Planning to head to central Australia - Advice for prepping caravan and car/spares

Jared01

Active Member
Oct 28, 2016
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Sydney
Hello,

This year (probably ~29th June ~29 July) we are planning head from Sydney to Alice Springs and surroundings with our Starcraft 17-58.3 OB and our friend who has a 16ft Expanda OB.

I am after some advice to prep the caravan and car for this trip.

We have a NW Pajero 2" lift/aftermarket suspension and airbags (without kevlar sleeves).

Our friend has done a similar trip before and this time we may do some offroad caravan friendly tracks.

So for the below items I have thought need doing and I am after some feedback and suggestions.

- Extra spare caravan wheel (mounted to the rear bar of the caravan)
- Extra spare car wheel (no sure if required, or where to mount, perhaps on the read caravan bar too)
- Stone stomper (seems like this is a pretty good product with good protection)
- Unknown make of diesel heater (Is this required in our caravan?)
- Adding in kevlar sleeves in our existing airbag man airbags in the rear coil/springs
- Possible extra diesel and water containers
- Spare car air filter
- Possibly some snorkel socks

The above seem to be the major items we may require.


Appreciate any feedback.

Thanks in advance.
 
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MDS69

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Jul 6, 2014
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Are you traversing any dirt roads. Look at dust proofing your van. Purchase some corflute sheet from Bunnings along with some grey duct tape. Cut the corflute to size to cover vents on your van. Leave the top vent for your fridge uncovered though. Whilst at Bunnings grab some black silicone and pump it into gaps and joins on the underside or your van.
You need to look at how vulnerable your plumbing and wiring is on the underside of the van. The foam insulation that goes on hot water pipes is handy to help protect this.
I haven’t done this yet and have lost a few screws from the cupboards but other say remove each screw one at a time and coat in PVA glue or silicone and screw back in to help coming loose when travelling roughroads.

The Stone Stomper is a great bit of kit.

In addition to what you have already mentioned

For both the van and car
Tyre puncture repair kit
Tyre gauge
Air compressor
Basic recovery kit
Fuel filter
Shovel
Spare fuses, some wire, insulation tape, basic tool kit, cable ties.
Bog roll and hand sanitiser
 

Drover

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Nov 7, 2013
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In addition to above;
Spare wheel bearings for van, check the number on the one's actually fitted then you will have the correct set........ Don't go with " he said".
A selection of John Guest fittings including a John Guest NRV.
Bottle of Slime, as well as a tyre plug kit and learn how to use them.
Check your Jack will actually raise the van.
Gaffa tape and zip ties.
Tyre gauge.
If you know how you can just carry a spare tyre and change if needed....Lot of bluddy work though.
Spanner that fits U bolts, Tow Ball, Axle Nut and other large bolts.
Plastic pipe and drill pump to transfer water from jerries and funnels for fuel and water.

When dust proofing don't forget to put the plugs in the drain holes in sink etc, a lot forget and they can cause a low pressure in van which sucks in the dust from other holes.

As @MDS69 said the foam insulation is brilliant at protection the pipes underneath, even good to stop them freezing up....Where there is a bundle of them together I fed them thru some corrugated grey water hose........and put the brake power leads in corrugated sheilding and fitted them out of the way so road kill didn't rip them off.
 
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17triton

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Feb 24, 2013
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We did Central Australia in Sept last year. How much dirt road are you thinking of tackling? We prepped with the thought of doing the Mereenie Loop but when we got up that way heard it was pretty rough so did a bit of a day drive along it and it confirmed our thoughts and we didnt tackle it with the van. Whilst we were at Kings Creek Station we ran into some people we knew and they had just come from the Alice but along the Giles track and said it was in really good condition so we tackled that 100k section which we did ok except for one draw dancing across the floor which i fixed on the spot with some longer screws in the track.
We had a Stonestomper and it was great. I put foam over all pipework and put insertion rubber flaps to protect the shockers on the van and all exposed wiring and plumbing taps. I went around with the black silicon underneath to seal up gaps as well. I will find some pics later on my phone and put on for some ideas.
 

MDS69

Well-Known Member
Jul 6, 2014
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Just to add
In the front half of my van on the underside I have a lot of pipes and wiring. I found it easier to fix 10mm steel mesh with hex drive screws between the very front and next one back east-west steel floor braces. Let’s little rocks through if they hit the gap perfectly but stops the large rocks.
 

