Parts

How it came:

The only real spare part that came with the van was the obvious spare wheel/tire combination. As we often are out in the middle of no-where the consequences of a non-repairable failure are very expensive (widlerness extraction, etc), we begain to increase our store of spare parts.

What we have selected:

Spare Parts:

To deal with the inevitable failure on the road we carry a set of spare parts. This list was compiled from research on the internet and personal experience of what is most likely to fail and possible to address in the field. This is a list of the current spares we carry and why:

E350 Specific:

Serpentine (Fan) Belt: We carry one spare. If the belt goes the engine has no alternator power, water-pump cooling, vacuum (brake booster), or power-steering.
ICP (Injection Control Pressure) Sensor: These have a reputation for going out and leading to surging of varying degrees. We replaced ours due to a slight surging in some driving conditions and carry a spare.
EBP (Exhaust Back Pressure) Sensor: These also have a reputation for going out and leading to surging of varying degrees. We replaced ours due to a slight surging in some driving conditions and carry a spare.
Mini Fuses: The under-dash fuese box uses mini-fuses, as well as the 2 Blue Sea fuse-boxes we have for our various appliances and household circuits.
Maxi Fuses: We carry a few of these for the fuse distribution block under the hood.
9007 Headlight Bulbs: In case one of our headlight bulbs burns out while we are out on the road we carry a set of spares.

Enhancements:

These are parts we have added to the van to improve

Heavy Duty Automatic Charging Relay: This is a recent addition to replace our prior charging relay/battery separator. This one features manual and remote switch control, while drawing no significant power to hold the battery banks either joined or separated.
ARB Air Locking Differentials: We ARB have locking differentials in both the front and rear axle. These have been quite useful when we are on rocky trails as the van does not have near the flex of many off-road vehicles, and we do not wish to spin wheels or risk getting stuck.
Kyocera 125 Watt Solar Panel: We have 2 of these mounted to the front of our roof, and they have performed flawlessly over the 4.5 years they have been up there so far. They have sustained some hail, pine-cones, branches, and direct hits on the back-side with rocks coming off of trucks driving the other way.
Xantrex Battery Monitor: One of the first additions we did to the electrical system of the van was a battery monitor to keep track of how much power we had available. This is a wonderful tool to know when batteries are starting to need replacement, when there is something left on that is drawing down power, etc.
Edge Insight Multi-Gauge Display : This is our add-on gauge package for reading temperatures and various other engine and transmission parameters. We picked up the exhaust-gas temperature probe as well to keep an eye on our exhaust temperatures to prevent damage when hauling up steep hills. We have ours configured to display: Engine Coolant Temp, Engine Oil Temp, Transmission Temp, Exhaust Gas Temp, and to beep an alarm when EGT gets over 1250 degrees.

Household:

Sceptre 24" LED LCD Monitor : This is another recent addition. Our prior LCD monitor ran off of 12v but was back-lit by a flourescent bulb and has been moved into our house. In searching for a replacement we found this LED illuminated monitor which also runs off of 12v, but consumes less than 1/2 the power of our prior one with a somewhat larger screen area. With the current settings it uses less than 20watts, and weighs only about 6lbs.
RAM mounts: We used a number of RAM mount components to build up our laptop mount for the dash area (like the image to the right), to hold our main-computer-monitor in the cabin (similar configuration, but larger), and to build a camera mount for suction-mounting to the windshield. The ball-and-socket system is available in a number of sizes with all sorts of different components to hold nearly anything you might desire.