A listing of the various bits’n’pieces we’ve done to our truck—or it’s done to us!
[listing compiled bottom-up]
August 2025: heading out to Cassilis on the first leg of a planned 3+ month trip and we started overheating again (shades of last October!) This time is obviously different as the fan is definitely working and when we stop there’s coolant everywhere under the bonnet. We limp into Cassilis, call the NRMA and Iveco; and the truck is towed to Mudgee to be repaired (thankfully under warranty). Was two separate coolant hoses with breaks/splits.
May 2025: a secondary impact of being towed in February was that the four rear tyres had been flat-spotted—seemingly the tow operator had not immediately released the electric park-brake. Result was nasty vibration when driving. Had the tyre shop rotate the outers relative to the inners, which has reduced the nastiness significantly!
February 2025: under-bonnet “explosion” while towing up Mt White on the M1, resulting in sitting off the road (in the weigh station) for several hours and having the truck/5R towed to Beresfield (Newcastle Iveco). Ended up being merely the turbo intercooler hose parting company with it’s mounting, so fixed quickly under warranty—took them longer to clear the computer error codes than to fix the problem!
November 2024: front passenger tyre severely scrubbed out, replaced tyre and had wheel alignment. Advice from the alignment shop is that front tyre pressure needs to be higher rather than lower, i.e. use the “full load” rated recommendation at all times.
October 2024: In to Iveco Sydney to look at overheating issues; found to be worn wiring insulation, repaired under warranty
May 2024: purchased a new mirror (from Iveco) and fitted it ourselves; seems from the price ($470) that it should’ve been gold-plated!
early-2024: we (I 🙁) drove too close to the edge of the road and clipped a power pole with the passenger-side mirror—the pole didn’t feel a thing but the mirror pretty much exploded on the spot! We went back the next day and retrieved the pieces and it mostly went back together OK; except for the temperature sensor which was (weirdly) in that mirror and without which the AC refused to work!
October-November 2023: toolbox fitted and repairs (from May) completed
September 2023: ordered a large white toolbox from Tools In a Box
23 May 2023: while we were on the way to collect grandkids from school at Regents Park a woman driver doesn’t give way when merging and damages the undertray boxes on the driver’s side, and a few other bits.
April 2023: back up to Newcastle Iveco to fit the side steps (which had somehow been “lost” from the original quote) and a reversing camera
12 December 2022: collected our new truck from Travelhome thanks to a ride up from Granville with our friends Richard and Heather
September—November 2022: build-out of the tray and other bits’n’pieces including UHF radio and internal “house” battery for the fridge, etc. See the full story of the rest of the build.
August 2022: a bit earlier than expected, our truck was ready—not for us to take but for the tray and hitch, etc to be fitted by Travelhome. For this to happen we had to finalise payment.
May 2022: signed a contract with Newcastle Commercial Vehicles for an Iveco Daily 50C21 dual cab-chassis, with all option packages PLUS bullbar and sidesteps. Delivery was projected to be some six months or so
2021/early 2022: lots of research and comparisons about what vehicle to by for our (at the time hypothetical) fifth wheeler; there’s more of a story about that part of it here…