All Activity

You are a true wandering sagebrush. any idea the number of miles traveled? congratulations!!! PS, I spent my first 16 years living in far Eastern Oregon (Baker City). We love the high desert traveling Eastern Oregon

JD, that’s quite the accomplishment! 🏆 Congratulations! You should post this on WTW, too.

Living in the Texas Hill Country, with steep dips on roads where dry river beds cross, I asked Oliver to build The Wonder Egg (#14) with a spring-over-axle set up to avoid rear end scraping. It has worked very well for me and improves clearances over obstacles if I want to place the back end of the trailer over a log / etc to get into the perfect boondocking site. As mentioned, a set up like this does result in some handling issues you'd need to contend with . . . braking a turn taken little too fast with a strong, gusting wind coming from the inside of the turn is a potential rollover situation. That might be more pronounced in the LEII due to more height and mass on top, combined with a larger surface area causing a "sail" effect. To mitigate this issue, I always travel with a full fresh water tank when starting out to lower the center of gravity and improve safety. The 2"X8" board or driveway modification might be your best bet.

It was a 26' travel trailer with Dexter sprung axles. I'll have to find my notes. I know I recorded the results.

If the axle(s) on your small trailer were torsion axles with a 1” drop, flipping them would get you 2” of lift. Perhaps this was the case?

Lol, no matter how hard I try, the only way my brain sees it is half the diameter of the axle tube and the thickness of the leaf pack. Like I said, I might be looking at it wrong... edit- Just drew it out and now it makes sense. Time to go to bed!

On the Bulldog shocks Alcan didn’t want to order them (I got the feeling like they’re just about the leaf springs and didn’t want to be bothered), so I did so from advice on this thread from 4trucks. Note they don’t carry them in stock but have to come from a warehouse which adds delay, it was maybe a month all told to get them.

Yeah Chris, it's not easy to see. Apples to apples, you can measure change in axle height top-to-top, center-to-center, or at the bottoms. Thinking centers, it's difficult to add up. Maybe looking at the bottoms is easier. When under-slung the bottom of the axle sits on the leaf springs. When over-slung the bottom of the axle is lowered by the height of the leaf pack and the height of the axle diameter. Please look again and see if you can see it this way. I've looked at now many times and would like verification if my thinking and math is correct! 🤣

Don't you already have a mountain home? It's that fiberglass egg-looking thing! 🤣

Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, but since the axle is in the center of the tube, shouldn't it only raise the Oliver by half the diameter of the axle tube plus the height of the leaf pack?

Thanks for all the info! I was looking at the overslung option but also thought that would be too high. For now I will continue having my wife lug 2 x 8' and put them under the tires as I cross the steepest part of the approach angle and back up the drive. I am trying to buy the lot above mine which will allow for a much flatter approach to the house. Just have to convince them that I need a flatter driveway more than they need a mountain home.😁

Yes it is and the installation was pretty easy from the view point of me watching someone do it that has done it many times. It helped that the electrical and the shut off switch was existing from the previous unit. That said, the whole thing doesnt seem as rugged as the old time ac unit it replaced, but you can say that about alot of things and these units dont last forever anyway. Cost was only a bit more than a replacement ac unit. The wireless remote is handier than i thought it would be.

Good idea, if I ever need the extra storage, I may do exactly that! Thanks for the suggestion?

I believe going from from an Under- to Over-slung suspension adds quite a bit more than 2" but you've done this on another trailer and I have not. You may be right. I don't have my notes with me. It was 27 years ago and I was shooting from the hip there. It did solve our problem and didn't affect handling much, BUT, that trailer sat much lower than a stock Oliver does. Another thing that we learned that may be helpful to the OP is that angle of attack to the grade makes a big difference. Worst case is driving straight into the grade change. Crossing the grade change at an angle helps reduce tail dragging. We found that our best option to clear our grade is a right turn leaving and a left turn returning.

And I see my comment got you to update your profile page! CONGRATULATIONS to you on your new Oliver! 😂 Thank so much for the pictures and advise, much appreciated! Thank you @srthomsen and @FloraFauna too! All feedback is helpful. Steve, I also like seeing your installation pics. You installation looks very clean, would be even better with the wall mount which I'm leaning towards. The piping on mine would go vertically like in yours and then T at the top for the two rooms. I guess I better plan on that electrical shut-off box!

