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Thanks for this John. I took delivery of #266 today and couldn't get furnace on. When I remembered your post I grabbed a bag of ice and held it against the thermostat for a couple minutes and bam....heater popped on. Greg

[postquote quote=181362][/postquote] As I said, this is not a wise plan. The valves on the grey and black tanks DO NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST provide a sanitary separation between the two, and your grey water is not nearly as sanitary as you think. So before you set sail on the Typhoid Ollie, you need to completely separate that tank from the grey, both the drain and vent. Unless, that is, you plan to carry a good supply of Cipro and camp only in ER parking lots.

I tow with a Ram 3500 SRW. I have tires that are 2" taller than stock, that lift the truck about 1". My actual measured tongue weight is 570 lbs. I use a 3" drop hitch and it is perfect. This allows for an approximately 1 1/2" sag when connecting. I probably have about 800 lbs of total gear, tools, etc, in the bed of the truck when traveling. Ollie rides as close to level as possible set up like this, and the truck is slightly down in the back from the weight of the gear and the tongue weight combined. It also seems like too many people buy the Anderson hitch out of fear, rather than because they actually have reason to think they need it. Remember, Oliver trailers are extremely stable. I have an Anderson hitch that came with my Oliver and I have never put it on. It has never been even slightly needed. Of course, nobody is qualified to tell someone else that they don't need a piece of safety gear. But, does it make sense to buy out of fear? Or with no data suggesting you really need it? Or to buy it for sway, when all you need is weight distributing? If you want to tow your LE2 with a Corolla, you'll need it. If you want to tow your LE2 with a deuce and a half military truck, you won't need it. How about a 1 ton Ram? No. How about a Ranger? Yes. Where exactly is the line? Do you want one so that a lawyer can't possibly sue you? Good luck with that. We have friends that have towed their LE2 all over the country with an F-150, with no WDH. Not the slightest problem ever. Even though Ford says they need one with a tongue weight over 500 lbs. Anderson hitches have been known to cause problems with Ford stability control systems. In that situation, Anderson recommended turning off the Ford stability control system in the truck! Yikes! Never do that! So, if you don't need it for stability, and it can cause instability when installed, and you're afraid to go without it, and Ford says you need one, but the truck drives fine without it, and Olivers are known for their inherent stability, what do you do? And how can anyone tell you what to do? My solution was to not use one, even though an Anderson came with my Ollie. Your mileage may vary. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.

I’ve wondered about this, it just seems like the AS has a lot more interior space not just because of the extra width. There’s a 23’ AS that is stored next to my Oliver, I’m going to measure next time I’m over there. Mike

Overland, We have camped with friends with an Airstream, and I think you are mistaken. I looked on the Airstream web site, and it says: "All Airstream Travel Trailer exterior lengths are measured from the center of the hitch to the end of the rear bumper." On Airforums people said they are measured from "ball to bumper." One major difference is that the tongue on the Oliver is much longer than on most trailers. Airstreams have a smaller tongue, and thus the cabin on a 23 foot Airstream is longer than on a 23 foot Oliver. I doubt the difference is five feet.

Aftermarket rear airbags..... the only thing reducing the load rating on the PW is the soft springs. With air assist you can level the truck and carry a much heavier load safely, though technically this would not be legal. This is what the Raptor guys do. But I would feel much safer carrying more than the rated payload in a 7000 pound HD truck than a 5600 pound light duty one, since it has such a beefy frame and drivetrain. BTW, the PW comes factory equipped with a stout steel front bumper, 12k winch, heavy skid plates, lift, big AT tires, front and rear differential lockers, swaybar disconnect, etc, and those parts are figured into the payload number, and they have a full factory warranty. So if you bought a regular Ram Bighorn, for example, and then did all the same stuff to it, you would have to subtract off the weight of all that gear from the usable load, probably about 400 or 500 pounds. And it would cost about double. If this sort of truck is what you want, you really can’t match it for the $8000 cost of the Power Wagon package. You can, this year, order a stripped Tradesman with that package, if you wanted a great offroad, no-frills pickup truck, for about $50k MSRP. John Davies Spokane WA