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Wow, If I am lucky I get about 230 miles out of my 26 gallon tank in my 2001 Silverado 8.1. (and is it thirsty!) Yes I carry 3, 5 gallons of gas in jerry cans. Only had to use them once in 2 years. We love taking the back roads, but must keep an eye on where the gas stations will be. At this stage in life I can't imagine waiting for a charge if I went electric. I like to full up and hit the road in a few minutes.

I cut two 2” holes in the battery box for venting, no fan. I also plugged the vents in the door and insulated with two layers of Reflectix. Used 3M heavy duty spray adhesive, it’s been holding well for 5 years. I did the same on the Basement door. I measure battery compartment temps with my Victron BMV712 monitor, and also a remote temp sensor that I move around in the basement depending on ambient temps. I have not needed to open the battery door, the small vents keep the battery box relatively cool in Summer, warm in Winter. I have camped in 100+ temps and below 10F for several consecutive nights with no problem.

Geronimo John and myself had similar questions about this design too, so I called Alcan and asked. You’ve probably seen my lengthy post from March 18 in this thread. Tim @Alcan told me the bolt splines have an interference fit with the shackle hole, so they should be held strongly, not rotate. I have never seen the parts in question, so I have tried to visualize. You have the parts in hand, so the problem you describe seems to be legitimate and contrary to what I was told. If the bolt head is not kept from rotating, the lubrication port will rotate. Alcan is obviously not worried about it, but Dexter makes it very clear in their instructions to get the lubrication port oriented correctly. This may or may not be a big problem, it’s just not optimal. Dexter shackle bolts are designed to be under tension, using 30-50 ft-lbs torque to approximate that tension. As you pointed out, since Alcan shackle bolts don’t have a shoulder, putting them in tension by tightening the nut also creates a clamping force that can squeeze the EZ Flex and the hanger tabs, therefore limiting movement and creating friction and wear. Wayfinder pointed this out in that other endless thread. It seems to me this is the reason Alcan uses Nylock nuts, so that they can be tightened up just enough to provide adequate clearance, but also not to work the nuts loose. I see no problem with the strength of the Alcan bolts, they have some advantages. The clearance needs to be factored into the installation, I wouldn’t just put a torque wrench to it and call it good. I agree, but I’m just armchair quarterbacking here. I have never seen these Alcan components, and do not know what their installation instructions are. I’d like to understand this better as I am one of those still on the original Dexter springs, and considering the Alcans before my next big trip. Perhaps these bolt concerns are not a problem, obviously Alcan has their reasons for doing it their way.

Here is my unscientific take on the insulation of the Oliver. Over the last few days I've been doing some mods to our EII, new ceramic toilet install, new bath faucet and shower head etc. With the rather coolish to cold weather we have been having through the month of April I hooked up to house/shore power to run an oil filled portable heater running at 900 watts continually for the last several days. Early morning temps outside this morning were at 32º (according to the Weather Channel) with frost on the roofs in the hood. Temp inside the trailer was 47º. The actual temp according to our exterior house thermometer was 37º indicating a max difference of only 10º from trailer interior to outside air. If taking the WC temps as the gospel then there would be a difference of 15º, neither one being very impressive. That same heater installed in any one of our basement rooms (insulated with 1.5 inches of sprayed foam) of our house would have turned the room into a sauna or near about. Conclusion: the Oliver is not a 4 season camper. It might be along the southern perimeter, ie FL, TX, AZ, SOCAL etc but not further north. This isn't to say you can't camp in some cold weather as most of us have at one time or the other. Keeping even a moderate temp in freezing winter weather will tax the system seriously requiring huge amounts of propane to keep the furnace running nearly non stop. In summary at best I would describe the Oliver as an extended season camper but certainly not four season. The notion that the Oliver has an R value of 18 is pure bullocks. Oliver is not alone in this regard as there are many manufacturers stating four season camping specs but fall far short. Recently I was at a local RV dealer that sells Emperial Outdoors RV which truly are four season ready. The salesman I talked with related a previous winter day when the temps were bitter cold (-22º) and the Emperial Outdoors RV setting in the sun was measuring about 40º inside without a furnace running. Even if the story was wildly exaggerated which I doubt that is a massive amount of difference between an Oliver and a true four season camper. In our EII the bottom half of the inner shell was never insulated with the Propex material making the insulation issue potentially worse. In summary the Oliver is an excellent travel trailer (not without some issues) but the company should not be promoting it a a 4 Season camper which is really is not. Not even close IMHO.

