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I had removed the Dometic Penguin A/C prior to this work. I temporarily filled the 14x14” opening with a piece of plywood to keep dust out while allowing Cameron the room above to make the entire rear roof shine! It’s always a mess under an old A/C. Good thing we did because the new Chill Cube is a foot shorter to the rear. With my son’s help, we installed the new Furrion Chill Cube A/C. One last task was to restore the rear bumper area. I removed the mounts for the bicycle rack we don’t use, drilled out more rivets and removed the deck plate and folding bumper. I cleaned the inside waste hose area, and steel brushed, sanded and ceramic coated all parts. I've been wanting to write this up for a few months now. Chris is out of town on her annual "Sisters Trip." Adam's been working overtime and it's boring being home alone. That’s it – she’s all done! 😎 When it's time for some love again, I'll drop her off with Cameron for a renewal! No more Ugly Duckling, but quite the Beautiful Swan she is now!

Lynnville Falls NC 2fer

"The Ugly Duckling is a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a duckling who is rejected by his siblings due to his unusual appearance. After enduring hardship and loneliness, he matures into a beautiful swan, illustrating the theme that true beauty comes from within and that one should not be judged by outward appearances.” We were fortunate to find our Oliver three years ago for sale right in our neighborhood! And at the time, we had no idea what an Oliver is and what makes it special! It didn’t take long though, since just 5 days after we first viewed our Oliver was paid in full, so the prior owner delivered it to our home on June 7th 2023. This day is also Chris’ birthday and what a special surprise it was. Chris loves every time we get away in our Oliver, and me too! I generally buy used vehicles in good condition, letting the original owner absorb the new-price depreciation. I enjoy fixin’ them up, making them as good as new and better, making them mine! From the start, I had planned on making repairs, mods and upgrades with a budget an additional $15,000, just for parts. With good patience, ample time and craftsmanship she could become something special! Hull #113 was well cared for; prior owners kept her clean and often kept her covered. She returned to the factory in 2018 and 2021 for maintenance and other services; new white blinds, new Atwood furnace and much more. Also in 2021, she moved from Florida to Las Vegas and was ceramic coated at the time. Always from the South and SW has kept corrosion at bay. Good records were kept and we are now the 4th owners. She looked good when we first got her and everything was in working order.

Just 4 days after our Oliver was delivered, I joined our great OTT Forum. My two favorite sections are "Where's Ollie" and "Ollie Modifications" where I frequent often! Early on, Bill @topgun2 referred to our hulls as "cousins" (our #113 and his #117). There are a lot of us with 2016 and older Olivers. These 10+ year-old Olivers have had nothing but special care through the years. I hear Scotty is just starting a renewal project of his own! You wrote "cost of ownership" vs. purchase price." As written above, I had budgeted 15,000 for upgrades (plus 1000 +/- hours in sweat equity) in addition to a very good used price for the hull. My detailed spreadsheet has documented a total of $16,120, so I'm a little over budget. This includes new D52 axles with Alcan Springs, 5 Victron devices, 900 Ah Epoch Essentials, new Chill Cube A/C and so many other documented upgrades. It includes an Emeril Air Fryer, new luxury bedding, new custom upholstered dinette seat cushions, additional shelving, multiple exhaust fans, etc. It includes every bracket, roll of tape, every nut and bolt I used in the last 3 years. I figure our cost of ownership, everything included, is 70% of the cost of a fully optioned new Oliver. Wouldn't trade her for a new Oliver, no way! I've made better choices in our upgrades, and I do better work than the contract installers OTT hires. Then there's the little things like this for example: Yeah, couldn't wait to ditch the dish! That thing was HUGE! I put a Winegard RZ-7500 TV antenna in its place (using 3M VHB tape, NO screw holes). It still appears to be large, but it's actually less than half the size of the Dish! As far as Starlink, I have that and our Pepwave cellular router built into the tow vehicle instead, so it's always with us while camping and on day trips. Picture shows the front roof completed, but before the detailing work. I hate caulking and I'm not good at it. I made a mess with Dicor caulk, not using that product again! But it looks great from the ground! 🤣 And no more useless Wi-Fi Ranger and cameras up top. Yes, the older hulls have some bonuses, some you mentioned, and the little things like separate switches for Entry and Side Porch lights (ours now have lights fore and aft too). Oliver Hull #113 is a family member. Our son Adam got to know her, camping the month of April around the Prescott NF. She will always be with us. 😎

