the weight is held off the plug and socket. This also has the benefit of making a ‘water loop’, so that during rain the water will capillary down the cable to the lowest point, where it will drip off. This rain-safety is the reason why the power inlet socket itself is angled downwards.

A small holding bracket like this is easy to make from a strip of aluminium, and it’s held in place by a window screw.

Power cable problems

In a 240V power plug the two pins carrying current can run hot, sometimes hot enough to cause slight melting of their plastic surround. This doesn’t normally happen around the longer earth pin. If your 240V power cable plugs show any indication of melting plastic, you have already had a problem.

I’ve seen some 10A plugs on cables where the plastic has been so burnt it has melted clear off the pins and is dark brown in colour. This is usually from simply drawing too much current. Resistance to drawing heavy current eventually results in heat occurring in connectors and cables, and a typical visual giveaway is that melted plastic insulation. Cut the fittings off, and start again with top-quality plugs and sockets of proper rating.

Take care, however, because with burnt connector insulation usually goes another hidden problem – burnt wires inside the cable itself. If you strip back the core insulation you may see that the tiny strands of wire are not shiny and clean, but instead have a dull or burnt, dark appearance. The only safe option then is to chop this cable into unusable pieces, and buy another cable for your van, properly capable of carrying any potential current draw. If you’re in any doubt, for best advice and electrical safety, have your cables checked by a qualified electrician. If you are concerned about the current-carrying capabilities in your mobile house, have it thoroughly tested as well.

Some owners simply have no concept of electrical safety and use unsafe wiring and cables. A number of older vans have two inlet sockets, usually one for general power and the other for the aircon unit. This kind of load in current vans is now carried internally via heavy wiring from the one 240V inlet socket, correctly wired for the different circuits.

If the power cable is too small to carry your normal current draw, this can be a real problem, and create even more bother. The air conditioner uses a lot of electricity, and if you put more load on the cable by switching on the microwave at the same time, sometimes this is excessive load and the power cable begins to heat up. If it does this too often for too long, then it might well begin to melt.

You get only what you pay for with power cables and for many travellers, their existence almost hinges on hooking up to that available 240V supply at a van park. To get sufficient power to run appliances in vans, most really do need the higher current-carrying capacity of a 15A cable. Almost every van park in this country supplies 240V power through a 15A outlet. 15A plugs will not fit into a 10A socket or outlet, because the earth pin has deliberately been made much larger and longer on the 15A plug. Whilst a 10A plug will fit into a 15A outlet, the 10A cable can overheat when carrying heavy current draw. Trying to get sufficient current through the thinner 10A cable could be compared with trying to water your garden with a drinking straw, instead of a proper garden hose.

It can be false economy to buy a cheap hardware store cable. Some of the newer, smaller-outside-diameter cables are technically rated at 15A. Make sure the power plugs themselves are also rated for 15A. Do your homework. Buy the very best heavy-duty 240V three-core power lead cable that money can buy, from a reputable electrical wholesaler, and if you don’t feel competent to fit plugs and sockets onto the cable, contact a registered 240V electrician for help. Don’t buy cheap; it’s not worth the hassle, or the potential for trouble.

This smaller example of the cable bracket is used to hold the 75 ohm TV antenna coaxial cable.

Melted plastic pin-surrounds and pin slots on any 240V power lead is an indication of current draw higher than the cable can handle.

images SAFETY TESTER

While you’re buying new 240V cable, buy a 240V circuit tester. Most of the major electrical companies can supply them. Testers are not expensive and potentially can offer real safety for very little money. The basic tester is simply a little device with the standard three 240V pins on it, made to plug into the power outlet in a caravan park site, to test for electrical safety.

When the inbuilt lights glow or light up in a certain combination it will indicate that the power point is safe to use. Even more importantly, it will show if the outlet is not safe to use. Any van park supply outlet or power point which you plug your power lead into, where any of those threepin inlets are discoloured or burnt brown, or partially melted, is very questionable. If you ignore the tester warning lights, you could then put yourself or your van at risk by plugging your power cable into an unsafe outlet.

images Caution

For proper advice and electrical safety, if in doubt have your cables checked by a qualified electrician.

Power safety, power supply 240V, power generation 240V

Power safety

Circuit breakers and earth leakage devices in 240V are essential safety devices, and new caravans are required to have them fitted. The days of the old ceramic plug-in copper-wire fuse are long gone. When the van power supply short-circuits because you mistakenly chopped through a power cable for example, an earth leakage device will take about a millionth of a second to break the current, and that way you shouldn’t get killed.

If you have a toaster, which may not even be faulty, and a crumb of damp toast shorts it out, the earth leakage device may drop out and your toaster will switch off, thus saving you from possibly getting electrocuted. However, earth leakage devices can sometimes be a real nuisance. Some are so sensitive they will drop out at the slightest hint of some kind of real or imagined electrical shortcircuit. I know of travellers who have had to go and buy a different type of toaster, because their preferred one continually caused the earth leakage device to trip, and they were forever resetting it.

If the earth leakage device does keep dropping out you may have to buy a new appliance. It’s not uncommon. If this has happened to you, go to a reliable electrician or electrical service place and ask them why your earth leakage device keeps tripping. It may be that your kettle has been filled up with bore water too many times, or has gone past its use-by date and the resistance in the kettle element is too high. It might also be faulty, and a potential death threat. Become aware of what circuit breakers and earth leakage devices are, and what they do to keep you safe.

Power supply 240V

You can sometimes get into bother in van parks with 240V power, and some caravan park managers really don’t care. They provide very basic facilities, and you take the risk when you plug your power cable into their supply that you may not get what you expect. Some caravan parks deliberately reduce the available amount of 240V power from a network or outlet so that travellers cannot use huge amounts of electricity. Different electrical phases in the van park electrical distribution grid can be used to limit this. We also know that in some parks, usually older ones, there is only light wiring used in the power distribution network, and light wire will not carry heavy current draw.

At some parks, when a number of vans in the same row all have their air conditioners running on a humid day, the heavy load sometimes will be too much for the light 240V circuit, and the main supply circuit breaker will trip in the van park distribution network. Check out the circuit breaker or overload fuse at your van park power supply pole, and be sure how the little trip lever works, in case you have to click it back on one dark night. Almost all show the labelled On/Off position indicator. Go to any reputable 240V electrician, or your power supplier, for full information on this important subject.

Take heed if your portable house has appliances like a 240V microwave, heater, toaster, electric kettle, hairdryer, breadmaker, electric stove or oven, fridge and air conditioner. From experience we’ve found in our caravan that we can generally run any two appliances, but with any more than that the van’s own circuit breaker often trips out. For example, we can usually run the microwave and the kettle at the same time, or the kettle and the heater, or the aircon and the kettle. That seems to be our limit in most cases at most caravan parks. Only experience or experimenting will show you what you can run together in your van, but in the cold areas, we know the 240V kettle, toaster and heater all on at breakfast time will usually trip the van circuit breaker.

With our 2kVa generator we didn’t seem to have any problems running three or four items at once in the van, although starting up the aircon did put a short load on the generator. In a van normal 240V appliances can be operated as usual provided the generator is running, but you should still be aware of the generator’s maximum power output and will quite possibly need to limit using several high-current appliances at the same time, unless you have a large generator output.

images GENERATOR SIZE

By knowing the total amperage your appliances draw, if you want to run them at the same time, you can easily work out the size generator you really need. ‘kVa’ is the abbreviation for ‘1000 x volts x amps’. Strictly speaking, it’s not equal to two thousand watts, as some travellers believe. It’s a product or factor, a rating of output power from a generator as in our example, or from some other uninterruptible power supply. Still using the 240V 2kVa generator as our base, the best way to remember how much current it can produce is by a simple equation:

2000 (kVa) divided by 240 (volts) equals 8.3 (amperes).

Power generation 240V

Not everyone is a fan of generators, but in a remote area that is one way to effectively solve the power provision problem. Fire risk with a generator is almost non-existent. A generator is one of the handiest devices you can have if you’re a traveller, yet in some national parks you’re not permitted to have them at all. The national parks management occasionally provide an area way up one end of the camping area where generator use is often almost grudgingly permitted, and the anti-generator lobby always lives as far away at the opposite end as it can. This subject is a bit like pro-dogs and anti-dogs in caravan parks.

A lot of the problems in travelling in a caravan or a camper are completely eliminated with a big enough generator for power supply. A minor drawback is fuel transport. You do have to carry some fuel, whether it’s unleaded petrol or two-stroke mix, for your generator. You also have to carry the generator, so these both take up storage space and add weight to your van.

Circuit breakers and earth leakage devices are essential for electrical safety.

Be careful before buying, and check what particular type of current that your intended generator produces, for example, either true sine-wave current or chopped-wave output. Some cheaper generators produce a type of raw electrical power that is not really suitable for running sensitive laptop computers and some of the fussy electronic equipment which is now commonly used. Inverter-type generators provide correct power for a computer.

For a 1kVa supply you can buy a 240V generator which is quite small. It will usually be powerful enough to run battery chargers, start a vehicle motor, and power any television or many smaller electrical appliances. But 1kVa, in almost every case, will not run a microwave or an air conditioner. For these devices you need, as a general rule, at least 2kVa. A generator of this size can be awkward to lift, and physical dimension increases with generator output capacity. You generally won’t have many electrical supply problems if you can easily transport and physically move a generator of that size.

images CAPACITY

If the generator is a combined 12V/240V unit with sufficient output, then the power problem might be almost over. Many good 240V generators do have a 12V circuit as well. The 240V output will power your 240V satellite decoder and most appliances, plus power the normal 240/12V battery charger. The 12V output can charge any other vehicle batteries needed, or run the satellite decoder and some smaller appliances through a 12V/240V inverter.

You could get away with a fairly small 240V generator, if your need is just to charge the 12V batteries in your van through a 240/12V battery charger, when grey skies have made the solar panels ineffective. There are quite small and comparatively light 12V generators designed only to charge 12V batteries. Technology is amazing in this world. Twelve-volt microwaves and small highoutput lights are becoming common. Fluorescent 12V lights are a minor drain on batteries, and it’s not hard to manage 12V appliances to minimise battery usage.

Big motorhomes often have diesel generators easily capable of producing 4kVa and that output will run just about any electrical appliance possible, including arc welders. Microwave ovens, huge fridges, big televisions and a large aircon unit could be run at the same time, and would not really trouble a big generator. The main drawback is physical size. If you need 3kVa, you must have a fairly large generator. Generally speaking, that’s too big to carry on most caravans unless they are purpose-built to allow for such a unit.

A typical portable generator.

images EXTRA WEIGHT

By later adding a heavy generator onto your A-bar, you will apply extra downweight onto the ball coupling, probably not intended by the manufacturer. Your van may not safely carry such weight without structural reinforcing, and the tow vehicle might not easily handle the extra weight applied to the rear. To carry a large generator or other heavy weight at the front on the van A-bar you may also need to consider having the A-bar lengthened so that a storage box can be made to fit and carry it.

This can lead to other changes required as well and proper engineering decisions may need to be made to avoid potential van strength, balance and handling problems. How the van sub-frame is built will have to be taken into account, and whether the wheels will still be well positioned to maintain good balance, with the extra weight on the front and without counterbalance, is important.

images Tip

The best way to remember how much current a 2kVa generator can produce is by a simple equation:

2000 (kVa) divided by 240 (volts) equals 8.3 (amperes).

Power supply 12V, power payback, solar panels, power costs

Power supply 12V

As a normal traveller, when you’re first setting up to go travelling, give a lot of consideration to power supply. A battery charger in normal terms runs on 240V, which is transformed down to provide a 12V output.

For an overnight stop at a caravan park, with access to 240V, mains power through a battery charger can recharge the caravan battery. Inautomatic chargers the amperage is reduced as the battery gets closer to full charge. The amount of amperage produced is limited electronically, so that the battery doesn’t get boiled.

If you don’t want to or cannot carry a 240V/12V generator, big batteries could be the answer in a remote area. Several solar panels should provide enough amperage to maintain several 12V batteries for weeks on end, and an inverter of sufficient capacity can run many 240V appliances. Cooling might have to go by the wayside, as I’m not aware of any aircon unit which will operate on 12V, and the huge drain on an inverter for 240V to start and run an aircon would probably not be practical.

Basic 12V power supply may be from a single 12V battery providing sufficient power to run the van’s lights and radio, and maybe a small inverter for phone and computer battery charging, with other appliances being gas operated. A 12V automotive fan might help move the air around for some cooling. Heating may need to be via gas or wood fires.

For 12V to charge the van’s own 12V battery, the vehicle alternator can be used. The battery in your tow vehicle can be set up to supply some power into your caravan for the basic van lights or fridge through the seven-pin trailer connector plug. If there is a solar panel on the caravan roof it can also be used to charge the 12V caravan battery when moving or stationary.

At the risky end of the spectrum are those who go into remote areas to camp, relying on just the one battery in their tow vehicle, with no other means of electrical power. Unless you are quite experienced, camping light and deliberately running on calculated minimum facilities, relying on one battery for both engine starting and 12V power could be a gamble.

images INVERTERS

Inverter quality and capacity cost big money. Inverters have a high operating current drain, so you must have enough battery capacity to be able to use them. How much current an inverter can provide is limited by the amount of amperage available in the 12V battery supply, and by how much output capacity the actual inverter has. An inverter takes 12V of direct current and inverts it (if you like, transforms it UP) to give 240V of alternating current. When this happens, many normal 240V appliances can be run from an inverter, including microwaves. All inverters have a normal and sustainable load, and a peak load, which they can maintain for a short nominated time. How this electricity changes from direct current (one way) to alternating current (back and forth) is too technical for this book, but if you’d like to find out more, authors like Collyn Rivers and others produce specific and useful textbooks on 12V electricity.

This 6A automatic 240V-powered battery charger has a 12V charging circuit, and has done an excellent job of keeping our two big van batteries fully charged for several years.

Power payback

Generally, one large solar panel can input enough current to your van battery to run a fridge quite well. However, do not rely absolutely on one solar panel powering one battery to run one fridge for one week. Few solar panels will do this. The loss is due to what I call the ‘payback’ factor when you use 12V power. The payback factor for 12V electricity is plus 40 per cent. Simply speaking, if you take 10A out daily, you will have to put 14A back each day. That is, before the battery will return to the same state as it was when you began to use your fridge, you will need to pay back 14Ah (ampere hours).

For example, if you use a fridge for ten hours and each hour it draws one ampere, it has used 10Ah. Providing you have enough solar panels to easily deliver more than 14A daily back into a battery which has 10A drawn from it each day, this will leave you with a good margin. It may seem a strange rule, but it will definitely pay to remember it.

There is usually a cut-off point where a fridge will automatically stop working, if the supply voltage drops to a preset level (commonly 10.5V). So if your solar panel produces 10A daily, but your fridge draws 15A each day, and although the van battery has a capacity of 100A, you could really only run that fridge effectively for three or four days, despite the solar input, before your battery will be at the level where it won’t power the fridge or anything else.

With surplus power, working on about six hours of effective daylight, and with several solar panels capable of putting back more than 25A against the steady 15A daily drain example, power-wise you could probably stay out in the bush indefinitely. Transpose this across to your particular needs – average daily current draw from batteries, plus 40 per cent payback factor, needs to be less than the daily input capacity of your solar panels.

images Tip

Average daily current draw from batteries, plus 40 per cent payback factor, needs to be less than the daily input capacity of your solar panels.

Solar panels

Most solar panels can be affected by direct heat, and their output falls off somewhat in full sun. The rigid polycrystalline type of solar panel mounted on many current van roofs does not work effectively in shade, but few solar panels will work well on a cloudy day. To retain current delivery when the van is parked in the shade, a good alternative is to buy a small fold-up portable solar panel. Some of them are around 60–80W output. Usually they’re a little two-piece unit, perhaps a metre tall and 500 mm wide, folding back onto itself in a V-shape.

With a 12V power lead, the remote panel can be placed out in the sun, yet you can keep the van in the shade while still charging the batteries. Supporting the fixed solar panel on the van roof, which will charge whilst you’re driving down the road in most cases, the small portable A-frame type of folding solar panel is a good extra source or even alternative. For best results, the portable panel generally needs to be regularly rotated towards the sun.

Any remote solar panel requires a connector, usually a 12V plug. This should be wired in such a way that the solar panel output goes to the regulator input side before the regulator’s own output wiring runs back to the battery. Dependent on the level of solar panel output, you should not normally put raw solar panel voltage direct to a battery. Most solar panels deliver about 16V – a bit high for a 12V battery. This output voltage needs to be regulated down to about the 13–14V limit, and the batterycharge controller or regulator does this. In amperage, most 80W-capacity solar panels will put out about 3.8A maximum. A battery can normally stand charging at that level, but it won’t take 16–17V for long at all, so all output from the solar panel should be regulated.

images SOLAR TECHNOLOGY

Space and military technology has provided benefits to many other industries. One which could be of much use to travellers is a new peel-off, sticky-back, very thin and fairly flexible solar panel. Instead of a rigid solar panel hard-mounted above the van roof, these newly developed and almost indestructible panels fix directly onto the roof with adhesive. Being long and narrow, the panels will often fit in otherwise unusable van roof spaces. Because of the way they’re built, some of these newer types of Uni-Solar flexible solar panels are designed to produce voltage in a considerable degree of shade. The individual cells apparently don’t become isolated in the conventional way. Any cell can feed voltage to any other cell in the whole panel, therefore they are shade tolerant. If these functions are important to you, remember that the latest technology usually costs considerable money.

Power costs

There are some unseen costs relative to solar power, dependent on how effective you need it to be. Apart from the high purchase cost for each battery you have (and therefore must use fuel to tow along), it probably weighs about 25 kg. Unless your trailer is designed to carry several batteries, it may need additional strengthening to carry this weight. Batteries also need to be fitted into some sort of storage space or container, to protect and isolate them and to provide easy maintenance access when needed. If you plan to rely on solar power, be aware that it does have limits. I’ve explained this in a bit more detail in my other book 4WD Survival Guide.

When you buy a battery, perhaps advertised as a 100A battery, you’ll find that in effective use it may only be worth about 60Ah (ampere hours). That is, technically you could pull 1A out of it for 60 hours before the battery will go totally flat. However, in practical use conventional 12V caravan-type batteries won’t normally drain dead flat without deliberate intent or stupidity. This is because once it’s had about 20–25 per cent of available current drained off the top it generally struggles to provide usable power. Many appliances, typically portable fridges, have an automatic cut-off point when current drops below a preset level, usually about 10.5V. Other devices just will not work effectively or at all on low power; therefore there will probably be no continuing current drain after that point to run the battery right down.

As they are essential, there is only one way when it comes to buying batteries – ask plenty of questions, seek expert information, and buy only the best. If you find yourself in an awkward situation due to battery problems, you will be very sorry if you took the cheaper or quicker option.

images Tip

As they are essential, there is only one way when it comes to buying batteries – ask plenty of questions, seek expert information, and buy only the best.

Lighting 12V, light globes, van lights, visibility

Lighting 12V

Twelve-volt lighting can be quite simple, but there can sometimes be hassles, unless a few basic rules are followed. It is important to remember that the earth wire is vital, and a loose, bad, poor or dirty earth wire is certain to affect the light circuit. Any electrical cable has a limit to how much current it can carry. Compare a drinking straw with a garden hose, for example. The amount of water which can flow through them is totally different, and it’s the same with electrical wiring.

The length of wire from the Utilux plug back to the trailer’s left rear blinker light could be quite a few metres. From age and corrosion a 21W blinker globe may not indicate very well at the end of perhaps 10 m of cable, when voltage drop reduces power from 12V down to perhaps two-thirds of that. It is common enough in older vans to find that when the voltage is measured at the blinker there may only be 8V or 10V at the globe. The voltage drop or loss from 12V is usually due to resistance, from joins, small wire diameter and long length.

If you are buying a new van, check that the 12V cabling used is about 6 mm for lighting purposes. Ask a good auto electrician for the correct cable size number the manufacturer should use if you are specifying a new van. For vans with all LED external lighting wiring cable can be lighter, because current demand is considerably less than for incandescent globes. Remember, you are paying the money, and you are entitled to what is properly known as merchantable quality.

Light globes

Continuing van maintenance, switch on and check the operation of each light – all the 12V external lights, and 240V internal lights if your trailer has them. Sort through the spare light globes, and check that you do have spares for each of the important ones – especially stops, tails and blinkers.

One drawback with incandescent globes, apart from the fact that they will blow and sometimes they don’t like vibration and incorrect voltage, is that their terminals often corrode. Batteries and electricity and earths and 12V light globes and water are not a good mix. When water gets into a light globe fitting which is carrying electricity and a little bit of generated heat it tends to corrode the fitting. The more it corrodes, the less efficient it becomes at transferring electricity or at earthing. For the small amount of time involved, it pays to pull each external light globe out at least once a year and check its condition.

The common van globe types are festoon and bayonet styles. One is held in place at each end by a metal post and looks like a clear glass tube and the other is the more normal push-and-turn torch-globe type. If there is some form of corrosion at the contact point, where their metal ends contact power terminals, there is resistance and therefore loss of lighting efficiency. Check that the globes are not corroded and if they are, a light sanding with wet-and-dry paper or with a small fine file or a scraper to remove residue will certainly help.

Almost all of the average or cheap external lights and housings which are fitted to caravans by manufacturers currently allow dust and water access. They are often quite difficult to seal effectively. Putting the light cover back on, if it’s a light which has a thin neoprene sealing gasket or ring, lightly wipe the gasket with a thin coating of olive oil or similar to help maintain seal condition. Heat and weather exposure often cause cracks in the bead of silicon many van manufacturers add along the top edge of width or clearance lights to help minimise water entry, and also in the original formed rubber backing. Look carefully at each light, and check if the rubber surround needs another dose of silicon sealant, to help keep water out of the light fitting.

Check your trailer lights to see if there is a water drain hole in the bottom of the housing. Water seems to get in no matter what you do. However, if you drill a small hole, maybe 1/8th or 3/16th of an inch diameter in the underside of the light globe housing, any water that wicks in can also get out. Dust doesn’t seem to get in as much because the pressure inside the housing is relatively stable, but water seems to like external light fittings.

This diagram shows the difference between a directwired circuit and one using the vehicle body as an earth return. This principle applies to virtually all electrical equipment.

Light Emitting Diodes [LEDs] are about eight times as bright as a normal incandescent globe, and are often used inside caravans for lighting.

Van lights

With only cars in front of you, looking ahead right through their windows, it is easy to see stoplight operation of cars in the same traffic lane. Few caravan manufacturers fit van rear lights vertically, up about the height of most van back windows, so that following vehicles can see them clearly and easily. They still persist in fitting lights down about waist level or below, on a horizontal line, where a vehicle in front of you can easily block a view of van taillights a few cars ahead.

