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My hitch started to make the dreaded Anderson Groan during sharp turns, an indication that the sleeve was contaminated with grit. The sound first appeared at about 2800 miles since I bought the hitch.you need a pretty heavy duty external snap ring tool to get the bottom ring off. It is strong. Invert the hitch in the receiver, remove the snap ring, whack the bottom of the ball mount. If that doesn’t work you may have to connect to your Ollie and use the jack to raise up the ball, and jump on the mount to free it. Mine popped loose with a single hard blow of my 2 lb dead blow mallet. Separate the sleeve from the ball mount. Upside down in a vise, one whack. Clean parts with a strong solvent and a red scotchbrite pad. I used brake cleaner. There was a lot of nasty crud stuck to all the parts. Don’t forget to clean the inside of the aluminum mount itself. Cracked sleeve. I don’t see how it could fall out, I just reused it. Reassemble dry, install the snap ring. Good to go.... no more ugly noises. I really think that the hitch needs to be sealed from the elements. Moisture won’t hurt it, but grit and dust certainly will. I can see having to do this annually at least. I plan to carry my snap ring pliers on long trips, just in case. Yes the ball is heavily worn, but it is not getting worse. I do plan to eventually replace it and the coupler in the stronger 2 5/16 inch size. This worn ball works ok, except on the rare occasion that I drive over a really steep slow speed dip, the coupler rotates out of the groove on the ball with a loud bang. Disconcerting but fairly harmless, I hope... John Davies Spokane WA

This is an easy mod, you just need some heavy urethane film, such as is used on headlights as stone guards. It needs to be thick, not the thin stuff used as a car bra. I used 12mil (0.012”). I noticed that the spare tire was chafing pretty badly in two places, so I decided to install a pair of pads. After cleaning with 3M Adhesive Cleaner, all that glop came off, but the gelcoat was pretty scuffed. I used some film I already had, cut a couple of 3”x12” strips, and installed them as per the instructions using soapy water. I laid out some pieces of tape at 5 inches from the tire mount to act as guide lines, and I used a 3 inch rubber roller to get the bubbles out rather than a squeegee or piece of plastic. [attachment file=136477] This area is invisible normally, but I feel better knowing it is protected,and it will stop gel coat from getting on the outer sidewall of the spare. While I was in there I applied RejeX, to get that mirror shine and repell dirt. ... https://www.amazon.com/Rejex-High-Gloss-Protective-Finish/dp/B00GM6NF0I Here is the source for the film I used. ... http://www.giantloopmoto.com/product/vinyl-protective-film/ John Davies Spokane WA

Steve, I read that review. The guy had a 37 foot motorhome.... Pretty sure an Oliver would use significantly less water.... But, it's definitely a consideration

While our gauges are, indeed, on the outside of the tanks, there can be "false" readings caused by "stuff" sticking to the insides of the tank and/or not keeping a tank fairly clean. However, this problem is fairly simple to keep from happening - keep the tanks clean. Bill

Duke took a photo of the bow mounted bike rack. It was an entry in the modification contest at the Rally. I'm sorry I don't have more information. Again, hopefully, someone who does will give us the details.

Sounds interesting, but in the Amazon reviews I saw where it used 10-15 gallons of water a day. In a true boondocking situation, it seems that might be a problem unless water was readily available. Anyone have any real world knowledge of how much it might use on a daily basis?

Tok, Alaska is a stop just about everyone makes, coming in from Chicken on the rough Top of the World, or the normal Alcan route. It's a great little town. Gas prices aren't bad, especially after Canadian prices. Northern Energy gas station has a free dump station, free clean potable water fill, plus a FREE cold water/ high pressure RV wash. They supply brushes and buckets and water. Bring your own soap, rags, and microfiber towels for bugs and stains on plastic. Best time we've found is midmorning...say ten thirty to eleven am. Two outdoor bays. Nice people. Lots of space. But there may be a line in season. Hey, it's free. We spend $15 to $20 at other car washes in Fairbanks and Wasilla... The information center bhere is very nice. Pretty, big log cabin, nice exhibits and the sweetest man, now probably in his 80s, who volunteers every year and mingles, sending you to the right bracks for maps and brochures. We think he spends his winters studying up, and waiting for season to arrive. That's how excited he is when you walk into his area. ☺️ Theres a little Thai restaurant, and a nice three bears grocery. (Not really a lot cheaper than the Real Canadian Superstore in White horse, but not bad if you shop the sale items. And, they have had vacpacked Wild Alaskan Salmon fillets the last two years. Flash frozen Copper River packing company. Yummy on the fire. ) There's a nice state campground about five miles outside town, just before you come in from Beaver Creek, sort of under the Tok River Bridge. Tok River State Park. A few really nice big sites near the river. The road is pretty quiet at night. $18 us, I think. No dump station. Usually a water pump, but bagged off this time. Vault toilets. No showers. But, you can get water at Northern Energy gas.