17triton

Well-Known Member
Feb 24, 2013
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Ballarat
Thanks for all the feedback so far.

Looking forward to your photos too 17triton
image.jpeg
image.jpeg
image.jpeg
image.jpeg

Hopefully that will give you some ideas Jared.
 

Jared01

Active Member
Oct 28, 2016
150
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Sydney
Thanks very much for the photos!

Where did you buy the rubber/mud flaps for the caravan from (I'm thinking clark rubber)

Is the offroad hitch a necessity over standard hitch?


I'm quite motivated to protect underneath the van now.
 

17triton

Well-Known Member
Feb 24, 2013
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I went eBay for the insertion rubber as it was heaps cheaper than Clark rubber just had to wait a few days. Hitch is not a necessity but once you've had one you'll love the ease to hitch and unhitch.
 
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Drover

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I disconnected each line and fed them thru the insulation, that way I reran some lines to reduce chaffing at places and made sure the connectors fitted better, this also improved the flow as I removed a couple of joins .
I also hung an old mud flap in front of the water tank plumbing, worked well going by the hit marks on the flaps later on, just screwed an zip tied from a cross member, on Big Mal I fitted an alloy plate.
A lot of vans now seem to have the water tanks interconnected by single fill, if yours is like that I would mod it so each water tank is separate, that way if one gets hit you don't loose all your water.
 

Crusty181

Well-Known Member
Feb 7, 2010
6,854
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113
Mentone, VIC
Hello,

This year (probably ~29th June ~29 July) we are planning head from Sydney to Alice Springs and surroundings with our Starcraft 17-58.3 OB and our friend who has a 16ft Expanda OB.

I am after some advice to prep the caravan and car for this trip.

We have a NW Pajero 2" lift/aftermarket suspension and airbags (without kevlar sleeves).

Our friend has done a similar trip before and this time we may do some offroad caravan friendly tracks.

So for the below items I have thought need doing and I am after some feedback and suggestions.

- Extra spare caravan wheel (mounted to the rear bar of the caravan)
- Extra spare car wheel (no sure if required, or where to mount, perhaps on the read caravan bar too)
- Stone stomper (seems like this is a pretty good product with good protection)
- Unknown make of diesel heater (Is this required in our caravan?)
- Adding in kevlar sleeves in our existing airbag man airbags in the rear coil/springs
- Possible extra diesel and water containers
- Spare car air filter
- Possibly some snorkel socks

The above seem to be the major items we may require.


Appreciate any feedback.

Thanks in advance.
Regarding underbody damage, gravel roads arent a problem, its more the higher speed tracks with rocks.

As mentioned by @MDS69, dust will potentially be your you biggest outside issue.

Like every van Jayco make there is limited consistency. With the same van model, one van will get no dust and the next will have more dust inside the van than there is on the road, and dust can absolutely ruin your holiday. Its a good idea to roll around under the van on a creeper (or crawl if your young enough) with a goo gun and go over every floor penetration and give another it layer. Sika roof and gutter will adhere to what Jayco use, dont be tempted to use something else because for example polyurethane wont adhere to what Jayco use. Area to pay particular attention is where the plastic wheel skirt meets the chassis, and anywhere where body moulding finishes where your likely to find massive gaps. Just fill any gap you see with roof and gutter, black under the van and white where it may catch someones eye.

Dust is like water, given enough of it, it will find its way through minute openings. Unless your planning lot of dirt roads, there's no need to go overboard, stick to the obvious.

Extra spare wheel, again only if your doing a lot of remote tracks. Your travelling with a mate with the same size spare so both of you have access to 2 spares anyway, plus an extra vehicle to take a 3rd puncture to the repairer for you. Your in a van, so you can camp wherever you stop. You can of course be $hit out of luck, but that can include 4 punctures between you and your mate, and where do you drawer the line. I limped our 3 ton van 220km west along the Gibb River Road back into Derby with only 3 wheels, and the 4th axle chained up to the chassis. I had an extra tyre case with me, every tool ever made, bead breaker, tyre change equip, spare parts and in that situation all of it was useless. Good tyres to start with, and your standard spare will serve you well. That goes for the car as well.

