Leaderboard

Bet that experience resulted in a few "bad words" as another famous owner has had. Glad you were not hurt and figured it out. One suggestion that many owners have adopted when working on the tires and/or axles, or for that matter anything under Ollie, is to leave the trailer connected to your 6,000 pound anchor (TV). When doing so, tie flagging to the steering wheel as a reminder not to drive off. The anchor will help stabilize things a bit. Another is to try always to do such work on a "Hard Stand" such as asphault or concrete. If not on such a surface, place dunnage under your jack feet to reduce the possibility of one of the jacks sinking in a soft spot. This has happened before. GJ

Excellent reminder. I know JD petty well and first he's a great photographer and also a careful guy. Likely he slowed down for a moment for the picture, and as such, it probably taken by his Shot Gun Chris. GJ

Oh yes, many exclamations 🙂 Nice idea keep them connected - that would have stopped things. Right -0 I was working on a dirt road - which softened up considerably after a big rain - causing jack stands to sink and droop. Another thing to take into account ...

First complaint of Alcan Springs written on this Forum! When these U-bolts are torqued down there is about 1 1/4" extra length in threads which is needed for assembly so you do not have to have everything lifted perfectly into place. They are just as low as the bottoms of the shock studs. If wet bolts were too short, they could not be mounted. ALL of mine have exactly two threads protruding from the Nyloc nuts when torqued. Best to replace axles and leaf springs at the same time, so not to double your effort. I ordered D52 axles through Alcan as an authorized Dexter dealer. Dexter did not pack the axles properly and they were damaged in shipment. Alcan took the lead and got me a rush replacement order, asked Dexter to secure the axles on a doublewide pallet, got my shipping costs refunded and allowed me to keep the damaged axles for spare parts! We sent at least a dozen emails back and forth. There was not one time where Lew or Tim did not reply within 1-2 hours or by 8AM when I sent an email after hours. Just this morning I retorqued the U-bolts, for the last time, since all nuts on all U-bolts were still at 90 ft-lbs after not too many miles. I've been restoring cars, trucks, and trailers for over 45 years. Alcan Springs are very good custom parts and everything was complete. Lucky again you did not damage the Oliver, or hurt yourself, allowing a jack stand to slip. You did not show pictures of said issues. Good pictures and more on the "Alcan experience" can be found here =>

Not good enough... Always service your vehicles, including oil changes, at the manufacturer's dealerships during the warranty period. Use of aftermarket parts/service items can be claimed to be substandard which can VOID your warranty. Also, it's pretty much a fact that oil filters purchased at Walmart, Fram oil filters for example, and most auto parts purchased on Amazon, are substandard! The oil filter is absolutely your MOST important engine part, period. Actually, your luck is pretty good! First good story I've heard re GEICO!

Thanks! The van is very good at hauling heavy loads but its not as capable at towing. At 10,000 lbs I imagine I could max it out when trying to pull a heavy trailer out of the sand. I never conceived of that until this incident. A heavy duty truck would have had a stronger suspension and more towing capacity (but less storage space :).

