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Yesterday morning we left Hull #634 XPLOR, with Collin and Gavin owners of CGi who gave it the CGI 3 step Ceramic coating process. We really like that they kept our Oliver overnight which allowed the ceramic coating to cure for at least 4 hours inside their shop. All we could say this morning when they opened their shop door was WOW! WOW! WOW! 🤩 Our Oliver looked better than the day we took delivery June 16th of 2020. Their work is excellent and the attention to detail is truly amazing. With over 130 Oliver Travel Trailers under their belt they truly are masters at their craft. The CGI team knows exactly how to take care of ALL things Oliver gelcoat. We also had our windows and wheels ceramic coated along with everything white on our Oliver. This was an excellent seamless experience and a valuable investment in our Oliver. 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Patriot 🇺🇸 One of several of their YouTube videos-

Thanks, Rideadeuce, for the tip on the Bulldogs. Installed 4 of them today, along with new tires (originals going on 8 years old). Tomorrow, repack the bearings. (note decal facing outward!)

Update: Our 2019 is part of the recall. Oliver shipped the new burner to a local repair center. Upon installation they found another issue with some internal parts and the unit would not pass inspection tests. Since our first unit had failed at year 2, and already been replaced due to a different manufacturer defect I re-connected with Truma and explained that we have had 2 water heaters, each with a different manufacturing defect. Truma didn’t hesitate and waived their normal warranty and shipped us a new water heater and door assembly. (Our door was warped from fires.) Our new unit has the new crimped burners with the loc tight on the burner feed line coupler. The tech putting in the unit forgot to install the controller wire and gas line grommet, but I was able to address those errors and test before our current trip. The old unit was requested returned by truma from the installer along with the un-used burner. So far so good on this 3rd Truma water heater.

Chris and I are OK with our "Dirty Ollie." After a wash it goes from dirty to pasty, but not paying the big bucks for a shine. That picture is from our very first Oliver camping trip, July 2023 to Kendricks Peak AZ, after 26 miles of dirt road. Ever since that trip, I've brought our Dewalt leaf blower which gets a lot of it off if blown as soon as we get to our campsite. Just got back from 12 days to NM and back. We hit snow then fog and rain and it's not quite as dirty this time but it is sure stuck on now. Bought gas for the pressure washer yesterday and today it's a beautiful sunny 72F day and I should be getting wet and dirty after lunch today~!

In preparation for next week’s trip, I thought best to test out our ebikes on the bike rack setup I recently retrofitted on the Savana. All went well and pleased that my vision from behind the steering wheel was even better than with the former TV. The front receiver hitch and bike rack rode solid around a neighborhood excursion. As a reminder, the folding ebikes are transported inside the van when underway to a destination then staged on the QuikrStuff bike rack once in camp. I do drive around with them mounted while inside a CG, to trailheads of proximity or nearby attractions.

5 years with black window trim and no issues here either. We also pull window gaskets after each trip and used soap and water and compressed air and have never had any issues with water intrusion. It’s a cleaning and detailing ✅ list to do! 😊

This is a duplicate of a post I made on the Facebook Oliver owner’s page. I’m sharing here for those not on Facebook that may be interested in a dehumidifier option for their Oliver. We were experiencing rainy and cool weather at the rally and conditions in the Olivers were getting steamy. Facebook post: Temperature and humidity outside at Lake Guntersville state park are 62deg and 94% humidity this morning. Inside OllieHaus it’s a perfect 73 deg and thanks to our counter top dehumidifier, it’s a very comfortable 46% humidity with all windows closed. No heat or AC needed. Loving life in our Oliver!! Edit: Here’s a link on Amazon for the dehumidifier if interested: Dehumidifier

Good work Ron and I must say, up front of the TV is the best place to add a bike rack! I removed the OEM bike rack from our Oliver (I have an OEM mount with 2" receiver if anybody would like to buy one). So we have nothing mounted rear of our Oliver. Given that, our measured tongue weight is less than 580 LBS and GTW is 6500 LBS. This is 9% and good balance should be 10-15%. This light tongue weight creates what is called "porpoising" which the Anderson WDH controls (fights). You add a bike rack rack and the weight of bikes in the rear of the trailer and this ratio just gets worse. Instead front of the TV helps to balance any cargo weight.

