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I have never had to jackknife any trailer to that extreme. Could someone please explain how the trailer moves back when the Tv is at a 90dg angle to the trailer. It doesn’t work that way. The only thing that will be accomplished is to bend things as some have found. Being on that much of an angle you need to stop pull forward and reposition the trailer. If someone can back a trailer into a spot with the Tv at a 90dg angle please video it id like to see it.😳😰

Lost Dutchman State Park, AZ. What a beautiful park

If you fixed the fridge, can you elaborate? It might help someone else in the future, maybe me.😊 Mossey

Jim, it would be a real shame to have to replace the whole fridge for want of a $100 part. I know it was difficult to find five years ago, for me. I think I finally found a beige one on Amazon, then a black one at an rv service center in Arizona. If I remember correctly, there were two different eyebrow made for the same fridge, and which one we needed depended on the serial number. Did Dometic at least give you that part correct part number? We replaced our rm2454 with a truckfridge, about 4 years ago. The hardest part was removing the old fridge, as in the Elites, the space between the shower wall and the fridge wall is too small to remove the Dometic fridge in one piece. Paul had to disassemble it, and take it out in pieces. Otherwise, we'd have had to remove the shower wall and the entry door to get it out. The truckfridge was just barely small enough to get through that narrow space, with maybe an 1/8 inch each side to spare, because it doesn't have the enormous cooling unit hanging on the back. The pros--The truckfridge has worked very well for us. It cools down quickly, and maintains temperature well, and it works consistently! It's maybe .5 cubic foot larger capacity than the Dometic we replaced. It was about half the price of a comparable marine fridge. It fit in the cavity, and I gained a small shallow drawer beneath it. The cons--it uses 60 to 70 ah a day, and we typically rely on solar for our power needs. We've upgraded our rooftop solar to 400 watts, but still have only space for 2 group 31 batteries, 105 ah each, in our Elite. So, I have to deploy portable solar if we camp in the shade, or break out the Honda every few days. I don't think the unit, especially the door, is as well insulated as the marine versions. I can see the outlines of the door shelves in condensation sometimes. The handle is a bit chintz, but it does stay closed during travel. The freezer is really tiny, like a shoebox, but it does make ice quickly. We often camp for six or eight weeks at a time, and if it's humid, I have to defrost the freezer every 3 or 4 weeks. (In all fairness, the dometic freezer iced up, too, over time.) The freezer door is also a poor design, held in place with two thin plastic pins that are the "hinges", which will break if you operate the door with too much ice build up. (I know from personal experience. ) The replacement door is expensive and hard to find, so if you go that route, keep the freezer defrosted! If you have other questions, I'd prefer you ask here, rather than pm me. These questions pop up every so often, and I think it's better to make comments available to everyone. I think the 3way is actually a great boondocking fridge, as it uses so little power and propane when running on gas. But I have to say, I love the reliability of my truckfridge, and its size made it possible for us to do the swap ourselves. An Elite II has a wider opening, so swapping in a new 3way isn't as troublesome.

I'm often alone when parking the trailer. So finding somebody that I can trust can be a challenge. My solution is to back up a bit, then stop and put my truck into reverse so that it's back-up camera shows how close I am to a Box and Bumper MMA match. Doing so also slows me down a bit so that I can also look up at my Ollie tail mounted camera that I have powered up from the parking light circuit in the attic. So if you are following me, and I turn on my trailer lights, I've got an eyeball on you! 🙂

UPDATE: After having been on the road now since Dec 12, first in NM and now AZ I am happy to report that there still seem to be open spots for those of us who like to fly by the seat of our pants, not making reservations far in advance. We have camped in NM And AZ State Parks, private campgrounds, National Parks and boondocked at our usual spots without having yet been turned away. Asking the Rangers and Camp Hosts about cancellations, group sites, overflow and Un-used camp volunteer sites has worked for us the few times where there were not vacant sites available. Glad to see that at least in the SW the campgrounds do not seem to packed solid this year.