Thanks again Roger for the heads up on this product! I received ours Amazon Like New a couple weeks ago and got a chance to test it yesterday (Like New is now only $76 and they dropped the new price down to $99). Our Like New model was NIB perfect, only the packaging was scared a bit. Still had labels and shipping tape on the sides of the unit. Mine is more of a "lab test" since humidity is not a thing out here most of the year (RH 29%). I boiled water for 15-20 minutes and got our Oliver interior humidity up to 75%. I do not believe this is equal since in this amount of time moisture would not penetrate clothes and bedding, etc. I home-test products so I can count on them later on the road. I set RH to 30%, the lowest setting with fan on high. It's not the quickest tool as it took 2 1/2 hours to reduce humidity from 75% to 40%. I emptied only a couple ounces of water out of the bin. On low fan it's just a whisper! Roger and @rideandfly have real and positive experiences. In conversation with @mountainoliver, Ken reported he had his running the last month+ on the Gulf Shores, also with positive experience, "very good when it's too cold to run the A/C." I plan to store ours on the closet floor until we need it and would run it under the dinette as Ken has and where there is a convenient power outlet. I tested power consumption. At first it used only 0.2A! but then as I was sitting next to it, I heard the compressor kick in! On the Victron app it used <6A. High/Low fan is negligible. I measure amps based on 12VDC from our batteries (on inverter, rarely plugged in). If you think in terms of amperage on 120VAC, you divide these numbers by 10 for only 0.6A on 120VAC. @John and Debbie experienced the circuit breaker popping which must have been from a dead short in a bad unit! I have found about 1 out of 10 Amazon used to be bad, though I always buy used when available since 9 of 10 times they're new at lower cost. John wrote me, reporting the manufacturer suggested a dedicated circuit which is crazy (me and manufacturer recommendations often do not live in the same world)! Why dedicated for an appliance requiring less than 1 amp on a 15A 120VAC circuit. You could run 20 of these on a single 15A circuit! 🤣 I have what I believe is an accurate hygrometer that I use in my guitar cabinet (you must water your acoustic guitars when living in Arizona)! It appears you can count on the numbers on the KNKA display, very nice! Geoff @Snackchaser wrote, he wanted a unit under $200. I believe this is the unit to get for under $100! 😂 Anybody know what KNKA stands for?

We have traditionally camped at or near these coordinates off Dome Rock Road west of Quartzsite. N 33.642439 W 114.307646 If you're coming into Quartzsite on Interstate 10 from the East (headed West) do not take any of the exits marked Quartzsite. If you do you will likely become snarled in traffic. Instead, continue West on I-10 until you see the Exit 11 - Dome Rock Road sign. Exit to your right and follow the road turning left to go back under the Interstate. Continue on a few hundred feet and turn left onto Dome rock road. You will begin to see folks camped along either side of the road but within 2-3 miles you will be nearing the coordinates I've provided. From there we will be off the right side of the road and you'll just have to look for a group of Oliver's. We should not be too hard to spot. Most of us will be there around the 2nd to 3rd week in January and will likely stay for a couple of weeks. This time frame will allow you to visit the Big Tent show. Hope to see you there. Contact me directly if you need more information.

I periodically mention especially these two safety tips, mostly for new owners to the forum.... and to keep especially these three safety tips "top of mind" for us older ones.

RIP Chris Rea. Thank you for all your great music.