I can just see those guys at CGI having their way with #113! 😇 Bill

Yes! You really don't believe it until you actually see it on your own Oliver. XPLOR is now not only looking great but it will be easier to keep it that way too. Bill

I’ve had the parts forever and between work and some travel, a list of injuries (that made it extremely difficult to kneel in the basement or crawl under the truck) I finally have this done, fully installed and performance tested! The bottom line is, “this charger is awesome!” A month ago, I was working on waste valves under the front dinette seat when it occurred to me to run the charger cabling in the Oliver since I had everything opened. I always drill the smallest hole possible, no fancy cable glands for me. Two 3/8” holes would been enough, but I had grommets in a parts box 1/2" OD and 3/8” ID which were the perfect size. I glued them in place and afterwards caulked all of the cable openings front of hull (no pics taken). It makes sense to wire the charger before mounting the board (pic1). The wiring is rather simple but the 4 AWG wire barely fits into the terminals. The 4 AWG wire will not fit into the Oliver ground/neutral bus, so I crimped on a lug and cut it to fit the opening. I installed the two grounds side-by-side (the other coming from the tow vehicle) (pic2). When I worked my earlier inverter upgrade and rewiring projects, I had saved room for the new Orion DC-to-DC charger (pic3 close-up and pic4). The main + bus (in red) is protected by a 90A Marine Rated Battery Fuse (MRBF) that connects by 4/0 cable directly to the Victron Inverter-Charger bus and then through a 400A ANL fuse connected to the batteries (400A Victron Mulitplus spec). All major circuits are connected to the main bus; the 40A breaker OTT installed for all the Oliver 12VDC circuits, two solar chargers (OEM Blue Sky for rooftop panels and a Victron 30A MPPT charger for a Renogy 400W suitcase) and the new DC-DC charger circuit which is connected through a 60A MRBF (see center of pic3). The secondary +bus (in black because I purchased a set) is protected by the OEM 40A breaker which connects to the 12VDC panel, the 3 jack fuses, etc. These are 8mm thick solid copper buses for minimal resistance. A considerable upgrade compared to the original OEM installation. I attached the Anderson connection, front of trailer, and then got under it to see all the many zip ties that OTT installed. OMG, they should have better cable management! I replaced a lot of these because of age, but I did not want to merely zip tie this new heavy dual cable harness! Instead, I used the u-bolts that hold the front basket and cut brackets to support the cables including the trailer harness in two places, in front and rear of the basket. The picture shows the front bracket (pic5). And after taking this picture I hammered both ends of the bracket to curve them up almost touching the upper bracket to create a D-shape. I could have purchased pretty brackets, but these were on hand, fully functional and can only be seen while lying on the ground! The trailer side installation was then done! When I finished and reconnected the house batteries, the blue light on the Orion started blinking and it was listed as a device on the Victron Connect app. So before even working on the tow vehicle installation, I was able to update the firmware and configure the Orion charger. I reduced the output charge to 30A for safety concerns and initial testing. The battery settings were close enough, within 0.1V of the specs for Epoch LiFePO4 batteries.

Bulldog shocks are a bit beefier and look like they are well made. Easy swap. Leaf springs look good, still on the fence about upgrading to the Alcan 5 leaf springs. Clips were loose on both springs on the right. Center bolt nut on the left EZ flex was loose and about to fall off. All of the Monroe shocks seemed to be in good working order just rusty. Future plans include the ALCAN highway so trying to get everything done now. New tires in the morning. https://www.4statetrucks.com/bulldog-hd-shock-absorber-replaces-555001-19-050000007 Wildpeak H/T02 LT225/75R16 E/10PLY BSW *** Now back to torquing the shocks so that the cushion is the same diameter as the metal retainer but not larger. ***

Good suggestion, Bill. I will give that a shot and report back tomorrow. Bob

Looks awesome. Those CGI fellows are true magicians.

