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Where’s Ollie? Ollie was in the Valley of the Gods, which was magnificent. This is BLM land, so it is free to camp. No water, no toilets no picnic tables. Just gorgeous country, and lots a privacy. No one was camped near us. View from our window. A few nights later we moved to Gouldings, a commercial RV park close to Monument Valley. The location is gorgeous, and you can see Monument Valley from the campground. The only problem is that the sites are quite close together, but that is common in commercial RV parks. The restrooms were clean, there were hiking trails to a nearby arch. I was most impressed with the fact that they have planted trees between the campsites, and they use drip irrigation to maintain the trees. Gouldings is close to Monument Valley, and we booked an all day tour led by a Navajo guide. It was amazing! On advantage of a Navajo Guide is that he took us through some of the back country, not open to non-Navajos, where we hiked up to arches and Anasazi ruins, where few people visit. Unlike most Anasazi sites, there were abundant pottery shards. One day we went to Bluff Utah for their Founders Day and Frybread Festival. There were a bunch of Mormon Pioneer events, but what we really enjoyed were the cultural programs put on by the Ute Tribe and by the Navajo Tribe. We were listening to Tony Hillerman audiobooks on this trip. Also visited Goosenecks State Park. It was a great trip!

Overland, You're right. The lower the differential pressure in the pump switch, the less water will be available from the accumulator before the next pump cycle occurs. However, the larger the differential, the more pressure variation you'll experience at the faucet or shower head. Once you have the tank pressure set at just below the cut in pressure you are doing the best with the tank you have and the volume is just related to the tank size. Once you get a tank large enough to stabilize the system, a larger one just makes longer pump cycles. Remember, the pump will run just as much overall, but it will do it in longer cycles, when more water is stored in the accumulator. Shorter cycles mean less noticeable pressure differences, longer cycles mean larger apparant pressure changes at the faucet. The function is to stabilize the pressure through temp changes and to keep the pump from short cycling. Beyond that is just a trade of one aspect for another. I was considering a larger tank, but went with the little RV size. It's just barely big enough to keep the pressure rise from the water heater under control if set at just the right pressure. A bit too small for my liking, so I'll probably go to a #5 size domestic expansion tank. The #8 is a common size used in houses. Bigger is harder to locate and mount, as you seem to have noticed. If you need to mount the tank farther from the pump, which is normally a problem, there is a trick that will probably allow it using a waterhammer arrester teed in at the pump outlet, and then mounting the accumulator somewhere else farther away than normal. Another small benefit of the accumulator I notice is after I shut off the pump switch, as I lke to do normally, I can still get some water without switching it back on. This might get a glass of water or flush the toilet without running the pump. Quieter in the middle of the night.

I can’t answer with a specific number since our trailer is over in the storage. But, the way I do it is to keep the sewer hose connected all the time while we’re on the road. With the recess it allows storing the hose in the bumper without disconnecting. If you brought the pipe out further you’d have to disconnect in order to close the bumper. It makes it easy when we have a FHU site to just drop the bumper and connect to the campsite sewer. Mike