Many new vans are still fitted with incandescent 12V rear light globes for blinkers, stop lights and tail-lights. Doubtless this is due to the cost factor. On a bright sunny day, the standard 21/5W stop/tail-light globe sometimes doesn’t appear to give very much light out. There is a much better, far brighter alternative to incandescent rear lights on any trailer. Visibility equals safety.

To greatly improve the brightness of rear lights on a caravan, discard the original two- or three-light globe assemblies, and replace them with LED rear lights. Like any new technology the price is steep and although it’s coming down, they do cost more than incandescent lights. You can now buy Australian made lights, instead of ones made in China or Germany. The rear lights I have fitted to my van have 36 LEDs in each module, six wide and six high for each stoplight, tail-light and blinker on each side. The riding or width lights have four LEDS in each and, despite their small size, are highly visible.

Light Emitting Diodes or LEDs are, on average, somewhere about eight times brighter than an incandescent globe, and they virtually don’t blow or drop out. If a 12V LED has approximate voltage, it will operate properly, and they draw much less current than normal globes. They operate quite happily over a wide voltage variance, yet will still glow at their desired and intended output level. Most LED light units are one piece, totally sealed, and embedded completely in plastic. They are supposedly waterproof, shockproof, break-proof, damp-proof, vibration-proof and it’s unlikely you’ll ever need to repair or change them again.

In every way, they are brilliant, and there is no logical excuse for anybody to ever run into the back of a trailer which has been fitted with LED lights, claiming they didn’t see them. To see just how bright these tail-lights can be, check the LED stoplights across the back of many late-model semitrailers, and compare them with normal vehicle stoplights. If justification was needed to change one thing on a caravan for a real safety improvement, it would be to replace the original incandescent rear lights and riding lights with LEDs.

If you decide to have the incandescent lights replaced, ask your van service place staff if they could also re-route the original tail-light wires up inside the van wall cavities. The new lights could then be relocated vertically to a legal height where they can be more easily seen. If you’re going to bother changing rear lights, why not improve them both ways, by better brightness and positioning?

The two-dollar coin shows the side-light size. The four LEDs in these lights are far more visible than the original single incandescent globe, and much tougher.

Visibility

If worse comes to worst and the rear lights don’t work on your van, it’s good safety value to have a full-width strip of reflective tape fixed across the rear of the van for high visibility. My choice for rear colour would be red, at least 50 mm wide. Any approaching vehicle will see the reflective tape very easily in its headlights. In the right conditions it can be seen for a very long way. Another good safety option is to run an inch-wide strip of reflective tape, about waist height or similar, right around the van on all four sides.

Research into motorcycle collisions has shown that T-intersections are about the worst place for accidents involving perhaps harder-to-see motorcycles. The same research showed that motorcycles with high visibility are much less involved in accidents. Headlights and reflective tape greatly assist your visibility to others.

With a strip of reflective tape along each side of your trailer, any vehicle with headlights on approaching your vehicle from almost every angle, especially in lighting conditions where there is a higher chance of collision occurring, should see the reflective tape early. It’s possible to buy reflective tape which really doesn’t show up very much during the day but has a very high reflective index at night. Aesthetically, for those who care, it doesn’t visually detract from the van but gives the real benefits of the highly reflective tape at night.

CASE STUDY

images Wiring

As a particular example, I watched in absolute amazement as a reputable van builder’s staff debated what to do with three 6 mm wires at the junction of a rear tail-light assembly. These wires all had to be connected in a hole which was made for perhaps two 4 mm wires. They decided to solder the three 6 mm wires together to a short length of 4 mm, and stick the 4 mm wire into the fitting. After some pointed comments, I indicated that as one method they could take a brass spade terminal, open the crimp lugs and solder the three 6 mm wires into that. There was ample room to fit them; they could then file the spade terminal down until it fitted into the 4 mm hole. At least that would carry the current without loss.

Batteries

Batteries

One of the most painful things that can happen to someone travelling is to ‘put out’ their back. With a bad back everything becomes painful. Twelve-volt batteries are quite heavy and lifting them out of an awkward position in the van boot, or from a hatch in the side of the van for maintenance or checking, is often an invitation to back pain. You do need to take care when lifting any heavy object, so if there’s an easier way to do such things it’s only commonsense to investigate, and adopt it, if practical. If your van has a separate battery compartment somewhere along the side wall, with a battery just slid in and fixed down, it’s worth the effort to make a sliding or roll-out tray to allow easier battery inspection.

Most van accessory shops stock ball bearing slides, similar to those used in large office-type four-drawer metal storage cabinets. Look at one of those to see how the slides work. There needs to be enough room in the battery compartment to fit the slides outside the battery dimensions. By fixing a pair of slides to a wooden framework in the bottom of the battery compartment, and attaching a shelf to the inside of the slides, the job is almost done. A metal tray screwed down onto the wooden shelf, nylon straps to hold the batteries down in the tray, and a lock bar or pad-bolts to prevent the whole issue sliding out the compartment door completes the job.

These slide-out rollers are available at most good caravan accessory shops, and are quite strong enough to hold two big 12V batteries.

images DISCONNECTION

If you are worried about the caravan fridge and your one-battery situation when you pull up for a morning tea stop, remember that when you turn the vehicle ignition key off you could also turn off all van power, and you might have also turned the van fridge off, depending on how your system is wired. There are several devices which automatically disconnect the van power from the tow vehicle when ignition is turned off, to ensure sufficient power remains in the vehicle battery for starting.

These leads are on the wrong terminals. The old Hilux owner had no idea the battery supplier had replaced them wrongly, when he asked me why his replacement battery wouldn’t start his vehicle.

Fitted dual batteries or portable booster batteries will eliminate this possibility, because the fridge can be plugged directly to the auxiliary supply, bypassing the vehicle’s vital start battery altogether. Portable battery units are very useful, as they act as a reservoir or buffer. Most of them can be quickly charged away from the vehicle using domestic 240V power or a generator, and they will supply 12V for long periods to a portable fridge, whilst still being trickle-charged by the vehicle’s own 12V alternator.

There really are no free lunches anymore. However, for an almost-free coffee in value, there’s a clever invention known as a ‘Megapulse’, a device which can recover batteries that have been badly sulphated and won’t hold full charge. In operation the unit is simply wired across between the positive and negative terminals on a suspect vehicle battery, and left there, switched on.

Full recovery can take several months, but this smart device seems well worth its cost. When not being used on the main vehicle battery a Megapulse unit can be swapped across to any other 12V auxiliary or van batteries, or most wet-cell batteries. Electronically, they’ll steadily prevent or recover your battery from sulphation during use. Price is quite reasonable judged against the value of the extended battery life or the recovered batteries.

There are also electronic devices available which can help with maintaining battery electrical current, mostly of the plug-pack type. Very handy, they make sure that your unattended battery stays in good nick, typically whilst in storage. These generally plug into the 240V supply, then clip onto your 12V battery, keeping it properly charged, always up around 13.8V float level, even if they only have to produce a few milliamps.

You need to be sure that all your electricals work, in both 12V and 240V, if your van has them. If you have 12V batteries in your caravan check that these, and all the wiring to and from them, are correct. Battery hold-down clamps or straps seem to have a mysterious way of working loose, and this could allow the battery to move about and possibly be damaged. Don’t forget to check every electrical fuse in the van, for continuity in power and lighting circuits, as well. A multimeter will help show this, or the gauges in the control panel should show the right amount of battery voltage and amperage.

Most importantly, if your van has batteries which need maintenance, pull them out on the slide, or otherwise get access to them regularly, to make sure that the electrolyte level is correct. Whenever possible, use distilled water to top up battery electrolyte level, but most coastal water supplies provide clean water. For best long-term results, seriously try to avoid using any mineralised waters from Australian inland areas to top up batteries.

With serviceable wet-cell batteries, the level check is not difficult. Basically, look to see if the electrolyte level is between the level marks on a transparent battery casing, or just up to the bottom of the split ring in the filler in most black-cased batteries. In any case, the fluid level must always be and remain clearly above the thin plates visible in the cells through the filler opening. If in doubt, check any reliable battery outlet for specific advice. For those who prefer exact information on battery condition, buy and learn how to use a hydrometer, a precise device to measure wet-cell battery electrolyte specific gravity.

If your vehicle has maintenance-free batteries, that’s a bit less work, but most of these still have some kind of condition indicator on them. If you look, usually it’s green if the battery is in good condition. Check yours at least weekly, to make sure it is properly charged up. Without any in-built battery condition indicator, the last option is to use a multimeter and read the battery voltage on the appropriate scale first thing in the morning, when it hasn’t been used. A hot battery can commonly indicate more than 1V high, an unreliable and incorrect reading.

At least once a year, take the terminal connectors off, to make sure that the posts and terminal clamps are clean so there is a proper no-resistance contact between the battery lead clamp and the battery post.

Roof, pop-tops, screens, mesh, shadecloth

Roof

Most full-height vans have roof fittings. They can include aircon units, Four Seasons hatches or Heki hatches, microwave vents, shower and toilet exhaust fan vents, solar panels and so on.

Pop-top vans, as a general rule, don’t have too much on their roof, but there is a trend towards fitting lighter air conditioning units, fan air hatches and solar panels on pop-top roofs. It is even possible to get power-assist to lift the pop-top van roof. The large flat roof can be a very good storage space, although not much used. It’s not difficult to fit a roof rack on top of a pop-top van, which can then be used to carry some bulkier but lightweight items. Bicycles or kayaks could be carried on a pop-top van roof.

Two bikes can be stored in a narrow space by placing them in opposite directions in two commercial bike racks.

images LOAD-SHARING

Trying to scrub any van roof clean can be a real problem. Whatever gets on the metal roof often seems to bake hard, and removal can be a slow job. Unless it’s been specifically designed for such use there is a problem walking or kneeling on top of any van with an aluminium roof.

Most van roofs are fairly thin, and even a fibreglass roof will crack if you walk in the wrong place, where it’s not supported. Similar to a house roof, which has joists and purlins, van roofs are usually held by stringers or beams across the van. The aluminium cladding is laid across and fixed to those. If you walk between the beams you’ll almost certainly dent or dish the aluminium roof in, causing a low spot like a little dam, where water will pool. Any roof dent can create a water problem.

Rather than kneeling directly on just a small area of the aluminium roof, if you must work on some roof-mounted item kneel on a piece of plywood or similar at least a metre square, and more than half an inch thick. This will spread your weight over a large area, with much less chance of directly denting the panelling. You can usually feel by pressing down where the roof beams are under the panelling, so try to place the plywood across these beams so they help take your weight. Kneel on a high-density foam kneeling pad on top of the plywood, if you value your knees.

It is feasible to shuffle along van roof beams, but do it very carefully. Manufacturers often join roof sheets over the top of a beam, so there may very well be a line of silicon sealant, showing that there is a support or strengthening beam where you could carefully walk. If you cause a dent or low spot close around the edge of the air conditioning unit, condensate water will pool, and it can wick into the underside of the aircon unit through the smallest sealant gap. It definitely is possible then for water to work its way down through the aircon roof cut-out, and eventually drip out through the actual unit fitted on the ceiling inside the van.

It might be worth considering using one of those firms who advertise that they can suck out dents from vehicle mudguards, if there is a dent in alloy van panelling or cladding on your van. Vacuum suction could be a way of getting out most of a dent in the side or roof of an aluminiumclad van, although the ribbed surface may prevent suction pads adhering properly.

Many current and newer vans have smooth fibreglass or high-impact resin plastic sides. Several manufacturers now offer tough fibreglass front and rear sections, and even entire one-piece fibreglass vans. They seem to be easy to wash and maintain externally, being quite practical, with far less places for water to leak in than the usual aluminium-clad van. For a new buyer, they are well worth considering. However, the universal alloy panel or strip cladding on the sides of the great majority of current vans still is absolutely serviceable, and shouldn’t be discounted just because fibreglass is a trendy thing.

Pop-tops

If you have a pop-top, make sure that you correctly tension the highfield lever clamps to hold the pop-top down. When properly adjusted, consider putting a lock nut on the thread to keep it tightly in the right place. As they are usually provided with a little lock loop or staple, also put a safety pin through the loop to prevent the lever arm from working loose. Safety pins can help limit Murphy’s gremlins.

Screens

Over time, the bug screens in the Four Seasons hatches fitted in the roof of many vans collect a lot of grit, dust and dead insects. To get these insect screens out isn’t hard, but to get them back in can be a bit more difficult. They remove easily from inside the van. In the same way as the Camec van windows, there’s a metal lip right around the frame for the plastic mesh surround to hook over. The top plastic mesh surround pulls slightly upwards then inwards off a little lip on the frame and so do the sides. Likewise, the bottom of the one-piece surround pushes down off its lip, the split in the insect mesh opens out over the flap adjuster, and the whole unit then pulls off from the inside.

A good scrub with a nailbrush and a little gentle detergent in the sink, and drying out in the sun, will usually get them looking like new again. Reverse the process to get them back into place, but I’ve found it can be a bit of an effort, so stand on a stool and experiment. Discovering how to do this awkward replacement job is good value, making cleaning the screens easy.

This also applies to the Camec window flyscreens. A screwdriver slid in under the edge will help get them started, and then they will normally peel off well. Putting a bit of Mr Sheen on the inside of the surround will help them go back onto the frame more easily. Make sure the notches on the bottom edge of the plastic surround line up with the small protrusions which form part of the window latch. They fit into little pre-formed lips. The result with a nice clean screen is well worth the effort. If you’re unsure of how to do small jobs like this, ask your regular caravan maintenance and repair person if he would mind showing you how to do it. Chances are, if you pay him to remove and replace them the first time, he will let you watch and you can see how to do it.

Mesh

A problem with fly mesh or mosquito mesh can be that in some areas it’s simply not fine enough to keep out the tiniest of bugs. However, if you hunt around you can now buy very fine midge or sandfly mesh. Like the differences in shadecloth, the weave density does drop the admitted light level a bit. Camec or other manufacturers may make screens in this finer mesh for their standard window sizes, but one that is usually overlooked as bug access is the mesh on Four Seasons hatches. This mesh is normal flyscreen, and there is also a slit cut into it for removal over the adjuster or winder. I’m sure bugs do get in through this slit. If you carefully cut out the right shape, it should be possible to put and temporarily stick the finer mesh inside the ordinary mesh, where you have a formed surround gasket around the flyscreen.

Changing the mesh on the van screen door is a simple job, but takes time. Pull out the formed plastic tube inside the fixing groove on the door, pop out the old mesh, and put in a new piece. Before fixing, use some sticky tape to hold the new mesh in place, to help make sure the mesh pattern is aligned and looks good, then press the tube back into the groove to permanently hold the finer mesh in place and trim off the excess mesh. Don’t pull on the tubing because it stretches easily.

The mesh is held in the door frame by a plastic tube.

Shadecloth

To keep most hot sun, rain or wind out from an awning, shadecloth is a very good alternative to annexe walls. A number of manufacturers who make shadecloth walls in regular sizes for awnings advertise in caravan magazines. Most good camper shops or truck tarp shops can make or arrange for a shadecloth wall, but be sure to get plenty of eyelets along the lower edge. It is important to make sure of the weave pattern, and to have the outside surface weave running vertically so that rain runs easily down, rather than collecting on the horizontal material.

Those walls for the long side usually slide into the groove under the main awning roller. End walls are mostly velcroed around the top support arm for the awning, and cut on a taper to fit the wall shape. They can easily be reversed on the awning ends as the need arises. Pegging these walls down is quick, using rubber bands cut from car tubes, a most useful and handy item. So that the rubber doesn’t fold up and perish too often, use plastic zip ties or cable ties to attach them to the shadecloth eyelets. Stretch the rubber bands a little for tension, and peg the shadecloth down.

If you have a choice when you stop, always try and position the van or tent door so it isn’t facing into the wind. Avoid making more clean-up effort for yourself, by not leaving the two-piece external door separated, so that dust can blow straight inside through the screen door. If you want the van to collect the western sun because you plan to sit around at beer o’clock for drinkies, then so be it, you’ll have to wear whatever way the wind is blowing. But if you can place it so that the awning and entry door side of the van is facing north, then the hot westerly sun can easily be blocked by putting up an end shadecloth wall.

Shadecloth walls for a van awning are an excellent investment.

CASE STUDY

images Roof clips

We drove behind a tourist who had apparently not properly done up the four highfield or over-centre levers on the pop-top van he was towing. The two levers at the front, for whatever reason, vibrated loose and the clamps came open. As the van was being towed forward, the top front of the van roof blew upwards and the other two clamps alone couldn’t hold the weight of the pop-top roof. That episode did quite a bit of expensive damage to the van.

Wheels, wheel bearings, lubrication, ride balance, ride height

Wheels

If you happen to get a puncture in a tubeless tyre, or even a tubed one, there is an easy way to repair it. You can buy a pressure-pack tyre repair kit, which will in many cases get you temporarily out of trouble if, for example, a nail or similar has gone through the tyre’s tread area. With some kits it may not even be necessary to remove the item causing the puncture. However, if the puncture hole is bigger than 4 or 5 mm, a quick repair might not be practical with such a kit.

The pressure-pack repair kits are relatively simple to use. Generally the tyre needs to be rotated until the valve comes near the top of the wheel, and if practical, it does help to jack the vehicle up to take the pressure off the tyre. The connecting hose from the can is then simply screwed onto the tyre valve in the rim or tube. There is some form of latex material in the can and when fully connected the contents are squirted in under considerable pressure, along with the propellant, which re-inflates the tyre. As the tyre deflates slowly through the puncture hole the latex material, now inside the tube or tyre, is forced out under pressure. It forms a sort of rubber plug by adhering around and in the hole, and seals it from the inside. The latex material is intended to remain inside the tyre.

In many cases the propellant is hydrocarbon – or petroleum-based, so at the next opportunity it’s best to replace the kit propellant with ordinary air. Repairs to tubeless tyres and most tubes seem to be permanent, but there can be drawbacks with some brands of repair kits. Some of them may not permanently seal butyl rubber tubes, but will really adhere to genuine heavy duty rubber tubes. There are usually some limiting conditions when these kits are used, so read the instructions on the can carefully before purchase. In most cases, the kits do quite a reasonable job. A can of puncture repair material is well worth carrying in your tool kit as a spare.

Another kind of puncture repair kit uses a rubber plug, inserted into the puncture hole from outside using a special tool to insert a plug with an adhesive surface. These will work even in a steel-belt tyre where the belt wire material is not protruding through the tread. The last one of these plugs I used was totally successful and outlived the tyre. Few roadside repairs will work in a tyre sidewall as it’s usually too thin to support the repair.

Wheel bearings

It’s always the best thing by far to service your van before you carefully store it away, so that when you get it out you can hook it up and drive away knowing that it’s in good condition. Down-time, when a van is in storage or not being used, is a great opportunity to drop off each wheel to make sure the bearings are still clean, sound and then properly re-greased.

When re-assembling, be sure each castellated nut is done up to the proper tension, with the split pin securing it. There should be no slack when the wheel is checked for top-to-bottom or side-toside play, but the wheel should still spin freely, making the wheel safe and ready to be used next time. After cleaning any old baked-on grease from inside the cap, tap it back into the hub carefully so it doesn’t weep new grease.

Wheel bearings should be greased about every 10 000 km if you are towing consistently, or perhaps twice a year. If you’ve put the van into long-term storage, the wheel bearings still ought to be re-greased around every two years, as grease dries out and hardens over time. Use the best grease, made specifically for wheel bearings. A little dash of gearbox oil added in with your thick bearing grease can be a good idea, but replace the bearing seals before doing this. Then if a bearing seal becomes faulty, the thinner oil should weep out and become quickly obvious, and hopefully you’ll see it before the bearings possibly cause grief from lack of lubrication.

The top bearing on this shackle is greaseable but grease nipple access is from inside the spring, under the van.

Lubrication

Regardless of the type of suspension under your van, it needs lubrication in some form. In a world where tough suspension is needed, it might cost you a lot of money to find out if there is really such a thing as a permanently-sealed self-lubricating bearing. Suspension can’t be expected to float smoothly up and down making the load ride easily, yet rapidly follow all the bumps and holes on the roads for a long time, unless it’s lubricated.

If your van doesn’t have greaseable shackles, or some type of grease nipple suspension lubrication points, it would be well worthwhile to go to a caravan maintenance place and see if it’s possible to fit them.

Many vans with axles and leaf-spring suspension now seem to be fitted with greaseable shackles. If you are on the road full-time, greasing them also needs to be done twice a year. It’s a simple job. You’ll only need a grease gun, a jack (to lift the van body to take the pressure off the shackles and make squirting the grease through easier), and a bit of rag. As simple time reminders, I do our van’s shackles near enough at Christmas and tax time.

Ride balance

Australian manufacturers usually make their vans with the wheels in a position along the chassis that their experience has shown will be probably fairly close to balance point, allowing for down-weight, when the van is loaded in a commonsense way. When you load a van with contents, it’s important to try and sensibly balance it fore-and-aft. It should have reasonably equal weight ahead of and behind the axles, but about ten per cent of the van weight needs to bear directly on the A-bar for tow stability. If you then additionally load a big generator on to the A-bar, when it hasn’t been designed for it, you should add a similar amount behind the axles to restore designed balance. Not balancing the van, or excess load, can lead to stability problems.

The areas of design for safety, load capacity, tow stability and so on are critical, and not every manufacturer gets the recipe right. That’s why some of the top-class vans cost a lot of money, because they offer guaranteed design and capabilities. These vans almost without exception are built to order, and the owner’s needs have to be detailed and specified.

Van accidents don’t just happen, they’re caused; even a few seconds inattention can lead to serious damage or worse, a total van write-off.

Ride height

Various models of caravan are designed and intended by the builder to only travel along main bitumen roads. If the owner later decides to travel down a few lowerquality roads, in its original form the van may suffer damage. The cause or blame may become an insurance matter, but the result of any major damage is the owner’s immediate problem. One option to reduce damage potential is raising the van’s road clearance. However, some suspensions cannot be practically changed at all after fitting, so be careful and consider the ripple effect when altering any major van components. Changing one aspect may cause an unwanted change to another.

For just a minor lift with vans in general maybe even a basic change in tyre size would provide a few inches better ground clearance. It isn’t difficult to remove a van axle from on top of the leaf spring, which is the usual place the manufacturer intends it to be, and undersling the axle. That is, relocate the spring to on top of the axle.

Doing this generally has the effect of raising the van itself, elevating the frame rails perhaps around 100 mm. If you do undersling an axle it’s quite possible that you will also have to change the spring plates, and you may need different length or shaped U-bolts. That’s part of the cost of altering the ride height. A 4 inch body lift will make a noticeable difference to the departure angle clearance, at the lowest point at the rear, as well as the front end approach angle.

Big changes can make a big difference to van stability. With any small height change there is always some small difference to previous ride characteristics, but the benefit is that on rougher roads the van will ride a bit easier. When braking or cornering any new sway or movement should be negligible, even though the slightly higher van will have a fraction more leverage against the springs. However, the lift should make the van much more adaptable and less likely to be damaged if you plan to drive on gravel roads or some of the potholed, bumpy and poor quality bitumen roads found in this country.