I have the Bulldog shocks with me so that Alcan can replace the Monroe shocks that are on now when they put the five leaf springs on in two weeks in Grand Junction. John

John, now that's camping to the full! 😄

Gotta love the attention to detail. Good for you. Bill

Thank you Bill, we sure are grateful to have had this work done! 👍🏻😊

"XPLOR" looking beautiful!

10 years here with the black. No issues.

You owe Mossemi a pop or two. These photos were taken while camped in some forsaken campground where (I'm sure) they had mosquitos as big as 747's and alligators and all things of that nature. 🤣 Bill

We have 5200lb axles with 5 leaf spring packs on our LE-2 #75, probably like your Ollie. Some folks here have had one leaf of the Dexter 4 leaf spring pack (3500lb) to break, covered in another thread. Not aware of any of the Dexter 5 leaf spring packs having issues, yet. Here's the 12" brake drum on our 5200 pound axle with "Me-Pack" 🙃 axle bearings, I will continue packing my bearings so I can inspect brakes, drums and bearings during service. A few here have upgraded to disc brakes, very nice modification! Here's the original 5 leaf Dexter spring pack on our #75 Ollie 5200lb axle and spare Dexter 5 leaf pack before installing bronze bushings:

We have two of these we use at home and in the Oliver and they both have performed flawlessly for the past 18 months, and the one in OllieHaus bounces down the road while traveling. We rap in a blanket and set it upright on the floor while traveling.

I’m not a Facebook user either, so thanks for this.

I really appreciate the duplicate post in that I'm one of those that does not "do" Facebook. Bill

If that’s left to right, new 12” brakes, bearings everything… that’s decent. If that includes their installation labor that’s a very good price! 😂

When we were thinking about retiring in Arizona the only places we considered were high country. Sierra Vista (5000+’), Payson (5000+’), Prescott (5000+’) and Flagstaff (nosebleed’). Our daughter graduated from Northern AZ University in Flagstaff, it’s easy to get used to the cool summer temperatures there! Plus, there isn’t any humidity anywhere which makes the heat very tolerable. 90 degrees in AZ is 20 degrees cooler than 90 degrees in San Antonio!!

As usual (19th year in a row), Twist spent two months in the western states enjoying the scenery while I enjoyed the fishing. This year I basically did a repeat of the past few years by starting the fishing west of Buffalo, Wyoming and exiting via Dubois, Wyoming. Stops (in towns) on the way included Ten Sleep, Worland, Meeteetse, Cody, Cooke City, Moran Junction, and Dubois. Rivers and Creeks included Ten Sleep Creek, Wood River, Greybull River, North Fork of Shoshone River, Elk Creek, Clear Creek, Clark's Fork of the Yellowstone, Beartooth Creek, Hoodoo Creek, Dead Indian Creek, Cantrell Creek, Gros Ventre River, Fish Creek, Torrey Creek, Horse Creek, Frontier Creek, etc. Trout landed ranged from 8 inches to 18 inches and were brooks, rainbows, brown, cut-bows and cut throat. Early in the trip at about 5:20am the Ollie started rocking! Checking to make sure I was alone I peeked outside thinking I might see a grizzly bear. Yes, the fur was black but it was only a couple of cows scratching their faces on the bumper. Here are a few pics from the trip. Bill

I was in the automotive business for quite a few years and learned alot about bearings and grease. I also have been boating for over 40 years and dunk my trailer in salt water all the time. Over the years I've learned that China can make quality bearings depending on who manufactures them. I prefer the Japanese bearing because they seem to have the best quality control. Had the least issues with them and got the most life time without on ball going bad first. Mobil I synthetic grease seem to work the best because it's not effected by water and withstand high tempertures with melting. Doesn't mix and look like chocolate milk and lose it lubricating ability. I've been using Mobil I sysnthetic on grease fitting on my vehicles and three trailers and never had a issue with bearing failures. Just my take.