Stone Stomper priceless piece of kit for stone damage, and as a side benefit minimising dust. Dont leave home without a stone guard, and if you buy a stone guard your wasting your money if its not a Stone Stomper. They are annoyingly dirty things, but great in every other respect. But as good as the Stone Stomper is, I still had to extend my cars rear mud flaps to eliminate the ability of rogue stone scooting around the outside

Diesels heaters. I have one (the truly peerless and awesome Eberspacher D2) and for us its a necessity. Diesel heaters are expensive and sometimes a mongrel to install. Central Oz will be freaken freezing overnight in July. If you no other use for a diesel heater than this trip, than save your money and take more jumpers. If you plan on doing a lot of "non summer" off grid camping, a diesel is a must in my opinion. We were out of Busselton free camping for 4 days and overnight it was very cool, not intolerable just cool. If we didnt have the diesel heater it wouldnt have been an issue, but it certainly more comfortable with it.

Roof top A/C units all have a minimum temp that they will operate, ours is around 4deg. Once the temp plummets below 4deg our A/C on heater mode the A/C just blows ambient air around. We use the diesel heater all the time in preference to the A/C anyway, even in caravan parks, but even with mains power if its cold enough your A/C wont heat anyway.

Water is surprisingly abundant. We have the 2 standard onboard tanks, 2 x 20ltr jerry can holders on the drawer bar and a 30ltr container in the back of the ute. In 14 months around Oz, including a lot of remote areas we never needed more than the vans 2 tanks. The extra was either a bonus for long showers, or we carried them empty. We use a Coleman HWS when free camping because the onboard pump uses way too much water for extended free camping. With the Coleman, and frugal use the three of use can get by easily with 25ltrs per day including all of us showering every day; thats 7 days on just the 2 tanks or around 10 days with the jerrys. Using the vans shower regardless how much we tried would make a significantly higher water consumption. Its far easier to conserve water with a 4ltr/min pump than by trying to choke a 10ltr/min pump ... plus most people (other than me) prefer to keep naked outdoor showers to an uncomfortable minimum. Anything that helps conserve water is a good strategy. The other bonus with the Coleman is we can source shower water from anywhere, certainly sources that you wouldnt dare decant into the vans tanks and we can (and did) fill the jerrys for shower water whilst doing river crossings.

Fuel. I have a 150lts fuel tank which gives a range of 750km towing, and I still carry a 20ltr jerry in the back for no other reason than piece of mind. There is virtually nowhere is Oz you can go anywhere near 750km without passing fuel. I never intended using the jerry, but it provides that subconscious level of confidence. After 40,000km and 14mths I emptied into the car 3 weeks after we got home. But Id absolutely take it again. On any well trodden tourist route youll never "need" to carry fuel.

A full service on your car before you go and you don't need any extra filters and snorkel socks, just dont drive up the ar$e of your mate on the dirt roads. UHF radios are a must for convoy trips, so you don't need to see each other ..... (sometimes not seeing each other for a while is a good thing). None of these places are "remote", they all full of tourists with many locals on the same roads as you in their Commodore station wagons. Thats disappointing I know, but thats the reality. We almost destroyed our van getting into a particularly difficult and damaging camp area. The micro fell out, the oven fell out and table ended up at the other end of the van. We also broke every shelf in our Dometic fridge from corrugations ... always corrugations. No corrugations equals no damage. Our celebrations were short lived when we arrived only to find more caravans than the Melbourne Caravan and Camping Show.

Under body protection. I did minimal "protection" other than re routing plumbing to place as high and close to the floor as possible. I did replace all the idiotic looping water and waste pipes, the sullage in my van is now simply black garden poly pipe. I protected the water tank fittings by loosening the tank straps and sliding the factory tank guard across to cover those fittings. I then slipped a piece of folded gal into the other end. As mentioned by @Drover, its not worth any risk to your water. Although where your going it wont be terminal, it will potentially ruin your day loosing all your water. A couple of cheap inline Bunnings taps fitted next to the factory tank selector that you can use to isolate the tanks is good cheap insurance. From factory, if you empty the front tank for example and park facing down hill, the front tank will fill from the rear tank. Its also handy with the taps because if one tank empties and the other is full and you cant isolate them, the pump sucking air from the empty one will stop water flow completely.

