Leaderboard

We were at ALCAN this morning. They do good work!

Unity Reservoir -Oregon Electric & Water Sites Great spot to watch migratory birds. Bookable on Oregon State Parks

A good place to camp the night before you appointment is James M. Robb State Park in Fruita. It’s only about 10 miles from ALCAN making it easy to get to a 7:30 appointment. It’s also just a couple of miles from the entrance to the Colorado Monument, a must see and a great way to spend the day there.

Hopefully I deleted the correct pic for you! Bill

I want to put a bow on this. We took Ollie to Hohenwald Monday to find my leak. I had two. A fitting was loose from the fresh water tank to the pump. The second leak was a loose fitting under the bathroom sink. It was cross thread at assembly. You could touch it and leaked a lot, and then it would stop. The other leak was a fitting that I guess rattled loose. I was surprised these were not covered by warranty. We had had four loose fitting leaks since we bought new in August 2023. One was before we left after buying it, and was a loose fitting I found.

A couple 30 mile test drives so far. I've torqued everything 3-4 times now. 90 ft-lbs on the U-bolts, 80 lbs on end spring bolts, 65 on the shackle bolts. After 30 miles with very little trailer brakes, I manually tightened the self-adjusters the the point it was difficult to turn the drums by hand. Next test drive my brakes were 4x better. When any of you are going to Alcan for this service and return there to re-torque, I'd also ask them to tighten the shoes. Don't leave Grand Junction and tow any steep mountain declines until the shoes are properly seated. One of the rear stabilizer jacks started to slip with all the ups and downs doing this work. However, I maintain/strongly recommend using the onboard jacks for service and tire changes vs. the risk of damage using some aftermarket jack. My next Oliver project is restoration of all 3 Barker VIP 3000 jacks! 😎 With Nev-R Lube bearings and ALL new suspension parts, it's relatively carefree. Check the bearings/brakes every couple years. We don't tow as many miles as many of you do. I left the center caps off for now to check bearing and drum temps. I'm not carrying a spare set of leaf springs anymore. Since I have a drum/hub with bearing off the first axle set, I'll put it in my toolbox. It should just sit there in case. If I sell the other axles, I'll buy 2 Nev-R Lube bearings and I already have correct bearing press and tested its use. It's a good feeling towing a reliable trailer down the road and no worries about the next rocky Forest Service road either! Hull #113 doesn't waddle like a duck anymore when entering a service station driveway or crossing RR tracks on an angle, she's tight, she's done! 🤣

Next step is to build the new suspension. I made a mistake in assembly, then contacted Lew at Alcan and he got me straight in a minute! Notice the first picture, suspension jacked up, wheels removed, axles hanging. I thought I could mount the new leaf springs in the same manner, not true! Remember reading posts here about having to flip a shackle, after lifting the Oliver to change a tire or something? On the OEM, old weak and lose suspension, a shackle could drop down and you could drive over a curb and the shackle would flip back up. Not with the HD Alcan leaf springs. They must be mounted shackles up to start, as they are NOT going to flip! 🤣 This also means that when changing a tire after your Alcan upgrade you will not have to worry about the shackle falling, they will certainly stay up! Pic1 shows the original suspension, pic2 how I first installed it, pic3 shows the suspension corrected shackles up. It was not fun, nor easy to remove the wet-bolts to flip these shackles. You must have the Oliver jacked up evenly, front-to-back and side-to-side otherwise there is stress on these bolts keeping them tight. On our driveway, slanted downhill it took me a couple of hours on each side to get the leaf springs aligned to make this correction. BTW, if you want to change the equalizer by itself, that job would not be fun either. Replace the equalizer when you replace your leaf springs.

