My Complete Tool Kit for International Motorcycle Travel - TOOLS, SPARES & REPAIRS

I'm Bret Tkacs. I've traveled five continents and over 50 countries and I'm telling you it's important to always be prepared this is all the things that you must bring with you on every trip you have a hammer need to have a spare hat don't forget your tools duct tape fixes everything and don't forget to have a spare roll if you need to change fork seals in oil oil is important don't forget if there's a flat it's a lot of work to be working on the bike have water with you spare RAM mount let's see we have this we have ah just in case I break the axle loose okay that's a lot of stuff I'm just kidding (flashback to 2018) welcome to my day job this is classroom from Puget Sound safety my day I'm an instructor by night I'm a youtube sensation ah I remember that guy now we're coming up on a hundred thousand subscribers we're gonna celebrate a hundred thousand subscribers here in western Washington you're all invited pay attention to social media we'll post where and when these are all of the tools spares and repairs that I carry with me and all of these fit in this bag in our first tools video I showed you how to build a tool kit that was streamline and specific just to your motorcycle in this video I'm going to talk about the tools that carry internationally this is my tool kit and my emergency supplies they carried through Africa and South America the biggest difference between this are the tools are a little larger a little easier to work with but more importantly it's all the supplies I carry in case something goes wrong and that's what I want to share with you one of the first things that I have in here the easy to grab are just packing straps these are the packing straps they use when motorcycles come to the manufacturers some will give them away for free some they'll charge a few dollars but the reason I carry these straps Avery so much for packing but if you rip a panier off the bike or you damaged a pan your frame these work very very well for re securing those onto the bike it's amazing when straps come in handy these are really really strong zip ties are something most of us as writers and of carrying and they're wonderful for stitching back together plastic almost Frankenstein you can drill a hole and use multiples of them but what I like are the stainless steel zip ties these become very important they're a lot more durable and where I've used these often is when I rip off a skid plate or somebody else rips off a skid plate many of the bikes have a fracture bolt on the bottom that's a design to fail and rip off if you don't have replacements it's bouncing around and if you've already ripped off your skid plate it means you need it so having something like a stainless steel zip tie and a multitude of them can be very useful for making those types of repairs J be quick weld a cold weld epoxy is an absolute must I've used this multiple times on other bikes and I've used it on my own bike when you've tipped over cracked a side cover or in one case somebody punched the bottom of their engine case through their skid plate this allows you to clean all the paint off put a seal on it and it will last well it'll last a full continent or more Loctite is an important thing to carry it's basically a glue for bolts and nuts with all the vibration especially riding off-road it's not a common to have bolts back off or if you have to repair or play something you tighten it back up it's more likely to back off that was carry blue thread lock with me the red is intended to be permanent so it can be very difficult to break free later the blue it works and you can break it free with just a wrench or with a ratchet stainless steel safety wire most commonly used by Road racers or by off-road riders it works very well for us if you end up with a grip that moves or slips what they do is they'll wrap this around tighten up the safety wire it'll keep the grip in place but also because it's made of metal it can be very useful in making other types of repairs again broken bodywork bent or even even with the panniers where you might get a tear you can put it back together with metal electrical tape and duct tape you can fix almost anything with duct tape but to carry something this size and this much weight everything adds up and eventually doesn't make a lot of sense so what I do instead is all wrap the tape around one of the tools I'll make a tool handle for one of my wrenches the duct tape leaves a really thick residue behind so I'll take painters tape which leaves almost no residue I'll put it around the wrench and then I'll wrap the duct tape around the wrench so it's always good it's space that is not wasted and it doesn't add a lot of weight to my kit I'm trying to address those issues that will leave me stranded where I need to get out of the out of the woods or back into a civilized area where I can get a permanent fix so these are all temporary fix items and flat tires they're always a possibility my BMW is tubeless so I do carry a small kit that allows me just to plug the tires but because I like riding off-road often what gets me a flat isn't gonna be a nail or something sharp and easy it's gonna be a big sharp rock or something that might actually tear or cut the tire so I always carry a two patch repair kit as well that'll have the larger patches so if I get a tear inside I can take the tire off and patch it that way if you have a tube tire you're going to be required to carry one of these anyways make sure I always carry more than one core remover and I carry spare cores for inside the tube often these can be damaged lost or just stopped working so always having a spare is a good idea but even then it doesn't always solve the problem one of the issues you run into off-trail is you have a very small air pump something that doesn't put out a lot of pressure and if you have a tubeless tire no matter how well you fix it you may not be able to get that tire to actually seat or the damage is on the sidewall and it's something you can't repair the only way to solve that issue is to install an inner tube for me I only need to carry one tube a 19 inch tube will work well enough to inflate my 17 inch rear wheel as well as the 19 on the front if it's a 21 17 I end up carrying two with the tube inside the tire even with a slow inflation rate of a small pump it'll continue to expand until eventually that tire pushes all the way back up onto the bead and again if it's a sidewall tear this is the only fix you have the challenge is how do you carry this tube without damaging it the blue painters tape protects the tube from the duct tape the duct tape protects the tube from everything else on top of that I get the bonus of extra duct tape if I need it to fix some other problem the tape is nice to compress the tube but another alternative is simply just wrap your tube in