Remove four nuts under the tongue, remove two “square” u bolts, lift off the tray. That is how my 2017 one works, the current one may differ slightly. If you really don’t want it, ask them to delete it from your build sheet, there is no reason they would not, at this very early stage. It is probably one of the last things they do after all the other stuff is completed. If you do remove it, there will be two holes left in the fiberglass, which might bother you. It would be better to stop it from being installed in the first place. How much is that option now? It was about $700 for mine…. That will buy a lot of gas. John Davies Spokane WA .

Dudley, you probably already know this, but for the benefit of newer owners who's 12VDC electrical knowledge may be a little rusty. In Oliver's 4 x 6 volt battery package you have two sets of two 6 volt batteries. Both batteries in these sets are wired together in series to make a 12 volt battery (one wire from the positive terminal on one battery to the negative terminal on the other battery - think as if you're putting batteries in a flashlight, each battery's voltage is added to make the total). The voltage doubles for the set but the available ah remains the same. Then, the two sets are wired together in parallel by connecting the positive and negative terminals. This keeps the voltage the same for the four batteries but doubles the Ah capacity of the pack. This wiring scheme gives you a 12 volt system with a aH capacity of double the stated aH of any one battery. This is how many aH you can use before reaching the dreaded 50% point of no return. Then, to properly connect the battery pack to your trailer the positive and negative wires should come off the opposite corners of the set of batteries. This will enable each battery to be discharged and charged equally.

I've read all ya'lls most recent comments (huge benefit and thank you!!) and stayed up reading manuals last night. I believe you nailed it with the Blue Sky charge controller being frozen, therefore it was not doing its job. The backlit greet light has always been on anytime I went to check on the trailer and anytime I pressed on the Next button the screen never changed from what is shown in my attached picture. I thought that very odd but regretfully I did not follow up to educate myself as to why. Pulling the batteries caused a reboot and (fingers crossed) hopefully BlueSky will come back on working correctly. Thank you again for all the contributions and comments. I am going to plug away at my education and work on getting these batteries healthy and reinstalled. Hopefully have good news to report later. Alberta

As I look at a lot of campground reservations its still the norm but worse the week end warriors who block off spots just about every weekend for months just to save a site. (Friday to Sunday) Sunday - Thursday, Sunday being the most open time in the afternoon to get a good camping spot. We try to avoid state parks on weekends unless we’re there for extended stays. No name private campgrounds work well on weekends while traveling long distances. Some are good some not so good. The adventures of camping.😬

Looks like you’re in the right spot for a spectacular sunset!

We've never wanted a basket, for tongue weight, and also this . You can jack knife, without the basket, and still dimple a bumper, imo. Far easier with a basket . That's why someone is backing, and someone is watching. I'm ok without the extra hassle. We carry what we need in the truck bed.

I thought this pic might be useful, from my Stone Stomper thread, it shows the trailer as close as it ever gets while driving forward (full steering lock). Obviously when reversing it would get close enough to hit. If other members have similar pics, please post them! John Davies Spokane WA

Hello All, It's been a while since I used this forum, and opened a new account since I couldn't remember much about my old one! I have Hull 389, Nov 2018, and I suspect the eyebrow board on the Dometic RM 2454 is shot, and no eyebrow boards are available anywhere including Dinosaur Boards. I have bookmarked a few pages on this forum with tips on how to possibly revive the board and will try them next week. I seem to remember that someone swapped out their Dometic for a Truckfridge or something similar, and in case I can't get my Dometic going, I would be very appreciative of any tips or threads on how to pull it off. Thanks in advance, Jim