Thanks Rob! It is a bit of work replacing the Oliver suspension. I will add though, when I completely restored the suspension on our tow vehicle it took much more work and knowledge of mechanics. The Oliver suspension replacement is basically bolt-on! 🤣

Yes! (and the 4th picture is a mistake I can’t fix ☹️ ) We even had Happy Hour at the hotel

Just a nudge in case other Oliver owners are hesitating on the desirability of upgrading from the twin 3500# Dexter axle / springs issue which has been bringing Oliver owners such joy of late. I have been considering this upgrade since the forum started following the Dexter leaf spring issue. Less than a week ago I was talking this over with my wife Chris on the way into Walrup Lake, a beautiful, remote Forest Service Campground in the WA Cascades. The beginning of a three week vacation found us 36 miles and a couple days of wonderful day hiking into our first destination on this trip when I noticed the rear streetside spring had disassembled itself and had assumed another, non-optimal position. I should have listened to myself earlier. A long day, a $1770 tow and a shortened vacation later I have ordered a set of heavier Alcan springs with hopes to quickly replace the broken spring and also plan on changing out to heavier 5200# axels later this coming March in Grand Junction, CO, home of Alcan Spring. We have around 40K miles on our Oliver and have been generally pleased with the rig. The Dexter axles / springs are another story. Hot bearings led us to change out the cheap Dexter bearings for Timkens at around 5K and now a broken spring has left me less than impressed with the Dexter product and perhaps the thinking that led Oliver into using then on an otherwise top notch trailer.

Front of TV makes the most sense! Why put more weight on the rear of the Oliver, when Olivers are already tongue light? There's a lot of bounce back there too! We don't carry bikes now, but I've thought some on bringing my dirt bike (240 lbs plus rack weight). A 1-up very light bike and rack, back of the trailer is OK. Going with something heavier, front of TV helps with the balance and both TT and TV! You have to get used to seeing it up there, but it's better than wondering about the rear or watching a camera instead of eyes on the road.

The Alcan springs are an obvious upgrade and the Dexter D52 axles as well. Tim at Alcan got Dexter to refund my shipping cost for the inconvenience of the damaged axles and another 2-week wait. I thought $200 to ship two axles freight was very fair, but I'll take free shipping in a heartbeat - thank you Alcan and Dexter! FedEx Freight contacted me re the 2nd shipment more quickly than I would have thought. I asked the rep, "Is this the return order?" She said she did not know of a return. Turns out Dexter did not want them back! So I have all the spare parts I need, 4 drums with Nev-R Lube bearings, 4 backing plate brake assemblies... Or perhaps I should replace the damaged brake assembly and this set would be good for another Oliver with 50" axles. There are only a few Olivers out there with the 1/2" shorter axles. The 12" brake drums are certainly more substantial, though my side-by-side photo does not do them justice since I made them the same size as the 10". Another photo shows the internals of the 12" Self-Adjust and Nev-R Lube setup.

Have you @Rivernerd ever considered the system linked below. It's not a hitch mount which personally I don't care for although I do own the original 1UP double hitch rack but rarely if ever use it. The Ride 88 truck bed mounts are really well engineered and made, which assumes you do not object to placing bikes in the truck bed. I prefer it myself. It does take up some storage room and unless you use a soft cover roll up tonneau will not work with most if not all hard tonneaus but can be implemented with topper shells. The system seems to be very reasonably priced too, far less expensive than most hitch mount systems once you factor in the Oliver hitch receiver. We have carried our road bikes and kayaks doubled up in the truck bed for years, but now that we are transitioning to trail/mountain biking the Ride 88 system seems to be the best I've seen yet. https://www.ride88.com/toyota-tundra

I do not have the 1UP bike rack, but rather the comparable QuikrStuff Mach2; it too is rated for RVs in the 2” receiver model. As @mossemi pointed out, the 1UP model you mentioned is not suitably rated, but the 1UP SD model would meet your need. Regarding Oliver’s receiver, the 1.25” stock receiver can either be modified as you noted or simply replaced with a 2” receiver for light loads. Personally, I have a front-mounted 2” receiver hitch on my TV.