After the van lift you’ll need to reset the tow hitch height at the coupling. In fact, every time you change tow vehicles you should have the van height carefully checked in the horizontal position, and readjust the height of the tow vehicle ball if needed, so that it’s correct and the van tows completely level. Part of doing this is also resetting the level ride bars to the designed and efficient height.

A major suspension lift might mean spring, wheel and chassis modification, with extra framing added to the original chassis and a considerable amount of design and manufacturing work. Before you seriously consider altering a van’s designed ride height, reflect carefully on the Third Law of Modification, otherwise known as Basham’s Dilemma: ‘Before modifying some thing, first modify something else.’ The First Law is: ‘Nothing is ever as simple as it first seems’; and the Second Law is: ‘For intelligent tinkering, save all the parts.’

Suspension, spring specs, springs, U-bolts

Suspension

Van suspension is a complex subject, with many choices. The type of van or trailer you decide on, and the kind of terrain you want to drive over, may limit or determine what kind of suspension it’s best to fit to your trailer.

It can take some very careful homework to decide whether to have a single axle or tandem axles, and whether to have 50 mm leaf-sprung parallel axles with bearings the same size, or the more common standard tapered axle. Or should you fit ‘sugar-glider’ or ‘posi-tow’, rubber torsion, smooth riding airbags or one of those very tough heavy-duty wishbone and shock absorber suspensions found on top-quality off-road vans and trailers?

The most common van suspension is still the regulation solid axle with leafsprings. It’s tough, efficient and well priced. Leaf-springs are mounted to the chassis with shackles and these take a lot of punishment. They do need to be lubricated. A problem with greaseable shackles can be that some less-thinking chassis manufacturers fit straight grease nipples on them. In a lot of cases where tandem axles are fitted you can’t actually get effective direct access for a grease gun to some grease nipples unless you take the wheel off.

The problem is solved with a little effort, by removing the wheel, unscrewing and removing the straight nipple, replacing it with a better angled nipple, and putting the wheel back. As grease gun hose ends need to press-click onto the nipple correctly, to avoid wasting quite a lot of grease, make sure that all grease nipples are easily accessible. Remember to wipe every grease nipple clean of old grease and any dirt clinging to it before connecting the grease gun to lubricate the part.

When it comes to van suspension, quite apart from leaf-spring, torsion bar or coil springs, many vans can be fitted with airbag suspension. Big trucks often use airbags to give a softer ride and protect their loads. Airbag suspension is well proven but it has a high purchase cost, especially if it is used as a replacement unit in suspension modification.

This is a typical and very common leaf-spring rocker-suspension greaseable-shackle tandem solid-axle caravan suspension.

This portable compressor is typically carried in 4WDs and gives low volume high-pressure output. Polyairs take only a small amount of air to inflate quite hard.

However, at reasonable cost it’s quite possible to fit additional airbags to a van which has normal leaf-spring and axle suspension, with the airbags providing an additional soft springing effect.

To adjust pressure they pump up at a service station or with any typical 4WD compressors. Fitting is not usually difficult as an aftermarket addition. Some of the expensive top-of-the-line vans offer full airbag suspension from new. Without doubt, airbags do give a kind and stable ride to a trailer, and some vans can be adjusted for ground clearance very simply by increasing the bag’s air pressure.

Spring specs

Sorting out any spring replacement problem from long distance via telephone can be expensive and awkward. Stock spring replacement is relatively easy, as the OEM details are usually known, but modified or custom suspension can be tricky if replacement is needed. The correct spring model number, or accurate dimensions are important. If you have fitted modified springs to your van or vehicle, make sure to keep the model number or specifications, just in case replacement is needed.

To measure needed details for a leafspring supplier you’ll only need two things – a metre or two of string or thin cord, and a tape measure. Be as accurate as possible, because most problems are made bigger by distance. Cord or string will lay or hang around the spring curve accurately, much easier than trying to bend a steel tape. For measuring main dimensions use the string, mark the distance, then measure the string length carefully. All distances need to be measured on the centre-line. With tandem axle assemblies the spring centre-bolt is often not in the actual centre of the spring, measured end-toend. Be careful measuring centre-bolt location and size. Whether the spring has eyes at each end, or one end is a slipper, doesn’t matter much. Similar purpose measurements need to be made for coilsprings.

The older spring has five leaves, the newer one has seven. Load capacity difference is around 50 per cent increase for the new spring.

Springs

Leaf-springs commonly have a shackle at each end of the spring, and the shackle is fixed to the trailer sub-frame. To move the spring out of alignment sideways is difficult, and when an axle is bolted across between the springs on each side of the chassis, it forms a very strong H-shaped framework, definitely locating the wheels. With a rigid axle, when one of the wheels on the axle hits a big bump or pothole it applies a sort of twist to the other wheel due to the leverage, and this can cause instant but temporary misalignment of the other wheel.

The resulting action of the trailer is known as ‘bump-steer’, and if you watch the trailer in the mirror as it hits the pothole you can actually see it sort of jump sideways for an instant, but recover immediately and tow back into line. It does no real harm, and is just a characteristic of a rigid axle. Vehicles with this type of axle, with either coil- or leaf-spring suspension, have usually resorted to links and levers and other sophisticated ways to minimise this effect on handling.

Not all leaf-springs have shackles at both ends. Some of the cheaper and lighter-duty leaf-spring set-ups have a ‘slipper’ at the rear end, where the spring leaves actually slide along the chassis, in a sort of linear guide. The front end is shackled normally and the axle is fixed across the springs in the usual way but the rear shackle is replaced in this method. The spring can’t normally become separated from the chassis, because the guide only allows longitudinal movement, limiting any real amount of up-and-down action.

Because leaf-spring leaves are clamped together in some way, as they move in the vertical plane and the curved shape changes under load, the leaves chafe against each other. This frictional resistance has a sort of damping effect, slowing down the spreading movement under load, and also under the recoil back to normal shape. As a rule, leaf-springs don’t need shock absorbers to steady their movement.

Coil-springs are used for suspension as well, but a coil-spring, of itself, can’t locate the wheel. Quite a few other ways have been devised to do that, whilst keeping the benefits of the generally softer coil-spring ride when compared with a leaf-spring set-up. The common wishbone idea used in the front end of a large percentage of vehicles has been adapted to some trailers. That is, some form of framework, anchored to the chassis and pivoting on it also, holds and locates the actual wheel. The coil-spring really supports the van on this independent wheel-aligning framework.

In general, coil-springs don’t ‘damp’ themselves, so in most cases this kind of suspension has to have shock absorbers fitted as well. There are hybrid types of suspension, where manufacturers have taken the better points of different suspensions and combined them in some way. All have benefits, and some work better than others, depending on what sort of trailer you tow, the terrain you want to travel over and what amount of load you need to carry. When it comes to choice of suspension for your van, ask around, and really do your homework. There are quite a few different types of van suspension but the majority of van manufacturers still seem to choose leaf-spring suspension.

images SHACKLE BOLTS

This important tip might help you to avoid what could have been a real problem when replacing a leaf-spring. Our tandem van has load-sharing rocker suspension with four leaf-springs and therefore eight shackle bolts. The manufacturer had tack-welded each of the eight bolt heads in place against the shackle side plates, on opposite sides, in an attempt to prevent the shackle pins moving from vibration, and causing oval-shaped wear inside the shackle eyes. At least it did also stop the angled grease nipple rotating with the greaseable shackle bolts!

Even so, the shackle bolts were not practically removable, so the springs could not be simply removed either. Twisting the bolt head with a big spanner did not break the weld. It took some careful cutting with a 4 inch angle-grinder to separate the welds. Breaking a spring is a problem in itself, but being unable to easily remove the shackles in a bad situation could really complicate the issue. So before heading off to remote locations, check that the heads on your leaf-spring suspension shackle bolts are not welded to the shackle side plates. Re-position the welds, or definitely allow for some sure way to cut or break the tack-welds later if necessary.

U-bolts

For each leaf-spring, two U-bolts hold the axle to the spring, so on a tandem van, there are at least eight U-bolts. On top, the U-bolt curve goes over the axle and underneath, the two threaded arms fit through a spring plate. In almost every case, the manufacturer has placed the 16 U-bolt threads facing down. That means below each spring plate you can often have four long bolt threads protruding downwards. The probability of them being damaged by stones or other contact on most roads is quite high. If the bolts are quite long, it’s only a few minutes’ work to climb underneath the van and cut off about half the excess thread.

To make sure that a U-bolt stays tensioned and in place on an axle spring plate you can replace the standard nut and spring-washer or shake-proof washer fitted by the OEM (original equipment manufacturer). In fact, for almost any nut on a part which is vital, it can be replaced with a good quality Nyloc nut and washer.

Nyloc nuts are really intended to be one-use, although most people seem to use them two or three times before discarding, because they are expensive. That can be a drawback, and another is that the nylon insert around the top of the nut, which keeps it locked in place, will melt if you apply too much heat to it.

So with a Nyloc in place on the U-bolt thread you wouldn’t sensibly use a cut-off wheel on an angle-grinder to slice through the thread, due to generated heat. It may have to be a hacksaw job, or a remove and replace. Consider marking the excess thread, then taking out one U-bolt at a time. Cut it off, and clean the start thread up so that a nut will screw back on easily. File the edge of the thread smooth so that it won’t snag or cut fingers, then replace the U-bolt and washer, and screw the Nyloc nuts on.

Twenty-five millimetres of thread remaining below the nut is usually enough. Give each U-bolt a liberal spray of Lanotec or similar when tightened properly. Then force or screw a length of plastic garden hose, or heavy-duty industrial hose of the right internal size, over the 25 mm of thread to help protect it. Later, if you do have to undo the U-bolt nut it will come off the undamaged thread quickly and cleanly. It’s just good maintenance and proper practice to look after metal bolt threads.

Nyloc nuts are a positive way of retaining tension on a bolt thread.

CASE STUDY

images Suspension change

This example shows what can happen when seemingly small but unconsidered changes are made.

A custom-built van was ordered with 15 inch heavy-duty mag alloy rims and big off-road tyres, but was delivered with 14 inch road-type steel rims fitted with matching road tyres. After some discussion the manufacturer took the van back, and it was returned with the required 15 inch wheels in place. No other change had been made. Whether or not the chassis maker had originally installed 14 inch road wheels with the matching medium-duty spring-set was not clear.

About two years later, the nearside front spring broke a secondary leaf, not generally a common occurrence. It was replaced, but a year or so later both front springs had again broken leaves. Inquiries with the chief engineer at the biggest laminated spring maker in Australia revealed a possible cause. As the van was originally delivered with 14 inch wheels, it was likely the springs and axle group had been designed for those wheels.

The original springs, each of five 6 mm thick leaves 60 mm wide, had a claimed maximum load capacity of 2500 kg as shown on the compliance plate. Tare for this van was shown as 2020 kg, leaving a balance of 480 kg payload. A later weighbridge certificate showed the van weight, with a load including full water tanks, at 2440 kg.

The spring engineer estimated the correct maximum load capacity of those four original springs was actually about 2000 kg. This van therefore, with its basic 2020 kg tare weight, was apparently already at the maximum original load capacity of the springs fitted to it.

The wheels had been changed, but not the original springs, and it was surprising to the engineer that they even lasted as long as they did. According to cur rent Aust ral ian engineer ing calculations, to still give good ride and handling characteristics the correct springs should have been made with seven leaves, of similar size to the original.

So it doesn’t pay to miscalculate – it can cost quite an amount of money and time to fix the problems.

Underneath, handbrake, chassis rust

Underneath

Underneath the wooden floor of most vans there are usually plumbing pipes. Many seem to be unprotected or plastic-coated copper tubing although semi-flexible grey plastic pipe is being used a lot now due to ease of fitting. There can be plumbing for the water inlet, sink taps, hot-water service, shower and toilet, if your van has such things fitted.

Electrical wiring for 12V and 240V supply, and for the 12V electricallyoperated brakes, is also run inside or along the side of most of the caravan chassis main beams. Some are protected, some are not, but most are vulnerable to stone and road damage. Supported by the chassis rails, you’ll often also find water tanks. As a standard fitting, water tanks usually have a metal shield formed around them to limit stone damage.

Even if you don’t actually intend going down rough gravel roads it’s a wise idea to specify to the van builder that all plumbing and wiring on the underside of your van must be placed in some effective form of stone shielding. There are choices, but the common two seem to be to put plumbing and wiring under either a metal top hat or inside flexible plastic piping or conduit, to ensure that gravel and stones don’t do damage. However, general stone protection is not a hard job to do yourself after the van is built. Your original manufacturer or any good caravan maintenance workshop can do the proofing if you’re not comfortable with doing the awkward job yourself.

Although it may not be as effective as putting all 12V wiring inside standard 13 mm green plastic garden hose, for example, plastic conduit does a good job. It’s cheap, and practical. Repco or other electrical hardware and accessory places sell ribbed plastic conduit, already slit.

Doing the job can be a bit hard on the fingers, but you can slide or press the conduit, cut to correct length to fit between D-saddles, over all van plastic and copper piping. It’s available in sufficient sizes, small enough to also fit neatly on electrical wiring. Use plenty of those plastic zip ties to secure the conduit. It weighs nothing, it’s a very simple job to fit, it cuts with scissors and in most cases it prevents serious stone damage which so easily occurs. Prevention underneath any van is much better than damage cure.

This frame-mounted and unsupported 12V electric brake cable is partially exposed and certainly at risk of stone damage.

This ladder has travelled under our van for many years, is very handy, and the whole installation only took a few hours to complete.

If you intend to tour on gravel roads it’s worth considering having a steel floor fitted to your van when it’s being built. This usually requires a sheet of galvanised steel to be fitted to the chassis rails before the timber floor is laid. The two are then pressure-glued together to give a generally stone-resistant and stickresistant floor. While it might dent a little, it will not easily puncture. By then coating the entire underside with black bitumastic or body proof-coating, right out over the sills, this will greatly help waterproofing and the caravan sub-floor will be well protected.

Most caravan makers or OEMs build to a price. Others will build superb quality or toughness for which you can pay an awful lot of money. Yet it’s quite simple to improve your own caravan, in both toughness and quality, even if in small ways. One example is to slide in underneath the van and look at all the holes, screws and bolts which are under there. Plug every potential dusthole with silicon, coat every protruding screw with it, and where any pipe or wire sticks through the floor pan, smear plenty around and into those holes to keep out dust and water as well.

These van axle U-bolts have been double-nutted for security, and the excess bolt thread has been cut off at a sensible length.

If you have the tools, or can acquire them, check and tighten each threaded nut under the floor. If the axle U-bolts are not fitted with Nyloc self-locking nuts, double-nut the standard nuts as well.

In some cases you might need an offsider to be inside the van to hold the head of a bolt as you tighten the nut below the floor. Remember, most vans have timber floors, so don’t tighten down the nuts so much that they bite up into the wood. They should have a flat washer under the nut to limit damage. Once you’re satisfied that the nuts are neatly firmed, spin another nut on so that all bolts are double-nutted. Then hold the first nut, and tighten the second nut quite hard up against the first one. Done properly, they will not come undone without effort, and they won’t work loose by themselves. Once this is done, spray every still-exposed bolt liberally with Lanotec or fish oil or other strong rust preventative, and every few months repeat the spraying. Now you’ve added safety, security and a little bit of value to your caravan. Prevention is not only better than cure, it’s almost always cheaper.

To carry a ladder under the van floor is a relatively simple thing, but the key need is enough clear length. The empty space below most van chassis can be used. There is almost no cost to carrying a ladder, apart from the original cost, and the material and effort to fit and secure it below the van floor. In a van around 18 ft long, water tanks are often fitted ahead of the axles. With enough space behind the tanks, or perhaps alongside them, it just requires three or four U-shaped laddersized brackets, screwed or bolted in to the underside of your frame members, to hold the ladder in place close up under the cross rails on the chassis frame when it is slid into place.

For useful length, buy a normal aluminium ladder with about ten rungs, which is usually enough to get from the ground up to the full-height van roof. Alternatively, a 12 ft two-part sliding ladder can be separated and carried in two shorter parts. It’s quite surprising, if you have such a ladder, how many people will want to borrow it to wash the top of their van or to fix up their TV antenna.

Handbrake

On vans the handbrake operating lever is normally situated close to the front of the A-bar, just behind the coupling. When you’re underneath the safely-chocked van as part of the regular maintenance, let the handbrake off, so that you can examine the handbrake cable. These wire cables, usually in one long length, run back from the handbrake lever pulley to the small brake-operating levers in the wheels on each side of the van, through guides. In many vans those cable guides are simply made from a link of metal chain, and chain is normally hardened metal.

In time, from chafing and rubbing against the harder chain links, vibration noticeably wears the steel wire cable, which in most cases is only soft clothesline wire. If you find obvious wear the cable is easy to re-thread and is not expensive to replace.

The handbrake cable usually flops around loosely when not in use. If it runs parallel with or close to gas piping, which is fairly common along the inside of the chassis rails, check that the cable has not chafed the normal copper gas line. Some gas lines are now the new approved type, smaller diameter tough plastic lines but they can still chafe. Try to minimise any chance the handbrake cable can rub against or chafe any gas line or electrical wiring.

Chassis rust

Most manufacturers will supply a chassis galvanised to order, hot-dipped or colddipped. Many older van chassis seem to be painted black, but any ordinary paint covers rust and rust can destroy your van, quite apart from destroying any resale value. There are now electronic devices available which use sacrificial anodes, similar to those used on ships. An electric current is run through the metal parts of your van and rust, instead of attacking the van sub-frame, attacks the sacrificial plate.

Aluminium is not affected by rust. It does corrode away after a long time, and electronic rust prevention doesn’t really benefit aluminium sidings or aluminium framing. However, almost every van is built on a steel chassis and steel most certainly rusts. Rust proofing a van chassis on a long-term basis to keep value and safety in a van can be a difficult decision. Van suppliers want to sell you a van, and will tell you what you want to hear in order to do this. If you opt for rust proofing, don’t just accept the van supplier’s advice at face value. Do some research into which rust proofing method is the best.

The softer wire cable wears against the much harder chain link guides, and the wear is not always visible without a close look.

There are several good prevention methods available. Any 4WD magazine will have advertisements for various electronic rust prevention systems. It may be a very good proposition to fit one of these systems, if you take your van to areas where there is salt in the air, like anywhere along the coast. If your van is on-site long-term in a wet environment where water can attack metal parts, then such a thing could be very good value. Remember that salt water is not the only rust-making agent. Cow manure, artesian water, coal-mining areas and mineral salt pans may be present where off-road trailers travel.

For a quick and easy way to minimise rust opportunity, in some cases you can spray the underside of your tow vehicle thoroughly with fish oil, and of course do the same thing to the van. Any metal part can be sprayed with fish oil and apparently it won’t hurt any part of a vehicle. It’s sometimes hard to get off afterwards if you get it on your paintwork, but it is good rust prevention for a short time. Ignore the dull paintwork, just spray it on and leave it there. If it must be removed, high pressure hot water or steam cleaners will thoroughly remove fish oil from the underside of your tow vehicle or caravan.

Another good product that will help prevent rust occurring and tend to prevent any further rust is a lanolin based spray. Lanotec is one. It’s very useful because it penetrates rust and makes a good clean skin, typically on an A-bar where stone chips abrade the surface.

Stone-guards, jacks, sullage hose

Stoneguards

If you’re going to tow a van along gravel roads it’s well worth considering fitting some type of van stone-guard or frontal protection. Off-road tyres normally have considerable tread-grip patterns. As you travel forward, the rotating tyre picks up and flicks out gravel and stones behind. Unless they are deflected somewhere else, these stones generally hit the front of the van or trailer where they can ricochet, often forward again. Next stop is the rear of the tow vehicle. I’ve seen many 4WDs with back doors which look like they have been partly sandblasted, and a number with damaged or broken back windows, all due to flicked-up and ricocheting stones. These can vary from sand particle size to fist size. Preventing or minimising this damage just takes a bit of thought.

This well-made stone-guard should deflect downward any stones flicked up by vehicle tyres, protecting the front of the van very well.

A hard metal front to the van, such as alloy checkerplate for example, will almost certainly deflect any stone which hits it. Stones won’t dent the front of the van much, if at all. However, if the deflection angle is not right, stones could be ricocheted up into the back doors and windows of your 4WD tow vehicle or across the back end of an AWD or sedan’s boot.

It’s probably better to have a softer type of stone protection. One example is a fabric cross-frame stone-guard, mounted on the trailer A-bar. These generally angle slightly forward at the top, and cover the full frontal width of the van or trailer. Most sit up a bit higher than gas bottles mounted on the A-bar. Many are just made of shadecloth on a pipe frame, and act a bit like a tennis racquet, absorbing a lot of the flicked-up stone’s energy. Because it’s facing downwards, the screen normally deflects the gravel back onto the ground.

While you probably won’t need to replace the metal checkerplate, you’re quite likely to have to replace the fabric shadecloth, or whatever material your flexible stone deflector is made from. When you do, feel good and remember that the deflector material probably died saving your trailer and the vehicle’s rear end glass and paint.

As another viable alternative to a fitted stone-guard there is a spray-on material I’ve seen called Rhino, or similar. It is used as a covering in utility trays, so that whatever is tossed in the ute tub doesn’t cause damage. The material seems to be a very resilient combination rubber/plastic, and adhesion is proven to be excellent. Because the stuff is quite inert, any stone which hits it quickly loses its energy and falls to the ground. It’s repairable with silicon, can be sprayed on quite thickly and at least it does come in several useful colours apart from black.

This idea could be well worth investigating if you’re ordering a new van, or about to restore an old one. Check whether Rhino Linings or a similar company can spray the front of your van with their material, and what kind of lifetime to expect from the product. As a van update, it wouldn’t be too difficult to remove the vinyl pleating found on the front of most vans, clean off the contact adhesive with some efficient goo remover to give proper adhesion preparation, and get the van’s frontal areas sprayed with Rhino or similar. Whilst I haven’t yet done our van, I did enquire about pricing, and I thought it was very reasonable. It seems a very good concept.

If you have a metal front already fitted on your van and you’ve noticed that stones do get flicked up, there are rear window protection stick-on devices available for the tow vehicle. A lot of good caravan accessory places stock them. One effective type is a window-shaped polycarbonate sheet, held just clear of each back window on shock absorbing suction cups, to absorb the impact and redirect any stones which might be flicked up onto them from the front of the van.

As a first-line defence against stones flicking up, fitting a stone-guard to the tow vehicle makes good sense. Experiments have shown that the closer to the rear of your tow vehicle your stone-guard, sweeper or mud-deflector, is placed, the more effectively it will work. The further away from the stone being thrown up by the tyre contact patch with the road, the better for the stone-guard.