plastic and then tape the plastic okay yeah it does look a little suspicious at the border crossing huh bury it deep along with your repair items to make sure of course you have the tools break the bead and pulled the tire off the rim even if you have a tubeless tire and if I end up changing tires on the road I always carry a strip of weights with me so I can do a static balance on that tire before I put it back on the bike also if you throw a weight it can be a pretty rough ride I carry a heavy duty dual lock velcro that's plastic on both sides this is really good for mounting things onto the motorcycle minor repairs I've used this when I broke into my helmet mount for my comm system and reattached it using this if I need to make an electrical repair this weighs almost nothing this is shrink wrap it allows me to make the repair I put the shrink wrap over the top of the repair and I heat it up with a lighter or a torch it's way more professional than electrical tape I started carrying a tape measure with me just so I could set the SAG on my motorcycle and tune my suspension but it's very useful when something goes wrong I've also used it to measure bolts so want to make phone calls looking for parts or if I have to manufacture some sort of part I can take exact measurements bike specific things I carry are things such as an o-ring crush washers or even a belt for my alternator if that fails I'm kind of out of business and that's something to consider when you're traveling if you have a bike as chain-drive and what I did through South America on my 800 GS was I carried a section of extra chain just a little piece it's going to replace my chain I keep the spare and then I buy two master links for either end and the reason I do that is I've had these pins fail or you can pick up a rock that will damage the chain and you're not able to continue on this allows you to cut that section the chain out and splice in a new piece if you're going to carry the extra chain you'll also need a chain breaker and or possibly a chain press depends what kind of master link you have I was dad an Uruguayan I had lost my chain breaker I had to borrow from a local guy which was really interesting because he spoke a language I didn't speak which was Portuguese and I had to take a bench grinder and actually grind off the outer Lane so I could splice in the new chain so definitely important to have the right tools with you and depending how hard you travel and where are you going main up carrying forks hills with you will bearings head bearings or even an oil filter for me I've been able to find automotive filters that crossover to my motorcycle for both the 1200 GS and the 800 GS and in fact one of the benefits is it fits my Toyota Tacoma the same so I get to use them and I can find those filters anywhere in the world but if you have a filter very specific to your motorcycle it may be something you want to carry with you you may also need to bring extra items with you such as brake pads quality chain or sprockets things that fit your bike very specifically that could be impossible or near impossible to find in remote parts of the world there's other tools you might consider if you're traveling internationally this one I bought while I was in Mexico because we dented a rim one of the people I was riding with ended up using it three times to repair the same rim turns out I tried to get rid of this almost the entire trip it kept getting being given back to me and I used it over and over and over again I ended up replacing will bearings and head bearings on two different bikes on that trip I recommend carrying a punch finding one of these in Colombia or Botswana or some of these countries can be extremely difficult and what I did find one I paid an exorbitant amount of money to borrow it so I do recommend carrying a punch the bearings I could find the tool I couldn't a small set of locking pliers can be very useful if you damage or break off a shift lever or potentially a clutch lever or a brake lever I don't carry spare brake levers or clutch levers with me because they have the proper protection on the motorcycles and I usually replace them with shorter levers that are less likely to be damaged but if you do break one a set of small locking pliers can be a lifesaver wd-40 is kind of universal for me it's good for breaking bolts loose it's good for helping break the bead off of tires if it very dry it's also very good for helping seat a beat on a tire by the way it's not going to hurt the rubber I do care eww 40 it's good for cleaning the chains it's good for doing a quick lubrication it's good well you get the idea it's good for almost everything and I think I can use it to brush my teeth I also carry a motorcycle toe strap it's got a high tensile strength it's the proper length and it's gonna be much better than a piece of rope or twine you find on the side of the road if you use a toe strap one side has a closed loop and one side has an open loop the closed loop gets fed through and is put on the tow vehicle if you're the motorcycle being towed you take the non loop side and you wrap it once around on the center of the handlebar and you place a hand over the top of it this way if something goes wrong when you let go the strap can be pulled free my current motorcycle uses a can bus system so I don't have any fuses here but if your bike has fuses throw a few in the bag they're light they don't take any space and if you have no secondary lighting and only one headlight you may want to consider carrying a spare bulb as well and all that's left are the tools I showed you in the first video our instinct is to try to prepare for every single contingency on the trail or on the road and it's okay to ask for help it's okay to find other things what we're trying to do is prepare ourselves for those things that will leave us in harm's way or completely stranded some of my absolute best memories traveling came about because of something I couldn't fix on my own in Congo my subframe completely broke off the back of the bike and the locals that came by they brought bolts and none of us spoke the same language and they helped me out in Mexico we've been to frame end up sleeping on the porch of a local policeman meeting his family meeting all of his family local club came by he called all his friends and all these motorcycles came to see the travelers these memories are some of my most cherished memories so having a little bit of vulnerability allowing yourself to ask for help allowing yourself to get help could be well it can be one of the best experiences you have

Channel: MOTOTREK

Views: 292,312

Keywords: adv, adventure, motorcycling, motorcycle, bmw, ktm, skill, world, travel, motion pro, bead breaker, chain tool, tire repair, tube repair, valve core, survival

Id: oxcI0KUYh6w

Length: 15min 10sec (910 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 04 2019