Late bay with wheel on front.....

Throw the wheel in the back and throw it under the van when camping

 

I prefer the front sans wheel, mine is in the rear, now...after a few beers, when camping, I often wake up hugging mine, not pleasant, no, not at all.

So I can see the advantages

 

On the nose

 

It was Bob Sherwin in Clifton. Back then, and this was more than twenty years ago, when many of the now respected specialists were still in short trousers, he was one of the leading authorities on air cooled motoring. I laugh about it now, and to a degree I laughed about it back then. I honestly thought he was going to have a heart attack! But the bus stopped, the wall collapsed, the blokes came rushing round from next door and he sent me home in either his Beetle or his Passat. The next day he called me up to collect, and bar a bent/straightened/knackered aerial & a couple of tears on the spare wheel cover, you'd never know what had happened.
Just for the record, we didn't fall out over it. Although the young trainee mechanic who was responsible for leaving it in gear wasn't there the next time I visited!
I've not seen him for a few years, I really must pop over & say hello.

 

That’s what I used to do with my twin slider.

 

Didn’t he move out of Nottingham? Not sure where to!

 

That would only work if always on a campsite, go wild camping and it doesn’t.

Mine used to be on the front, then I had a new front fitted and so far it’s kept inside and out underneath when camping, but I’ve been looking at rear mounts, in particular the type Kombilife are using.

 

Where did you get your front wheel cover from? I like them on the front and your cover looks really good

 

Think that’s him.

 

Ebay....look for 4x4 spare wheel cover.
The seller even gives a chart to match tyre size to cover.( can't remember seller...sorry .)

 

All us cool kids have the spare on the front

 

Mine is actually behind the drivers seat in its own cupboard! Westy Berlin design and allows loads of space for spares and the original spare wheel well has the wardrobe over this and even more space for spares, tools ect. (its LHD)

 

No, that's his brother John. He built my mental SuperBeetle for me back in 1985.
Bob is still on Southchurch Drive, by the shops in the middle. He flogs a few cars & makes his living replacing the endless broken springs that the Clifton estate is now best known for.
A lovely bloke & I'll bet this incident still haunts him.

 

I’m a bit ‘meh’ on the appearance of front-mounted spares, but it clearly makes sense, although I do find myself having to visually check that they aren’t Brazilian water-cooled buses with the fake wheel radiator grill covers though cos those just annoy me . Don’t know why!

Mine is on the rear deck above where the leisure battery goes and where it was intended to go on my bus, but I get that it’s a little intrusive into the full width R&R bed area.
Have thought about sticking it on the Westy roof bars but it would just be a pain for clearance since I’ve gone to lengths to get the bus under 2 metres for car parks and ferries - and my garage, but it’s never made it in there since it’s full of crap.
So it seems eminently sensible to have it up front in practical terms, and common enough to hardly notice.
And it covers up those ugly rad grills on water-cooled repro buses!


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To add, when I was a lad, there was a VW Convertors where the Co Op is now in Castle Donington, called Wilsons.
I know, I hadn't realised until very recently that they were actually convertors, I thought that they just sold the things, but if you GOGle, you'll find a clear link to that Richard Holdsworth bloke who now lives in Australia.
Finally to my point...
There were always great lines of campers outside, Bedford CF's & Bays. And every last bay had the spare wheel on the front. It's just something that I grew up with, and to me T2's look wrong with the wheel elsewhere. My own bus was originally a Moonraker with the wheel on a cradle at the back. Practically the first thing I did to the bus was to bung the spare on the front. I didn't read up, I knew nothing, but my bus looked wrong, and now it looks right.