I have been reading forum postings for nearly two years and have come across a wealth of useful information. In preparation for delivery of our LEII on 1/18/22, I have often wanted to retrieve information I had previously read, or to conduct a new search on a particular topic. Searching the forum postings using the native search capabilities has proven to be very frustrating and seldom producing the desired information. My son reminded me Google's search engine can be used to search within websites. To search the Oliver Travel Trailer Forums do the following: In your preferred browser, open a new tab and enter to the web address search box: google.com In the Google search box enter the URL of the forums followed by any number of search terms: site: https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums term1 term2 term3 Where term1, term2 and term3 are your search terms, separated by spaces. Use search terms just as you would when conducting any Google search. Following the URL of the forums you may include any of the web search refinements available for a Google search. See: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433?hl=en Examples site: https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums tongue storage box site: https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums tongue weight site: https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums storage ideas -facility site: https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums lagun table Overland site: https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums mudflaps OR mud flaps site: https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums basement heating site: https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums heat ducts Minnesota Oli site: https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums TPMS site: https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums hitch lock OR collar I expect you will find the Google search results much more useful.

This is an old topic, it seems that every generation of forum members has complained about the forum search capabilities. Thank you for bumping it and adding to the discussion. This link covers the topic as well. Mossey

I have the Tire Minder system and do not use the repeater. I found as long as I have the monitoring device by itself (no other devices next to it, like phone or GPS) I do not need the repeater. I would suggest you try it without the repeater hooked up at first and see for yourself. A number of other people on the forum also do not use the repeater.

I know that Mike and Carol have a box like you are talking about and have posted about it on the Forum. There have also been several others to include a handsome custom made box but I'm not sure how many of these are without the "basket" option. Bill

I’ve never jackknifed either. We’ve had a couple of tight spots but maneuvered without any extreme trailer positioning.

If you have any flexibility even AZ state parks will have some availability on short notice this time of year. If you aren’t flexible then you need to start making reservations about 12 months out!!

Don't worry - by your July Ollie pickup all that snow will be gone and the truck (and you) will be very happy! Bill

Very nice truck, you didn't ask (as there was no need to), but I can assure you that you won't have any trouble with either towing or cargo carrying capacity. My SIL and BIL live in Sandy Hook and they said they got a bunch of snow with more coming. You need to head South to the land of Mint Juleps and Tennessee sipping whiskey. Congrats on your upcoming Oliver acquisition from Hull #050.

There should be a large red rotatory switch near the charge controller. If you turn this off all solar input will be interrupted. On my unit this does not kill the power to the IPN Pro display. About the IPN Pro display. That shown is a screen that would only be seen during boot up, whenever power to the screen had been interrupted and then restored. The photo would have to have been taken during this stage. On my unit that screen and green indicator light only stay on for about 2 seconds. I've found that when I first turn everything off mine will show your 0.6-0.7 Ah draw, but a few hours later it almost always has dropped to 0.4 Ah.

Looking at your photos, it would "appear" that your solar panels were charging the batteries. (See the green light on in the photo of the blue sky remote), and possibly in bulk state, unless you were lucky and just captured that photo on a blink. But, the 12.1 on the seelevel gauge means it wasn't really charging, (should read 13.4 or so in bulk), or you had some huge power draw going on, like the 3way fridge running on dc. The Dometic 3way never defaults to 12v like the Norcold. It has to be set to dc, but it can be done accidentally. Your solar panels would not be able to keep up with that big draw, especially in cloudy weather. The other possibility is that the panels weren't actually charging the batteries, at all. We have about a .35 ghost draw in our trailer. In 3 to 4 weeks, that would draw your batteries down to 50 per cent. Do you have a breaker near the pd charger/converter to cut the power from the panels? We do, but I don't remember if we installed it, or if Oliver installed it, back in 2008. @ScubaRx would probably know, as your hull numbers are only 17 apart. If you don't have one, you can cover the panels with a dark packing quilt so they won't be making power, and I'd suggest you do that when you reinstall the batteries and connect the cables. I'm also curious about the message on your display. Mine never shows "blue energy v4." It always shows whatever setting i was last looking at, instead. Maybe this is different in the newer remotes. Again, @ScubaRx or one of the other owners of newer systems may see that. I don't know.