On a BJ40 Toyota diesel quite a few years ago we tried an experiment by hanging a sheet of fabric belting, very heavy, quite inert, and really tough, fully across the back below the bumper bar. It was actually a sweeper, and was very effective. It just touched the ground when stationary, and prevented virtually every stone from flicking up onto the trailer. What it also did was cause approximately one mile per gallon increase in fuel usage! When we cut it into three pieces, and used only the outer two, we recovered back about half a mile per gallon. Flat sheets of fabric belting or strong insertion rubber do quite a good stone protection job, but they also present like a sail to the wind.

On my Patrol diesel, I made a stone sweeper to trail behind each back wheel, and it proved very effective. The tubular plastic material came from Clark Rubber, a type of floor mat used commonly in hotels and wet-area places. It was made from heat-welded vertical and horizontal ribs about 8 mm in diameter. The stone-guard material looked like a fairly coarse mesh. You could poke your little finger through each of the holes between the vertical and the horizontal, and the sweepers didn’t seem to be blown about very much by the wind, so they just did their job of hanging down and deflecting stones.

What made the idea so effective was that the vertical ribs hung facing the front of the truck, with the horizontal ribs across the rear. By first playing in mud and putting the horizontal bars to the front, I found the mud just collected, built up and baked in place. By reversing the vertical ribs to the front, there seemed to be nothing stopping the mud sliding down and falling off, which it certainly did, and very easily. Perhaps if you plan to put stone deflectors on the back of your vehicle, you could look at that type of material rather than a conventional solid mudflap.

The stone-guard is mounted back as far as possible, and the plastic mesh does not retain mud.

Jacks

We’ve come across people with a flat tyre on a single axle caravan, and they haven’t even had a wheel jack. Make sure you do have all the parts that you might practically need. This group had a wheel brace, correct to undo the wheel nuts, but no jack. The wind-up jack for the Falcon sedan tow vehicle was not sufficient or suitable to jack up their caravan axle. Don’t make that mistake. Try out your jack to be sure it will do the job. Better still, get one of those great hydraulic jacks. To work properly in this case, the van must have the correct Trail-A-Mate brackets welded onto the chassis, and in the right place. These jacks double as the best jockey wheel, as well.

This Trail-A-Mate hydraulic jack has the roller-wheel fitted to act as a normal jockey-wheel, and it’s also fitted with the jacking bracket used in lifting the van for wheel removal, via the matching chassis brackets.

To help spread the load down on the jockey wheel over a bigger area, as it supports the down-weight at the front of the van, a footplate needs to be made of tough material. The toughest plywood is known as ‘forming ply’. This almost unbreakable and waterproof material is normally used as a support to form concrete floors in buildings. A few pieces cut about 300 mm square, made from 19 mm plywood, can be really handy as foot-plates for putting under jockey wheels and corner jacks.

Plastic is relatively easy to mould and the good result, for caravanners, is footplates specifically made to fit under most corner jack feet on caravans, and footplates shaped to fit under jockey wheels. They seem to be tough and strong, and several models have small moats formed in them, into which you can put water to keep the unwanted ants away. Also available in tough plastic are several types and sizes of wedges and jacking plates. These, which will lock or stack together under the tyres, will allow you to lift and level up the van if it’s tilted out of level on an uneven site.

The underfloor sink outlet has a hoseclamped length of alloy pipe, and the removable sullage pipe is just pushed a short distance onto this pipe.

Sullage hose

To join two lengths of sullage pipe, in most cases van accessory shops want to sell you a proper little screw coupling with a barbed fitting and hose clamps. If you have standard-type sullage pipes and want to make a simple joiner for two lengths, you can usually find a piece of plastic or aluminium pipe with an outside diameter close to 27 mm. It needs to be about 100 mm long. This will be a good tight fit when forced permanently about 50 mm into the end of one sullage pipe.

Dipping the hose end into very hot water to soften it, or using WD40 or similar lubricant, will help the hard pipe slide into the flexible hose. Filing a long tapered or leading edge on the exposed pipe end will help start the other hose onto the pipe. Joining them is just a matter of wedging the other hose end a few millimetres onto the pipe. It won’t leak, weep or smell at the join. A little bit of effort, maybe in a slight twisting motion, might be needed to pull the two hoses apart.

Rear bumper bar, bikes, tent pegs, rubber bands

Rear bumper bar

By later adding two heavy spare wheels to the rear bumper bar, apart from the leverage they will exert on the bar, which may not be designed for such weight, you have changed the van from its designed balance point. Across the full width at the rear of our van I’ve fitted a stainless steel box. It is about 400 mm high and 250 mm deep, and its main purpose is to carry the Oztent and other long items. In length the tent doesn’t practically fit on the tow vehicle roof rack for everyday storage, but fortunately it fits nicely across the back of the caravan. Our van’s rear bumper bar is made specifically to carry extra weight, so I could add many more kilograms in a bigger box if needed.

To be certain of van balance I rechecked the coupling down-weight and at 230 kg, it is very acceptable, and just a slight increase since I added another spare tyre into the van’s boot. At present the box only carries the tent, fishing rods, annexe poles and a few other longer and more awkward items for the van; the smaller top-box holds van-washing materials and other small items, and they have no apparent effect on van handling. While these items weigh only a few kilograms, they can be awkward things to carry, and the box neatly solves this problem.

Apart from leverage on the bar itself there is a considerable amount of weight hanging well out the back of this van.

Bikes

If you plan to carry bikes on your caravan rear bumper bar check with the manufacturer or supplier to be certain that the mountings are actually designed to be strong enough to carry any form of weight. Some van bumpers can take a small knock but are not really intended to be strong enough to carry any weight, being made for visual appeal only. Many rear bars are made to carry a single spare wheel but are often not strong enough to carry two wheels.

Deciding to add any degree of weight to either end of your mass-produced caravan can be unwise without checking if what you plan is a practical and sensible idea.

When carrying bikes on the rear of your caravan, check to make sure that wheels or other bike parts do not obscure any stop lights, tail-lights or blinkers. Most states now require an official, and additional, number plate to be visibly fitted to the end of a bike rack, for example, one of those hockey-stick shaped bike racks. By law, you are not permitted to obscure any number plate. Maybe more importantly, bike parts can block following traffic’s view of blinkers and stop lights. Don’t let someone behind you perhaps damage your van through travelling too close and then claiming that he didn’t see your stop lights or blinkers. Don’t obscure your van’s rear lights.

This lightly-built two-arm rear bar is not really intended to carry any more weight than the present single centrally-located spare wheel.

Tent pegs

There are several different types of tent pegs, the most common being the bent hooked-end hammer-in type. Special ones are made with a screw thread or disc on them for winding into loose sand dunes or desert areas. Some are very tough and can be driven into the harder soils found inland. If you buy cheap metal pegs, expect them to bend when being driven in and to rapidly rust. Tough plastic pegs work well, but can become brittle and snap after some weather exposure.

We needed some tent pegs, and not the thin wire or cheap galvanised 6 mm diameter steel found at many camping stores. In salty coastal soil they rust rapidly, and double in size from corrosion and dirt. Thinking sideways, we found a place selling stainless steel. The price for a 6 m length was not much more than buying 15 heavy-duty mild-steel pegs at a good camping store. With bolt-cutters we docked the stainless steel into 300 mm lengths, and then cut each bit into a 260 mm and a 40 mm piece. In a vice I bent the 40 mm bit in the middle at 45 degrees. With a 9 inch angle-grinder, all the edges were mitred smooth, then I ground a good long tapered point on what became the bottom of each 260 mm length.

To finish these tent pegs was quick, simply by laying the bent bit beside the longer piece, flush and parallel at the top, and welding it in place. That way the 45-degree bit sticks out, 20 mm down the shaft, and makes a hook to anchor the tarp or spring or guy rope. It gives a strong flat double-size end to hit cleanly with a good hammer, and will drive into even the hardest soils. True, it can’t be driven flush with the soil easily, but then again it comes out so well, once you learn the trick of giving it one sharp hit sideways. It is definitely one of my better ideas!

I’ve put a bit of very visible bright pink plastic shrink-tube on the top so toes don’t get stubbed, and also engraved my driver’s licence number in big letters in the same place on all of them just to make it less likely they will get knocked off.

It’s a very sensible idea to make tent pegs highly visible, so that nearby campers don’t kick them out, run over them with a vehicle or hurt themselves. There are lots of different ideas, but perhaps the cheapest is to use a plastic shopping bag tied around the tent peg to flutter in the breeze. At least that way people know the tent peg is there. The best example we’ve seen was made of bright fluoro-orange polyplastic material, stitched round like a small cone, and slid down the guy rope to effectively cover and highlight each tent peg. Another inventive type was made from a plastic milk bottle, with the bottom cut out of it on an angle. The guy rope was fed through the hole in the neck, and the milk bottle body was used to cover up the tent peg.

My set of stainless steel tent pegs don’t bend, drive easily and straight into the hardest ground, and pull out quickly by hand.

Rubber bands

As a traveller, rubber bands can be one of the handiest items to have and I’ve found it really has paid off to keep a few short lengths of various size inner tube stored away. You can cut different sizes yourself, from truck tubes, car tubes, mountain bike tubes, racing bike tubes and so on. First, cut them into a short useful length, say 600 mm, wash them clean and put Mr Sheen or similar polish on the rubber. It seems to last quite a while if you do that. What can you do with the rubber? Here’s a few things you could do to recycle this useful stuff.

Cut a disc from a piece of car tube or thicker truck tube to make a throw-away hand basin or laundry sink plug, as the number of van parks without sink plugs is legend. Rubber bands wrapped or twisted around things stop just about any rattles.

Use one to hold on a broken headlight cover, or stop a gear lever vibrating. Group all the common spanners together in your tool kit and rubber band them to stop rattling. Put a length of bicycle tube on your handbrake lever as a cover, or on a screwdriver handle to get a bit of extra grip. Put it around a fishing rod handle.

Fit some tubing around an aerosol can, such as WD40 or similar, to protect it and stop it rattling. The same can apply to a six-pack of VB cans. Use a thin band cut from a car tube as a book-mark, or to help keep the glass stove lid tensioned down and shut. You can stretch a strong rubber band around a rolled-up coil of 240V power cable to keep it neat, so that it stores easily.

A small piece will fit around the back of the microphone holder button to stop the rattle when you put the mic back in the holder on the vehicle dash. Thread the rubber band through an eyelet in a shadecloth sunscreen wall to keep tension on it when you peg it down. Cover a padlock with several thicknesses of tube to stop it chattering against other metal.

To make another one if the first one breaks or perishes, all that’s needed is a pair of scissors. There are probably several hundred other uses you could easily find for those very handy, no-cost tube rubber bands.

Hints

As a general health and safety rule, don’t use any material after its use-by date if you can avoid it. As an exception, sometimes you can buy 35 mm film that is a few months past its use-by date. In most cases we’ve found that to be okay. Keep unused 35 mm film in the fridge, in the door, but don’t let it freeze. Before use, leave it out at ambient temperature for a few hours to eliminate condensation.

With any pop-top van check to see you have no mildew or mould around the fabric, that all the window zippers slide smoothly and that you can put the roof up easily. Exit-mould works well on our van awning. Lanotec spray doesn’t seem to harm or stain polycanvas material and lubricates most things.

If your van has the type of handbrake where the ratchet pawl could flick back over onto the ratchet, for example if the van hits a pothole and bounces around, remember to tie the pawl down. Alternatively, tighten the bolt holding the pawl in place so that it does not move easily.

If you can’t get a good lather for a wash in bore water, just use hair shampoo. Most quality shampoos are a good substitute for soap, and will lather in almost any kind of water.

Do you have a generator? Have you closed it down properly, checked the fuel is turned off and put it and all its parts away? If you’ve been using it and the exhaust is still hot, is it stored safely so the exhaust won’t melt plastic or possibly cause fire?

I have seen a gas HWS exhaust fitted within just a few inches of where the loose fabric slide-in annexe wall was fitted in a sail-track. There is an important safety point to be aware of with every hot-water service exhaust. Make sure that there is no floppy tent fabric, or annexe wall, anywhere near where it could contact an exhaust and melt or burn.

Not all vans have storm anchor points welded to the chassis, but some do have these strong metal loops welded on the underside. With a strong turnbuckle and length of chain linked to a solid ground anchor, it’s simple to chain down your van if, for example, there’s a strong wind warning on the northern coasts.

Have you looped and fastened your security straps around the top of each awning leg and through each of the mounting brackets? To secure the legs in place when the awning is rolled in against the van for travelling, use those very tough woven nylon straps from bicycle pedal toe clips.

As vehicles travel forward for almost their entire lifetime, a brake controller is designed to operate properly in a forward direction, and so are the drum brakes themselves. Remember that braking reaction rolling backwards down a hill may not be very effective.

Most van windows tend to stick a bit on opening, especially those Camec alloyframed dark polycarbonate windows, if you don’t open them for a few weeks. Put a small amount of Lanotec on a cloth and gently rub it on the complete rubber seal inside the window where it meets up against the metal frame. It will always seal and even better, it will separate open much more easily.

As an alternative to the plastic doorstepstool, consider using a wooden box. It can be made to fit inside the doorstep well, if your van has one, and can do several jobs. It can be a regular doorstep below the van door, and when travelling it can store some of the things usually needed when setting up the van at a new site. On a smooth or wet concrete pad sometimes a wooden box will slip and slide a little. A few beads of silicon rubber stuck underneath can often fix the sliding problem.

When storing your van, use Armorall or similar protectant, and give the tyre sidewalls a thorough coating of weather protection. Do the insides, which get forgotten, and the outsides, which are exposed to the weather elements. Armorall seems to be quite a good product for helping to stop tyre sidewalls from perishing.

In my book, 4WD Survival Guide, I’ve gone into some detail about steel versus alloy wheels. For vans in general, where they are not a driven wheel, apart from the unsprung weight of the actual wheel, and appearance, there’s probably not much difference between steel rims and alloy rims.

If your van has a hinged drop-down cover over the front or rear windows make sure the click-in bottom catches are properly shut and the struts nipped up, particularly for the front one. Air pressure under these can cause them to pop open when on the move and if this happens they will usually do some damage, maybe before breaking off.

Apart from the unsprung weight of the actual wheel, and personal cosmetic appeal on vans, there’s little difference in efficiency between steel rims and alloy rims.

On a pop-top van there’s usually a spot to put the awning safety strap through. If not, a metal pipe saddle, or similar, firmly fixed to the metal top at each end of the awning roller will make a good anchor point.

If your van has a hot-water service with an external flue, which hasn’t been used for some time, take a careful look that wasps or other insects haven’t nested in it, or in any other fittings if they are exposed outside the van or camper.

All the things which have gone rusty from your previous trip should get a good dose of Lanotec or other rust treatment to free them up and help them work properly. Spray plenty on, leave a few minutes and wipe off the excess with a rag. Keep the rag to wipe your tools with.

The one paint that seems reliable and that will usually stay on a van A-bar is hammer-tone finish. On an A-bar where stone chips are usual, hammertone paint lasts well and can be easily repaired. It can be messy to put on with a brush, and it really sticks to skin and clothing. A good alternative is known as cold-galvanising paint. This stuff is the worst there is to paint on with a brush, but it is very tough, if you like the dull finish it gives. It has good rust-inhibiting benefits, and repairs easily. Both paints are available in silver shades.

Brakes might grab the first few times they are used, if they have been stored for some time, due to rust on the inside of the brake drums and the electric brake magnets dragging around the machined drum inside surface.

Unless you are quite mechanical and have all the necessary tools, it’s always best to take your van to a proper caravan maintenance business for a thorough safety service before you leave home and go travelling. Maintenance doesn’t cost, it pays.

Do a daily van brake test when first moving off. Be satisfied there is no one behind you, put the combination brakes on and make sure that they work.

Check gas bottles for condition, and that they are still within their use-by date, which is usually stamped on the collar as month/year. They can’t legally be refilled if the date has expired, but after being legally pressure-tested they can be refilled.

This useful chart details the correct way to carry small gas bottles in a vehicle.

1 Kidman Way (Jerilderie – Bourke)

Jerilderie

98    Darlington Point

36    Griffith

48    Goolgowi

61    Hillston

92    Mt Hope

51    Gilgunnia

109  Cobar

160  Bourke

Approx. distance: 655 km

2 Melbourne – Karumba

Melbourne

175  Shepparton

136  Jerilderie

240  Hillston

263  Cobar

129  Bourke

120  Barringun

118  Cunnamulla

283  Augathella

324  Barcaldine

108  Longreach

174  Winton

343  Cloncurry

372  Normanton

71    Karumba

Approx. distance: 2856 km

3 Katherine – Broome

Katherine

284  Timber Creek

170  Kununurra

313  Halls Creek

288  Fitzroy Crossing

256  Derby

188  Broome

Approx. distance: 1499 km

4 Perth – Port Hedland

Perth

430  Geraldton

165  Kalbarri

384  Monkey Mia

829  Onslow

309  Dampier

203  Port Hedland

Approx. distance: 2320 km

5 Port Hedland – Perth

Port Hedland

458  Newman

414  Meekatharra

336  Paynes Find

153  Wubin

269  Perth

Approx. distance: 1630 km

6 Perth – Kalgoorlie

Perth

182  Bunbury

190  Cape Leeuwin

378  Albany

476  Esperance

389  Kalgoorlie

Approx. distance: 1615 km

Commercial marina, Cairns, Qld.

Underground opal display and house, Coober Pedy, SA.

7 Ceduna – Kalgoorlie

Ceduna

294  Nullarbor Roadhouse

193  Eucla

518  Balladonia

192  Norseman

187  Kalgoorlie

Approx. distance: 1384 km

8 Cairns – Cooktown

Cairns

64    Mareeba

184  Lakeland

82    Cooktown

Approx. distance: 330 km

9 Cairns – Cape Tribulation

Cairns

71    Port Douglas

60    Daintree

40    Cape Tribulation

        (estimated, 4WD)

Approx. distance: 171 km

10 Cairns – Karumba

Cairns

100  Atherton

161  Mt Surprise

94    Georgetown

148  Croydon

153  Normanton

71    Karumba

Approx. distance: 727 km

11 Melbourne – Sydney via Highway 1

Melbourne

197  Sale

235  Cann River

133  Merimbula

178  Batemans Bay

119  Nowra

75    Wollongong

78    Sydney

Approx. distance: 1015 km

12 Canberra – Eden

Canberra

105  Cooma

110  Bega

50    Eden

Approx. distance: 265 km

13 Adelaide – Darwin via Stuart Highway

Adelaide

309  Port Augusta

179  Woomera

369  Coober Pedy

232  Marla

182  Kulgera

76    Erldunda

199  Alice Springs

284  Barrow Creek

578  Dunmarra Roadhouse

198  Mataranka Turn-off

113  Katherine

91    Pine Creek

142  Darwin

Approx. distance: 2952 km

14 Adelaide – Brisbane

Adelaide

317  Yunta

197  Broken Hill

195  Wilcannia

235  Louth

99    Bourke

230  Walgett

215  Moree

321  Warwick

161  Brisbane

Approx. distance: 1970 km

15 Adelaide – Melbourne

Adelaide

247  Peterborough

271  Broken Hill

261  Wentworth

333  Hay

267  Wagga Wagga

125  Albury

316  Melbourne

Approx. distance: 1820 km

16 Adelaide roundtrip

Adelaide

309  Port Augusta

337  Port Lincoln

399  Ceduna

464  Port Augusta

309  Adelaide

Approx. distance: 1818 km

17 Dalby roundtrip

Dalby

276  Roma

268  Charleville

209  Quilpie

287  Noccundra

138  Thargomindah

195  Cunnamulla

294  St George

302  Dalby

Approx. distance: 1969 km

18 Townsville – Alice Springs

Townsville

125  Charters Towers

244  Hughenden

395  Cloncurry

117  Mount Isa

188  Camooweal

260  Barkly Roadhouse

188  Three Ways

        Roadhouse

26    Tennant Creek

504  Alice Springs

Approx. distance: 2047 km

19 Alice Springs – Adelaide

Alice Springs

222  Kulgera

414  Coober Pedy

369  Woomera

179  Port Augusta

309  Adelaide

Approx. distance: 1493 km

20 Mount Isa – Rockhampton

Mount Isa

297  Boulia

356  Winton

177  Longreach

413  Emerald

268  Rockhampton

Approx. distance: 1511 km

Coconut collection, Townsville, Qld.

21 Kalgoorlie – Perth

Kalgoorlie

187  Norseman

202  Esperance

64    Cape Le Grand

486  Bremer Bay

180  Albany

81    Stirling Range NP

202  Walpole

129  Pemberton

126  Augusta

128  Busselton

54    Bunbury

97    Mandurah

75    Perth

Approx. distance: 2011 km

22 Port Hedland – Geraldton

Port Hedland

391  Tom Price/

        Karijini NP

80    Paraburdoo

268  Nanutarra Roadhouse

280  Exmouth

130  Cape Range NP/

        Ningaloo

80    Coral Bay

241  Carnarvon

318  Denham

23    Monkey Mia

384  Kalbarri

204  Geraldton

Approx. distance: 2399 km

23 Melbourne – Wilsons Promontory – Melbourne

Melbourne

135  Wonthaggi

220  Tidal River/

        Wilsons Promontory

111  Yarram

73    Sale

216  Melbourne

Approx. distance: 755 km

24 Melbourne – Hotham – Melbourne

Melbourne

282  Bairnsdale

121  Omeo

55    Hotham Heights

54    Bright

104  Albury

49    Rutherglen

152  Shepparton

175  Melbourne

Approx. distance: 992 km

25 Melbourne – Alexandra – Melbourne

Melbourne

66    Healesville

77    Eildon

26    Alexandra

30    Yea

19    Murrindindi

78    Yarra Glen

55    Melbourne

Approx. distance: 351 km

See inset map on p. 227

26 Melbourne – Mildura -Melbourne

Melbourne

316  Albury

245  Echuca

158  Swan Hill

133  Robinvale

83    Mildura

103  Ouyen

39    Speed

173  Horsham

130  Hamilton

291  Melbourne

Approx. distance: 1671 km

27 Melbourne – Hay – Melbourne

Melbourne

175  Shepparton

70    Echuca

80    Deniliquin

121  Hay

132  Balranald

78    Robinvale

83    Mildura

404  Bendigo

141  Melbourne

Approx. distance: 1284 km

28 Devonport roundtrip

Devonport

100  Launceston

195  Hobart

184  Bicheno

256  Devonport

        (350 alt.)

Approx. distance: 735 km (829 alt.)

PS Pevensey turning, Murray River, Echuca, Vic.

Appendix A: 4WD Survival Guide extract

Appendix B: Autogas

Appendix C: Different types of vans

Appendix D: Unit conversions

Appendix E: Pre-trip checklist

Appendix F: Stretching

Appendix G: First aid

The Vehicle

Light-duty 4WD

There is much confusing data about 4WD vehicles. I feel we should briefly look at them, although apart from this mention, Sports Utility Vehicles [SUVs] and ‘Crossover’ vehicles are not covered in detail in this book. On one side of the coin we have the ‘real’ 4WD, the basis of this book. On the other side we find similar vehicles with new technology, commonly called SUVs and some are known as ‘Crossover’ vehicles.

