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Well, she may be a "vintage" Oliver Elite with almost 140,000 miles, but she's had a NEW upgrade to her list of many, many improvements over the years. Following ScubaRX's template from 2017, with some minor modifications, the old tired drum brakes have been retired to the history bin and have been replaced with disk brakes. Woohooooooo . . . Took her for a test run today and I'm very pleased with the result. If anyone is near San Antonio and desires the same modification (5200 lb axles required) contact Ron at Boerne RV - Eight 30 - 8 one 6 - 388 three and he will take good care of you.

To do it absolutely correctly, one would need to replace most of the Pex tubing, especially any that are under 2 feet long. Cutting out a fitting will subtract about 3/4 inch of pipe length with each cut. The plumbing lines installed in the new Oliver's today are cut to the exact the lengths they need to be to accomplish their job, part of which is to have no stress put on the fittings at either end by being too short. The only fitting I've ever had fail (Two different Oliver Trailers, well over 150K miles total) was one where the line was hanging free vertically (near the pump), too short, had no support at either end, and had been pieced in the middle with a straight coupler (very bad practice). Vibration from the earthquake being towed through a hurricane finally made it fail. When the pump was active it was pumping water directly into the basement. My point is you should not have to pull two lines closer to each other (introducing stress) to merely replace a fitting that was working just fine because you perceive it as inferior. You may inadvertently introduce a problem you didn't previously have. I do agree that if a plastic fitting does fail, replace it with a brass one. Just as a cost comparison, at Home Depot: A Pro pack that includes five 1/2 in. Plastic PEX-B Barb Tee fittings will cost you $1.68 for each fitting. A 1/2 in. lead free dezincification resistant (DZR) brass Pex Tee will run you $3.65. A Shark-bite brand 1/2 in. Push-to-Connect Brass Tee Fitting is priced at $13.27.

All is well. Thank you all for your help. I got everything connected properly and now have power for my trip this evening to Bend Oregon where it’s about 10 degrees. Getting the terminal bolts in with all the cables is certainly a bear. Glad I won’t be doing that again soon.

Progressive

So we left the Oliver Service Center about two hours ago and Mike in service was puzzled as he has only seen 2 other bent couplers. (One had been severely torqued/twisted on an uneven surface while parking at a campsite and the other was with a jackknifed/rolled accident). Our damage remains a mystery (no other signs of stress). Since the part was only about 6 months old, Oliver did a warranty exchange on the coupler and charged us for the labor to install a new one. Thanks for the group comments and support! SNY SD UP, I’m sorry to hear about your truck bumper! Our close friends also turned the basket into their new truck bumper with a sharp turn. We removed ours because it interferes with the camera backup assist feature on the Ford F-250. This backup assist feature also provides protection to prevent jackknifing by providing a “red zone” on our truck screen and it screams at you, if you dare get too close to jackknifing ….

@Dave and Kimberly, my guess is your brother in law had either a $400 uponor expansion tool or a pricey hydraulic crimper. You don't need either to do simple repairs with sharkbite push to connect fittings. We just plumbed our barn last year with sharkbite pex pipe and push to connect fittings. We looked at using crimp connectors instead, but for the few connections necessary, the higher price of push to connect fittings vs. buying a hydraulic crimper, it just didn't make sense. And, we've used sharkbite push to connect fittings for other repairs previously, so knew they were easy to use. We used a few Evopex connectors, but mostly the brass push connectors. The Evopex is interesting, in that a green band shows through spacers to tell you when you've made a tight and proper connection. But, they're not, as Mossey said, removable or reusable. (We only used two, in a location that would be difficult to repair later.) For standard push to connect tools, I'd just add a ruler and a sharpie to the list of tools Mossey gave, but those are likely in your toolkit, anyway. You should make a mark on the cut pipe to the proper depth (15/16" or 24mm) for 1/2 inch pipe, to make sure you've made the proper connection. That's it. I'd recommend getting pex a pipe vs pex b for your spare pipe lengths, as it's a bit more flexible, and more resistant to freeze damage. ( we specified upunor pex a for our new home build, some years ago, sharkbite in the barn. Our lowes and ace hardware both carry sharkbite.) Here's a video showing how to use the sharkbite push to connect fittings. (I'll say that it may take a little more hand strength than it appears to in the video, but no big deal.)

Progressive

When it's time to rebuild our 5200lb axle brake assemblies including installation of new bearings/races, will probably install disc brakes instead. The 5200lb axles have larger drum brakes compared to the 3500lb axles and do a good job stopping our LE2 Ollie, too.

That is precisely why we did not order the front basket with our new Elite II. When I had a similar experience with my raft trailer 20+ years ago, I added a 3-foot straight section of steel to extend that trailer's A-frame tongue, then put a different coupler on it. Now when I have to jack knife that trailer, no bumper damage. Since I could not realistically add length to the Oliver tongue, we opted to forego the basket--and carry the stuff that could have been in the basket in the back of our Tundra tow vehicle.