My pump actually runs at a lower pressure than it's specs say too. No big deal assuming you don't want to firehose something and you don't have the tankless WH. It doesn't matter where you measure the static pressure in the system as long as it's downstream of the pump, but a long restrictive pigtail connector before the accumulator will make the pump stutter as it tries to shut off. You are adjusting the tank pressure in the right way. Matching the pump's actual pressure settings and allowing the accumulator to partially fill before the pump shuts off. There is no problem with the bladder and you are doing it correctly, but you will never get anywhere near two gallons out before the pump cycles. A 2 gallon tank will only yield a few cups before the switch differential is reached. It's not there to hold a lot of water, but to stabilize the pressure and reduce the number of cycles. If the bladder presssure was at zero, the tank would not work at all and if the pressure was above pump shutoff it, again, would not work at all. It should be set just below the cut-in pressure. This gives you a fairly large amount of water in the tank, for fewer cycles, and it allows for the expansion of the water caused by warming of the water heater. A good test is 1. install a 100 PSI pressure guage on the pressure side of the pump (a good plce for this is a T on the pump outlet or a T on the accumulator inlet). 2. get all air out of the water system by running the water until no air is present. 3. run the faucet to turn on the pump, shut off the faucet and allow the pump to reach full cut-off pressure with no water running. Don't run any more water. 3. then turn on the water heater and monitor the pressure on a guage. This will cause the pressure to rise. The more air volume in the tank, the less the rise. If you start a test about 40 PSI (the cut-out pressure), you should reach about 60 PSI or less as the water heater comes up to full temp. With no accumulator, the pressre will go up over 100 PSI and pop the relief valve. Overall, just find a happy medium tank pressure that allows minimal pump cycles and keeps the pressure as steady as possible while the water heater goes from cold to hot. This will be somewhere just below the cut-in pressure. All piping between the pump outlet and the accumulator should be short and relatively large in diameter. If not, the pump will stutter as it approaches the cut-off point.

This, I like - I never cared much for Oliver's sink and faucet choices and I'd actually planned to supply them a sink and faucet to get installed on the line. Unfortunately the one I wanted wouldn't work and I was having trouble getting the proper dimensions from Oliver, so I just let it go and figured I'd replace it later. Well, that was a good idea until I realized that the cutout Oliver made for the sink was way too big for any of the bar sized sinks that I could find. And all of the full sized kitchen sinks were too big to fit. But finally I stumbled across this oversized bar sink from Franke. It's the 17" Franke Vector. Overall, it's the same width as the existing sink, but the lip is narrower, so the bowl itself is a bit wider. Mainly the sink is much longer and deeper. In overall volume, it's over twice as large as the original sink, but takes up no more counter space. Can't beat that. And because it's farther forward and 3" deeper, it doesn't splash all over the place like the original. In fact, I can even turn the faucet up all the way without it splashing over the front of the sink, which is novel. I like the Franke sinks in that they have the straight sides and look of a modern zero radius sink, but they do add a slight radius to the corners so that you can actually keep them clean. Installation wasn't too hard. I'd rate it 7/10. The difficulty was that I had to modify the base cabinet for it to fit. There's a wood brace running across the top front that is screwed to the fiberglass beneath the drawer trim, which had to be cut out, and also a portion of the left side of the cabinet. That sounds like a lot of structural support to remove, but the cabinets are mainly tied in at the bottom and I ran it past Jason beforehand to make sure I wasn't looking at it wrong. I have to say that the cabinets are stoutly built, and I'm not at all worried about it. The second problem I ran into was that my countertop wasn't perfectly flat. It bowed down in the middle slightly which wasn't apparent until I installed the sink. But I was able to temporarily shim the counter against the top of the cabinet while the silicone seal dried and then I glued PVC blocks around the perimeter of the sink to both hold it in place and to level the counter. The Franke sinks have an odd installation clip that wasn't designed with hollow core fiberglass in mind, so the blocks were necessary anyway. It's not going anywhere now. Of course I lost use of the flip out drawer but I hated that thing anyway. I glued a few ½" blocks to the front of the sink and then fixed the drawer front to the blocks with heavy duty velcro, just in case I ever need to remove it for some reason. The sink depth worked out perfectly with the existing cutout on the back of the middle drawer to clear the drain. I thought I was going to have to get a Hepvo trap to make it all clear but Oliver actually places the trap behind the cabinet, so no problem. I did have to get the narrowest profile elbow I could find to attach to the drain basket, so I had to go with cheap plastic rather than PVC, but such is life. At the end of the day, however, I decided to use a different drain basket that was a bit deeper, so I had to make the drawer cutout about a half inch deeper after all. The faucet is a Grohe that I found on sale at Home Depot for about half price, so that was a nice find. It has a really nice feel to it and unlike the sink, was a cinch to install. Grohe has a trick installation method that allows you to work from above so that one person can do it without crawling under the counter a hundred times. Oliver's hot and cold lines are convenient to get to and there's an access panel in the back of the cabinet that can be removed if you need more room to work. The only issue I ran into was that the counterweight for the sprayer was getting caught up on everything that's packed in the back of the cabinet. To fix it, I made a tube from some flexible plastic sheeting that I had lying around and just slid that over the sprayer hose. Now the hose slides easily inside the tube and as a benefit, the weight won't bang around inside the cabinet while traveling. So that's about it. I've learned that I don't have the patience or foresight to take progress pictures Like John does, so my description will have to do. But I'm happy to answer any questions.