Mike and Carol Thank you for the heads up regarding James M. Robb State Park. We will plan on that. Sounds perfect. Jim

I thought I should mount the leaf springs to the axles on my garage floor and then roll the entire assembly into place for installation. I wanted the leaf springs and U-bolts as square (perpendicular) as possible. I noted each leaf was basically 4" from the brake backing plates, so I found a 4" spacer to use for assembly. Also, the U-bolt tops should be 2 1/8" apart and I had a socket this size to gauge. Not sure how the pros do this. Do they just lose-bolt everything together and torque down after mounting? That would certainly be quicker (likely). Turns out i had to loosen the U-bolts on one wheel to get the hanger bolt to align and push it through. Then It took me an hour to realign the U-bolts to get them square again! You need to reuse the custom U-bolt ties, the lower plates with the shock mounts. I cleaned and painted them. The centering hole had to be drilled out some for the larger bolt on the new springs. I mounted each spring so that the Alcan label and Made-in-USA flag would be facing outwards. The left side of the axle is the side with the brake wiring. When torquing the U-bolts to 90 ft-lbs, I used a caliper to ensure thread lengths on either side of the U-bolts were close. I re-torqued them the next day prior to installing since it's easy while sitting on the floor. Several reasons why when you do this work for yourself it does take longer! When remounting these tie plates, I switched them left-to-right. This allowed me to mount the shocks to the bolt-hole on the other side that had not been previously used. You may be able to see in the picture that the bolt-holes used over the last 10 years were somewhat oval-ed from use. Nice, eh? 🤣

Most of us have the Dexter EZ Flex upgrade which includes bronze bushings, wet bolts, HD shackles, etc. You want to check on the condition of these parts during this installation. Going to Alcan for service? I suggest you bring new EZ Flex equalizers with you to have installed with your new leaf springs! I purchased new wet bolts and HD shackles from Alcan since the new leaf springs have new bronze bushings and I wanted new on new. It was suggested to reuse the center equalizer of the EZ Flex. Turns out ours, installed by OTT in 2018 had seen better days! You cannot truly inspect these parts without removing them and better yet is to fully disassemble them. I've read these parts are not serviceable but you can see here that they could be, yet Dexter does not sell bushing kits for these. I had to buy new equalizers and mounting bolts, another $316 at eTrailer. They can be disassembled by prying the two levers apart. To put them back together you need a LARGE Channellock (or vise), one with jaw opening greater than 4", squeeze square and slip the center sleeve back into the bushings on each equalizer lever. Notice the cock-eyed bolt alignment in the second picture. I believe the dual lever design creates the off-angle wear over time. Keep up on wet-bolt torque settings (65 lb-ft per Alcan) including the center equalizer mount bolt and this should help keep the center bushing square. As I disassembled the original suspension, I noted every wet-bolt was too lose! I'll do better going forward now that we're starting from new! Re-torque annually after the frequent adjustments required during break-in.

Next step was disassembly and removal of the original suspension. This took about two hours on a first afternoon. The Oliver should be connected to the tow vehicle when doing this, so given our short driveway the truck had to be in the garage with garage door half-open for a few days (TG no Pack Rats in the garage)! I used the rear stabilizer jacks to lift wheels off the ground and then placed jack stands at the front edge of the steel subframe, and lowered the rears to balance the weight of the hull front to back. Thinking this through a few days prior, I realized a pair of wheel dollies would allow me to do this work without a helper to carry axles. Picked up a pair on Amazon for a little over $50. It was great to roll out the old and later roll the new axles into position! Since I've done this work at home and replaced an entire working suspension in relatively good shape (no flat spots in the OEM leaf springs), I have the original suspension listed on Craigs, hoping to get $800 on the entire setup. There are a lot of guys in Arizona that build homemade ATV trailers and this would be perfect for that use vs. spending $3K for new. Wish me luck! 🤣

Montana

When I did my factory tour before buying my Oliver, they had an Elite II that had flipped and was being repaired. They told me the owners had towed it to Oliver for the repairs.

We have the Calmark as well. It is pricey but works well with great service and fits well. We looked at other generic ones, but just ended up not trusting the fit or the quality enough.

Saw this 2025 E2 in a salvage yard. Hoping everyone is ok. Hard to imagine a SOB trailer surviving a roll-over as well is this Oliver did. The Solo Stove in the tongue basket did not fare so well.

Coincidence?? I don’t think so!

When we took delivery of our #1403 Elite in mid June of 2023 there was another Elite inside the gates that had been rolled and it was like looking at an absolute disaster. It did not disintegrate as a stick built would have but it was bad. The entire trailer was wrapped up up in plastic. We were told that the guy had dropped his cell phone and was reaching to retrieve it.