The piece of gal I slipped in with the factory tank guard is a standard off the shelf rectangle from Bunnings, not cutting required. The only rubber I used was under the sullage outlet because it is PVC was in the firing line of the vans rear tyre. I had a larger piece of rubber hanging behind the front water tank. Thats where my tyre case was strap to the chassis, and the rubber was only to reduce dirt and water filling up inside the in case I needed to use it. It didnt protect anything else

With a Stone Stomper its virtually impossible for anything to flick off the cars rear wheels, get past the vans front tank and hit anything. And on that note the front tank gal stone guard hasnt a single ding. From the vans drawer bar to the rear van water tank guard I have zero evidence of any significant stone strikes. If their was to be any obvious damage the first casualty would easily be the grease nipples on the leading edge of the suspension swing arms, particularly the plastic caps and they are all intact. (for the record the rear water tank guard was the only thing that took any type of hiding, but what a relentless hiding it took. Its prettiness has been compromised, but its structure and function remain intact)

We blew all 4 shocks, rattled a wheel off the van along with 3 studs and came home with stress fractures in the chassis. We ripped the spare wheel mount plate off the rear bumper arm, and drove the spare wheel up into the back wall of the van. We did Cape Leveque, the GRR, the Tananmi Trk and the Savannah Way along with many other tracks. We even did the northern first 100mtrs of the Canning Stock Route. The $hitty made and much maligned Jayco Expanda did very well by us despite my best effort to pummel it, so unless your going to flog the bejesus out of your van you should have no major issues doing very little work to it

Dirt or gravel formed tracks are not going to cause any more issues than bitumen. Whats more likely to go pear shaped is the internal van damage caused by corrugations if you start ploughing down every goat track you can find. Corrugations are the big problem; no corrugations equals no damage. Damage from corrugations is much more likely inside the van than outside. Dont focus too much of the outside, experience has shown me thats not where its all going to go pear shaped. Drawer runners, door hinges, microwave mounts table mounts, TV mounts and stuff not packed correctly are bigger more likely issues. Drawer runners coming off and drawers bouncing out and about in the van, bottles breaking, cordial bottle fracturing and leaking everywhere. My sons Xbox flew about 6 feet off the top bunk from the end of the bunk furthest away from the ladder. Amazingly Xbox's bounce surprisingly well. We collect large yogurt containers and put as much in the them in the pantry as possible and that stops stuff from banging together or falling over. Some other people on an NT freecamp track had their sink tap snapped off, and their over door glass shattered, splaying glass throughout the van. If you have a Thetford oven go and ask for the rubber grommet kit for the oven glass (thats the grommet kit that you only get if you ask)

Dust. Googun, creeper, roof and gutter and lots of it.

Im always envious of anyone heading away. Have a great trip

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Drover

Well-Known Member
Nov 7, 2013
12,723
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113
QLD
Wow a big long informative post @Crusty181, youv'e done very well and folks shouldn't nod off at all, worthy of printing out.......................................Once I had done the insulation and sealing up the numerous gaps underneath the old 14, I used No More Gaps as it sticks like you know what, anyway once all that was done I gave it all a spray with underbody sound deadener, completed the sealing and no need to cover vents as I just turned the grey water drain tap off and all clear, well that was after I sealed all the open holes from the tail lights into the rear of van.
 

Boots in Action

Well-Known Member
Mar 13, 2017
2,054
1,806
113
Ferny Grove, Queensland
Regarding underbody damage, gravel roads arent a problem, its more the higher speed tracks with rocks.

As mentioned by @MDS69, dust will potentially be your you biggest outside issue.

Like every van Jayco make there is limited consistency. With the same van model, one van will get no dust and the next will have more dust inside the van than there is on the road, and dust can absolutely ruin your holiday. Its a good idea to roll around under the van on a creeper (or crawl if your young enough) with a goo gun and go over every floor penetration and give another it layer. Sika roof and gutter will adhere to what Jayco use, dont be tempted to use something else because for example polyurethane wont adhere to what Jayco use. Area to pay particular attention is where the plastic wheel skirt meets the chassis, and anywhere where body moulding finishes where your likely to find massive gaps. Just fill any gap you see with roof and gutter, black under the van and white where it may catch someones eye.

Dust is like water, given enough of it, it will find its way through minute openings. Unless your planning lot of dirt roads, there's no need to go overboard, stick to the obvious.

Extra spare wheel, again only if your doing a lot of remote tracks. Your travelling with a mate with the same size spare so both of you have access to 2 spares anyway, plus an extra vehicle to take a 3rd puncture to the repairer for you. Your in a van, so you can camp wherever you stop. You can of course be $hit out of luck, but that can include 4 punctures between you and your mate, and where do you drawer the line. I limped our 3 ton van 220km west along the Gibb River Road back into Derby with only 3 wheels, and the 4th axle chained up to the chassis. I had an extra tyre case with me, every tool ever made, bead breaker, tyre change equip, spare parts and in that situation all of it was useless. Good tyres to start with, and your standard spare will serve you well. That goes for the car as well.