Gone are the days of the old threespeed gearbox, and most of the four-speed as well. Welcome to Tipshifts, six-speed automatics, and five-speed manual gearboxes.

Some SUVs do have permanent 4WD. Some drive mostly via the front two wheels. Some have ‘all-wheel-drive’, where the percentage of front/rear drive ratio changes depending ‘on demand’, determined by how the on-board computer senses the road conditions

However, all come with one high-range of gears, not really suitable for off-road activities. Others have high-range only, but optional 4WD. None of them has a dual-range transmission. Many have automatic operation to lock front hubs in when 4WD is selected. Doubtless, they have improved their ‘on-road’ ability, with the safety of increased traction, and in some cases better driver vision from higher seating positions.

Off-road limitations

On most of the new AWD vehicles there are built-in off-road limiters. They include wheels and tyres not designed and not suitable for off-road use, limited ground clearances with minimal approach and departure clearances, suspension on a body platform simply not designed to cope with whatever off-road conditions might occur, paint finishes which would be prohibitive to touch-up — these and many other things contribute to making the majority of these SUVs unsuitable for off-road work.

With their trend towards ‘image’ and car-like handling and driving, all SUVs and Crossover vehicles are compromised, some in major ways, for serious off-road work. Nonetheless, amazing progress has been made in the world of mechanical and technological things. Clearly, for many drivers these SUVs with their technical benefits and abilities satisfy their present needs.

Outlander is one of the newer SUVs.

The Electronic Wizard can now give you traction control, hill descent control, antilock braking control, active suspension control, hill ascent control, wheelspin control and other kinds of vehicle technological ‘control’ wizardry. Many of the top-class 4WDs have accepted the flow-on of some of this development.

Through technology and mechanical design, current SUV and Crossover AWD vehicles are designed to get you up to the ski-field safely and easily, and through the typical gravel and muddy tracks into the Pony Club. Many would tow your ski-boat back up the steep boat-ramp well. Apart from being effective commuters and people-movers, I believe their proper purpose in life may well include a benefit not yet looked at in detail in this book — their on-road towing abilities, as a serious player in the growing world of ‘around Australia by road’ explorers.

images Terms

TRACK TERMS;
UNIMPROVED
BASIC
ROUGH
POORLY PREPARED
NOT MAINTAINED
OUTBACK
DETERIORATED
NATURAL
UNSURFACED
UNFORMED

Vehicle choice

Choice of vehicle can be quite complex. The same manufacturer may provide several combinations of the same vehicle. One model can be available in high-rangeonly permanent two-wheel drive, intended primarily for on-road driving, while the other has selectable 4WD and low-range for hard off-road work.

4WD magazines are usually very up-todate, and can provide intending 4WD drivers with current and well-considered information. From their figures, below is a compilation of 4WD, SUV and Crossover vehicles available for sale about mid-2004. Being fully aware of, and current with, this data should be an important part of your consideration if you are in the market for a 4WD of any type.

To show just some of the differences of vehicles included in this 4WD world, I broke them into these basic categories:

A: Part-time 4WD — Normally the rear two wheels driving, with the front two also available when selected.

B: Full-time 4WD — All four wheels driving permanently and equally.

C: All-Wheel-Drive — Four wheels driving, with the front/rear drive ratio dependent on road conditions as determined by an on-board computer.

D: Single-range — Gearboxes, manual or automatic, with only one set of five high-range forward gears.

E: Dual-range — Gearboxes, manual or automatic, using two sets of selectable gears — five normal high-range gears plus five more low-range gears.

Information was provided on a combination of 58 makes and models. Of these, 24 were part-time 4WDs, where the option to select a low-range gearbox ratio was offered, with very few exceptions. There were 25 classed as full-time 4WDs, but in some cases these were full-time without the low-range transmission option. Nine had ‘on-demand’ or AWD, in that they drove primarily with one set of wheels with part or no drive effort through the other axle, but 4WD was available on demand via the less-driven axle, as the sensor-driven computer required. There was no low-range ability on 22 of the 58, so 36 vehicles listed had low-range gearboxes.

Some had all the electronic bells and whistles; some were simple, strong and effective workhorses. You really do need to be well aware of what you want to achieve, before you get too far into this fast-growing market.

The Ford Territory is another SUV.

images Terms

SOME ‘OFF-ROAD’ CONDITIONS HANDLED MUCH BETTER IN 4WD;
SANDY
WET
MUDDY
SIDE-SLOPES
STEEP UP
STEEP DOWN
ROCKY
BOGGY
GREASY
LOOSE
GRAVEL
GRASSY
SNOW
PADDOCKS
SHALE
ICY
ROUGH
UNEVEN

Heavy-duty 4WD

To return to this book’s purpose, one thing that hasn’t changed since the mid-1990s is the ‘off-road’ environment in which many of us drive our 4WDs. I wrote this book for the person who likes driving a ‘real’ 4WD. My definition of a 4WD, and what I originally based this book on, is the common understanding of a ‘go-anywhere’ vehicle. It drives normally via two wheels, usually the rear two, when driving on good roads. It gives the driver the ability to select an additional two drive wheels into the drive system when needed. Through technical development many first-class 4WDs now have all four wheels permanently driving.

A 4WD has the ability to lock the drive chain solidly so that all four wheels will drive equally, regardless of terrain. It has sufficient leverage through the low range gear reduction to traverse any terrain where it can gain traction.

Perhaps a 4WD’s most important benefit is to be able to go through the worst mud, the softest sand, the deepest water, the steepest hills up or down, and to give the driver an inherent sense of ability and safety, of knowledge that says ‘If you can do it, I will get you there.’ In general, only a real 4WD can do that.

What is a 4WD?

A simple but accurate description of a ‘real’ 4WD vehicle is ‘an effective means of getting further into the mud before getting bogged.’ To some people, a 4WD is mainly something to hang accessories on. Many owners add an electric winch, dual fuel tanks, driving lights, special seats, bullbar, roof rack, jerrycan holder, aftermarket suspension, wide tyres, CB radio, antennas, GPS unit, laptop computer and track-maps, extra battery, fridge and air conditioning. Perhaps the only thing missing is an electronic-fundstransfer machine!

Prices start at around $30 000. A new price of $55 000 is average, $85 000 is common and some cost much more than $120 000. Standard fittings and extra trimmings vary greatly. They range from the very basic vinyl seats, plastic floormats and no radio, right through to plush carpeting, ten-speaker stereo, all-electric monsters with a bottle-cooler between the front seats and two air conditioners. It is easy to add more than $20 000 worth of accessories to a 4WD after purchase.

To some, a 4WD is simply a very expensive status symbol, and to others it is a security blanket. It is usually a safe vehicle, and will take a lot of mechanical punishment. In city traffic it provides a great view of other vehicles and the road ahead. Some 4WDs are like a truck to drive, with a heavy gearbox, large overall size and big tyres. The more luxurious vehicles, usually fitted with many extras, are not much harder to drive than a car. A 4WD can be the best freedom machine, a commuter, a sports or recreational machine, or a tough workhorse.

One of the things 4WDs have in common is the ability to go where a normal two-wheel drive car can’t, thanks to the extra two selectable driving wheels at the front, and extra ground clearance. One major difference between 2WD and 4WD vehicles is that a 4WD can also carry or pull loads, or travel through conditions impossible for any 2WD. A well-driven 2WD vehicle can go many of the places a 4WD can, but a 4WD can get to places many drivers simply wouldn’t think possible.

4WDs come in all shapes and sizes, from the small Suzuki soft-top to the very big dual-cab Ford V8 diesels. There is a wide range of body types. There are two-door wagons, with vertical or horizontal rear doors. The five-door station wagon configuration is common, and so are little soft-tops with two doors and a tailgate. Single-, extra-, and dualcabin versions with standard tray, or utility backs with canopies are common, as well as normal utes and flat tray work vehicles. 4WD engines may run on petrol, gas/petrol or diesel, and manual or automatic transmissions are available. They are made in Australia, England, Japan, Russia, America, Germany, India, Korea and many other countries.

As a towing vehicle they are virtually unbeatable, and legislation on tow vehicles and weights makes them in some cases the only suitable vehicles for towing large boats, caravans and trailers.

The usual 4WD mechanical drive system consists of a front motor driving the rear two wheels via a manual gearbox. A major difference from a normal car is the selective option to engage the front axle so it can drive the front two wheels and, along with the normal two at the rear, then provide 4WD. Many new 4WDs are full-time (permanent) 4WD.

The number of combinations of differentials and drive systems is considerable. There are automatic, four, five- and six-speed manual gearboxes. Quite a few early models are still going, many of these with three-speed gearboxes. For some manual vehicles overdrives are available. This makes the normal four forward gears into eight, or five speeds into ten, providing a gear for virtually any situation.

When to use 4WD

‘If you are in 4WD before you need it, you often won’t need it.’ When you realise the track is becoming hard going, in many cases if you are still in 2WD you’ve already dug a few unnecessary holes and left deep tyre tracks. Sharing the traction between all four wheels reduces wheelspin and skids considerably, therefore reducing environmental impact. A major advantage of being in 4WD is that the vehicle can do the job it is designed for, so the driver doesn’t have to do it.

Driving through water this deep requires planning and care. Never just plunge straight in.

In any kind of uncertain off-road travel, it is appropriate to use 4WD. ‘Off-road’ isn’t sometimes the best word to use in the recreational sense. The term off-road doesn’t only mean off any road, and driving across virgin land. It means not driving on normal, good quality hardsurfaced roads. Instead of off-road, you may come across a number of terms to describe a track.

Pulling a boat and trailer up the boat ramp or across the beach sand, or towing a horse float into the pony club yards are typical places to use the advantages of better traction in 4WD.

Towing a horse float into the pony club yard is a typical place to use a 4WD.

I once met a Japanese 4WD engineer who could not understand why Australians paid extra money to buy a 4WD, but then didn’t use the 4WD facility. In his opinion, whenever not driving on bitumen or hard-surfaced roads in a 4WD, you should be using it. With the front hubs already manually locked in, or engaging automatically with operation of the 4WD selector lever or push-button, it is just a matter of activating 4WD to have a much safer, better handling vehicle. There is very little intelligence or benefit in the ‘hero’ attitude occasionally heard on 4WD trips, which causes some drivers to make a point of staying in 2WD as long as possible, as if this makes them better drivers. This damages the environment needlessly and puts unnecessary strain on the vehicle and the driver.

The advantages of all four wheels driving on a vehicle are obvious. Top rally cars are almost all full-time 4WDs. Steering is much improved, even if it does feel heavier. Suspension is evened out front to rear and the vehicle feels more stable and positive to the driver. Front wheels pull and back wheels push, giving increased roadholding and safety. Slips and slides across the road and in corrugated corners on roads with poor surfaces are much reduced. SUVs and Crossover vehicles have made use of these 4WD traction benefits.

images Tip

Remember – take your vehicle out of 4WD when you are driving on bitumen road, unless it’s designed for fulltime 4WD use. If your vehicle is fitted with diff locks at the front/rear, don’t forget to drop them out as well.

When not to use 4WD

It can be a really expensive mistake to drive your vehicle very far in 4WD on a dry bitumen road unless it is specifically designed to be driven in 4WD all the time. Range Rovers, Discoverys, Lada Nivas, and various models of other makes including Toyota are some which are designed as full-time 4WDs. Some of the more recent vehicles offer the choice of full- or parttime 4WD, but at present most average 4WDs do not. Unless there is a differential of some kind in the transfer case, or somewhere else between the front and back axles to allow independence and variation in their speeds, do not use 4WD on dry hard-surfaced roads. The result is bad handling, usually excessive tyre wear and possibly mechanical damage.

Permanent 4WD vehicles usually have some method of locking the centre differential for difficult terrain. Do not drive one of these vehicles on hardsurfaced roads with the diff-lock engaged. If your 4WD has either front- or rear-axle diff-locks, the same rule applies.

Slopes can be measured in two different ways — either in degrees from horizontal, or percentage of gradient. Some drivers get these a bit mixed up. If you go forward 20 m, and at the same time rise vertically 20 m, the gradient is 20/20 = 1.0 = 100 per cent gradient. The climb angle for this gradient is 45 degrees. Specialised vehicles, with purpose-made tyres can climb a slope this steep in sand or dirt, but normal 4WDs cannot.

If you drive forward 50 m, but this time only rise 30 m, then mathematically that’s 30 ÷ 50 = 0.60 = 60 per cent gradient, or a 31 degrees climb angle. In loose soil, that’s somewhere near the limit of most 4WDs.

Climb angles

Even though 4WD improves traction enormously, there are quite a few things a 4WD cannot do. Climb angles are a mystery to many, and claims are made by some drivers about tackling virtually impossible angles. Traction is based on the friction occurring between the tyres and the ground. Worn tyres or loose surfaces reduce climbing ability. And less experienced drivers usually assess a slope as much steeper than it really is.

Crossing water

Driving into water without caution or checking first can be dangerous. This may not apply to a rim-deep bog puddle on a bush track, but a creek, or even a clay-pan with water on it requires caution. Unless you have seen a vehicle in front get through all right, or take notice of where it got into trouble, it pays every time to take a walk and check it out for yourself.

While you are out of the vehicle before a creek crossing, use the chance to check for obvious signs of trouble. A simple check of the vehicle takes only a minute or two, but might save you hours later.

Does the exhaust sound rattly, or is it hanging down more than normal?

Are any of the tyres noticeably down in pressure?

Is the roof-rack loose, or one of the vehicle’s lights broken?

Some points worth observing before entering water are as follows:

Is the water running fairly fast and deep, perhaps even enough to sweep a vehicle sideways off the crossing?

Is it better to try another crossing?

Will it be necessary to waterproof the engine bay?

Are there poles, stone cairns or other markers to indicate the safe track to follow?

Do you have another option?

It is not safe to go barging down into a creek with steep sides. Previous vehicles may have dug a hole trying to scramble up the bank. It is easy to get stuck or drop your bullbar nose-down into a hole at the dropoff or entry point. This can make it difficult to reach down to the winch cable fairlead in the bullbar, for the cable to pull yourself out. In situations like this it really does pay not to drive further than you have checked.

If you think your 4WD is going under water, kill the motor immediately. It is far easier to dry out an engine than to repair the damage to a cylinder. And never try to tow-start a vehicle if there’s a good chance water may have been taken into the motor. If it won’t key-start within the first second or two, quit. Take out the spark plugs or glow plugs, and check for water in the cylinders immediately. Do it right the first time, because the result of getting it wrong could be very expensive.

The strength and reliability of a real 4WD, and belief in your own 4WD knowledge and preparation, will help keep you safe in this remote and harsh environment.

images Advice

Drying out brakes promptly after a water crossing is important. Discs and pads will dry with just a few quick pumps on the footbrake, but to dry out the rear drum and shoes might take a few minutes.

Acceleration

Some of the newer turbocharged and intercooled common rail direct injection 4WDs have good acceleration, but the average 4WD certainly doesn’t. 4WDs will not out-accelerate a normal car. They are not designed to do this; but then again, a normal car would not make it up the Canning Stock Route. The old saying, ‘horses for courses’ is right. The new owner of a 4WD will have to learn to accept this and make allowances when overtaking and hill climbing. Most 4WDs respond better to a ‘steady as she goes’ approach rather than being driven like a sports car.

Petrol-fuelled 4WDs are renowned for high fuel consumption. Diesel engines generally offer better fuel consumption figures. Towing or carrying heavy loads makes fuel economy even worse. Many drivers with large six-cylinder engines are delighted to make over 15 mpg (5.3 km/L) on bitumen roads. Flogging any motor through heavy acceleration will only push up fuel consumption and lead to wear and tear. Learn to accept the 4WD characteristics, and just cruise steadily along the blacktop.

Maintenance

4WDs are tough vehicles. They are designed to be driven over very rough terrain, and to cope with the strains placed on them they are made bigger and stronger than normal cars. But, like any other machine, in order to get the best from them they have to be properly maintained, and driven within their limits. A 4WD will not last very long if it is neglected.

Regular visual checks for breakages, leaks, dents, parts missing and general soundness is a part of proper maintenance. Regular cleaning of filters, greasing when and where it is needed, and changing of fluids is also an essential part. Without this, a 4WD vehicle can’t sensibly be expected to keep going, delivering reliable service to its owner. Thirty-year-old 4WDs in sound condition are fairly common, an indication that with proper and careful maintenance these vehicles will give good service for a very long time.

Driving skills

Some things 4WDs will not do on their own are get through bogs, climb steep tracks, cross creeks, and traverse rough country. On sandhills many drivers find it necessary to get out and curse their vehicle for its inability to make it up and over the top. The same thing often happens on boggy, steep or slippery sections of track. The answer is sometimes very obvious to onlookers — for whatever reason, the driver’s approach or attitude to the obstacle was not correct, and it was not the fault of the vehicle at all. Sometimes, drivers won’t accept this fact.

A different approach angle, lower tyre pressures or a more suitable speed is often the answer. Perhaps it needed more speed for momentum, listening to helpful advice from a more experienced driver, a different gear to give better control, or simply a more careful look at the situation. Often a successful result is as easy as that. A 4WD cannot be expected to go very far on difficult terrain unless it is skilfully driven. Driving skill alone is not the total answer. Skill, combined with appreciation and knowledge, is what is needed, and this is best achieved through education and practice.

A 4WD cannot be expected to go very far on difficult terrain unless it is skilfully driven.

CASE STUDY

An expensive fire

A large 4WD vehicle belonging to a country fire brigade was driven along a bitumen road to fight a fire in a hay shed in a paddock. To get access to the burning hay 4WD was engaged at the road gate and the vehicle was driven across the grass paddock to the fire. On the return trip it was driven all the way back to town, still in 4WD.

One complete differential centre had to be replaced as a result of this incident, making it a very expensive attendance at the fire.

CASE STUDY

Crossing Cooper Creek

4WDs can encounter trouble in water unless they are properly prepared, competently and intelligently driven, and a careful check of the intended path is made. A bridge spans the water now, but in the 1980s a driver from the Innamincka side who wanted to see the ‘DIG’ tree had to do it the hard way, by driving through the creek.

The approach to the crossing at Cooper’s Creek on the way out to Burke’s grave was flat, and the creek entry on the Innamincka side was shallow and easy. Here the creek was about 150 m across and at the time the water looked to be generally just below tyre depth. The group assessment was that it was not running fast enough for concern, but we marked the water height for safety. After careful observation for a time we agreed that there had been no rise in water level, so a crossing was attempted.

Two vehicles went safely across ahead of me, so obviously the water flow rate wasn’t too strong, nor was it too deep to make a safe crossing. The path was clearly marked. From entry, I had to travel about 30 degrees upstream for 50 m to where a tall pole had been placed. Passing left of the pole, the track continued slightly downstream left, obviously going between two more poles. They were fairly close to the bank, where the exit was square but looked a bit boggy, with a low jump-up right on the edge.

I made the crossing in low range second gear (L2), which gave me plenty of power if needed but was slow enough not to cause a big bow wave, or make a floating boat out of my 4WD. The next driver was relatively new, and was given careful instructions on the approach side by an experienced driver. Everyone watched in total disbelief as this person’s diesel vehicle started to come almost straight across to us. About half-way the front dipped fully below water but came back out again. Within a few seconds the vehicle stopped dead and the rear windows on the wagon sank below water level. After some panic by the driver and help from other drivers the vehicle was winched out along with its load of watersoaked contents.

This was an expensive episode for a number of reasons. First, loss of time on the trip due to the driver not listening to more experienced drivers and not following directions on the safe path, marked with indicator poles. Second, time was spent on several attempts to tow-start the drowned vehicle after winching it out, without firstly checking the motor for water.

Much later, examination showed that water had been sucked in through the air intake, and had got above the pistons in several cylinders. Water isn’t compressible, so the motor could not turn over to start. The tow-starting efforts destroyed the clutch plates, although fortunately another vehicle was carrying a spare set. It took almost a day and a half back at camp, with ample tools but no facilities, to fit the replacement clutch.

Later on, not far south of Tibooburra on the way back, the same vehicle had serious mechanical trouble. A connecting rod, which joins the piston to the crankshaft, broke, and exited the side of the engine block with a big bang. It is probable the conrod had been badly stressed or bent during the crossing, or from the efforts to tow-start the vehicle with water in the engine.

Autogas

Finding LPG

When planning your trip you need to know that you will have access to LPG for the duration of your holiday. To map your trip to include gas stations or to simply locate the station closest to the town you are in, visit the LPG Association of Australia website (www.lpgaustralia.com.au).

The advantages of installing autogas equipment

Changing over from petrol or diesel to autogas will bring with it the following advantages:

clean, efficient combustion

amongst the lowest life - cycle greenhouse gas emissions of all commercially available fuels

insignificant levels of sulphur dioxide, the main cause of acid rain

extremely low particulates produced during combustion

less damage to soil and water – in cases of spills

it can also help to increase the life of your engine and reduce noise levels (compared with diesel).

The most frequently asked questions about autogas

Q. WHAT IS LPG?

Liquefied Petroleum Gas is the generic name for mixtures of hydrocarbons (mainly propane and butane). When these mixtures are lightly compressed (approx. 800 kPa or 120 psi), they change from a gaseous state to a liquid. LPG is colourless, odourless and heavier than air. A chemical is added to give it a smell like cabbage, so that even a very small leak can be easily detected. LPG burns readily in air and has an energy content similar to petrol, which makes it an excellent fuel for heating, cooking and for automotive use.

Q. IS THERE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LPG USED IN A CAR AND LPG USED IN A BARBECUE CYLINDER?

Yes. There are two differentgrades or blends of LPG and they are not interchangeable. Autogas is for automotive use only and will be a mixture of mainly propane and butane. The other blend is propane, which can only be used for decanting into small cylinders for caravans, barbecues and camping.

Q. WHERE DOES LPG COME FROM?

Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) can be obtained from several sources. Most commonly it is extracted directly from ‘wet’ natural gas. It can also be obtained as a by-product of the petroleum refining process.

Q. IS LPG SAFE?

Yes. LPG has been used safely in Australia for decades. The Australian Standards for LPG equipment, appliances and their installation and for storage and handling are among the world’s best. Every aspect of the LPG industry is covered by a National Code or Standard and similar state regulations. Autogas vehicles use 3 mm thick steel cylinders, whereas petrol tanks are plastic.

Q. IS LPG ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY?

Combustion of autogas results in less, and in some cases, none, of the following harmful emissions: carbon monoxide, methane, sulphur dioxide, low level ozone, unburnt hydrocarbons, particulates, air toxins (benzene’s etc.). LPG also reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

Because it uses a sealed system, LPG also reduces evaporative emissions of HC (hydrocarbons) to virtually zero – not only from the vehicle’s cylinder but also during refuelling, transport and handling of the fuel.