Another thought.... I know that Oliver is focused on selling new trailers... That's where their marketing is directed. But... How many of us remember the reason for the name "Legacy Elite". It's because this is a trailer that will endure. That you could hand down in your family over generations. JD's trailer is a perfect example of this. Oliver should feature this trailer in it's ads. TEN Years and still going strong! That's a story that shows the advantage of cost of ownership vs. purchase price. Good Job JD!

I think I have heard good things about Fogatti WHs from RV techs on YouTube. I do like my Suburban though, for all the reasons mentioned above. It’s simple to be sure. Most things from WW-II were. I'm tired of everything getting more and more technical. And I’m a soon to be retired IT guy. LOL. I need a bumper sticker which reads “Suburban water heaters or death.” That goes for my Fiamma manual awning as well. Hehe

An autobody professional I’ve used before suggested a local guy who runs a detailing shop at the far end of Chino Valley, the town north of Prescott. Cameron came by our home, looked over the Oliver carefully, at every angle. He explained what he would do and gave me a reasonable quote. We picked a start date and shook hands. He asked for 2 weeks, so he could work on our Oliver along with other scheduled work. When 2 weeks had come, he asked another two days to “to really get her right!” She was a thing of beauty, in that every square inch of the hull was shining so brightly! We have never seen our hull in this amazing condition. While Cameron was working on the shine, I was working on restoring or replacing all the trim parts. I painted the fridge vents, the furnace and HWH covers a medium gray to match the Oliver graphics and the gray on our truck.

Well it might indeed but given the smaller size of the Fogatti I would venture to guess it would fit. If you can fit a Suburban it should be a piece of cake for the Fogatti. The interesting and neat thing about the Fogatti is you select your temp, what ever you're comfortable with for showers or dishes and do NOT mix with cold water, using the hot only. Its very easy to go from one temp to another with the remote control. Also @Mike and Carol do make a good point regarding reliability in the boonies.

I wanted the final outcome to far surpass the large investment in stripping, cleaning, buffing and ceramic coating. This meant a whole lot of extra work. I’m not the guy who hires the guy, drop it off and they will handle everything. Shops only do what they’re paid to do. I wanted to do everything I could do to make the final result far better. My first step was to remove all the awful silicone caulk. What mess as you can see in the first picture. Then I went around the entire hull leaving piles of old caulk along the driveway. This extra work was truly worth the effort. I also removed every trim part, outlet covers, awning mounts, the covers to the furnace and HWH, the handles, latches and hatch on the doghouse, the door hook (no longer needed with Lippert friction hinges), the cameras fore and aft I’ve never used and all the old-tech like the WiFi Ranger and the monster rooftop satellite dish! This way, my detailer had a wide-open canvas to focus on stripping, cleaning, buffing, polishing and ceramic coating without a lot of stuff being in the way!

It didn’t take long, parked outdoors in the Arizona sun, to become a dull pasty white! She started with four 6V lead acid batteries, an old 2KW Xantrex inverter only with PD converter in the power panel. She had wires all over the battery bay and everywhere else for that matter, fuses and breakers under beds, manual water valves and the mess it was born with spread out into every corner of the basement. And it had old-tech accessories; the cameras fore and aft, a WiFi Ranger, Dish satellite and that awful Dometic P2! All that has been corrected and improved with a lot of Marine-Tex used to fill nearly 100 holes! And what a silicone mess that OTT started at the factory and some owners believe caulk on top of old caulk is proper maintenance! In the two years from 2024 to 2025 I rebuilt almost every electrical, mechanical and plumbing system in our 10-year-old Oliver Travel Trailer. It’s been a lot of work, but our Oliver is worth it! I plan to enter another post to chronical all my repair and modification work but here we’ll focus on its cosmetic restoration. The finale was to dress up our Ugly Duckling. Not merely gelcoat buffing and ceramic coating, but a complete exterior body restoration!