For those of you that have the upper refrigerator vent to the left of the door but a refrigerator that doesn't require it, you have a big thermal hole there even with the Oliver supplied insert. The Oliver-supplied insert is simply a thin piece of plastic with no significant thermal barrier. I plugged mine with a piece of foam caulked in, then put the Oliver insert over it and the Oliver vent cover over that. Otherwise, cold air pours in between the hulls. I can try to find my pictures if anyone is interested but it is a simple fix to an easily overlooked thermal opening between the hulls.

After I posted the above i went out and dug our the Dexter parts and the Alcan parts. (My axles are not in yet, so I have all parts waiting on Dexter.) I continue to be a believer in the Alcan springs, but now have my doubts about their shackles and shackle bolts. The Dexter bolts are designed to be torqued to their shoulder. That will allow full rotation and flex of the EZ Flex and Spring ends which go to the Shackle. The Alcan bolts put full clamping force on the EZ Flex and the spring end of the shackles. I cannot see how that is a good idea. It resists rotation and flex... Comments please...

I noticed that the splines on the Alcan bolts do NOT engage the holes of the slightly longer shackles they provide. I asked Alcan about it and they do NOT want the shackles locked to one end of the bolts. The way they accomplish this is to drill the holes in their shackles slightly larger than the holes in the Dexter Shackles. I am still not sure I want to use the Alcan shackles and bolts. In any case do not mix and match Alcan and Dexter shackles and bolts.They are engineered differently and not designed to mix.

I chose the "peel and stick "Reflextic." There is as much as six layers of it under the driver side bunk and under the bathroom sink. If there was room for a 4" x 4" piece, a chunk went there.

I should also note that I was measuring the temperature between the hulls, in the belly by the water intakes. I wish I had placed a third recording thermometer inside the main cabin to see what the difference was between the cabin and the belly.

Great solution - I love the Blutech stuff. We’ve got the filter unit with UV, and the softener and iron tank. For inside the camper I’ve thought about adding that but don’t like drilling holes. But now they’ve got a new solution for hooking into your existing faucet. When the Black Friday deals come around this year I’ll probably pick this up.

Checking the BMS temps the problem with my Lithionics was more of too much heat, easily getting up to the high 90’s in early March. The batteries produce heat too from the BMS board and just from charge/discharge. The battery has a built in heater so if it gets cold no problem, that’ll take care of that. On my list is to add a automated fan to a top vent, I won’t otherwise insulate it. When we got to camp I’d open up the door to get it to cool down faster as the sun went down.

Looks to me like what you’d expect, just a temporal lag and smoothing. I think you don’t see the same minima/maxima because of the time lag - outside is already turned around before the inside reaches the min/max. fwiw tl/dr I spent a lot of stupid time (meaning I could have been doing something more useful 😅) thinking about the insulation on this thing. It’s really interesting, it’s basically all reflective/infrared. But for the most part air gapped everywhere except the belly band, which is what you need for that to be effective. Fiberglass bat This primarily slows down the rate of heat transfer. If the trailer had that we’d see a larger delta in the charts above. So it doesn’t stop the heat transfer, just slows it Reflective with air gap (Protex) This primarily works by actually reflecting the infrared heat, not the thermal brownian heat in the air its in contact with. So it does stop heat transfer - look at the moon landers with gold foil, or the James Web infrared telescope with its many laters of foil. Both effectively eliminate heat transfer from the sun Bits and pieces Rule of thumb I heard from an engineer in this field; reflective works better the greater the differential (outside to inside). Fiberglass shells are horrible insulators However, we have a double hull. Air gaps of 1/2” or under is as good as insulation bats (not a big enough space for convection currents. Note that seems to be about as much of the gap as we have. So the double hulls act as a buffering system, both giving the Protex the air gap it needs to work, and that enclosed air gap acting generally as dead air space. Putting it all together, in extreme conditions (hot or cold) the trailer should perform great due to the large delta between outside and in and the dual insulation, which is what I hear from owners. But due to the .5-1” air gaps you won’t see a large time lag in an idle trailer.

Intuitively that feels like a good solution. With your years you’ll know there’s few or no hard rules here. Every design outside of Aerospace comes with a lot of windage - ‘yes but …’ Anyhow I think all of these - 1750, 2400 and Alcan are likely just fine and there’s little to fear with any. But I do want to see power spectral density charts with each of them, easy to get with our phones.