Q. SHOULD CONVERSIONS BE DUAL FUEL OR GAS ONLY?

The choice is ultimately yours. The latest engine management systems lend themselves well to dual fuel operation giving similar engine performance whether driven in LPG mode or petrol mode. The new unleaded petrol fuel injected engines ensure that there is no loss of performance when they are powered by either petrol or gas.

Q. WHEN A VEHICLE IS CONVERTED IS MUCH OF THE MANUFACTURER’S EQUIPMENT ALTERED?

A vehicle converted to operate on LPG must conform to strict Australian Standards and Australian Design Rules. This means LPG components must be fitted to complement the original equipment fitted to the vehicle. Manufacturers such as Ford, Holden and Mazda have available a range of vehicles factory fitted with dual fuel capabilities. Other manufacturers have released vehicles designed to accommodate LPG for conversion at a later stage.

Q. DOES AUTOGAS HAVE AN EFFECT ON ENGINE WEAR?

No. In fact, an appreciable reduction in overall engine wear is the norm. This is particularly applicable during cold starting because LPG does not wash lubricating oil from the cylinder walls. Modern unleaded petrol engines are especially suitable for conversion to LPG.

Q. CAN A RECONDITIONED ENGINE BE CONVERTED SATISFACTORILY?

A new or reconditioned engine should be ‘run in’ on petrol for approximately 3 000 km before it is converted to LPG operation. If the engine is to be used for LPG only operation, the reconditioning techniques can be adapted to suit an LPG ‘run in’.

Camper trailers:
• compact design
• variety of sizes
• easy to store
• fully equipped
• easy to erect
• lightweight to tow

Campervans:
• easy to drive
• highly mobile
• convenient
• self-contained
• raiseable roof

Motorhomes:
• easy to drive
• highly mobile
• immediate camp set-up
• fully self-contained
• spacious accommodation
• ideal for extended travel

Caravans:
• wide choice of sizes
• economy to luxury models
• self-contained
• can include shower and toilet
• choice of floor plans
• luxury items

Pop-top caravans:
• low profile towing
• variety of styles and sizes
• easy to store
• convert to fullheight
• caravan benefits

Tent trailers:
• low cost
• tent style accommodation
• easy to erect
• lightweight to tow
• go anywhere
• low site rentals

Tents:
• economical
• lightweight and compact
• variety of shapes and sizes
• flexibility of location
• highly portable
• low site rentals
• buy or hire

Class-A motorhomes:
• the complete home on wheels
• entirely independent living
• huge interior space
• can accommodate a large family group
• access sometimes limited by size

Pre-trip checklist

The days are getting longer, and you’re probably itching to get away. But remember, with school holidays upon us, most coastal van parks will be booked out, or soon will be.

However, plan ahead before leaving and you’ll be able to relax throughout your holidays. Planning is not simply a matter of booking a couple of weeks away, hitching up the van, chucking in the toothbrush and heading off. You have to think about your house or your rental property. Also, is your rig up to the job? Have you even looked at it in the last six months, or is it quietly rusting away underneath the tree in the front yard?

Your caravan or motorhome requires just as much care and attention as your family car. And because it’s used infrequently, it’s mandatory that you give it the once-over before going on holiday.

A host of things can go wrong with a van that’s been idle for most of the year. Leaks can develop, rust can occur, tyres can crack and acquire flat spots, mould can grow on the awning, the battery could have gone flat and the corner stabilisers and bearings may have seized.

Leave plenty of time between the van’s check-up and your departure date. If you need to give the brakes and bearings a clean – a competent handyman is more than capable of doing this – you’ll need to set aside the best part of half a day or more. This isn’t something that can be ignored; if you fail to check the running gear, you might find yourself with a broken axle or a busted wheel caused by a seized bearing when you’re halfway between woop woop and the back of beyond. For more information on what’s involved in a full undercarriage service, see C&M issue 37.

With all that in mind, we’ve compiled a couple of lists to help you plan your next holiday and check that your van is still in working order. Cut them out, photocopy them – just don’t leave home without ’em.

Housekeeping

1. Tell your neighbours and friends that you’re going on holidays. Leave them an itinerary so they know where you’ll leave and when you’ll be back.

2. Ask a friend to check your letterbox each day. Letters piling up is a sure sign no-one’s home. If you’re going to be travelling for six months or more, consider using a mail-forwarding house such as Landbase Australia.

3. Turn off the fridge and the gas pilot light in your hot-water system.

4. Disconnect the phone (if you’re going to be on the road for an extended period), or have it diverted to your mobile phone (if you’re only going away for a short time).

5. Arrange for your plants to be watered, both indoor and out.

6. Take into account the ongoing costs of rent and utilities while you’re away.

7. Check with your home insurer if you need to advise them in writing or pay a premium loading while you’re away. Not doing so may void your insurance policy.

8. Be realistic about the route and the time frame. Make the trip fit your bank balance, and before you go, work out a budget, including phone, postage, fuel, accommodation and food.

9. Check the difficulty of the route.

10. Plan where you want to stay, but be flexible.

11. Some national parks and Aboriginal lands might require advance written permission for entry or camping. Organise this weeks in advance as they can take a while to get back to you.

12. Visit the doctor before heading off.

Make sure all your pharmaceutical needs can be met when you’re in the back of beyond.

13. Ensure you’ll have plenty of drinking water (that doesn’t mean beer or coffee) while you’re away.

14. Pack ample sunscreen and a widebrimmed hat for when out in the sun.

15. Are you capable of changing a tyre? Fixing a radiator? Replacing a blocked fuel filter? Make sure you carry a workshop manual for your tow vehicle or motorhome.

Inspect the van’s underbody before going on holiday. Check for rust and cracks, and look at the springs, spring hangers and the axle.

16. Enrol in driver training. Honing your skills is a great idea.

17. Don’t forget to take maps, full gas bottles, kitchen utensils and outdoor furniture.

Before you hit the road…

With this list in your hot little hands, start at the front of the van and work your way around.

COUPLINGS

1. Check that the coupling is effectively lubricated and that the head and shaft rotate freely (apply grease via the nipples).

2. The adjusting screw should not be frozen. Adjust it to stop the towball rattling around (lightly oil the adjusting screw by turning the coupling upside down. Lightly grease inside the coupling head where it fits over the towball).

If you own a pop-top caravan, set it up and check for mould and rips in the canvas.

Check the side of your van for dents or cracks.

3. The backing stop should move freely.

HYDRAULIC

4. Ensure all the parts are moving freely.

5. The master cylinder cap should be in good condition to prevent moisture entering the reservoir.

FIXED

6. Check the operation of the spindle and screw nut.

HANDBRAKE

7. Check for rust or corrosion where the baseplate fixes to the A-frame.

8. The Handbrake lever should move freely and travel approximately 15mm when correctly adjusted (adjust with the turnbuckle).

9. Check the condition of the brake cable and the pulleys. If the cable is worn, replace it immediately.

SAFETY CHAIN

10. The chain should have no visible signs of rust or cracks at the fixing point and should be long enough to reach the towbar and allow for cornering.

JOCKEY WHEEL

11. The handle and the wheel should turn freely (if you need to lubricate it, squirt oil under the handle so that it travels down the shaft).

12. Check the clamp and the clamp bolt for easy operation (apply some oil to the thread if necessary).

RUNNING GEAR

13. Look underneath and check for rust and stress fractures, particularly outriggers and all crossmember fixing points, A-frame, springs, spring hangers and stabiliser legs.

14. Check for signs of movement around spring hangers, shackle plates and bushes, U-bolts and fish plates.

15. Check jack legs for ease of movement and ensure the handle is in good condition.

MAIN DOOR

16. Lubricate the door lock and all hinges with light oil.

17. Check the condition and operation of the annexe roller and cabin hooks. Check to see if there’s any mould growing on the annexe.

18. The door lock tongue and the striker plate should be regularly checked for signs of wear.

WHEELS, RIMS AND TYRES

19. Check wheel rims for cracks, buckles or other damage.

20. Check tyres for excessive wear from under/over-inflation or wheel-alignment problems.

21. Bearings and oil seals should be inspected regularly and repacked before any long trip.

22. Brake shoes should be checked for signs of uneven wear, and drums for any marks indicating early signs of brake deficiency.

23. Hydraulic lines should be checked for signs of leaking.

24. If your van has electric brakes, check the drums for sand and/or gravel deposits, which could cause uneven wear on magnets.

25. Take your van for a run down the road, nice and slowly, and put your foot on the brakes. You’ll be able to tell if the van has any brakes or not.

WATER TANK

26. Check water hoses for kinks, leaks and signs of wear.

27. Check water hoses for mildew.

28. Check all clamps for tension.

29. Check all tank straps for signs of cracking or rust.

30. If a stone-guard has been fitted to the tank, check it for dents that may rub a hole in the tank.

31. Flush the lines and tank with a sterilising agent.

ON THE OUTSIDE

32. Inspect the general condition of the van’s exterior; check for cracks, dents and corrosion.

33. Check for movement above the door and in the lower corners of the van. It may indicate that there’s movement in the frame or chassis.

WINDOWS

34. Check all glass for cracks and check the internal and external sealing rubbers for cracks.

CORNER MOULDS

35. Check the sealing on all corners, door and window frames. Cracks and holes in seals will let water in, eventually rotting the frame.

36. Corner moulds should be replaced every five to seven years.

EXTERIOR LIGHTING

37. It’s important for the safety of you and your family that you check all 12V brake lights and indicators.

38. Make sure the rubber seals around the edges of lights haven’t perished.

39. Check that the lenses haven’t faded, none of the bulbs have blown and that no insects have nested in the tail-lights.

GAS FITTINGS

40. Check your gas bottle by spraying it with detergent, turning it on, then looking for bubbles.

41. Never check to see if a gas bottle is working by holding a naked flame to it.

42. If you have a problem with your gas bottle, refer it to a qualified gas fitter. Do not attempt to fix it yourself.

ON THE INSIDE

43. Hatch mechanisms should be lubricated and free of rust and corrosion.

44. All flyscreens should be intact and attached to the rubber mould or aluminium frame.

45. Cupboard locks should be lubricated to avoid jamming, which may strain and break the lock.

46. Check light lenses for cracks.

47. The fridge and stove should be firmly fitted in place – loose bolts may result in the appliance shaking loose in transit. (Grab the appliance and try to move it back and forth).

48. Any discolouration of ply lining around hatch, windows or ceiling, floor or wall corners indicates penetration by water what may rot the framing.

STORAGE

49. Due to compound tyres being used by the motoring industry, there’s no real need to place your van on blocks. However, by ‘blocking’ your van, you’ll take pressure off the tyres and suspension and also the bearings. This is desirable when the van is being stored for a lengthy period.

Don’t leave your van’s maintenance to the last minute. If you fail to keep a good eye on your van a seemingly small job could quickly become a major overhaul.

Stretching

Warm-up exercises

Going for a walk and performing stretching exercises at regular intervals throughout the day can help safeguard your body against discomfort and injury.

When performed correctly, stretching exercises:

relieve muscle tension

increase circulation

restore muscle balance

reduce muscle fatigue.

When performing stretches

Stretch gently and smoothly

Stretch to the point where the muscle feels tight, but no pain is experienced

Aim to hold each stretch for 30 seconds

If pain is experienced, reduce the amount of stretch and/or the length of time the stretch is held.

If continuing pain is experienced, cease stretches and consult your doctor.

Those that have suffered an injury or illness that may be aggravated by stretching exercises should seek advice from their treating practitioner prior to commencing the following stretches.

Before commencing the day, go for a walk – let your arms swing gently as you walk.

Stretches

BEFORE COMENCING THE FOLLOWING EXERCISES GENTLY SWING YOUR ARMS BY YOUR SIDE TOSIDE ACROSS YOUR BODY

1 Shoulder Rolls

Relax your arms by your side

Slowly and gently roll your shoulders in a circular movement backwards, starting with very small circles

Repeat several times.

2. Chin Tuck

Hold your head in neutral position(i.e. without any forward or sideways tilt)

Gently tuck your chin in to make a double chin. Do not bend your head forward

Hold for 5 to 30 seconds.

Gently release hold and return to the starting position.

3. Shoulder/Arm Stretch – backwards

Hold your arms in a relaxed position by your side

Turn your hands away from your body until your palms are facing forwards

Gently stretch arms backwards (keeping palms facing forwards)

Hold for 5 to 30 seconds

Gently release hold and return to the starting position.

Stretches

BEFORE COMMENCING THE FOLLOWING EXERCISES GENTLY SWING YOUR ARMS BY YOUR SIDES AND ACROSS YOUR BODY

4. Upper trunk stretch

Straighten your arms out in front of your body

Gently raise your hands until fingers are pointing to the ceiling

Stretch arms and upper body up towards ceiling

Hold for 5 to 30 seconds

Gently release hold and return to the starting position.

5. Lower back stretch - leg tuck

Stand with your feet slightly apart

Lift one leg towards your chest

If you are free from knee pain or injury, clasp hands gently over or under knee and slowly pull leg lightly to your chest

Hold for 5 to 30 seconds

Gently release hold and return to the starting position

6. Lower back reliever

Stand with your feet slightly apart

Place your palms over the small of your lower back/upper buttocks region

Gently lean towards your trunk backwards, keeping your knees straight and your head facing forwards

Hold for 5 to 30 seconds

Gently release hold and return to the starting position.

First aid – handling an emergency

Glossary

Words and meanings in this glossary are defined as applicable to the book text.

12V compressor: an air compressor driven by a 12-volt electric motor, usually small and powered from a vehicle battery.

60–80W output: output from a solar panel, typically about 60–80 watts at around 16–17 volts.

100A battery: a battery with theoretical capacity of, and ability to supply, one ampere of current for one 100 hours.

240V circuit tester: a device for testing electrical safety by checking the electrical wiring system and voltage, and usually indicating condition by a warning light sequence.

240V power: mains power electricity, at 240 volts, as supplied by various national electricity suppliers.

750 kg bars: heavy-duty, spring, steel level ride bars, with a strong ability to apply upwards force when properly fitted between tow vehicle and trailer.

A: amps, amperes

A-bar: an A-shaped metal frame, the front part of a trailer chassis, which is joined to a vehicle tow bar for towing the trailer.

AC: alternating current, as in 240V 50Hz mains electrical power.

adaptive shift patterns: current automatic gearboxes having computer management, able to measure and recall driver habits and predict vehicle needs.

additional airbags: aftermarket airbags, fitted in support of OEM springs, typically inside coil-springs or between leaf-spring and chassis.

aftermarket wheels: usually dress up wheel rims and aggressive tyres, in lieu of OEM, to suit the owner’s preferences.

aggregate trailer mass, ATM: the weight of the entire trailer, fully loaded to allowable maximum.

air bleed problem: when air becomes mixed with hydraulic fluid in a jack, causing the jack to fail or not operate properly.

alignment: when two or more objects are in line, typically the tow ball and the coupling, to allow accurate connection.

alloy awning roller tube: the main spar around which the awning fabric is rolled, in a typical van awning.

all-wheel-drive, AWD: current type of semi-off-road vehicle, where the four wheels are driven in variable proportions as determined by an on-board computer.

aluminium cladding: flat sheets of aluminium, typically with press-formed strengthening ribs, used as the outer skin on a caravan.

ambient temperature: normal outside temperature.

amperage: electrical current.

ampere hour, Ah: a supply or draw factor of one amp for one hour.

analog scale: i.e. like reading a watch face with figures and hands, in this case applicable to the various measurements a multimeter can make.

anchor points: strong metal loops welded on the chassis underside, used to chain a van to a solid ground anchor in storm situations.

Anderson plug: a two-part, non-reversible plug fitted specifically to run heavier electrical current, usually from the tow vehicle to other van appliances.

annexe: an enclosure or room generally formed by tent canvas and framework, usually temporarily fixed to a van wall.

annexe matting: typically thick, porous, plastic, mesh matting, commonly sized to fit a specific annexe floor dimension.

annexe-to-awning: usually some form of metal track or bracket, to temporarily join the top of an annexe end wall and existing awning end, to exclude weather.

anti-flap kit: screw-clamp devices which can be tensioned, when attached on the end of an awning, intended to minimise awning fabric flapping in the wind.

anti-sway brake: a solid, carbon-steel bar sliding inside a rigid metal housing, with adjustable tension, to create friction and resist movement.

anti-tetanus: a vaccine to prevent tetanus.

automatic gearbox: a vehicle gearbox which does not require continual manual operation, one which selects gear ratios depending on vehicle speed and load.

average daily current draw: the total consumed amperage of all 12V appliances used for an average day in a caravan.

awning: a large, fabric roller-blind to provide weather protection, supported by arms, typically attached to the van’s doorside, able to easily roll up for transport.

balance point: the fulcrum of a trailer, usually the axle.

ball coupling: a ball-shaped housing, attached directly to the front end of the A-bar, and sized to fit neatly onto the tow ball.

ball weight: generally, ball weight should be about ten per cent of the total weight of the trailer; also down-weight, heavy-on.

ball weight limit: the maximum amount of weight pressing down on the vehicle’s tow ball, as permitted by the vehicle manufacturer.

battery charger: a 240V, AC-powered transformer with regulated 12VDC output, used to re-charge discharged 12V batteries, or as a 12V power source.

B-double: a conventional semitrailer with a second turntable and second trailer; often running on 11 axles as a single unit.

big trucks: in this context – B-doubles, large trailer combinations, multi-trailer road-trains and huge, wide-load float vehicles.

bitumastic: thick black bitumen-based vehicle under-body proof-coating.

bleed screw: the open-close tap for hydraulic fluid in a jack, to allow raising and lowering.

blind side: in a caravan, typically the left or kerb-side is blind from the driving position, unless an additional mirror is provided for extra and specific vision.

block-out screen: using a roller-blind to block all vision into, or out of, a screen door.

brake controller: usually a device mimicking vehicle brake operation, linked proportionately via pedal operation and vehicle attitude to the trailer brakes.

brake shoes: drum brakes have brake shoes; disc brakes use pads.

brass screw-in fittings: connectors and water hoses can be joined and linked positively by strong and long-lasting brass screw-in fittings.

breakaway device or switch: in this case, an independent means of rapidly and automatically applying the electric brakes if a trailer becomes disconnected from the tow vehicle.

bubble-level, T-square level: often mounted on the A-bar, to show north– south and east–west horizontal or floor positioning of a van, for levelling.

buffer: acting as a reservoir for electrical power or, as a sacrificial item intended to wear instead of another object.

buffeting: wind-gusts from whatever source, which affect your vehicle and trailer by blowing strongly, and cause their involuntary movement on the road.

bush camp, free-camp: camping as an entity, self-supported, usually well away from any populated area.

butane gas: a small spraycan-sized canister containing gas similar to propane normally in the common LPG cylinder, but not requiring pressure regulation.

cable join: the connection where the male plug and female socket on different power leads join together, usually to make a longer lead.

Camec: a company based in Melbourne which supplies parts wholesale to the caravan manufacturing industry, and to general retail customers.

camp kitchen: more or less a conventional kitchen, usually in a covered area, with appliances provided as a facility for campers by the van park proprietors.

capillary attraction: as in water, to wick or run along a cable to its lowest point pulled by gravity.

caravan dealer: a business which deals in caravans, commonly second-hand and of any make; as opposed to a caravan retailer, generally selling new vans by a single manufacturer.

carcass damage: injury to the tyre body, whether tread surface or sidewalls.

carriageway: the actual roadway and surface.

cassette-type toilets: a type of toilet where the effluent container can be separately removed for emptying, leaving the other mechanisms in place.

castellated nut: a nut usually having six inletted segments, similar to the top of a typical castle wall, to register a nut-locking split-pin via a hole through the bolt thread.

CB (Citizen’s band): a radio frequency group allocated for public use.

C-clip: the fastening clip used to keep the over-centre chain tensioner closed when using level ride bars.

Centrelink: a government organisation which, in this case, can provide wideranging support for persons who comply with certain conditions.

Channel 18, Ch 18: national frequency/ channel number for caravanner/truckie conversations, started by experienced truck driver Rod Hannifey.

change over tap: directional tap to allow gas to flow from a particular gas bottle in a two-bottle installation.

checkerplate: a form of cross-hatching using raised sections of the base metal in a distinctive, angular, closely spaced pattern to make a non-slip flooring; commonly made from aluminium and often used as a cladding to protect against external stone damage on the front and sides of a caravan.

chimney effect: natural convection in heated air, hot air exhausting as it rises.

chocks: angled wedges, often plastic, inserted against a tyre tread to prevent unwanted movement of a wheel, and thus a trailer.

circuit breakers: a mechanical or electronic device, designed to disconnect power if an unsafe electrical condition exists or occurs.

clevis pin: the pin, about 3/4 inch diameter, retaining the tow head in place in the tow hitch receiver; a cross-pin locating a removable tongue in a receiver.

clutchless: similar to a manual vehicle but without a conventional clutch to connect engine and gearbox.

coaxial cable: used to carry radio or TV signal, generally with a positive centre wire, insulated from the covered outer earth wire braid.

compliance plate: affixed to the van, often to the boot, listing official registration particulars like tare weight (TW) and ATM, and others, for that specific trailer.

compression spring: a coil spring made to absorb shock-load and intended to hold tension on a guy rope, typically for an awning or tent pole.

compressor fridge: typically, the common domestic-style refrigerator, using a compressor for refrigeration and operating solely on electric power.

concrete pad: with a surface usually at or near ground level, often about the size of a caravan awning, making a solid floor outside the van door.

condensate: dew condensation dampness: dew formed by low-temperature air conditioning inside a caravan, collecting on all internal surfaces.

convection: in effect, heat rising and cold falling naturally; recirculating and continuous.

convection microwave: a normal electronic microwave, with additional heating elements similar to an electric oven, usually fan-forced.

convex mirrors: those having a positive rounded surface, giving a wide-angle picture but making objects appear further away than they really are.

copper gas line: typically 5/16 inch diameter piping, now often being replaced by grey plastic gas line due to easier installation.

corner jacks: usually four, one to each van corner, for floor stability when camped; may be bolt-thread, wind-down, dropdown or hydraulic-operated.

corner latches: over-centre or highfieldlever clamps to hold pop-top roofs closed.

corrugated ribs: raised sections, pressformed strengthening ribs in aluminium van wall external sheeting.

Couplemate: a device to assist with hitching up a caravan to a tow vehicle by guiding the caravan ball coupling into alignment with the tow ball

coupling: ball coupling

cryptosporidium: nasty waterborne and debilitating intestinal bug.

current draw: the amount of amperage being used by an appliance.

cut-off point: a pre-set level where an electrical appliance stops working, usually due to low battery voltage.

cut-resistant cable: high-strength braided or twisted metal cable.