I remember the swamp cooler idea discussed a decade ago on here, but I could only find this short thread. http://olivertraveltrailers.com/topic/12-volt-cooling/ I don't know if anyone actually tried it. We had one in a home in Kansas in the 60s. It worked well. I wonder if you'd have space above the main salon vent? It would be a shorter plumbing run for water line... Edit: Amazon reviews on the turbokool unit that replaces a rooftop ac are pretty good... https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/cr/B007HRN2LS/ref=mw_dp_cr Sherry

Spike - I don't think that Reed meant to include products like Camco 40246 TST Drain Valve Lube with Coco Oil in with the "Grease and slime". I have used this Camco product for several years now and it simply does what it says it will do - lubricate the slide valves. I would guess that it also leaves a bit of slippery residue on the sides (and bottom) of the tank, but, that would help in keeping "things" from sticking to those side and bottom. Remember that these tank gauges are not hugely accurate in the first place with the fairly wide gaps between reading coupled with the "problem" of our tanks being so long and low (subject to leveling issues). I simply use the gauge readings as an early warning system and make sure that I really flush the tanks well as often as I can. In over twenty years of RVing I've not had a problem in this area (yet). Bill

At the Oliver Rally I spoke with one of the Oliver staff (Scott Oliver, maybe?) and he mentioned the upcoming Trailer Life article. I said "I hope they don't show [something] in this new article, like they did in the previous one." I was told that part of the arrangement with Trailer Life is that Trailer Life has complete editorial control over what goes into the article.

I think you did OK with the $300 charge. I did the job myself yesterday and it was 4 hours from drive up to cleaned up. It's the second set of bags I've installed on a Toyota SUV. I run a high school auto shop and have year round access. It has several lifts and a full set of tools. My 70+ year old father was there to offer a hand as needed. I can't imagine doing the job in the driveway or without air tools. Leaving Minnesota tomorrow for Hohenwald. Delivery for our Elite II is scheduled for Monday. My traveling friend and I are taking a week to go down and back with a few tourist stops planned on the route. Google says the total drive is around 13 hours each way. Wish us well! Ken

I will add my voice to this and think it is a great marketing idea. From my years of marketing experience, I know this is expensive to setup and maintain. If we want quality products and Oliver to over see this business, we need to set our expectation for fairly high priced products. Cost to inventory different sizes and have staff process orders timely adds up. And there are Always ideas that don't sell.

I agree with John that the search function on this forum is inadequate. I have complained about it several times before. In an earlier post, Jason said that the searches are ajax based and searches are performed in real time. I am not a programmer, but I have worked with IT specialists in developing my department’s web site, and my understanding of ajax searches is that the search results are shown as you type, and the search results narrow as you continue typing. This type of auto-complete, based upon text strings within the website, is enormously powerful. You see this auto-compete in a Google search. Clearly the Oliver Forum search engine does not do this. I do want to provide a short tutorial on Google searches. Really good information HERE, and maybe too much information HERE. John provides a good suggestion But there is a better way. If you put “site:” before olivertraveltrailers.com, as in “site:olivertraveltrailers.com” you limit the search to that one domain. You can exclude hits with specific words. Suppose you search for “propane tank” but you get a lot of hits about barbeques, then you can exclude barbecues with a minus sign before the offending word. The search would be “propane tank -barbeque”or even “propane tank -barbeque -bbq”. You can use quotation marks to demand an exact match. Suppose you search for quick connect in the search “site:olivertraveltrailers.com quick connect” and you find pages with both words (or only one of the words) anywhere on the page. A search for “site:olivertraveltrailers.com “quick connect”” demands the consecutive words, in a phrase. (I hope you are not confused by the nested quotation marks; the outermost marks delimit what is going into the search field.) You can also use the Boolean Operators AND and OR in your searches. Examples: “”quick connect” AND water” “”quick connect” AND propane OR LP” You can also use asterisks as wild cards in your searches. If you go to FiberglassRV Forum, you can search the entire post, or search only the title. Searching the title can be an excellent strategy. We cannot do that with the Oliver Forum search tools, but there is a work around with the terms intitle: and allintitle: For example, “site:olivertraveltrailers.com/ lubrication intitle:jacks” finds pages with the word "lubrication" and with the word "jacks" in the title. Note that the singular jack did not work, because the title had jacks. Hope this helps.

What a novel way to set things up. For warm weather use it's ideal. We essentially do the same thing to conserve gray tank capacity except that we take the showers inside and just let the gray water drain out as we go. Looks great.

John, here's my advice - As far as brand goes, the two I found to be most recommended were NovaKool and Isotherm. I went with the Isotherm because I liked the stainless door. In hindsight, the stainless is a pain to keep clean in the trailer, so I think I'd still have gone with Isotherm but they have a new model out now with what is supposed to be fingerprint free stainless. Mainly, I think just getting the Danfoss compressor is the key, regardless who makes the box. I think the Isotherm has a wider cutout but like the NovaKool is shorter so you'll have to figure out what to do underneath. I found that adding a fan inside the fridge really transformed it. Our first trip out, the temps were up and down and we were always fussing with the temp control and worrying about it, some things freezing and others too warm. But with the fan the fridge has become something we just don't think about. See my Snowball thread for the brand and install. The Isotherm only cools via the freezer coils which is why it was so uneven before I added the fan. Perhaps the NovaKool has a better design in that respect? I got the ASU unit for the Isotherm but never use it. I should give it a shot again with the internal fan to see if it makes a difference, but the internal temps were too variable using it on our first trip. I added extra insulation just because. I don't really know if it's made any difference. Couldn't have hurt. Real life power usage is minimal. It will pull 3.5 amps when starting and then settle down to around 2.5 amps. Probably has a run time around 50%, but that's highly dependent on the inside temp. Noise is noticeable at times, but never intrusive. I can't hear the internal fan I added at all unless the door is open. The freezer on the Isotherm is too small for anything but a few ice trays. The Isotherm comes in both 12/120 and 12 volt only models. I couldn't see the point in the 120 and still don't. If I remember right, the NovaKool had the compressor located on the bottom, so the internal arrangement was different. And maybe they have a model with an external compressor? That might be a good choice since you have the extra space. Semi-related - I installed a National Luna in the back of the truck before this last trip and wow, that really changed the way we camp. Three weeks worth of food, no trips to the store, no ice sloshing around in the cooler - heaven.