A week or so after the leaf springs and water pipe on the Oliver were fixed the engine seized on the van as I was trying to turn the trailer around and it got stuck in a meadow near Mammoth Lakes, Ca. I was using traction mats to slowly pull it forward when the 6.6L engine seized. I had it towed to the highway ($1200) and then used my premium AAA roadside service to get it towed 2 1/2 hours to Reno, Nevada. I got the premium roadside service just for this instance (The mechanics in Mammoth and Bishop were booked up for months). Triple AAA will not pay for towing from a dirt road - hence the $1200 charge from Rauh towing. I got to know him pretty good - a good guy). Despite the fact that I had personally kept track of oil changes, that I had just gotten the transmission fluid changed, and a GM dealer had checked out the oil and other fluid levels 2 weeks before, that the check engine light never came on (showing that the oil was running low), the fact that I did not have a receipt showing that the oil had been changed by a shop, meant the dealer assumed that I had neglected to change the oil, and refused to honor the warranty. The service guy's tone markedly changed when he learned that the engine had seized. I contacted a shop about breaking down the engine to show that that was not the case, but the owner recommended against it because even if the breakdown showed that a rod or bearing had broken and no evidence that low oil was the cause, the dealer or GM would likely still refuse to honor the warranty. GM, it seems, will do anything to avoid paying to replace an engine. Big Oil Leak I went to GEICO to see if they would help with the rental car and they led me to their mechanical breakdown department. I didn't realize it, but I had a mechanical breakdown on my insurance policy. (GEICO does this for newer cars). It took a while with the dealer essentially ignoring their requests but they got an engine specialist over there to inspect the outside of the engine. I almost fell off my chair when he believed that an oil filter failure caused the seizure. One question immediately was whether I broke the engine by trying to pull the trailer through deep sand. The answer to that was surely no. Dragging anything through sand dramatically increases the strain on the vehicles suspension and its engine. In this case, the van's suspension - which is only rated to tow 10,000 lbs - held, while the engine - which is rated to tow at maximum over 18,000 lbs failed. The strain must have done something but I believe that it either revealed a problem with the engine that was already there or I just got unlucky. I've been stuck many times and I know not to bury a stuck vehicle further by revving the engine. As soon as the van got stuck, I turned off the engine. The wheels were never buried much. I still question the diagnosis. The engine had always had a rough idle (it chugged like a little diesel), and from the beginning, I thought a rod or a bearing had broken. I assume, though, that the inspector did not find evidence of oil leaking from the upper half of the engine. I was able to inspect the oil filter later and did not see anything amiss. GEICO told me that sometimes the connection between an oil filter and the engine can fail - causing oil to spew out. They also said it's rare for a large amount of oil to blow out like that. The filter had not contacted the ground or been damaged during the pull. It's still and will always be something of a mystery to me. At that I thought the jig was up - I was going to pay for the whole thing when GEICO referred me to another department. They concluded that the oil filter failure was "an act of God"? or something like that - an unforseeable accident - and said they would pay for the engine replacement. (I really almost fell off my chair at that point), They also ended up paying for the tow and about half the rental car charges over the 2+ months the van was in the shop (which were massive). When it came to the engine they disagreed with GM about the need to change the radiator and the fuel pump. They also paid for $150/hour (instead of the dealer $200/hour). Plus the dealer added on another $1000 or so because the engine was seized so badly that they had to take the bottom off. They also took 15% off the engine because it had been used for 2 years. GM actually got the engine pretty quickly and did the job pretty quickly as well. It was the runup to all that which took so much time. In the end, it was about a $16K job, and I ended up paying about $6K. Lessons learned Plot out turnarounds better. I could have continued to back the trailer up a small hill and gotten out of there fine but I looked at the meadow - and it looked like short run to the road - and I went for it. I didn't realize the sand in the meadow was so deep. Even though it was clear that the pull should not have damaged the engine it did do something. Note that pulling anything through sand or mud is going to dramatically increase the strain on the suspension and engine. If your vehicle is already near its towing limit be careful. Probably better to have someone else pull the trailer out. Keep oil receipts (or document oil changes another way (photo's). I think I will have the oil changed in shops until the warranty runs out. Premium roadside service is a good thing. Don't rely on vehicle warranties - Check out your insurance company. GEICO turned out to be a good company. I think of insurance companies in general as trying to wiggle out of everything. In this case, GEICO was the opposite - they came through when I was sure they wouldn't. I'll stay with them. If you have a winch use it to pull the trailer out instead of using the tow vehicle. I am putting on the XO trailer jack so that I can do that. Note that it was hitch that pulled down the rear of the van and caused the rear differential and hitch to get stuck. If I had attached the XO jack to the trailer (I had it but hadn't attached it). I probably could have easily pulled the trailer out.

Always service your vehicles, including oil changes, at the manufacturer's dealerships during the warranty period. Use of aftermarket parts/service items can be claimed to be substandard which can VOID your warranty. - Thanks!

Here is the whole article

Thanks for the great instructions. Hope to see everyone then.

I agree. Sadly, some folks are just a bit.... odd. Glad you are not one of them. 🙂 GJ

Likely the first item AI answered with: Brand Name KNKA is a brand specializing in environmental home appliances such as dehumidifiers, air purifiers, and humidifiers. According to their official website, the letters stand for the slogan "Keep Natural Keep Advancing". Other potential meanings Kanka (Turkish slang): The word "kanka" in Turkish is a common slang term for "buddy," "pal," or "bro" and is a shortened form of "kan kardeşi" (blood brother/sister). Kaṅka (Sanskrit): In Sanskrit, Kaṅka (कङ्क) is a word with multiple meanings, often referring to a type of bird like a "heron" or "curlew". NKA (Medical abbreviation): In a medical context, the abbreviation used is often NKA, which stands for "No Known Allergies". K, Ka (Radar detection): When discussing radar detectors, K-band and Ka-band are frequency ranges used by police radar guns. Ka is short for the German word kurz-above, meaning "short".

