Mayersie Posted September 30, 2015 Share Posted September 30, 2015 Have recently purchased a Fiat Auto Trail Excel and would like to know whether it is possible to fit a spare wheel to the Motorhome as it does not come with one. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billggski Posted September 30, 2015 Share Posted September 30, 2015 Look underneath, if there are no obstructions, a wind down system can be fitted, on eBay for about £80, but 15" and 16" are different, and there was a recall on the original one, so beware second hand items. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flicka Posted September 30, 2015 Share Posted September 30, 2015 Billggski - 2015-09-30 8:02 PM Look underneath, if there are no obstructions, a wind down system can be fitted, on eBay for about £80, but 15" and 16" are different, and there was a recall on the original one, so beware second hand items. The Fiat system will not fit your Excel coach built. It is for Panel vans. If you check the rear chassis extension there may be pre-drilled holes where a cradle style sparewheel holders could be attached if there are not obstructions between the chassis rails Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flicka Posted September 30, 2015 Share Posted September 30, 2015 Billggski - 2015-09-30 8:02 PM Look underneath, if there are no obstructions, a wind down system can be fitted, on eBay for about £80, but 15" and 16" are different, and there was a recall on the original one, so beware second hand items. The Fiat system will not fit your Excel coach built. It is for Panel vans. If you check the rear chassis extension there may be pre-drilled holes where a cradle style sparewheel holders could be attached if there are not obstructions between the chassis rails Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geeco Posted October 1, 2015 Share Posted October 1, 2015 It may be worthwhile checking with AT to ascertain if the rear wall tyre mounting system used on the current model Auto-trails can be adapted to your Excel. Cheers Gary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted October 2, 2015 Share Posted October 2, 2015 John flicka - 2015-09-30 10:24 PM Billggski - 2015-09-30 8:02 PM Look underneath, if there are no obstructions, a wind down system can be fitted, on eBay for about £80, but 15" and 16" are different, and there was a recall on the original one, so beware second hand items. The Fiat system will not fit your Excel coach built. It is for Panel vans. If you check the rear chassis extension there may be pre-drilled holes where a cradle style sparewheel holders could be attached if there are not obstructions between the chassis rails In principle the same spare-wheel lowering/raising mechanism used on post-2006 Fiat Ducato panel-vans could be fitted to similar-vintage coachbuilt motorhomes that have Ducato ‘ladder’ chassis. This ebay advert has a photo (attached) showing that arrangement http://tinyurl.com/poq8jzh In practice it’s very likely that a designer of a Ducato/Boxer/Relay-based coachbuilt motorhome that is marketed without a spare-wheel - or without the option of a spare-wheel - will have chosen to exploit the under-floor space where the spare-wheel would normally go to fit water tanks, water pipework, etc. For example, there’s no way to carry an under-floor spare-wheel on my coachbuilt Ducato-based Rapido 640 as the waste-water tank’s location prevents this. As Billggski advises, you’d need to check what’s under the vehicle’s floor behind the rear axle, but I suspect (having glanced at the Excel specification) that you’ll be out of luck. You haven’t said which Excel model you own or how old it is, but I note that the 640G had a rear ‘garage’ that looks large enough to accommodate a spare-wheel and that would be the obvious place to consider housing one if there’s no room under the floor. (It’s where I put a spare-wheel in my Rapido.) Otherwise you could explore carrying a spare-wheel externally as Gary suggests. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles Posted October 2, 2015 Share Posted October 2, 2015 If you can fit some 20x40mm unistrut underneath you can make a carrier out of that and some 10mm threaded rod. I'm thinking of making something to carry our sun loungers as there's loads of room underneath. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted October 3, 2015 Share Posted October 3, 2015 I’m surprised that there’s a lot of underfloor room behind the rear axle of an Accordo 105 as the vehicle’s rear wash-room and rearwards kitchen suggest that Elddis would locate the waste-water tank close to the back of the motorhome where the spare-wheel would normally be housed. Perhaps you are considering carrying your loungers further forwards? It does need emphasising that a motorhome’s spare-wheel is HEAVY and any retro-fitted carrying system needs to be suitably engineered to cope with that weight. Even when a motorhome converter deigns to provide an underfloor spare-wheel that’s lowered/raised using the base-vehicle manufacturer’s mounting system, it can still be a challenging task removing/replacing the spare-wheel should the need arise. Personally I wouldn’t expect to have much difficulty DIY-ing an underfloor-mounted carrier for a couple of sun loungers (though I’d question the logic of doing this given the potential for the chairs to get mucky) but I would not attempt knocking together an underfloor spare-wheel carrier that would a) be strong enough and b) allow reasonably easy wheel removal/replacement. If I had not been able to shoehorn a spare-wheel into my Rapido’s garage I would not have considered mounting one elsewhere. The attached photo shows a spare-wheel mounted high on the rear wall of a Wingamm motorhome. I believe this is a converter’s option as I’ve seen it on other Wingamms, but it needs a very strong wall construction that many motorhomes with sandwich-panel bodywork won’t have. There’s a good deal of earlier forum discussion on this subject. These Search results include some of it that should be useful. http://tinyurl.com/pz2cc4x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles Posted October 3, 2015 Share Posted October 3, 2015 Yes the space on the Accordo 105 is further forward. I'm still in thinking about it mode. The reason I'm even considering it is because we usually store them behind the front seats while traveling and when just stopping for the night it means you can't turn the seats round. A minor inconvenience if it's only one night but times that by 10 on the way to benidorm it becomes an issue. Yes they would get dirty if not covered in some way, one of the minus points. Back to wheels, I made something similar on my mini. It had a towbar fitted so the BMW carrier kit couldn't be used. I bought a space saver wheel and held it up with some M10 rod through the middle and a 6" piece of unistrut. Something more substantial would be needed for a van wheel, like a small frame with 4 m8 rods maybe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayersie Posted October 5, 2015 Author Share Posted October 5, 2015 Thanks for all you replies and information most helpful. I will be looking into to this further prior to travelling abroad as I would prefer to have a spare wheel rather than have to use a repair kit. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted October 6, 2015 Share Posted October 6, 2015 A caveat about retro-fitting a spare-wheel to a Ducato motorhome. Most new Fiat Ducato-based coachbuilt motorhomes will have ‘camping-car’ tyres as original equipment (OE) and the wheel rims will be fitted with metal clamp-in tyre valves to cope with the high inflation pressure such tyres are designed to be run at. This link is to the downloadable Schrader catalogue http://tinyurl.com/ow5kyym and the valve that is apparently fitted as OE on Ducatos campers is the 65765-68 design shown on Page 13 of the catalogue. This valve has an O-ring that seals against the inside of the wheel-rim and, if a rim is not absolutely flat and in perfect condition at the valve ‘hole’, there’s a good chance a reliable seal will not be made. This will be a potential problem with any alternative valve that employs an O-ring seal and can be worked around by using either a clamp-in valve with a stepped base-seal or the speciaised snap-in Schrader valve 65753-68 shown on Page 11 (that I think is used as OE on Ford Transits). However, the 65765-68 valve has an unusually narrow diameter sleeve-nut and using an alternative valve may result in the Ducato the wheel trim not locating properly on the rim. This may not matter if the spare-wheel is to be used only in an emergency, but it’s probably worth saying. It’s also worth highlighting that a relatively low tightening torque is normally used for clamp-in valves with O-ring seals and a much lower torque for clamp-in valves with stepped seals. When I discussed availability of the 65765-68 valve with Schrader(UK) I was told that they only supplied them wholesale and in a minimum quantity of ten. It also became evident that they were only supplying a very small number of these valves in the UK per annum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.