D-shackle: a chain or cable joiner, usually D-shaped, with the straight pin removable by undoing a threaded section.

daily input capacity: the total amount of current which can be produced on an average day by all solar panels working in parallel.

damper: a device to slow or limit movement, i.e. shock absorbers.

Danfoss: a brand of compressor used in a large percentage of portable fridges.

DC: direct current, typically in a 12V battery.

decoder: an electronic device, receiving signals from a suitable satellite via an antenna, and able to convert them into usable data for a TV.

departure angle: the angle between the rear tyre ground contact point and the vehicle or trailer lowest rear point, typically the tow bar or bumper bar on a vehicle.

diff locks: from ‘differential lock’, a method of locking a vehicular drive axle or axles, temporarily on demand or permanently by design, to ensure both drive wheels on the same axle turn at the same rate; an important aid to assist traction on difficult terrain or off-road driving.

disabled trailer: commonly, non-operating due to puncture or other damage, the repairs for which are now included in most Total Care roadside assistance programs.

distilled water: condensed from steam, pure, containing no waterborne minerals or particulates.

distribution boards: 240V electrical multi-socket device, allowing one plug-in flexible lead to become multiple standard outlets.

diverge: move from a vehicle position centrally in one traffic lane, across to another lane or position.

domestic trailer: commonly, a 6 ft long and 4 ft wide single-axle garden-variety trailer, which can be towed by almost any motor vehicle.

door vent: apertures in a venting panel in the lower half of a normal van external door.

down-weight: see ball-weight, also heavy-on.

drive-through site: drive-in, drive-out; not requiring backing or unhitching; often a longer and narrower site allowing a trailer to remain hitched up overnight.

drum brakes: the most common electric brakes on trailers; brake shoes expand mechanically inside a brake drum for wheel retardation.

dual batteries: generally, two 12V batteries fitted to a vehicle, isolated to keep the starting battery fully charged, yet allow accessory use of the second battery.

dual water filters: two filters, coarse then fine in sequence, which can filter all unwanted substances from drinking water.

dump points: the proper place to empty the contents of a cassette-toilet.

earth leakage device: an electronic instant-reaction electrical safety device, disconnecting power before injury results from an accident or fault.

electrical distribution grid: the entire network of wiring, distributing mains power within a van park.

electrical trailer brakes: commonly, 12V drum-type trailer wheel brakes; friction of variable electromagnets on a machined internal drum surface transfers to mechanically apply leverage to brake shoes.

electrolyte level: the amount of acidic battery fluid, which must cover the visible plates, inside a typical wet-cell battery.

electromagnet: a magnet made active by application of electricity.

Engel: a brand of portable refrigerator, commonly used by 4WD drivers and caravanners, available in several sizes, usually powered by the vehicle’s battery and adaptable to 12V or 240V.

engine-driven alternator: the normal OEM vehicle alternator; also commonly refers to a portable generator.

EPIRB: electronic position indicating radio beacon.

evasive action: doing whatever physical and mechanical actions are immediately necessary to drive or get a vehicle out of trouble.

exhaust vent: burnt gas outlet to open air for a gas hot-water service.

expanding van: a van with front and rear walls which in some way open out to increase van length, usually for sleeping areas.

exponential factor: for example, a continuous doubling, i.e. 1-2-4-8-16-32 etc.

external shower: small handheld unit similar to a conventional flexible-hose showerhead, with taps, mounted on an external wall of a van.

external speakers: weatherproof stereo sound speakers, usually fitted into the awning-side wall during van manufacture.

extractor fan: exhaust fan drawing waste air to outside the van.

fabric belting: usually thick and strong, fairly stiff rubberised conveyor belting.

false economy: spending money on an item, often on impulse, then finding out later that it was not really useful, the wrong type, too expensive, impractical, etc.

fatigue break: a rest stop from driving, taken about every two hours, to prevent or minimise mental and physical tiredness; stop, revive, survive.

ferrule: malleable thick-walled metal tube of a specific internal diameter, typically used for joining wires or cables together by pressure-crimping it down in size.

fifth-wheelers: a caravan-style residential body, towed behind a vehicle in similar way to a semitrailer tray, and with a similar articulated attachment method.

flexible solar panels: those which can bend, conform and attach to a compound and/or non-flat shape, instead of remaining rigidly flat in a supporting frame.

Flotex: a type of very close-textured, short-bristled and dense acrylic carpet, very hard wearing and impervious to normal stains and dirt.

Fluvax: vaccine against most common influenza viruses.

flyscreen door: the inner of two typical caravan doors, with a fine mesh screen to keep out insects, able to be separated from the outer solid-panel door.

foam beds: those using lightweight plastic foam as a mattress instead of the more conventional inner-spring mattress.

fold-up portable solar panel: commonly a smaller portable two-part unit, with panels about 1000 mm by 500 mm, selfstanding in a vertical V-shape.

fold-up/expanding bike: often with wheels about 20 inches, with an adult frame, but able to be easily dismantled to minimise required storage space.

folk remedies: traditional cures for some illnesses or physical conditions which are not part of orthodox medicine.

following distance: the preferred and/ or regulated safe distance between two similar long vehicles proceeding on the same road and in the same direction.

footplates: tough load-spreading plates, used under any load-carrying jack foot, to help prevent the smaller foot sinking into the ground surface.

forming ply: a very tough laminated plywood used in the concrete and building industries.

Four Seasons hatches: a common brand of built-in caravan roof vent, with an opening flap on each of the four sides.

free-camp: see bush camp.

front springs: on a tandem-axle trailer, the two springs attached to the front axle.

front-mounted tow ball: usually in addition to the conventional central rear tow ball, but mounted on the front bumper bar or chassis instead, often not centrally.

front-office-only-staff: generally not ground staff, often not familiar with caravans or other trailers and their on-site requirements.

fuel additive: some form of liquid chemical able to be added to normal fuel to improve its function, typically by reducing water and other contamination.

fuel consumption: the amount of fuel burnt by an engine, often expressed as a known distance covered using a known amount of fuel, or vice versa.

full-height: a conventional fixed one-piece caravan, non-collapsible in height.

full-size hatch: commonly, a Four Seasons hatch, about 600 mm square.

full-time 4WD: a vehicle where all four wheels are designed and intended to drive equally and permanently.

fuse: an intended weak link providing a safety function in a wiring system, able to be easily replaced if needed.

Gardena: a brand of domestic garden hose fitting, commonly known as a ‘click-on’ fitting, to join a hose onto a tap or another hose.

gas bottle clamp: the circular ring which is clamped around the gas bottle, generally about mid-height, to retain the bottle in position.

gas bottle lock: in this case, a padlocked stainless steel cable preventing easy removal of the gas bottle; any means of securely retaining a gas bottle.

gas fitter: a trained, qualified, authorised and licensed tradesperson experienced in the typical requirements of LPG as applicable to a caravan.

gas hoses: a flexible type of hose for gas, as distinct from rigid copper piping.

gas pressure regulator: a device to limit gas to a pre-determined pressure, as it is converted from a liquid to a gas and exits the gas bottle.

gas canister, butane: the small spraycansized container for easy-to-use and portable cooker fuel.

GPO, general power outlet: a common three-pin, wall-mounted socket

GPS: global positioning system; a worldwide and precise positioning system, using data provided by a large number of geo-stationary satellites.

gross combination mass, GCM: the total weight of the entire combination of fullyloaded trailer and vehicle.

generator: usually a portable and enginedriven means of producing electricity.

giardia: another of those nasty waterborne and debilitating intestinal bugs.

goes-under: an old-fashioned term for what ‘goes under’ the bed, i.e. a chamber pot; pronounced ‘gazunda’.

grease nipples: a small particular-shaped nipple, to which a grease gun is first connected, to channel lubricating grease under pressure to a certain location, i.e. a shackle.

greaseable shackles: able to be greased, as distinct from non-lubricated shackles.

grommet: an insulating and/or antichafing collar fitting around the edge of a hole, usually made of rubber or plastic, through which a wire or similar object can pass.

guy rope: an anchor rope, typically used to support or hold upright a tent pole, or to hold down an awning, against the weather.

half-height shelf: in a cupboard, a divider shelf to provide twice the original surface area on which to place items.

handling characteristics: the way a trailer behaves, i.e. undesirably bouncing, moving on the road and swaying, or desirably smooth and straight-tracking.

Hayman Reese hitch: the most common towbar, usually of heavy-duty capacity; part of a complete system of towing aids.

heavy-duty connectors: Anderson plug terminals, designed to carry large amounts of electrical current; available in several sizes.

heavy-on, down-weight: see ball weight.

HF radio: strong, long-distance, High Frequency radio; low down on the radio spectrum around 3 MHz, as compared with V (very) HF and U (ultra) HF.

high-gain antenna: an antenna capable of transmitting and receiving radio signals at a much stronger rate, and in a much more directional or capturable pattern; one which has its greater electrical length condensed to remain a practical size; on a 4WD or similar vehicle it is usually found in an omni-directional or vertical style; when compared with a normal unity-gain antenna which is commonly found on vehicles and used with CB-radio frequencies.

highfield lever, hold-down catches: see corner latches.

Hilastic 88: a brand of silicon adhesive with particular adhesive and sealing properties, often used by caravan manufacturers.

hitch receiver: the actual hole in the tow bar into which the removable tow head shaft fits.

hitch pin: see clevis pin.

Hold For Collection: forwarded mail, directed to a post office to be kept or held there for collection by you, normally on production of identification.

homework: investigation, study and perhaps comparison of item particulars and specifications, before purchase.

hose connection: brass snap-on or screw-on fittings.

hot wire: a direct heavy-duty wire typically from a vehicle 12V battery positive terminal, through a heavy-duty connector to a trailer battery, to allow charging.

hydraulic corner jacks: corner jacks using small hydraulic rams, instead of screw threads, to raise and lower the jacks.

hydraulic override coupling: a type of coupling where vehicle braking caused overrun in the trailer, which then activated the trailer’s hydraulic wheel brakes.

Hz: Hertz, a frequency or cycle.

incandescent lights: conventional filament light globes.

inlet socket: any power socket where electricity supply lead or TV signal cable or similar can connect to the van, to then operate an appliance inside the van.

in-line water filter: water filters placed in the line between the main supply tap and the van water inlet point.

insect repellent: a chemical or natural preparation made to apply to skin in order to repel any insect which might try to land and bite the repellent wearer.

internet cafe: a shop or business where computer terminals connected to the internet can be hired for use, usually by the hour or part thereof.

intestate: dying without leaving a last will and testament.

inverter: for example, an electrical means of transforming 12V electricity up into 240V power to operate conventional appliances.

jack stands: usually a screw-thread adjustable stand, often with a pyramid base.

jacking plates: similar to a footplate.

jackknifing: when the trailer turns to the extreme left or right, making intended or unintended contact between the A-bar and the vehicle’s rear bumper bar.

jockey wheel: a removable, adjustable support device to raise or lower the A-bar, usually with a screw-thread wind-up function and a swivelling caster-wheel.

joiner: could be a plastic or metal pipe hose joiner, or an electricity supply cable joiner.

laminar flow: in this case, a thin and fastmoving skin or layer of air flowing closely along the external surface of a caravan wall or vehicle panel.

laminated spring: leaf-springs can also be known as laminated (or many layer) springs.

Lanotec: a lanolin-based spray derived from sheepwool, with rust-preventative and lubricating properties.

large trailer combination: a prime mover or similar large vehicle towing a large trailer, noticeably bigger and longer than a common sedan and its trailer.

latex material: genuine rubber or chemical latex particles intended to remain inside a tyre tube to repair punctures by blocking holes where air is escaping.

LED lights: light emitting diode lights, used to replace common incandescent tail light globes.

legal precedent: the previously decided or historical legal outcome of a very similar or parallel case.

line pressure: the amount of existing resistance or pressure built up in a pipe or hose when flow is stopped by closing a tap or valve against an operating pump.

load capacity: the weight of load which can legally be carried; the difference between tare weight and ATM or GVM.

lock nuts: replacement nuts for wheels, which require a special key or socket to undo, offering some security and theft protection.

LPG: liquified petroleum gas, similar to liquified natural gas.

magnetic door seals: the plastic seals on the four edges of a fridge door, magnetically adhering to the metal fridge body, to keep the door closed.

magnetic underlay: a cotton or wool underlay, having numerous small magnets embedded in the fabric, to aid wellbeing.

mail forwarding services: commercial bodies receiving your mail when redirected to them, and forwarding it on to you when you advise them, for a fee.

mains power: 240V supply taken from the statewide electricity grid.

maintenance: service of parts to prevent or minimise future wear or detriment.

maintenance-free batteries: generally, sealed; those which don’t require any electrolyte or servicing or attention by the owner.

manual vehicle: one which has a conventional gearbox requiring physical operation by the driver to select ratios.

marked lane: an outlined road, usually by continuous white or broken line markings, for continued driving, usually in the same direction.

market value: the price an independent person looking to buy a similar item would be prepared to pay in the open market.

marriage saver: a slang term for a coupling device designed to easily guide the van coupling into proper alignment with the tow ball when reversing.

maximum power: the greatest amount of power in kilowatts/horsepower which can be produced by an engine working at theoretical optimum revs.

merchantable quality: having good quality, in proper working order, able to be sold clear of any defects.

metal detector: an electronic device emitting a signal of certain frequency into the ground, able to measure and indicate varying soil densities which may indicate metals.

micro venetians: thin and narrow horizontal venetian blinds.

midges: (also sandflies) tiny, biting insects with a very irritating and unpleasant sting which leaves a very visible mark, usually found in mangroves and warmer coastal areas.

moat: a water channel, in this case around footplates, and intended to be filled with water to limit ant access.

monitoring: listening to one specific radio channel; also scanning, as in searching all frequencies while having one monitored channel nominated as priority.

morning-after pill: the idea that some reactive (after the event) treatment can eliminate a condition; in this case, the sting or itch and marks of midge bites.

mozzie: slang term for mosquito.

multimeter: a device used to measure electrical current or signal in various forms, including DC, AC, amperage, resistance, heat and continuity.

naked flame: typically, a lit match.

nearside: also kerbside, left-hand side, passenger side.

non-slip material: a type of fine-lattice plastic sheet, with a non-slipping surface, often used as a mat to keep items in place on slippery surfaces.

OEM: original equipment manufacturer.

off-season: the period when most travellers have stopped touring; in Victoria, for example, typically between November and April; the opposite of peak season.

offset: in this case, a front-mounted tow ball set some distance deliberately to the left or right of vehicle centre, to provide best visibility when pushing a trailer.

offside: not kerbside, driver’s side, right-hand side.

ohm: a measurement of electrical resistance.

on-site: a van properly positioned and camped, stationary in a prepared position or site.

operating voltage: the correct and intended voltage at which an appliance should properly operate.

operator error: the fault of the person operating or using the device.

outback road: one of the more remote inland roads, most often unsealed.

over-centre tensioner, clamp: the lock device to hold tension on loaded level ride chains when a trailer is travelling on the road.

Overdrive: a gear with a higher ratio than direct 1:1; for example, in a manual gearbox, usually fifth gear.

overload: a condition where the demand is higher than the allowed amount, typically where a shear-pin breaks as intended, or a circuit-breaker operates.

overtake: to travel faster and therefore drive around another vehicle travelling in the same direction on the same road.

pet friendly: a caravan park which allows well-behaved pets, although often in a specified section of the park.

photochromic: colour-changing, dependent on light intensity and brightness.

piano hinges: a continuous hinge where the pin and hinge body is full-length; most conventional van cupboard doors have two short and separate hinges.

pilot hole: a starter or guide hole, usually of much smaller diameter than the intended final hole size.

pindan: a fine red dirt, typically from north-western areas of WA; the powdery dirt commonly stains fabric, and the colour can be hard to remove from clothing.

plastic ties, zip ties: often made of UV-resistant plastic, a single-use ratchetfastening strap-fastener available in many sizes for general use.

polystyrene: very light, white plastic, strong, easily moulded into complex shapes, has good insulation properties; similar to very compressed beanbag beads.

pop-rivets: a type of permanent fastener, similar to a rivet, but designed for blind fastening where there is usually no access to the inside face.

pop-top vans: a type of van in which the roof can be lowered to reduce towing drag; the top 2 ft of side-wall is commonly made from fabric.

portable booster batteries: a safelypackaged battery for easy use and carrying, often with a heavy-duty capacity to power items such as fridges in a vehicle.

pot drawer: a strong, wide and deep drawer, usually at floor level, suitable for storing larger pots and similar items.

power mode: in an automatic transmission vehicle, a control switch permitting a noticeable engine revolution increase, to allow higher-speed gear-change points.

power of attorney: a legal and notarised way for a nominated person to speak and act on your behalf, in nominated reasons.

power transmission: with safe and proper contact, ensuring that the entire amount of electricity transfers from one part to another.

powered site: a van site in a van park where 240V mains power is provided as a part of the site fee.

pressure hatch: a small hatch, usually centrally roof-mounted, to allow a small amount of air into a van to slightly pressurise the inside and prevent dust from entering.

prime mover: the mechanical or ‘tractor’ part of a semitrailer, containing the engine, cabin and drive assemblies, and to which the towed load of trailer/s is attached.

proactive: to take action to prevent a situation or result occurring.

propellant: often petroleum or hydrocarbon-based, the compressed gas which forces pressure-can contents out of the nozzle.

protocols: operating procedures, often regimented for consistency and based on military systems, but easy to learn, and simple to use once understood.

psi: an abbreviation for ‘pounds per square inch’, the non-metric measurement, in this case, for tyre air pressure.

PTFE tape: polytetrafluoroethylene, a slippery and tough plastic tape typically used by plumbers to fill in thread gaps, in pipe connections for water.

RAC membership: in this case, membership of one of the vehicle roadside assistance organisations found in each state.

radio antennas: the various antennas used for signal transmission and reception, including HF, VHF, UHF, satellite and mobile phone.

rattle gun: an air-driven tool, used in most tyre services to loosen and tighten wheel nuts.

reactive: steps taken after an action or condition has occurred.

rear overhang: the amount of van, unsupported except for the chassis, behind the rearmost axle.

receiver dish: a concave antenna dish designed to receive satellite signal for TV.

redline: maximum engine revolutions, as usually shown on a tachometer when the indicator needle is in the red or unsafe section.

registered 240V electrician: a trained, qualified, authorised and licensed tradesperson experienced in the typical requirements of mains 240V power.

remote camping: see bush camping.

rent assistance: payment available from Centrelink for some travellers meeting specific requirements.

rent-try-buy: a procedure offered by some dealers to rent a van, try it out for a period and, if it’s suitable, buy that van or a similar one.

repeater stations: a means of remotely and automatically multiplying your (UHF) radio output signal, so it can be heard a long way away, not just locally.

replaceable battery: in a smoke detector, a battery which should be changed annually to ensure reliable and constant operation.

retro-fitting: replacing an old part, not necessarily damaged or faulty, with a newer and updated part, often for better reliability or performance.

reverse, also backing: generally, putting a trailer into a site in a van park by pushing it backwards with a vehicle, using reverse gear.

rigid solar panel: similar to a sheet of glass, a rigid polycrystalline solar panel is normally supported in an aluminium surround frame for strength.

road etiquette: preferred behaviour of motorists, especially those travellers towing trailers, offering courtesy to other and faster vehicles.

road rage: aberrant and disgusting reactive behaviour from drivers who feel they’ve received some insult, real or imagined, from another vehicle driver.

roadside assistance program: see RAC membership.

roadway camber: the actual crosssectional curve of a roadway; the convex surface of some roads, higher in the centre and lower in the gutters.

Rod Hannifey: instigator of the ‘Ch 18’ idea, where travellers use UHF or CB Channel 18 for radio contact with truck drivers.

roof bow: used to make a sort of umbrella rib underneath an awning, to tension it and prevent sagging, and reduce chances of water pooling creating damage.

sacrificial anode, plate: a substitute, intended to be destroyed by naturally occurring chemical reactions, instead of the parent metal.

safety pins: small locking devices to prevent, for example, a nut working loose on a thread; also split-pins.

safety space: see following distance.

safety tow chains: two chains, anchored firmly between, and at, tow vehicle and trailer, intended to act as safety retainers should the tow coupling disconnect while driving.

sag: occurs when the trailer coupling drops, as the rear of the tow vehicle sags, usually under load weight.

sandfly mesh: very fine insect mesh, much finer than the normal insect mesh; not found in all hardware stores.

satellite phones, satphone: an advanced mobile phone using earth-coverage satellites for relay, instead of the common phone tower antennas found across Australia.

satellite television: see decoder.

self-tuning: a TV set which has an automatic channel-search facility, finding and selecting all strong signals able to be received by your TV.

service manuals: expensive workshop books with accurate information on how to repair your specific vehicle; typically body, electrical and mechanical sections.

shackle pins: the cross pin inside the spring eye, usually surrounded by a brass bushing, and bolted between side-plates; often drilled for grease lubrication.

short circuit: typically, where a power lead carrying positive current comes into unintended contact with a negative surface, usually causing a fuse to blow.

shrink-tube: thin plastic tube which shrinks permanently to about 1:3 ratio, deforming when hot air, typically from a heat gun, is applied to the tube surface.

Shureflo: a brand of efficient 12V pump, used in many caravans to pump water from sub-floor tanks to the sink tap.

signal reception: the strength of the incoming radio signal from another source.

silicon sealant: used in the manufacture of most vans to seal and waterproof joins, and other apertures; some silicons have quite specific adhesive qualities.

site fees: fees payable to the caravan park proprietor for use of a site, or to national parks rangers when camping in more remote areas.

six chain links: the minimum number of links which should be left free between the end of the Hayman Reese level ride bar and the over-centre tensioner.

skew: not square; on an awkward angle or placed in an awkward position.

slide-out: a sideways-moving expanding section, found in many large fifth-wheel trailers, often creating the effect from inside of an almost normal-sized room.

slide-out pantry: usually a cupboard with individual or stacked pull-out wire-basket trays or shelves which contain normal pantry items.

snap-connectors: a common type of hose joiner, quickly and easily attached and detached.

social etiquette: the apparent behaviour standard and group-imposed order of many travelling caravan park residents.

sonalert: a small electronic alarm emitting a high-pitched and penetrating sound.

spring plate: the strong metal plate, usually below a leaf-spring, in which the four arms of two U-bolts pass through drilled holes so that nuts can be affixed.

stone-guard, stone protection: some means of protecting the front of a van from stones thrown up by tyre rotation, often just a mesh screen to damp stone impact.

storage pipe: a rigid pipe, often about 6 inches in diameter and fitted up under a trailer; used to carry and store items such as sullage hoses and fishing rods.

strain loop: on a power-supply pole, typically a hook intended for the cable to loop onto, to take any cable load or strain off the plug in the outlet socket.

sub-frame: commonly, the frame which sits on, and is attached to, the chassis rails, and to which the van’s body frame is attached.

sullage hose, pipe: a flexible hose or rigid pipe carrying grey (waste) water, typically from a van sink to a sullage point (gully trap).

sulphation: battery electrolyte contains sulphuric acid, some of which over time drops out of solution and attaches to the lead plates, causing sulphation.