Stone Stomper priceless piece of kit for stone damage, and as a side benefit minimising dust. Dont leave home without a stone guard, and if you buy a stone guard your wasting your money if its not a Stone Stomper. They are annoyingly dirty things, but great in every other respect.

Diesels heaters. I have one (the truly peerless and awesome Eberspacher D2) and for us its a necessity. Diesel heaters are expensive and sometimes a mongrel to install. Central Oz will be freaken freezing overnight in July. If you no other use for a diesel heater, than save your money and take more jumpers. If you plan on doing a lot of cold weather of grid camping, a diesel is a must in my opinion. Roof top A/C units all have a minimum temp that they will heat, ours is around 4deg. Once the temp plummets below 4deg our A/C on heater mode just blows ambient air around. We use the diesel heater all the time in preference to the A/C, even in caravan parks

Water is surprisingly abundant. We have the 2 standard onboard tanks, 2 x 20ltr jerry can holders on the drawer bar and a 30ltr container in the back of the ute. In 14 months around Oz, including a lot of remote areas we never needed more than the vans 2 tanks. The extra was either a bonus for long showers, and we carried them empty. We use a Coleman HWS when free camping because the onboard pump uses way too much water for extended free camping. With the Coleman, and frugal use the three of use can get by easily with 25ltrs per day including all of us showering every day; thats 7 days on just the 2 tanks.

Fuel. I have a 150lts fuel tank and I still carry a 20ltr jerry in the back for no other reason than piece of mind. I never intended using it, but it provides a level of confidence. After 40,000km and 14mths I emptied into the car 3 weeks after we got home. But Id absolutely take it again. On any well trodden tourist route youll never "need" to carry fuel.

A full service on your car before you go and you don't need any extra filters and snorkel socks, just dont drive up the ar$e of your mate on the dirt roads. UHF radios are a must for convoy trips, so you don't need to see each other ..... (sometimes not seeing each other for a while is a good thing). None of these places are "remote", they all full of tourists with many locals on the same roads as you in their Commodore station wagons. Thats disappointing I know, but thats the reality. We almost destroyed our van getting into a particularly difficult and damaging camp area. The micro fell out, the oven fell out and table ended up at the other end of the van. We also broke every shelf in our Dometic fridge from corrugations ... always corrugations. No corrugations equals no damage. Our celebrations were short lived when we arrived only to find more caravans than the Melbourne Caravan and Camping Show.

Under body protection. I did minimal "protection" other than re routing plumbing to place as high and close to the floor as possible. I did replace all the idiotic looping water and waste pipes, the sullage in my van is now simply black garden poly pipe. I protected the water tank fittings by loosening the tank straps and sliding the factory tank guard across to cover those fittings. I then slipped a piece of folded gal into the other end. As mentioned by @Drover, its not worth any risk to your water. Although where your going it wont be terminal, it will potentially ruin your day loosing all your water. A couple of cheap inline Bunnings taps fitted next to the factory tank selector that you can use to isolate the tanks is good cheap insurance. From factory, if you empty the front tank for example and park facing down hill, the front tank will fill from the rear tank. Its also handy with the taps because if one tank empties and the other is full and you cant isolate them, the pump sucking air from the empty one will stop water flow completely.

The piece of gal I slipped in with the factory tank guard is a standard off the shelf rectangle from Bunnings, not cutting required. The only rubber I used was under the sullage outlet because it is PVC was in the firing line of the vans rear tyre. I had a larger piece of rubber hanging behind the front water tank. Thats where my tyre case was strap to the chassis, and the rubber was only to reduce dirt and water filling up inside the in case I needed to use it. It didnt protect anything else

With a Stone Stomper its virtually impossible for anything to flick off the cars rear wheels, get past the vans front tank and hit anything. And on that note the front tank gal stone guard hasnt a single ding. From the vans drawer bar to the rear van water tank guard I have zero evidence of any significant stone strikes. If their was to be any obvious damage the first casualty would easily be the grease nipples on the leading edge of the suspension swing arms, particularly the plastic caps and they are all intact. (for the record the rear water tank guard was the only thing that took any type of hiding, but what a relentless hiding it took. Its prettiness has been compromised, but its structure and function remain intact)