I purchased a 5" X 13" X 1/4" sheet of aluminum for mounting the actuator and asked Ron to ensure the fill port was mid-center, between the propane tanks. It is tight, but does not interfere with the tanks or make contact with the fiberglass shell. The actuator adaptor module which allows it to interface with modern in truck brake controllers is mounted on the inside of the street-side A-frame. One major change I asked Ron to do from ScubaRX's design is to enclose the entire run of the copper-nickle brake line in a protective stainless steel brake line protector from Summit Racing https://www.summitracing.com/parts/ops-gg31616ss It slips right over the brake line to protect it from stones. The line is run on the side of a frame member until it enters the fiberglass channel housing the propane line where it is well secured and away from anything that might chafe it over the long term. The grease bearing zerk fitting came with my 5200 lb axle. I never used it because one day a brake shop owner told me about all the extra work he was seeing because customers were applying too much grease, which squirted out of the seals, which then fouled up the brakes.

I certainly don’t like being screamed at, but the backup assist seems like a useful feature. Mossey

My drum brakes performed admirably for over a decade with regular annual maintenance . . . I was traveling 9 to 10 thousand miles a year then. Lots of braking events . . . and then . . . COVID! No travel at all for one year, and two years only going 700 miles into the mountains and sitting for 3 months with lots of friends in the cool air. Well. the dust and debris of normal travel had gotten into the drums and sort of solidified, causing the left drum to cease working altogether and the right one to be cantankerous. My TV is an F150 which has abundant braking power for my 3900 lb Wonder Egg. But that's not the point. I need to ensure safety at ALL times, even when going down 9 miles of 12-15° down slopes in the mountains. So that was the impetus for my move to disk brakes. Plus . . . they look COOL! $1600 in parts, $900 in labor. For me, where I am in life at this time, it is worth every buckaaroo. I hope to return to my long wanderings again this year. Woohooooo

I have Home Owners Ins.company. $392 per 6 months. With insurance... the devil is in the details. We have both comprehensive and collision replacement value w/$1k deductable, Road trouble service- all reasonable costs, Vacation Emergency expense (hotel expenses $250 per day) and liability, Contents $5k and awning replacement (zero deductable). My replacement value has a limit extending out to 3 years... After that I think we need to determine a new replacement value going forward.

Auto Owners Purchased our LE2 used during 2016. Increased the insured value two times so far, looks like we will need to increase it a third time to keep up with increasing replacement value. 🙂

When backing up or turning, did you happen to "jack-knife"? Your situation is different than ours in that we have the storage basket attached. I do not know what that would look like when just the hitch is involved. I did jack-knife on our last outing putting a dimple on one side of the TV rear bumper. It was followed by "Pounding on the window" and the mouthing of "You hurt my truck". By the end of the trip, I had a matching one on the other side of the bumper... Regards, B-out

So we left the Oliver Service Center about two hours ago and Mike in service was puzzled as he has only seen 2 other bent couplers. (One had been severely torqued/twisted on an uneven surface while parking at a campsite and the other was with a jackknifed/rolled accident). Our damage remains a mystery (no other signs of stress). Since the part was only about 6 months old, Oliver did a warranty exchange on the coupler and charged us for the labor to install a new one. Thanks for the group comments and support!

After talking to the people I bought the batteries from, I learned that I didn't put it back together as it had been, despite my efforts to be careful to note how the originals had been wired. I connected positive to positive (parallel, 6V system), when I should have connected positive to negative to create a 12V system in series. Thank you all for your help. I will correct this when I get home from work tonight, and let you know if all is well after making this change.

I looked in the online manual and did not find a drawing for the Elite. THIS one is for the LE2, but it shows the difference between 6 v and 12 v wiring. Your setup should look like the area in the yellow box. Pull out the tray drawer again, ID all the terminals polarity and write POS and NEG beside each one in large letters with a silver Sharpie pen. After you have corrected the wiring, write + and - on the actual cable ends. Did you take a picture before you took everything apart? If not, bad boy! John Davies Spokane WA

Just what in the world is all that white stuff? No wonder you don't want to move your Ollie from its cozy garage! Bill

I come from a family of dancers. My parents were award winning ballroom dancers. When they took to the floor they mesmerized everyone by their synchronized smooth dance moves. I use to love watching them dance! I’m listening to Glenn Miller right now, flooded with memories of the many times they wowed the crowd dancing to this song.💃🏻🕺🏻❤️

Nicky: Did you reuse the valves and the PEX tubing on either side of the valves? When you removed the PVC elbows, was the PEX tubing the correct length when installing the brass sharkbit fittings?

I'd agree, we don't get caught up in replacing "everything." But, if others want to, and feel more comfortable, I certanly won't criticize, either. Everyone has their personal comfort zone.. The brass vs plastic is a no big deal for me, either, as plastic fittings are often used in new construction. Just not within 18" of hot water... We've had exactly one fitting fail over 15 seasons, so I personally have no desire to invest the time and considerable money, til necessary. We don't even carry spares, as they're readily available in pretty much every hardware store, and we already know how to use them. But, then, we may apparently live on the edge.

We've owned two different Oliver's over the past 12 years. Collectively, we have traveled over 150K miles. I have had one fitting to break and it did cause a mess. I agree that brass fittings are better than plastic and they should be using them. I always carry several feet of tubing, a few different brass pex fittings, and the tools to replace them in case that ever happens again.