Swagman: one make of very sophisticated mobile home, usually built on a large and strong coach chassis, with every luxury and facility available, if ordered.

sweeper: a fairly stiff mudflap which is long enough to virtually drag along the ground.

swing-away function: a built-in ability to hinge or swivel out of the way, but not become disconnected.

swinging out: what happens when the amount of van behind the axles moves in the opposite direction to the front of the van as it travels forward and turns.

systems management: electronic and computer-based vehicle management systems, typically for engine, transmission and fuel.

tachometer: a rev-counter, counting the number of crankshaft revolutions per minute.

tail-heavy: the opposite of ‘heavy-on’.

tandem axle trailer: a trailer with two beam axles, or four stub axles, for four wheels.

tapered axle: the most common type of beam axle, where the inner wheel bearing is larger in diameter than the outer bearing, due to taper at the axle stub.

tare weight: as it (the van) came from the factory, empty but complete and finished.

three-way fridge: a very common type of fridge, able to run on LPG, 12V or 240V power.

tinea: a fungal disease, most commonly infecting spaces between the toes, and often caught from community showers; can be extremely itchy and quite painful.

toe-straps: a braided nylon strap used to retain shoes in toe-clips on bicycle pedals, very strong and with a non-slip clamping buckle.

Total Care: a roadside support package for motorists from motoring organisations, offering a high level of benefits and services.

total height: the overall height of a full-height caravan, including all the roofmounted fittings not visible from ground level.

tourist: someone who generally is visiting the popular attractions, trying to see as much as possible in a short time, usually on a defined trip or time limit.

tow ball: in most cases, a standard 50 mm ball, with a tow capacity of 3500 kg.

tow capacity: the total weight which the vehicle manufacturer declares the tow vehicle can pull.

tow head: the complete head which inserts onto the hitch receiver, adjustable in some models, and which carries the tow ball and mounts for level ride bars.

towing mirrors: additional wide-view mirrors, positioned to give the driver a good view of the trailer and any following traffic when towing.

trailer: any unpowered, wheeled, separate load-carrying device towed by a vehicle.

trailer cable: the 12V cable carrying electrical light and power between vehicle and van, connected at the seven-pin plug near the tow ball.

trailer connection: commonly, the sevenpin plug-in connection into which the 12V cable plugs.

transformer stability: by keeping transformer temperature stable and within limits, the output remains at a steady and declared level.

transmission cooler: a type of radiator intended to cool transmission oil or fluid through being exposed in the airflow of the moving vehicle.

trapezoid: a square, distorted into a sort of diamond shape.

traveller: by my definition, someone who is peacefully travelling and exploring all the roads and attractions of this vast country, without much haste or time limit.

triangulated: awning support arms, in a triangular shape, gaining strength from the shape.

trickle-charged: a battery being charged at a very slow (trickle) rate.

trig point: an accurately-located nationwide beacon and mapping reference system; positioned at the highest possible fixed point; distances apart, now measured by laser and satellite, were measured originally by trigonometry, thus ‘trig’.

turning effort: the mechanical effort needed to make a tyre turn from its normal rotating straight-ahead path.

tyre pressures: the amount of air pressure in a tyre; varied depending on speeds and loads for any one vehicle, and varying slightly with temperature change.

UHF radio: ultra high frequency, in the case of UHF CB, around 470 MHz; providing a very clean no-hash signal; eight repeater channels nationally.

undersling: with leaf-spring suspension, relocate the axle to below the spring.

unnecessary risk: in this instance, relying on one 12V battery to supply power for camping overnight, yet still reliably start the vehicle engine the next day.

unpowered: a trailer wheel which is pulled is unpowered, and can easily be deflected by objects in or on the road surface.

unsupported weight: the amount of weight normally pressing down on the A-bar, when not offset by the level ride bars.

unused space: cavities and similar possibly awkward spaces in a van where some extra storage could be gained or found with some ingenuity or effort.

usable power: the amount of electrical power in a 12V battery available to appliances, in most cases unusable below 10.5V.

useless spares: generally, uncommon and superfluous spare parts carried ‘just in case’, without sound reasoning.

Utilux seven-pin plug: may be round or flat; the most used trailer 12V cable connector between van and vehicle.

V: volts

van boot: in most vans, a front-located storage area, with an opening hatch or door.

van park operators: the person in charge of the area; overall, the actual park owners; the chain or group organisation promoting the van park.

van specification: the list of dimensions, mechanical specifications, appliances, features and fittings for a manufacturer to build a complete van from scratch.

van weight: see tare weight.

V-bracket: half of a Couplemate ‘marriage saver’.

vented: heated air extraction to the outside, usually for fridges, microwaves, showers, toilets, stoves, etc.

vertical leg: when a triangulated awning support arm is detached from the lower anchor point on a van, and located vertically, to make an annexe corner pole.

vertical weave: the pattern in shadecloth, with the vertical weave facing out so that any rain will be channelled down, rather than held by horizontal weave ribs.

VHF: very high (radio) frequency.

voltage drop: loss of electrical power usually due to resistance from joins, small wire diameter and long length.

voltage variance: typically, when an appliance will operate efficiently from 7V to perhaps 15V, although 12V is the preferred voltage; equally, incorrect voltage.

W: watts

warp: one half of the weave; the other half is weft.

water filter system: a means of removing unwanted matter from drinking water by placing a filter between supply and tap.

weather protection: applying a coat of Armorall protectant or similar to tyre sidewalls, normally forgotten and perishable through sun exposure.

wheel bearings: normally two per wheel, inner and outer; two different sizes on a tapered axle stub; in constant use, they require greasing twice yearly.

wheel brace: the special socket used to undo wheel nuts, usually with a handle long enough to apply considerable leverage.

wheel studs: the bolts which hold a wheel onto the brake hub or brake drum.

wide-view mirrors: see towing mirrors.

Winegard: A brand of roof-mounted TV antenna, raised and adjusted from inside the van, amplified and offering top reception.

wire basket: often used as a pantry tray in a slide-out pantry; used for under-seat storage and ease of handling in many vans.

wiring systems: in a tow vehicle, including from brake controller, to lights and power, to the connection plug; the hot wire from battery to van, etc.

Index

A

A-bar Awnings, Storage Rack, Corner Jacks, Backing Courses, A-Bar Height, Weight, Gas protection

accessory battery Batteries

accidents Ride height

adjustments Adjusting

aggregate trailer mass (ATM) Registration

air conditioning Cooling–Warming, Generator size

airflow Venting

airbags (suspension) Levelling, Suspension

alarm system Detecting

all-wheel-drive vehicles (AWD) Type

alloy rims Hints

alternator Power supply 12V, Disconnection

ambulance cover

anchor points Hints

annexes

matting Annexe Matting

walls Mould

antennas see radio, TV

anti-sway Anti-sway

anti-sway brakes Unhitching, Buffeting, Anti-sway brakes

ants Van sites, Hints, Ants

appliances Hints, Fridges, Power safety

autogas

automobile club service (RAC) Total care

awnings Awnings–Mould, Hints, Shadecloth, Hints

B

backing see reversing

backing aids

backing courses

backs (safety) Backs

balance Balancing, Sagging, Ride balance

ball weight Replacing

barbecue Cooking

batteries Batteries, Pre-trip maintenance, Power needs, Power supply 12V, Light globes, Batteries

accessory Batteries

auxiliary Fuel

charger Inverters

dual Batteries, Disconnection

leads Disconnection

portable booster Disconnection

bed seats Bedding

bedding

beds Bedding

bike paths

bike racks

bikes Health, Bikes, Roof, Bikes

blankets Microfleece

blinds Screening

bolts see nuts and bolts book rack Reading

books Reading

bottles Sliding

brake controller Braking, Hints

brake test Hints

brakes Safety connections, Hints

braking Downhill, Trucks, Replacing, Braking

indicator light, LED Braking

practice Braking Practice

safety switch Safety connections

systems Registration

breakaway cable Unhitching

breakaway switch or device Safety connections

breaking-glass detector Detecting

budgeting

buffeting (by trucks) Buffeting

bugs (intestinal) Filtering, Bugs, see also insects

bumper bar, rear Balancing, Rear bumper bar

bunks Bedding

bush camping Showering

butane gas stoves Cooking

buying a van Buying

C

cable

12V 12V Cable, Hints, Batteries, Plastic Bags

cable inlets

cable joiners Connectors

cameras Digital Cameras

campervans Camping

camping Free-Camping, Showering, Camping

caravan see van

caravan shows Research

carpet Flooring

cash

catches Catches, Hints

chains see safety chains

chairs Hints, Odds and ends

chassis modification Ride height

chassis rust

checks before leaving campsite Packing up

children see kids

chocks see wheel chocks

circuit breakers Power safety

cleaning products Cleaners

clearances

clearances, road Ride height

clevis pins Towing

clothes-drying rack Railing

clothes washing Washing

clothing Odds and ends

coil-spring Weather, Springs

compliance plates Registration

computers Internet

condensation Hints, Cooling

containers Sliding, Hints

convenience Convenience value

convoy towing Convoy

cooking Appliances, Cooking, Cooking

cooktops Cooking

cooling Cooling

corner-jacks Hitching, Packing Up, T-Square Level

cornering Van actions

couplings

crime

cupboards Shelves, Appliances, Extra Speakers

D

dampness Hints

departing

design

detectors Detecting

diesel vehicles Fuel

dish washing Retro-Fitting

doctors Exercises

door vents Venting

doormats Steps and mats

doors Packing up, Locking, Design

downhills

drawers Packing up, Catches

driving Trade-Offs, Tiring

dust Venting, Fridge vents

E

electrical

appliances Power needs

cables Power cables

circuits Lighting circuits

connectors

safety Safety Tester

economy False Economy

electricity Hints, Multimeter, Transformers, Power cables, Batteries see also power, batteries, cables

email Internet

Emergency Position Indicating Radio beacon (EPIRB) Safety outback

equipment Help yourself

etiquette, road Road Etiquette

exercises Exercises, Appendix F Stretching

Extra Care (roadside assistance) Total care

extracting

extractor fans Extracting

eyes (optical) Eyes

F

families Younger Families

fans, extractor Extracting

fatigue Tiring

feet, care Feet

fifth-wheeler trailers Towing

filters, water Dual Filters

fire safety Smoke

first aid First Aid, Appendix G First aid

fitness Fitness, Stretching

flood insurance Insurance

floodwaters Towing

flooring

flow driving

flyscreen door Screening

following (driving) Following

following distance Mirrors

food Roadblocks

footplates Jacking and packing, Hitching, Corner Jacks, Hints

4WD clubs Spares, Spares

4WD Survival Guide Spares, Power costs, Appendix A 4WD Survival Guide extract

4WD tow vehicles

free-camping Camping

freezing

fridges 12V Cable, Departing, Fridges, Bush camping, Insulin, Fridge types, Power payback

and freezer Fridge and Freezer

doors Fridge Doors

operation Fridge operation

thermometers Fridge operation

types Fridge types

vents Fridge vents

fruit fly Roadblocks

fuel Fuel Cost, Fuel, Fuel, Autogas

fuel tank, long-range False Economy

fuses Disconnection

G

gas

autogas

bottle clamp

bottle lock

bottles Corner Jacks, Hints

content Gas content

leakage Fire

lines Gas Lines

protection Gas protection

regulation Gas regulation

safety Gas safety

stoves (cookers) Appliances, Packing

valve check

gearboxes

generators Aircons, Pre-trip maintenance, Power supply 240V, Hints

getting along

glasses (optical) Eyes

global positioning system (GPS) Speed

gloves

government support Government

grease guns Suspension

grease nipples Lubrication, Suspension

grillers Packing

gross trailer mass (GTM) Registration

guy ropes Weather

H

hand care Hands

hand signals Observers

hand washing Hands

handbrakes Hitching, Handbrake, Hints

handwash container Hints

hanging (storage) Hanging

hatches Airflow, Screens

health

heat exchangers

heat-resistant paint Hints

heaters Warming

heating Warming

hinges

hints Hints, Hints, Hints, Hints

hitch-pin Towing

hitch receiver Towing

hitching

homework

hooks (for hanging) Hanging, Wasted space

hose connectors Brass Connectors

hosing

hot water In hot water, HWS, Hints

I

injury

inoculations Innoculations

insects Hints, Hints, Insects

bites Insects

repellents Citronella

screens

instruction booklets Hints

insurance

internet

inverters Power needs, Inverters

J

jackknifing Backing Courses

jacks and jacking Jacking and packing

jacks, corner Hitching, Corner Jacks, T-square Level

jockey wheels Hitching

K

keys Door keys, Spare Key, Security

kids

knock-detectors Detecting

knowledge

L

ladder Packing up

laundry Washing, Washing

leaf-spring Suspension

legalities

levelling vehicles Jacking and packing

level ride bars Towing

level rides

light emitting diodes (LEDs) Braking, Van lights

light globes

lighting Lighting 12V

lights, rear Corner Jacks, Van lights

liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) Gas regulation

living quarters

lock nuts Security

locking

locks Locking

lubricants Hints

lubrication

M

magazines Van Types, Monthly Magazines

mail

maintenance Hints

mats Steps and mats

mechanicals Pre-trip maintenance

medical

Megapulse unit Disconnection

mesh, insect Screens

microwave ovens Appliances, Capacity

mirrors, rear vision Storage Rack, Corner Jacks, Mirrors, Anti-sway

modifications Homework

money

mosquitoes Insects

mould Hints

mudflaps Road damage

multimeter Disconnection

music Listening

N

nuts and bolts Tools, U-bolts, Underneath

O

odours

off-road camper trailers Buying

outback safety Safety outback

ovens Appliances

overdrive Gearboxes

overheating

overtaking

Oztent Annexe-to-awning

P

packing (levelling) Jacking and packing

packing up Packing

paint Hints

paint, heat-resistant Hints

pantry Sliding

paperwork

parking Easy parking

personal wellbeing Health

pets

phones

pins, clevis Shackle pins

pins, shackle Shackle pins

plugging

plugs Utilux connection, Power cable problems

plugs, Anderson Utilux connection

plumbing Outside tap, Gas lines, Underneath

pole carrier Hints

pop-tops Awnings, More safety, Packing up, Watching, Pop-tops, Hints

port-a-potties Goes-unders

power Van sites, Plugging, Utilux connection, Power needs

cables Hints, Power cables

costs Power costs

disconnection

generation Power generation 240V

needs Power needs

payback Power payback

points, 240V Plugging

provision Power provision

safety Power cable problems

solar Power provision, Solar panels

supply, 12V Power supply 12V

supply, 240V Power supply 240V

pre-trip checklist

pre-trip maintenance

prescriptions

pressure hatches Airflow

prices, van park Other van parks

pumping

puncture repair kit Spares, Wheels

punctures Tyres

R

radio

antennas Radio

battery Odds and ends

CB Radio

FM Listening

UHF Bad temper, Radio, Radio

railing

reading

reflective tape Visibility

refrigerators see fridges

registration Hints

remote-controlled mover Van sites

rent assistance

rent-try-buy

research

rest areas Tiring

retro-fitting

reversing Hints

ride balance

ride height

road etiquette

road safety

road temperature Road safety

road trains Big trucks

road work

roadblocks

roadside assistance Total care

roadworthiness Legalities

roof Packing up, Roof

clearance see clearance

clips Roof clips

dents Load-sharing

fittings Roof

rubber bands

rubbish

rubbish bins

rust proofing Chassis rust

rust treatment Hints

S

safes Cash

safety More safety, Smoke, Hands, Odds and ends

chains Safety connections, Safety connections

connections Safety connections

electrical Goes-unders

gas Gas regulation

outback Safety outback

road Road safety

tester, power Safety tester

sagging

satellite dish Watching

schooling Kids

screen doors Screening

screens, cleaning Screens

screens (flywire) Screening, Screens

screws Pre-trip maintenance

seat covers Seat covers

seating

security Security

separation (driving) Separation

service books Help yourself, Hints

service manuals Gearboxes

services, travelling Travelling services

shackle bolts

shackle pins

shackles Springs

shadecloth Mesh

shelves

shower vents Airflow

showers

signalling (overtaking) Overtaking

sinks Van sites, Jacking and packing, Hints

sleep

slow traffic

smelling

smoke detectors Smoke

social aspects Social order

solar panels Power payback

solar power Power provision, Power costs

solar technology

space Appliances, Wasted space

spanners Tools

spare keys Spare key

spare tyres Spares

spare wheels Tyres, Rear bumper bar

spares Spares

speakers Listening

speed Tow speeds, Speed, Hints

starting off

steps Steps and mats, Hints

stone-guards Road damage

stop lights Corner jacks

storage Sliding, Cooking, Balancing, Hints, Design

bags Wasted space

racks Storage rack

long-term Mould, Hints

stoves Extracting

stress Tiring

stretching exercises Appendix F Stretching

sullage Van sites, Packing up, Smelling, Sullage

hose/pipe Jacks

sunglasses Eyes

suspension Lubrication

suspension change

T

tables Hints

tail lights Corner jacks

tanks Tanking

tare weight Registration

teeth (dental) Teeth

television see TV temperature Seeing, Odds and ends

tensioner Level ride bars

tent pegs

tents Annexe-to-awning

theft prevention Dual filters, Freezing, Bikes, Crime

thongs Feet

tip-shift gearboxes Gearboxes

tiring

toilets, portable Goes-unders

toilets, van park Free-camping

tools Help yourself, Tools

Total Care (roadside assistance) Total Care

tow

ball Level ride bars, Hitching, Backing aids

bar Towing

capacity Towing

chains Safety connections, A-bar height

couplings Corner jacks

heads Differences

speeds Tow speeds

vehicle Towing, Tow vehicle

vehicle, choosing Choice

vehicle, types Type

towing Driving, Towing, Towing, Towing

guide Free towing guide

safety chains Safety connections, Corner jacks

Utilux connection

transformers Fridge types, Transformers

travelling services

trees Drive-through sites

trips and travels

trucks Big trucks, Hints

T-square level T-square level

turn indicators Corner jacks

turning Van actions

turning lanes Flow driving

TV Watching

TV antennas Drive-through sites, Corner jacks, Watching, Van actions

tyre pressures Tyres, Sagging

tyres Packing up, Tyres, Wheels, Wheel bearings

tyres, spare Spares

U

U-bolts Corner jacks, U-bolts, Underneath

underneath a van Underneath

unhitching

unit conversion Appendix D Unit conversions

updates and changes Seat covers

uphills Uphill

Utilux connection 12V Cable

Utilux socket (plug) 12V Cable, Hints

V

V-bracket Backing aids

van

lights Light globes

modifications Homework

parking Van sites

parks Van parks, Drive-through sites

parts

positioning Van positioning, Annexe-to-awning

replacement Replacing

sites Van sites

theft Van theft

types Van types, Appendix C Different types of vans

updates and changes Seat covers

venting

visibility

visitors Seating

voltage Multimeter

W

wardrobes Hints

warming

washing (clothes) Washing

washing (van) Hints

water Pumping

filters Filtering, Bugs, Water filter

gauges Contents gauge

hot In hot water

supply Water supply

supply hoses Hosing

tanks Watering

taps Watering

weather Hints

weight Balancing, Registration, Weight, Extra weight

weights and measures Appendix D Unit conversions

wheel

bearings Wheel bearings

brace Hints

chocks Hitching

nuts Help yourself

wheels

wind-up vans More safety

windows Packing up, Corner jacks, Seeing, Security, Screens, Hints

wiring Lighting 12V

About the author

John Basham grew up in country Victoria, before electricity came to town. Actually, he grew up in the days of kerosene lamps, and learnt about camping from the basics up, as boys did in those days.

John worked as a welder, before working for the ‘gubmint’ (government) for most of his lifetime. He started writing and photographing for magazines about 1970. After a few years he was producing a monthly magazine about motorcycles (and he still rides one). He has also taught ‘a few people how to do things like tow caravans and play music and ride motorbikes’.

He’s fairly mechanical, and reasonably electrical, and likes making and modifying things; if he can work out how to fix it, repair it when it’s broken, or make it go as good as new again or even better, then he’s quite happy fiddling about.

His knowledge of caravanning and four-wheel driving is a result of much of his lifetime spent enjoying the bush, and travelling to many out of the way places while circumnavigating and criss-crossing Australia with his wife, Jess. They spent almost nine years on the road in their 4WD and caravan, moving around this great country and talking extensively with other likeminded individuals, looking at ‘fixes’ and dabbling in new ways of doing things. John enjoyed spending many hours repairing things for other travellers, and making their time on the road better for his efforts. Always a great observer, John took great care in documenting what he had seen and learnt, and is happy to be able to share this knowledge with fellow travellers.

Acknowledgements

This publication was originally produced and published in 2006 by Gregory’s Publishing Company, a division of Universal Publishers Pty Ltd.

Explore Australia Publishing would like to acknowledge the help of the following people in the production of this edition:

Publications manager

Astrid Browne

Project manager and editor

Alison Proietto

Cartography

Bruce McGurty

Design

Debra Billson

Layout

Adrian Saunders

Pre-press

PageSet Digital Print & Pre-press

Photography credits

All images are © John Basham, except for the following:

Photo 1 Opposite Lock.

Explore Australia Publishing Pty Ltd Ground Floor, Building 1, 658 Church Street, Richmond, VIC 3121

Explore Australia Publishing Pty Ltd is a division of Hardie Grant Publishing Pty Ltd

Published by Explore Australia Publishing Pty Ltd, 2012

Concept, maps, form and design © Explore Australia
Publishing Pty Ltd, 2012
Text and images © John Basham, 2012

The maps in this publication incorporate data © Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia), 2006. Geoscience Australia has not evaluated the data as altered and incorporated within this publication, and therefore gives no warranty regarding accuracy, completeness, currency or suitability for any particular purpose.

Disclaimer

While every care is taken to ensure the accuracy of the data within this product,

the owners of the data (including the state, territory and Commonwealth governments of Australia) do not make any representations or warranties about its accuracy, reliability, completeness or suitability for any particular purpose and, to the extent permitted by law, the owners of the data disclaim all responsibility and all liability (including without limitation, liability in negligence) for all expenses, losses, damages, (including indirect or consequential damages) and costs which might be incurred as a result of the data being inaccurate or incomplete in any way and for any reason.

eISBN-13 9781742738246

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owners and the above publisher of this book.

Publisher’s note: Every effort has been made to ensure that the information in this book is accurate at the time of going to press. The publisher welcomes information and suggestions for correction or improvement. Email: info@exploreaustralia.net.au

Publisher’s disclaimer: The publisher cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions. The representation on the maps of any road or track is not necessarily evidence of public right of way. The publisher cannot be held responsible for any injury, loss or damage incurred during travel. It is vital to research any proposed trip thoroughly and seek the advice of relevant state and travel organisations before you leave.

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