That is the reason we are not ordering a front storage basket on our Elite II. I have been required to jack knife my raft trailer many times when backing into tight spaces. I welded a 3' straight steel extension onto the front of that A-frame trailer many years ago after denting a bumper during a jack knife maneuver. Problem solved. So, I want as much leeway between the Oliver trailer frame and the TV bumper as possible. If I could get one of the extendable tongues that was available on very early Olivers, I would get that upgrade for the same reason: maximum clearance if you must jack knife the trailer when backing.

FYI, If the basket collides with your truck hard enough to damage the truck, you should also inspect the basket itself for damage, it possibly could have cracks on the support brackets or mounting holes. It is only held down in the middle by two rather undersized u-bolts. Here is a pic of the early style tray, showing the angle brackets that "straddle" the tongue, and the two sets of holes for the u-bolts. (The rubber strips have been removed in this pic.). This design is adequate for a heavy load like a generator IF it is centered over the tongue, but if you load it unevenly, it may not be OK. For example a full Jerry can on just one side might be a problem Since relocating mine to the back, I no longer worry about damaging the truck, but I now have to worry about ramming it into my house (; John Davies Spokane WA

Yes, this is a great feature - but - be a bit careful in that the battery in the 890 does not last all that long when disconnected from power. Certainly it lasts long enough for the navigator to look up things like campgrounds or gas stations or even places to eat or things to do. But, be sure to put it back on its mount when the job is done. My 890 has not taken me down a "strange" road - yet. On many occasions I will use the 890 while at the same time using the navigation system in my F-150. At least 95 percent of the time they agree, but, when they don't and when I don't have a good idea of where to go, I'll always rely on the Garmin. Certainly this is true when the Garmin tells me to take a detour. But, here again, be a bit careful with this "feature" in that if the Garmin tells you that there is a "traffic problem" some 30 miles down the road - just keep an eye on it for the next 15 miles or so. I've found that more often than not many of these "traffic problems" will clear by the time I get there. Finally, probably the single most useful feature that I've found with the 890 is in getting gas. On longer trips I generally do not have a navigator. The big screen really comes in handy in both reading it and hitting the "buttons" (or simply talking to the Garmin if I'm in traffic) while bouncing down the highway. At around 100 miles to empty I'll start looking for a cheap (relatively) convenient gas station. Bill

My take on it is this - if one thought that they used to be able to go cross-country with a lot of flexibility then in these times they simply will need to have even more flexibility. Yes, perhaps it is a different kind of flexibility but it is now more important than ever. This past summer I was fortunate enough to get a reserved site in a Yellowstone campground for 10 days. Every single day there would be sites open where people with reservations either didn't show up, cancelled at the last minute or left early. And, every single day there would be those people who simply just showed up at the right time and got one of those sites. Definitely not the way I prefer to travel but these people (for the most part) knew that they were taking a "flier" on getting a site and were prepared to move on if they were not successful - they were flexible. During this same trip I spent four days on the road driving to the West and another four days driving to the East all without a single reservation. Knowing that I might run into issues finding a place to park for the night, I had 4 or 5 different places already identified in the event my first choice was taken/full. Not once did I have to resort to even my second choice. Lucky - perhaps, but, I was prepared. We have purchased one of the most flexible campers on the market and if outfitted correctly it is capable of keeping us very comfortable is a very wide range of situations. In these times we just have to be as flexible in our planning to be able to enjoy ourselves no matter what situation we encounter. Bill

Just wondered if any of you out there have added a aluminum tool box to the tongue. I just want one to carry a small grille and the trailer levelers, etc., nothing heavy. Something like this, https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200620947_200620947 Any thoughts would be appreciated, thanks. trainman

This is what I did. The box was about $100 on amazon. I carry chocks blocks gloves etc in it. It’s working well for what I use it for.

Trainman - Two things: First: wasn't it on this date that the "golden spike" was driven? Second: I did a quick "search" and could not find it, but, if my memory serves me well I think that Mike & Carol have a front storage box and they even did a post about it. You might want to PM them. I know that they are on the road to the Rally but with a PM Mike & Carol would be sure to see your question. Bill