At 24,000 miles on our OE2 I chose to replace the Monroe shocks when doing springs.. All four were still functioning with no leaks or adverse signs of wear. I would consider that 5 seasons or 24K miles would be a reasonable "end of life" goal. GJ: Crazy Horse adds: "Yea on the goal, but maybe early just for highway use. But for sure not for the boondocker five-leafer herd". CH

Love the duct tape! Why not use a closed cell foam yoga mat to avoid soaking up water or needing to add the clear layer? Per Google: Closed-cell mats are thinner and more water resistant, and don't absorb liquid (yes, that includes sweat) as quickly. These are generally more porous than thicker mats. Thicker, spongier yoga mats tend to have an open-cell construction, so they soak up more liquid (sweat) which also means they retain more bacteria.Mar 11, 2022

This tape really worked...it left NO residue after 9 weeks of being on the road holding on the yoga mats. This carpet protection film that I had from a remodel was put on top of the the yoga mat and made it more waterproof. If we hadn't covered the yoga mat it would have absorbed a ton of water and likely fallen off.

I saw this idea before our trip to Alaska. Didn't do it as I felt that the Husky mud guards, and a large one at the bumper would do the trick. They did their job well.... maybe 99.5%, But that last one half of a percent was noticeable. When we go back to AK, I'll be sporting Yoga Mats. GJ

@rideadeuce - A tip...Last year when we went to Alaska we bought some yoga mats and used some 3M no residue tape to attach them to the lower front of our trailer. They worked like a champ at keeping gravel from the Yukon highways from chipping the body of the trailer. We also used a roll of clear rug protection plastic from Home Depot on top of the Yoga Mats to keep them from absorbing moisture. Below: First week of the trip and the yoga mat's are doing well...tne extra coat of vinyl floor protection film is holding water at bay. F Below: After a full 9 weeks on the road the yoga mat's took the beating, but our trailer was protected. Below - After yoga mat removal and quick wash...

Those rubber "cushions" look like they are a bit better than the Monroe's too. I really like the attention to detail by facing the Bulldog label to the exterior - assume that four all were installed that way. Nice job! Bill

Good plan on tightening the shocks. First I heard of this model Monroe still holding pressure, especially when looking like that. Mine looked much better (AZ trailer) and 3 of 4 were totally shot and the 4th barely holding on. Too bad I did not know of the Bulldogs last fall. Your leaf springs, at least what's showing in the pics look nicely arced in very good shape.

While doing my bearings I noticed one of my castle nuts does not smoothly screw on the spindle. The threads look good but getting it finger tight does not happen. Do I need a new castle nut or do you think this guys tips will help?

All I do is when we return from camping trips, I pressure wash all the dirt off our trailer (and there’s so much dirt out here)! I hit the windows straight on with 3000 PSI water pressure and you see the dirty water come out of the drain holes first, followed by clean water. If I do not see this out of EVERY drain hole I would address this afterwards. As I am blasting the windows, Chris is inside with a towel to collect any sprayed water to the interior and there is generally little to none. And our Ollie can get very dirty!

That's good to hear, and I hope they continue to work flawlessly for you. Personally, it's a red flag and I won't run any appliances in my home or Ollie without a UL or ETL certification. Even then, still not a guarantee that the unit is actually certified as seen with the Gree dehumidifier recalls that covered a decade of units that caused hundreds of fires and a few deaths that were found to have faked UL certifications.

Here's my 2 cents... I just replaced all shocks with the Monroe 555001s. I did so as a first step in trying to figure out the cause of sudden scalloping of both fronts tires. One of the tires was severe enough to warrant exchange with our new spare. As per Scuba Rx, one of the Monroe cushions indeed needed to be compressed to get 1 of the shocks to fit. I'm happy with ease of installation and time will tell if the shocks were the cause. Tires were removed to facilitate installation. Hull 996, picked up new in Jan 2022 and now with over 41,000 miles, has had its share of highway hard knocks, most of which surprisingly occurred on very infrequent use of interstates. The included photos show one of the shock "stems" bent and both front shock shafts were indeed sheared. The other 2 rear shocks were intact, though badly worn. Since both front shock shafts were sheared and only the front tires showed unusual wear I suppose they were the cause. The 2nd picture shows the shaft was stuck in and I pulled it out with pliers. John