Some plastics will leach things into the water that you don't want to drink. I believe if the black tank is HDPE plastic, then it's safe. I used to have a link to the manufacturer Oliver uses, but I can't seem to find it - maybe someone else has it, or you can call Jason Essary at Oliver. On the other hand, I believe some dyes will leach into the water, so even if the tank is HDPE, then the black dye might leach. Best to call the manufacturer to see. Or you can be like us and not use the onboard water for drinking or cooking - only dishes, showers, etc. If you don't connect the tanks, then you'll want to add an overflow/breather to the black tank so that it will fill and drain easily.

It was a wonderful campsite, and that is the spot where I posted the GPS coordinates last week. We went on a guided tour of Northern India last November, which was a fabulous trip. I noticed that all of the trucks and busses had these tassels on the back. I asked our tour guide why, and she said they keep the evil spirits away. I kinda liked that, so I found some and bought them. From google I found they are often called Parandhi Tassels. We will see how well they hold up on the road, but they seem to survive on the back of vehicles in India. The vehicles in India have outrageous, colorful decorations.

I don't know if the black plastic is considered to be food safe, so that's your first thing to check. Second, Oliver cuts a hole in the top of the tank since they're convinced you'll want to poop in it one day, so you'll have to repair that. Connecting the two tanks shouldn't be difficult, but you'd probably want to research spin welding - there's a description here if you search for fresh tank water pickup. Then you'd have to lengthen the breather/overflow on the fresh tank since at the existing height it would just drain out most of what you put in. After that you'd be done, since you could fill both tanks through what would have been the black tank cleanout port. I think you'll find that you'll want to swap out the tank, which probably can be done through the dinette seat access. However, the tank itself is a custom size and shape so it might be expensive to have made.

Hello everyone, After much um, - discussion - we have ordered an Elite II, should have it in mid June. Looking forward to the next chapter in our RVing life. Once you get over the premium pricing, the Oliver is by all accounts a cut above tt. Will enjoy meeting the family over the coming years. Take care, Russell, Cindy and - Harley, our security system...

I put a extension on our pipe, can't remember if it was 12 or 15 inches, picked it up at Camping World. Without that extension it's a real pain to hook up, and if you don't get it on quite right, NOT GOOD. Probably best to just keep it hooked up. Stan

The secret to sewer hose is to buy the Best that you can find. Nothing spoils a trip worse than remembering a ruptured hose or an unplanned disconnect. We leave our longer hose hooked up all the time. (We also have 2 shorter hoses and extra fittings we carry, because it seems CG usually put their sewer connections just beyond where I plan on them being). By leaving the hose hooked up there is also less chance of having a tab lock come loose. We do check it occasionally to make sure that the tabs are full seated. We also are thinking about converting to cam lock fittings as they are more secure and easier to use. We will still carry some tab fittings to fit various adapters and our blue tank, as well as that short section of clear pipe. The clear section may not be pretty in use, but lets you know when the black tank is clean when flushing.