Keep Natural Keep Advancing Found it on: https://www.instagram.com/knka_club/

Tow vehicles at the margin of their limits are okay “most of the time” but instances like this really underscore having a tow vehicle with more capacity than is needed “most of the time”. “Some of the time” we need to get unstuck from mud or sand, we need to do mountain towing in hot weather, we need to do some emergency braking, we have to tow in high winds, etc, etc. I’m glad GEICO stepped up and helped, that’s what we all want with an insurance company! Good luck on the rest of your travels and thanks for sharing your experiences, it helps us all. Mike

Cort: Wow, between Leaf Springs, Lug Nuts and a Blown Engine you've had a tough season for sure. I hope the bad karma truck passes you by for awhile. May only Good luck and sunshine visit you! GJ

It depends on your total Ah and usage... I certainly agree with Will on two points (his snarky way makes me 🤣, although if you own BBs it's certainly not funny). First, these are truly OVERPRICED in today's market and he ran a valid test. Second as he stated, I wonder if BB the company has reprogrammed these to produce less output which of course results in less heat produced. Of course units sold years ago would not be programmed as such unless you can/have updated firmware. More on your question... Running a 1100W coffee machine is drawing 90A (1100/12 for 12VDC). Running a blow-dryer or A/C could pull 1800W or 150A . So any 1100W appliance is very close to his 99A test which I would call normal use. If you were running on a single 100 Ah, I'd say you'd be screwed! HOWEVER, not to worry as most of you have two or three 100 Ah BB batteries. Say you have 3 batteries the amperage is split, so the 1100W appliance that pulls 90A will pull 30A from each battery (more "normal circumstances"). This is why most of you have not had heat issues. The fact that the Gold Standard, premium priced battery can only produce half of their spec!!! If you bought BB new recently, I'd strongly suggest asking for your money back. In contrast, the 300 Ah Epoch Essential can draw 100A recommended and 200A maximum (400A peak for 10s). 300 Ah at $1200 list price is $4/Ah rating ($3.40/Ah when on sale 15% off). The BB at the $800 current sale price is more than double the cost at $8/Ah. If the 100 Ah BB could truly produce 100A discharge, 3 BBs would be far superior to one 300 Ah Epoch (only) in its ability to produce discharge output. But If actual numbers are 50% less, then the output capacity is about the same. Most Oliver Owners who upgraded to Epoch have installed two 300 Ah batteries (600 Ah for 85% the cost of 3 100 Ah BBs today, when both are on sale). Two have a discharge capacity of 200A, maximum 400A which means you can run that noisy Dometic P2 A/C (150A+) all day, under spec/no heat issues, or until you get low on SOC! 😎

Good for Will for testing a new battery. I was getting a little down on him for posing that everyone should get rid of their BB's. I wonder if its an applicable test? Apparently BB should be able to handle this but when I looked this up on AI it said this is a very severe test of the batteries and they will heat up. Unless I have this wrong - under normal circumstances we would never draw nearly this much power from a battery (???)

Found these cool decorative emblems that have helped with repairs and mods. Any emblem you like could help cover up where needed. Last year I upgraded the OEM inverter. It had a remote switch, requiring OTT to cut a 2 1/2" square hole in the fiberglass below the pantry shelf. Now we have an emblem of the Arizona state flag in that spot. Just recently, I removed our Dometic A/C and thermostat. I decided to relocate the new furnace-only thermostat under the pantry. That way we could set temp while lying in bed, nice! WOW, what a mess under the old thermostat! There was even a broke-off screw in the wall, like the installer tightened it so hard the head broke off! I used a Dremel to file down the steel screw flush. I mounted the new thermostat, drilling one 1/4" hole for the wires, and mounting using 3M VHB 4950. One small hole is all you need! 😎 This time we went with the flag of the great state of Texas! @Mike and Carol should like this! We lived in Texas for 9 years. It's where our son grew up, went to school, played sports and he stayed for college. We also have a Red-White & Blue theme for our Oliver, so the Lone Star state flag is perfect. Sure looks a lot better! These are really decent quality emblems, 3 3/8" diameter an 1/8" thick and reasonable cost. I chose the semi-flexible models. They have the US flag, the Thin Blue Line, Army, Navy, every one of the 50 state flags and many more: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09GH2TC75/?th=1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09G8SWZ42/?th=1