We left for a trip yesterday. No Cat Scales where we live, but our city dump has scales. I go there often to recycle engine oil. With both Oliver axles on their scale, it came to only 5700 LBS. I’ve measured hitch weight separately at 580 LBS. We are packed light for a 3-day trip, so I estimate we’d pack another 220 LBS in food and clothing for a long trip adding to 6,500 LBS Max. So she’s sitting at only 5700 LBS on two axles! Shouldn’t 7,000 springs be enough? The Oliver is more top-heavy than most trailers, with its upper double hull, tall body, multiple cabinet storage at head height, rooftop A/C, solar panels and other rooftop accessories. We dropped 4000 FT in elevation yesterday! Coming down steep, hard turns, exhaust brake on, descending smoothly! The top of the Oliver stayed put, maybe leaning left or right 2” going into a hard turn. Look out your mirrors when towing to observe this. Our hull used to lean over a foot vs. just inches! Original springs, the Andersen WDH was a must! Not anymore, since the Alcan springs keeps the Oliver weight centered over its axles. This is why the OEM suspension is undersprung. It’s not only the weight it carries, it’s the total body weight it must control while towing in various conditions! 😎

Very impressive! My head hurts.😉

We like all of the Maricopa County parks, too!

I just upgraded my Furrion S rearview camera with the S+ and a 7-inch display. Huge improvement in resolution, features and display brightness over the original S and 5-inch display that was OEM (and basically worthless)!! The S+ camera slips into the old S housing so no mounting of the new housing on the exterior of the trailer and no rewiring needed. Since my TV is GM with the trailer camera functionality, I seriously considered going the way of this original thread instead, but my GM screen is small, and I can mount the 7-inch Furrion screen partially over the rearview mirror which isn't useful when towing and retain my TV display for the TV cameras. And again, no rewiring was necessary. (I thought I saw a prior thread where someone else did this upgrade but could not find it.)

Do you know if he Dexter PB4’s raised the height of the trailer? Is yes, by how much?

Cave Creek is our favorite of the Maricopa County Regional Parks. Often our first night away, just 90 min from home! There are currently 5 county parks, all excellent camping with hookups, around the perimeter of the Phoenix Valley. We've stayed at all of them! https://www.exploremaricopacountyparks.org/maricopa/facilities Snowbirds are gone, so the campground has lots of availability and it's not hot yet (high 80F today). Staying at campsite #9 for a few nights, the best in the park. It's like you have your own 5-acre campsite! 😎

https://www.elephants.com/

CGI Detailing: We’re planning our trip for this June to attend the mini-Oliver rally in Boothbay Maine and have some openings for a few more coatings after the rally. If you are in the New England area and your Oliver is due for ceramic coating maintenance, new coating treatment, paint protection film or oxidation removal this is the easiest time to get on our schedule without making the trip to Tennessee. More information about how pricing works while we travel and what areas we are covering is available on our website; there is also a contact form you can fill out if you would like us to contact you. If you’d rather bring your trailer to us in TN, we have openings in July! Oliver Ceramic Coating Travel Schedule www.cgidetailing.com

Carrying this thought out in comparison, Alcan to Dexter Leaf Spring packs: Dexter 4 leaf-OEM1750 LBS x 4 = 7,000 lbs (-20% = 5,600 LBS) Alcan 4 leaf-pack 2250 LBS x 4 = 9,000 lbs (-20% = 7,200 LBS) Dexter 4 leaf-SW4 2400 LBS x 4 = 9,600 lbs (-20% = 7,680 LBS) per @Geronimo John Alcan 5 leaf pack 2750 LBS x 4 =11,000 lbs (-20% = 8,800 LBS) Keep in mind besides this 20% “wiggle room” there should already be safety margin in the manufacturer’s spec capacities. But I like the additional 20% per Alcan! 😎

Mr. Jim Oliver told me personally that the frame was engineered to support 3X the GVWR. He stated that it was good to 21,000 pounds. Actually Oliver's GVWR of only 7000 pounds is due to their continued use of the underrated four leaf spring pack (the same ones that are breaking). This causes the otherwise 5200 pound Nev-R-Lube axle to be de-rated to 3500 pounds each.

I agree with you. That fifth spring is not very long. I am not an expert on springs, but I am more concerned and happy that Alcan went with the overlap on the first two longer springs. My logic, maybe flawed, says that the short fifth spring is not as important as those first two longer ones. John

I sure like that core heating system that was described on here. I can't recall his name. That should be offered by Oliver.