Field Note 010 — Carry the Basics
There is a point where vehicle preparedness gets stupid.
Recovery boards. Farm jacks. Winches. Spare parts. Specialized tools. Enough equipment to make the back of your truck look like a mobile repair shop.
Some of that stuff has a place. I carry plenty of it myself.
That isn’t what this is about.
This is about the basic shit that can turn:
“Well, we’re fucked.”
into:
“Alright. We can probably get home.”
Because most roadside and trail repairs aren’t really repairs.
Most of the time, the goal is just to limp yourself to the real fix.
Get the tire holding air long enough to reach a shop. Get the battery started. Keep the broken piece from dragging. Tighten whatever came loose. Strap something out of the way. Replace a fuse.
Get moving.
Then fix it properly when you’re somewhere better equipped to do it.
That’s the standard.
Carry Some Tools
I keep one fairly comprehensive tool roll in my main vehicle.
The roll itself is an Atlas 46. I’d somehow forgotten that over the years and, for a while, thought it might have been Condor.
Turns out I was wrong.
Doesn’t matter much. The point was never the name on the roll anyway. It was building one tool kit, organizing it once, and keeping it in the vehicle long enough that it became part of the system.
It has four main pouches and an extra zippered pocket. The pouches are divided roughly by function: screwdrivers, metric and standard sockets with a 3/8-inch ratchet, wrenches, and various pliers.
The extra pocket carries some of the smaller useful stuff: zip ties, gloves, a flashlight, tire-pressure gauge, and a tire plug kit.
Most of the actual hand tools are older Craftsman.
And I mean older Craftsman.
I deliberately built the roll with the good pre-buyout stuff, not the newer tools wearing the same name. Craftsman was what my dad used when I was growing up. Those were the tools I knew, trusted, and associated with being worth keeping, so when I built a kit that was supposed to follow me for years, that’s what I put in it.
And it has followed me for years.
That doesn’t mean every car needs a duplicate of it.
My lady’s vehicle gets a more basic toolbox. Something inexpensive, filled with enough common hand tools that she isn’t completely helpless if something stupid happens.
That’s really the point.
You don’t need enough tools to rebuild an engine on the shoulder of the freeway. You need enough tools to tighten the loose thing, remove the broken thing, hold the remaining thing together, or improvise your way out of the immediate problem.
Over the years, that tool roll has done exactly that.
Loose light bars. Camping equipment. Body pieces trying to leave vehicles after off-road trips. Whatever hand tool somebody at camp suddenly realizes they don’t have.
The roll comes out.
Something gets tightened.
Something gets fixed.
We move on.
The Tire Plug Kit Might Be the MVP
If I had to pick one thing inside that tool roll that has earned its space the most, it might be the tire plug kit.
I’ve plugged a lot of tires.
A lot.
I’m pretty sure the Chevy still has at least one plug in a tire that has been holding for something like five years.
I’m not suggesting every roadside plug should become a five-year lifestyle choice.
I am suggesting that a tiny kit capable of sealing a hole in a tire can completely change the situation you’re standing in.
But the plug kit only solves half the problem.
You still need air.
Have an Inflator
I’ve owned a bunch of tire inflators.
I think the first one came from Harbor Freight. After that I had a Slime inflator. There have been several more since then, and at this point I couldn’t confidently tell you the brand of every one I own.
And honestly?
I don’t care.
I care that there is one in the vehicle.
There is one in the Chevy.
There is one in the Rogue.
There is one in the 4Runner.
I always kept one in my work truck too.
I also have an M12 inflator that has effectively become the loaner. If somebody is going on a trip and doesn’t have an inflator, I can hand them that one.
Because an inflator is one of those tools that stops being “off-road equipment” the moment you actually start using one.
Yes, I’ve used them for airing tires back up after dropping pressure. I’ve also used them after plugs and blowouts, and for people stuck on the side of regular roads and freeways.
Sometimes all you need is enough air to get somebody to a gas station or tire shop.
That’s still a win.
An inflator doesn’t have to permanently solve the problem.
If it turns a tow truck into a ten-minute drive to a tire shop, the thing has already paid for itself.
Carry a Jump Pack
Every vehicle also gets a jump pack.
And jumper cables.
Both.
The Chevy has what I believe is a NOCO. The 4Runner and Rogue have more generic units. I also keep a DSR Pro Series unit in the workshop.
Brand isn’t really the point here either.
Dead batteries happen.
I’ve jumped people at campsites, bars, parking lots, on the side of the road, in driveways, and probably places I’ve forgotten.
Years ago, Dominic’s battery died at a particularly bad time. He didn’t have the money to replace it yet and needed to make it to his next check.
So I drove out, met him, jumped the car, and handed him my jump pack.
For the next week or two, that jump pack was effectively part of his starting procedure. He used it to get back and forth to work until he could afford the battery.
Then he bought the battery, fixed the actual problem, and gave me the pack back.
That little box didn’t repair his car.
It got him to the real fix.
That matters.