Yeah, your humidity and ocean salt must be extreme! Perhaps an anti-seize compound would help.

Another vid from Will on a new issue with BB’s.🤔

I think I would have lowered the jack on the wheel, lugs on just a couple threads. Then place a wheel chock on the inside rim, creating a downhill angle. Gravity/weight of the trailer should do it and lowering carefully it should do less harm than many heavy sledge hammer hits! Given your wheel seized so HARD, I’d bet all 4 wheels are in dire need of bearing and perhaps brake service! For sure this wheel had not been removed in some time.

Again - wow. Just wow.

Hey jd1923.... You are looking down at Denver, Colorado by a short downtown Prescott, two story building.. Denverites had to go up a few steps at the Capital Building to be called... The Mile High City. They cheated... about 5,278 or so feet padding the numbers due to erosion? Denver... 5280 feet. Cheyenne 6200 feet (6138... they cheated as well). Laramie, WY 7200 feet. We tow the Oliver into the 7,500 to 11,000 feet elevation. Trailers do not care. Tire PSI does not give a hoot, as well. Tent Campers get frost on their pumpkins in a tent, while we have the windows in the Oliver cracked open to taste... thin air. Should can it and sell it to citizens in Prescott... thin air smells sweet. Feed Lots in north central Colorado are around 5500 feet... and it is not Spring in the Air... if you know what I mean. Don't get me started with PSI in Michelin Tires. I am focused on Blue Wire in the next day or so. Many Oliver Elite Owners prefer 70psi to 80psi as it makes the trailer taller. We are happy to get 70psi... PURE THIN AIR when in Leadville, Colorado PSI at 10,158 feet. Weighs half as much as your Hot Air in Prescott. Put that in you whistle and blow a Yankee Doodle tune... Rather squeaky compared to THIN AIR. Wires... oh yes. When the Oliver manual says BLUE WIRE... no wonder the previous owner was confused looking for Blue. Now all of you Ollie's are confused with Ollie's: Fresh & Healthy, Human Grade Dog Food. Or the Good Stuff Cheap Discount Store. So be careful when bragging about an Ollie. Use the proper name... Oliver the British Musical... it will not give you a stomach ache.... 🙂 Oliver the Musical. Oliver Twist. Geez... Google Ollie... and you will prefer Oliver after this message. Geologists have a lot of time when pounding a rock hammer against gold nuggets on the side of a Mountain. Too heavy to take home, of course. Dog Food or Travel Trailer. Our Blue Heelers love the Oliver. As long as there is a cold Beer in the Fridge...." Frankly, my Dear... don't give a damn" and walked off looking to find his Ollie... the Travel Trailer. Don't know Frank... but who cares? Had a long couple days wiring the Oliver. O. L. I. V. E. R. OK? Knock knock, what's in between those ears? 80psi?

This is one reason when towing I like to have my trailer info showing on my super duty display. It will show when and how much trailer breaking is being applied. However, going down hill I normally don’t have cruise on as I like to stay engaged with what my speed is. Downshift to a level that holds my speed versus letting cruise manage it.

This is one reason I have loved RV Tripwizard for trip planning as it will show you not only the elevation gain/loss but also the percent grade on the roads. I have often wonder what my “I’ll pass” limit would be. Once it hits double digits I start questioning. Since I am out west this is one of the reasons I went with a 3/4 ton to ensure more stability through all these mountains.