That was the tank I installed a couple years ago, when I had my water pressure woes. My thinking was that I was looking for less cycling, so I went with more split. If I was in a house and running a continuous shower, then the pressure difference would be annoying, but with taking navy showers, it isn't as noticable with all the off and on. Back then I checked to see how long (time wise) I could get before cycling and learned to "feel" when it would start so that it would be during an off part of the shower when it would refill the tank. I never actually checked the drawdown spec. At the kitchen sink, the pressure difference doesn't matter at all to me and I've never really noticed. Each of us being able to use the head in the middle of the night with having to run the pump was also part of the consideration, so just make sure the pump has run before shutting it off. Where did you put it that it was so much trouble? Edit- I see your maintaining this in two different threads. I didn't think Flotec made a 6 gallon horizontal tank, and they do make horizontal specific tanks, so mounting it in a horizontal configuration may adversely affect it's operation.

My guess is, your pressure tank is oversized. Our pressure tank for our whole house is not a lot bigger. The boat tank is far smaller. I found a table for right sizing the tanks years ago. I'll try to find it again..... Sherry

Overland - Since I didn't get a chance to test mine sine the install I sure do hope you get this figured out within the next week or so. Sorry I'm of no help but I think that Mark (and you) are on the right track for getting to the bottom of the issue. Bill

Yes! As Mike & Carol said, come to the Owner's Rally. It will be a great chance to meet other owners and to get a real head start on learning about your new Oliver. You will also get a chance to see a bunch of things that current owners have done to their Olivers and that just may give you ideas for yours. Welcome. Bill p.s. I flipped Harley for you!

If I could only get him to come up with some $$.

2018 Oliver Rally Camper List Names Forum Name Spot # Home State Hull # Brandi & Winn Shaffer Bshaffer B-06 TX 10 Yvonne & Doug Hikegsm B-11 TN 223 Laura & Dean (casita) DeanCHS1980 D-04 KY Casita Gary & Jona Muckle GaryJona D-05 FL 81 Lee & Terri Slusher ? D-06 NC 82 Leslie & Sharon Hoffman ? D-07 FL ? ? trumpetguy D-08 FL Airstream David Stillman DavidS D-10 UT 164 Steve & Betty STEVEnBETTY D-15 IL 2013 Lee sure light Kathy & Andy KathyandAndy D-17 ? ? ?? Cash E-01 TX 242 Malcolm and Ursula M. Monlezun E-06 CO 204 Steve & Tali ScubaRX E-09 MS 50 Mike & Carol Thompson Mike and Carol E-10 TX 135 Clair & Kathy Reed Kayrae51 E-12 TN 245 Grayson & Ann dharmardr E-13 CT 112 Gregg & Donna Scott ScottyGS E-17 NJ/NC 145 David & Jane Droll dedrol E-21 OH 238 Mike & Gerri MikeandGerri E-22 ? 189 Ray & Betty Jo Bayless MrBig1 E-27 ? ? Duke & Chris Chadwell ShallowGal E-29 FL TBD ? SupersizeLIFE E-31 AK 249 Tom and Debrah Mohan mgbtom E-32 TX 71 Darrell & Kathy Waters wdw0528 E-38 GA 319 Don Thompson donthompson E-39 IA 126 Greg & Janet Gato Greg & Janet Gato F-42 FL 122 Bill Topgun2 G-13 NC 117 Foy & Mirna Foy_Mirna G-24 FL 227 Carol & Stan Commanche G-25 VA 63

I know at least one other couple have replaced the window with clear glass, and according to them it was a pretty easy modification to do. I think they said you can just buy the window from Camping World or maybe direct from the manufacturer. I don't think I'd like it unless we had a curtain of some sort. But I suppose that wouldn't be too hard to accomplish either. We've been in the middle of nowhere and had someone knock at our door. Spooky.

Hi Kathy. Thanks for the request. I will be responding to you via direct e-mail shortly.

We deviated from our stay in Quartzsite last week to visit some new areas. While on our way to Las Vegas we spent the better part of a week at Willow Beach Marina, part of Lake Mead NRA, about 10 miles from Hoover Dam. The campground is small but well maintained. Very quiet with lots of stars at night. The facilities are top notch. Mike