And carrying cables in addition to the jump pack has already justified itself too.
A few weeks ago, my lady and I walked into the Bear Claw. Almost as soon as I sat down, somebody came in asking if anyone had jumper cables or a jump box.
I raised my hand.
Then I remembered my jump pack was sitting at home charging because I had forgotten to put the damn thing back in the 4Runner.
Luckily, the cables were still there.
We went outside, got the couple jumped, pointed them toward the nearest auto-parts store, and went back inside.
The guy who had asked for help left a Bear Claw coin waiting for me.
I thought it was just a neat little token with the bar logo on it.
Turns out the coins are good for a free drink.
So apparently carrying jumper cables has benefits I had not previously considered.
Ratchet Straps Are Repair Equipment
I keep a bag of ratchet straps too.
Most people think of them as cargo equipment.
And they are.
Until something breaks.
Then suddenly they become suspension equipment, bodywork retention equipment, emergency fabrication equipment, or whatever else the situation demands.
One of the better examples happened in the desert when Goldstein hit something hard enough with the driver-rear corner of his RZR to tear the hub apart.
The bolts were ripped out. The wheel was gone from that corner.
Luckily, the brake disc and caliper landed in soft sand and weren’t completely destroyed.
I pulled the jack out of the Chevy and lifted that corner. We tightened everything around the axle and mounts that could still be tightened so we didn’t lose anything else.
Then we used a ratchet strap to compress the suspension and keep the damaged hub and brake assembly from constantly hammering into the ground.
We strapped a 2×4 underneath the damaged corner as a sacrificial skid.
Then three or four guys leaned on the driver’s side while Goldstein drove the RZR back toward camp on three wheels, trying to keep as much weight as possible off the broken driver-rear corner.
Was it pretty?
No.
Was it the proper repair?
Absolutely not.
Did it get the machine back to camp without destroying a bunch more parts?
Yep.
That’s the point.
The Cheap Stuff Matters Too
Some of the most useful things in the vehicle are also the cheapest.
Zip ties are a perfect example.
I keep them in the tool roll. I keep them in smaller boxes. They take almost no room, weigh almost nothing, and cost so little that I don’t care if I hand half of them to somebody else.
A lot of campsite and trail repairs are MacGyver-esque bullshit anyway.
Can we keep this attached?
Can we stop this from dragging?
Can we hold this wire somewhere safer?
Can we keep this together long enough to get home?
Nothing is more MacGyver than zip ties.
Hell, I tried several different mounting solutions when I was figuring out how to attach the antlers to the push bumper on the 4Runner.
In the end?
Zip ties.
Eff it.
They worked.
Yes....i keep the wreath on there at all times. Sue me.
I keep gloves too.
Usually a few pairs of nitrile gloves, a lighter mechanic-style pair for better dexterity, and a heavier leather-style pair for rougher work.
Can you change a tire or crawl under a vehicle without gloves?
Of course.
But it sucks to finish a roadside repair and realize your hands look like you just walked out of Mordor.
Carry them.
And Carry Some Fuses
One of the less frequently used things in my main vehicle is a basic assortment of blade fuses.
They don’t come out nearly as often as the tools, inflator, or jump equipment.
But when you need one, you need one.
Most vehicles built over the last few decades use common blade-style fuses somewhere in the system, and a big assortment costs next to nothing compared with what a roadside problem can cost you.
Maybe the vehicle starts, but suddenly the lights don’t work.
Maybe some other important circuit disappears.
If the problem is a blown fuse, replacing a part that costs pennies can restore enough function to get you home.
If the replacement blows again, obviously something else is wrong.
Fine.
That is tomorrow’s problem.
Get home.
Find the short.
Fix it properly.
The fuse only had to get you there.
Most of This Stuff Hasn’t Saved Me
Here’s the part I find interesting.
For all the talk about being prepared for your own problems, I would guess I’ve used this equipment to help other people at least five times as often as I’ve needed it for myself.
Probably more.
Somebody needs a wrench at camp.
Somebody gets a flat.
Someone’s battery is dead.
A stranger is stuck in a parking lot.
A vehicle comes apart in the desert.
A friend needs a jump pack for a week because payday and a dead battery happened at the same time.
The kit comes out.
And that feels good.
There is something satisfying about somebody standing beside a problem thinking they’re stuck and being able to say:
“Yeah. I’ve got something for that.”
You don’t need to be a mechanic.
You don’t need a truck full of specialized recovery equipment.
You don’t need to prepare for every possible mechanical failure.
Carry enough capability to deal with the common stuff.
A few tools. A tire plug kit. An inflator. A jump pack and cables. Some straps. Gloves. Zip ties. A handful of fuses.
Enough to keep something attached.
Enough to get air back into a tire.
Enough to start the engine.
Enough to limp the vehicle somewhere safer.
Most of the time, that’s all you’re trying to do anyway.
Get yourself — or somebody else — to the real fix.
Carry the basics.
Buy less. Go more.
— Dane Justus
Founder, Weekend Route