We are in Nashville, approx 1.5 hours from Hohenwald. That is the biggest reason that we went with Oliver. Bob

Bob, I haven't heard of anybody going this direction, but why not? It's usually moving from the 6-gal Suburban to an on-demand/tankless model. Given your experience and reading many other posts re the Aquago model, I would not want one and I agree that I would certainly replace yours asap with something else. As you know, this model is not reliable, and my understanding is anything Truma is not serviceable! This is based on their policy of "authorized service" only. They work OEM installations only, no aftermarket sales, hence NOT serviceable except in waiting forever for OTT or Truma to service months later. Those who DIY cannot even purchase repair/replacement parts, so certainly Truma products are not for me! Rob @routlaw very recently removed a Suburban for a Fogatti tankless. He could chime in on his reasons. I would also read some blogs on tank vs. tankless to fully understand the pros and cons. Lastly, I and others with 2015-16 models, hull #s up to 150, have run the Suburban 6-gal HWH for 10+ years. This includes @topgun2, @Mike and Carol, @rideandfly, @ScottyGS, @Wayfinder and others. I would say this defines Reliability. Others can chime in on Serviceability but in 3 years of ownership, all I have done is drain it, rinse the tank annually, did the vinegar treatment once (on all plumbing). Purchased 2 anodes, installed a new one and have another for backup. I've read something about blowing the dust out of the burn chamber, but I've not experienced any real service needs which speaks again to reliability! You'll always carry 6 gallons in the tank that can't be used. I really like the option to run on propane or electric. Use electric when plugged in and it runs quieter than hearing the LP burning. I often run it on electric when towing to a campsite, powered by our inverter of course, and the +40A we get from our DC-DC charger makes it a breakeven in power, arriving at the campsite with 6-gal hot water (unless we instead run the A/C, weather depending). LP tanks always OFF when towing. There is an AC switch under the cover that is awkward to get to, so we always leave that switch ON and turn electric ON/OFF using the circuit breaker inside. There is a separate switch to fire it up by LP. For this model feature you'll have to run new 10-12 (?) AWG 120VAC wiring and add a breaker in the 120VAC power panel. You'll also need an LP ON/OFF control switch if your tankless model does not have one. That's my take. Hope it helps! 😎

My 2021 E2 has an OptiFuse 12V 60A breaker under the street side bunk. The best wiring diagram I have found that’s close to my model is the 2019 manual (page 43) from the Oliver University. See the breaker in the upper left side. Another quick check is the CO monitor under the dinette. That usually is always on, does not go through the circuit breaker. If that has a light on, you have power coming in, so it is likely the breaker.

I said "Summer Day".... not Nuclear Winter in FL! :-)

Looks great!

Nice job! Great work!

Check the connections going into the back of the DC panel under the rear dinette seat. I had a similar problem and found a spade connector loose. A little crimp for a tighter fit of the red power wire was the solution.

We laid out the gutter in HOT Florida sun, and about half of our installs failed when it shrunk over the following month or so. I have to remove it and will install as RoutLaw suggested above to prevent the hard turn with it's shrinkage issue. GJ

I plan to replace the Master Switch upon my return home. Appears to be an easy fix.

John, what an absolutely amazing job! It 'looks like' an Oliver but it's so much more now than that you've made improvements to all aspect of the trailer. I don't know if you follow the YouTube channel Dave's Auto Center but you could be the "Dave" of the Oliver world!

