[Vwdiesel] stranded

[Roger Brown]

I am thinking of adding various bits of what I have in the 4WD truck into the VW pickup to 
help make it a little more self-sufficient.  I want to add a small air compressor and 
probably dual batteries and with 2 batteries you can do some rudimentary welding.

But all these stories are a good read to hear the sorts of problems you can encounter on 
the road and know what to carry with you.  Like when I had the last CV axle go on the 
pickup, luckily I was able to rent a 30mm socket from the parts store along with buying 
the re-man axle (that itself ultimately failed).  But now, I carry a 30mm socket in my 
little tool box, one of those bargain bin items from Harbor Freight.  But since most of my 
VW road trips are not in a group of other VWs, you don't get to see the problems others 
are running into and thus may not think about the tools/parts you might want to carry.

My first trip over the famous Rubicon Trail in the Sierra Nevada in California was a real 
eye opener.  One guy who had just bought an old beater Toyota pickup the week before the 
trip was in our group, It was only my second real 4WD trip and by far the hardest trail I 
had ever done.  This guy used speed instead of gearing to get over the big boulders.  He 
ended up breaking one or two motor mounts, had a radiator that was leaking and at the end 
of the day went over a big rock and literally pretzeled his rear drive shaft.  I figured 
that truck would have to be abandoned on the trail, but the next morning it was like that 
old story named "Stone Soup":
	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_soup

A couple of guys dragged batteries and jumper cables out of their trucks, someone had some 
welding rod, a few pair of sunglasses used for a welding face shield.  One guy cut some 
angle iron off his pickup's flat bed and someone else banged the drive shaft straight on a 
granite boulder.  Then all those pieces came together and they welded the angle iron to 
the straightened shaft and they guy drove out under his own power.  That is where I got 
the inspiration to get set up to handle those sorts of problems myself.


On 5/25/2012 6:21 AM, Doyt W. Echelberger wrote:
> Roger, you have obviously set a new bar for us all. There are some limits
> on being prepared, and perhaps you are approaching them.
> I imagine your next upgrade would be to tow a spare bus, stocked with
> tools, machines and devices to manufacture whatever you need, and equipped
> with an on-board generator for electrical power to operate the tools and
> machines. If the bus you are driving breaks down and resists easy repair,
> you just drop it back into the trailer position and drive off in the spare
> bus, pulling the disabled one.
>
> And I would not be surprised if you actually have done that and just aren't
> telling us about it.
>
> Doyt



-- 

   Roger