Sorry to hear this and more so because I really like the design of your rear toolbox! I like how it has cabinet doors, opening to the rear, allowing the surface to be a tie-down area or spare work table. The boxes with hinged tops do not allow for such. I think about this every time I read a related post. I don't need one with an 8 ft open truck bed, but if I did... I would first remove the fiberglass cover and spare tire. Then mount the spare in the back left corner of the TV bed using a simple spare tire mount available on eTrailer and elsewhere. The cover would become a new garage ornament, a conversation piece! 🤣 This would delete a lot of rear weight which is the most important issue with adding weight to the rear. Ever LB in back lightens the trailer tongue weight and the Oliver with 8-9% tongue weight is already a towing safety issue. Very few Oliver owners seem to be concerned re this matter. With the spare gone, a custom cargo box could be +/- 10" close to the hull. This also helps the weight issue (shorter lever arm). Maybe you can move the spare and still use your awesome toolbox. Later mount the box pulled up closer to center. If there's no room in the truck bed, the spare tire could be frame-mounted on the streetside of the doghouse using the same standard bracket. 😎

Agree, these are not very helpful. First where they touch is lower than where the frame would touch, so you will bottom more often. Also, if too much pressure is exerted, then what Dudley wrote. Application for skid rollers is for a trailer with very thick steel frames like Toy Haulers or car haulers. I would not expect them to play well with the relatively soft Oliver aluminum frame.

I believe going from from an Under- to Over-slung suspension adds quite a bit more than 2" but you've done this on another trailer and I have not. When I study this simple graphic focused on the top of the axle, it appears the top of the axle drops 1) the 3" diameter of the axle plus the ~2" height of the leaf pack. This adds to about 5" for the Oliver. Then Bill posted a picture above that looks about 5" taller and the link supplied wrote re an Under- to Over-slung suspension change. (Graphic posted again for ease of viewing.)

If you can't read the print on the unit label and you are interested, dm to me and I can provide details. The unit currently runs on 240V but I am currently converting my place to 3-phase and then it will run on 208v single phase. It's currently on a 30 amp circuit because of what was on the circuit before but I seem to recall it will run on a 20 amp circuit.

John, I did not install it myself so I will be of limited help. I went with a minisplit for my shop and use a wood stove when temps here drop below what is optimal for the minisplit. But I love the unit. Super quiet inside and out. A very convenient option for heating in transitional season temperatures when it's just not worth firing up the wood stove. Of course the cooling function works well too. I have a larger heat pump on my house again for ac and transitional weather heating. But like in the shop, I have a gas boiler for when it really gets cold. Its not that the heat pump and minisplit won't heat in cold weather but rather they are not my most efficient option in cold weather. Of course your climate is a different situation.

A lesson learned. As much as I like the storage box on our Ollie, it will never go back on the trailer. We are planning on venturing into some rougher country later this year, so I thought I’d check the spare. Long story, short… it took over two hours to get the box disconnected. I had to remove the box from the aluminum frame, then take many many strokes with a dead blow hammer to get the frame out. I can’t imagine doing that on the road. The good news is the tire still had over 60 PSI. The bad news is my back is sore.

Welcome from another 2019 owner (in Washington State) . Craig

Understood, valid concern; much the same forces from dragging the frame on the pavement, but perhaps with less resistance. I would suggest the OP contact Oliver for their take on the matter. Another solution may be to lower the hitch ball and thus, raise the rear a bit for better clearance prior to backing up or driving down a steep drive. Just a thought.

In approx 2018-2019 BE (before oliver) we lived in the Coachella Valley in S. California. Summers were routinely 110-120 for months at a time. I was down there trying to get the house ready for our move and spent a lot of time making a bunch of tables for the new home. At night because it was by 10pm ONLY 100. We installed a minisplit in the uninsulated garage and the mini-split would easily knock down the air temp form 100 to 80 withot breathing hard. That said, I can't recall the brand however we did pay approx $3800 for the system installed. After procurring a permit, the installation took one day.

A former Moderator and Oliver owner is/was renowned for relatively extreme mods to his Ollie. One of these mods occurred during construction where he had requested Oliver raise his Oliver to get more ground clearance - primarily for off-roading purposes. Someone here on the Forum might still have more pictures of this Oliver. Once the Oliver was "lifted" it was decided (by all concerned) that this would cause the trailer to be too top heavy and/or would impact the road handling of the trailer adversely. Therefore, it was returned to the original design. The trailer's name was Snowball and the Forum name of the owner was Overland. Bill p.s. Here's Overland's discussion of his "attempted" lift.