We blew all 4 shocks, rattled a wheel off the van along with 3 studs and came home with stress fractures in the chassis. We ripped the spare wheel mount plate off the rear bumper arm, and drove the spare wheel up into the back wall of the van. We did Cape Leveque, the GRR, the Tananmi Trk and the Savannah Way along with many other tracks. We even did the northern first 100mtrs of the Canning Stock Route. The $hitty made and much maligned Jayco Expanda did very well by us despite my best effort to pummel it, so unless your going to flog the bejesus out of your van you should have no major issues doing very little work to it

Dirt or gravel formed tracks are not going to cause any more issues than bitumen. Whats more likely to go pear shaped is the internal van damage caused by corrugations if you start ploughing down every goat track you can find. Corrugations are the big problem; no corrugations equals no damage. Damage from corrugations is much more likely inside the van than outside. Dont focus too much of the outside, experience has shown me thats not where its all going to go pear shaped. Drawer runners, door hinges, microwave mounts table mounts, TV mounts and stuff not packed correctly are bigger more likely issues. Drawer runners coming off and drawers bouncing out and about in the van, bottles breaking, cordial bottle fracturing and leaking everywhere. My sons Xbox flew about 6 feet off the top bunk from the end of the bunk furthest away from the ladder. Amazingly Xbox's bounce surprisingly well. We collect large yogurt containers and put as much in the them in the pantry as possible and that stops stuff from banging together or falling over. Some other people on an NT freecamp track had their sink tap snapped off, and their over door glass shattered, splaying glass throughout the van. If you have a Thetford oven go and ask for the rubber grommet kit for the oven glass (thats the grommet kit that you only get if you ask)

Dust. Googun, creeper, roof and gutter and lots of it.

Im always envious of anyone heading away. Have a great trip

View attachment 59480 View attachment 59481 View attachment 59482

View attachment 59483 View attachment 59484 View attachment 59485

View attachment 59486 View attachment 59488 View attachment 59490

Great story @Crusty181 and very interesting. What a great adventure!!!
 
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Jared01

Active Member
Oct 28, 2016
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Sydney
Crusty181, thanks very much for taking the time to write such an informative reply and share you stories and experience.

I am pretty sure I will be purchasing the stone stomper.

I am also thinking about purchasing a second spare wheel and mounting it on the back of the caravan (does anyone know what other rims are compatible with the Jayco 15" wheel used in the starcraft outback?).

Would mounting 1 spare wheel on the back do much to the stability of the van?


I will soon start to take a look underneath the van and see what needs doing as well as inside the van too.

I will report back when I have made some modifications.


A few weeks ago I found that some of the vertical screws had started to and almost completely come loose (image below). I need to remove then and add loctite or something so that doesn't happen again. I also read adding longer screws to some parts like drawers in the caravan may we a good idea too
 

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MDS69

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Jul 6, 2014
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It might not be much but if adding an additional or mounting the original spare to the rear I would consider little things like emptying the rear water tank first to keep more ball weight or packing the van with the intention of increasing ball weight.
 

Jared01

Active Member
Oct 28, 2016
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Sydney
Anyone know what part number/which wheel bearings are required for Jayco Starcraft 17.58-3 Outback?

I did ask Jayco and they advised 10’’ bearing, however they were unable to advise if they are a parallel or slimline bearing.

Wondering if it is a good idea to carry any spares (caravan 1 year old now)
 

Crusty181

Well-Known Member
Feb 7, 2010
6,854
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Mentone, VIC
Our 2014 20.63.1OB has JTech suspension. I suspect being a sit-on suspension module they're possibly are all the same

My stub axel is definitely tapered, and the spare bearing kit (supplied by Jayco per my chassis no.) is a 2ton tapered Alko kit 487001
 

Drover

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Nov 7, 2013
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The only way to be sure is to pull a hub off and check the number stamped on the bearing, you can have parrell bearings where the inner and outer are the same, they are high load or tapered bearings where the inner is larger than the outer.
I have included a link which will help you out, once you have that info go to a bearing shop, 2 bearings with seal shouldn't cost a lot, get good Japanese bearings not other rubbish. You will find the bearing shop cheaper and better advice than a caravan dealer.......I prepacked mine with grease, wrapped back up in the grease proof and vac sealed them, bought from a bearing shop for $20 a set.

http://www.withoutahitch.com.au/trailer/selecting-the-right-trailer-bearings/