I had a puncture unfortunately at the weekend in Scotland, no problem apart from the spare wheel carrier & proximity to the motor mover. First there’s very little room under the back of the eriba 320 particularly in some situations. You of course get your wheel off the carrier before jacking the caravan up, getting the wheel to clear the threaded rod that goes through the canter of the wheel is bloody awful. I of course pulled one wheel of the caravan on to my long tapered caravan leveller to gain an extra few inches but when you’re trying to swing the cradle down & push it against the box section of the motor mover & squeeze/drag the wheel over the threaded rod. I am used to spare wheels on just about everything but this is crap. I’m contemplating sawing an extra 10mm off the threaded rod just to gain those precious few mm.
What does everyone else do. I also wonder if when the main agents fitted the motor mover when I bought the caravan off them how universal the kit was. It was supposed to be one of the best for eriba caravans but I think the box section that goes across between the movers also could do with modifications. I’m going to try & check with the manufacturer to see if there’s an alternative bar to go across

My Puck tyre cradle looks like the rod has been totally removed if it ever had one. The fit of the spare is so tight it does not move and the rod was probably a redundant feature (at least on a Puck).
Steve

It is a common problem with the Familia, I managed to modify my spare wheel carrier to miss the motor mover articulating bar, its quite easy to do just don't over cook the bend. See the attached photo/link which explains..

g156p2526-Eriba-familia-wheel-cage-and-mover.html

There will be a lot of Famila owners not aware of this problem and they will only come across it like you did when it is required. I would advise anyone with a familia and a motor mover to try and remove your spare wheel. If you cannot get it out you will have to carry out the modification.

You will also notice from the photo that I put my spare wheel in a plastic bin bag to protect it from the elements.

I did wonder about lowering the hitch to the ground & if I hadn’t managed to scrape it out that was going to be next after the long plastic wedge under one of the wheels also because it was on a bit of a slope un- hitching wasn’t my first choice but still a good alternative.
Regarding the spare wheel carrier catching the motor mover bracket, I need to crawl under & have a better look but vaguely my memory I seemed to think when I bought the caravan & had the dealers fit the “special eriba” mover I remember thinking why isn’t the box section cranked that goes between the movers rather than having to bend what was already there as in the spare wheel carrier, like I said I need to have a better look

I too had to modify the carrier when I fitted a mover to our 310 in a similar manner to poptop.
I’ll see if I can find a photo when I get on the pc.
Not a problem with the 410, the extra length gives plenty of room.
Jef

Do you have the pro or the basic? (assuming its a reich) the pro will give you more clearance as it does not have the lateral bar that connects the 2 winders on the basic.

We have a 420 so don't have a problem with room for the spare wheel, but agree the threaded rod is a very poor bit of design opening up the possibility of slashing the spare tyre as you struggle to remove it. seems to me the best plan would be to chop it off and maybe bolt on a disk of something just to locate the wheel if it needs it to stop the spare sliding around.

hi Zippy
Its the pro version

The pro is probably the best mover for the van as it still lets you retain the spare wheel just! The only part that is eriba specific though is the mounting kit, other than that it will be the same as any other pro fitted to a normal van

I've hopefully managed to load a picture of the bar that joins my motor movers together. You would have thought there would be a version cranked up round the chassis to give loads of clearance but i suppose they would say its to many versions to make. I think I'm probably going to have to slightly modify my spare wheel carrier.IMG_8005.jpg - Bild entfernt (keine Rechte)

Here's (hopefully) a picture of the modified carrier on our previous Familia 310. The mover is a Reich Ecoline but the connecting bar seems the same for most Reich movers. It's certainly the same on the Reich Easydriver pro 1.8 I fitted to the Triton we have now.

SpareCarrierModR.JPG - Bild entfernt (keine Rechte)

Hi Jef
I’ll have to see if I can get the bends in my spare wheel carrier with out getting it to close to the floor. I pulled the split pins out the other day & removed it so that I could lay my spare wheel over the threaded rod that sticks up to see if it was viable to shorten the threads. The max I would gain is about 10mm with a steel spare wheel & a 185/70r13 tyre on which is standard for my 2015 320. If I was to try & put one of the alloy wheels back into the cradle that might be wider but I would just keep that in my Vito tow car till I had it repaired.
So it looks like it’s bend the carrier & in extreme circumstances I could always un-hitch & lower hitch to gain room under the back of caravan but it’s good to have your pictures

Well spare wheel cradle bent which will help. The restricting factors are going to be when it’s lowered down to the ground & lifting/dragging the spare wheel over the top of the threaded rod with out damaging the spare wheel or TYRE!. Obviously if I unhitch the caravan & lower the hitch as low as possible or put my levelling wedge under one of the road wheels it’s going to help. It would help even more if I could get rid of the threaded rod. I’ll think on that one