On our recent trip Western loop traveling over the 10% grade on Teton Pass from Victor Idaho to Jackson Hole Wy 5 different times we let our 6.7 V8 diesel engine brake work its magic. I am happy to report it worked flawlessly and I rarely if ever had to use our truck or trailer brakes. I will give Ford credit, they nailed it on their diesel engine braking tech with the new 10 speed transmission. (Edit - We would not have been comfortable traversing the Teton Pass with any other TV). This thread is a good reminder to check your braking systems for sure. Glad you made home safely @jd1923.

I never finished this up. I'm sure I set a record by being there for six weeks. GIven that I'm also working full time I was only able to work on it intermittently. Still, it was a long pull. Along the way, the last lug nut on the last tire I needed to remove, stuck. Given Ray's warnings, I was already planning to replace the lug nuts and had them ready. I ordered a lug nut removal kit from Amazon and got the lug nut off. Those kits are cheap and effective and many are available. Given how soft the lugs that come with these trailers are, they're a good thing to have. I ordered this one https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0869BR8MG?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_2&th=1 (Since the extractor is terminally attached to the bad lug nut I need to get another one :)) Then I got all the way to the last leaf spring and couldn't get it quite to fit. It was very close but time after time I couldn't get the nub of the plate to fit into the hole in the axle. When I brought it to a repair shop the guy looked at the trailer and said he was surprised - he expected to see something that was really off but it looked fine - the wheels were running true. Still it needed to be done and they were able to get everything to fit. (They also fixed a water pipe that broke on the rough roads. (Stay away from roads on the very southern end of mountains down from Flagstaff). Some things I learned. I should not have counted on a video which apparently showed a generic trailer - not an Oliver - it was inaccurate - and cost me a lot of time and energy. I should have gone straight to experienced Oliver people on the forums for help. I should have worked on one whole side at a time instead of one leaf spring at a time. At one point I had the trailer totally lifted up on 4 jacks - and when I was putting a tire on the trailer fell off the rear right one. I would not lift the entire trailer again. 🙂 The Alcan leaf springs are monsters compared to the leaf springs that came with the trailer. They appear to be about twice as heavy. I'm very happy to have them. Not all was good with Alcan, though. Despite the fact that I tightened the four bolts holding that plate in unison one of the nuts on the new jammed. It really jammed. I could not get it off with an impact wrench! don't know what happened, but I was astonished that a brand-new bolt/nut could get stuck like that. . (The shop got it off). I believe the bolts that go through the plate are far longer than they need to be. They stick way down - and could get hit more easily - and they take more time and effort to get on and off. I emailed Alcan about this and they did not return my email. More concerning was the fact that some of the shackle bolts were too short. They were so short that only about half the nut would fit on it. The repair shop advised putting longer shackle bolts in and we did. Everything has worked fine since then, and as I said I'm very happy to have those beefy springs on 🙂 (I still plan to upgrade to heavier axles). (The next fun came when a week after this got done the engine on my 2 year old van seized. It took several months to get that worked out.) Thanks, in particular, to Steve for all his help and guidance, as well as to everyone else. 🙂

We didn't have to worry much in the rolling hills of Central Texas, elevation 1200-1800 FT max. The descent on AZ HWY 78 was over 3000 FT in about 15 miles. What caught me by surprise is that we had climbed to 9300 FT and descended the White Mountains of AZ and over 8000 in Lincoln Co NM, no issues. This drop in elevation in such a short length of road was extreme. Check out the sign in my first picture. Ever see a grade warning this steep? Twice we have wanted to visit Tonto Natural Bridge near Payson AZ. Both times I was towing. We did not realize the road to this park was so steep. This sign was at the exit of a turn-around area they had for us towing travel trailers! We passed on this visit not having time to disconnect and honestly, I did not want to attempt this descent even without the Oliver! Interstates and US highways have 6-8% grade max when speeds are >55 MPH. They did not have grade signs on AZ HWY 78 though I'm certain it was at least 10% in some stretches. Maybe Tonto Natural Bridge another time. It's only 2 hours from home.