John, Thanks for posting this! Our trailer (#145) came off the line in June of 2016. Oliver at that time was making about 2 per week so I am thinking the delivery date on #113 was sometime in February of that year. I've been proud to own her for ten years now and lucky to be able to store indoors for most of that. I have the satellite dish installed and appreciate the pictures of it's removal. I think it would be awesome to pull the guts out of it and put a Starlink Mini in there but that kind of work is way above my pay grade. What did you replace yours with? Looks like a smaller more angular version of the dish cover. I am sure it attracts less bugs that the original. I've had conversations with Oliver management about answering price objections with a "cost of ownership" vs. purchase price strategy. Your work on this trailer is a poster child for that. Ten year old trailer that, at least in my opinion, is better than new. When people talk about their automatic awnings and other new stuff, I like to bring up mirrored cabinet doors and Lonseal flooring. Thanks again for all the pics and sharing your work. Hope our paths cross in the future. Scotty

I have found that sometime the switches on the master panel just inside the door don’t work or work intermittently. Usually if I turn them on and off a couple of times the problem resolves. I’ve always attributed it to a little fiberglass dust in between the contacts or a little oxidation of the contacts from disuse. It has been a little annoying but not a serious issue. The only other switch issue I have had was when one of the spade connectors fell off the pump switch in the bathroom. When that happened, only the switch by the Truma control panel would turn on the pump.

Not related to the original problem, just posting to show that the universe has a sense of humor… After spinning, feeling, inspecting, and pretty much giving a spa treatment to the rear curbside tire, today on our final leg home in the middle of nowhere Texas between Quanah and Chillicothe my TPMS on the dashboard alerted to a low (you guessed it) rear curbside tire. Limped to the only gas station in Chillicothe and found a screw just outside the tread area. On returning home I took the tire to Discount Tire and confirmed my suspicion that it could not be patched. At least I proved that I (1) have a working TPMS and (2) have the tools to do a tire change in the field. @jd1923 at least it gave me the opportunity to remove the hub cover on that wheel. 🤦‍♂️

The Suburban is longer than the aquago and has styrofoam insulation around it. So from the outside instead of the truma cover with vents you would have a metal cover that hinges at the bottom. Under the curb side bunk is where you will notice the difference. Not really a problem but there is less room to fiddle around when you throw the bypass switch. Oliver did ours years ago so they would certainly be capable. If it's a long drive to Hohenwald I think almost any RV service shop would be able to do it. Good Luck.

You said the jacks work. Jacks are fed from load side of the DC panel 60 amp breaker, so it's fine. The DC fuse panel then feeds a number of things such as the stereo, pump, furnace, refer, ect., and the main switch panel. You mentioned the lights don't work, but the awning and camera do. I have not verified this, but it would make sense that the master switch on the main switch panel only controls the lights including the outside, inside, and closet. That's to avoid battery drain if you left a light on. You wouldn't want the camera or awning to be turned off by the master switch, so it's the primary suspect. My master switch failed and I had to jiggle and flick it a few times to get the lights on. Turned out to be a loose spade connector on the back of the switch. Best to pop the switch out and check it now to avoid an unwanted black out. Hope that solves the problem. Geoff

Very compelling reply. 👍

The Suburban tank is simple and reliable. There is nothing about it that can’t be serviced by the owner. Parts are available on Amazon and most RV shops. I’m not going to change ours out, I like reliability when out in the middle of nowhere. Mike

Yes I put those on there. I got a roll of stick-on UHMW from Rockler. People put it on tablesaw fences. I did something similar but less elegant to keep my hull from getting scuffed. I used 4 plastic adhesive door stopper discs from Home Depot.

Ok now I’m thinking that the second nut is a jam nut to hold the first nut on and both have backed off somehow. I would remove both nuts and see if the aluminum cylinder is threaded on that rod and check for something that might have loosened. Bill

Yes I put those on there. I got a roll of stick-on UHMW from Rockler. People put it on tablesaw fences. Bill

Could you post a photo of the breaker and its location for future refrence for us Elite 1 owners?

Thanks for trying to help everyone. I wish Oliver would let us owners have and electrical diagram so we can tell where all the relays and circut breakers are hidden. After countless hours of testing and looking around I finally found a breaker hidden at the bottom of the trailer below the negitive ground terminal on the outside of the battery box. There are two switches on the breaker. One is on the front side and easy to see but, the other is underneath the breaker and is a swing arm thats hard to see. That was the one that popped. Everythings is honky dory now. Thanks again for trying to help....I really appreciated it.

On the 2023 Elite there's also a breaker (60A) for the +12V systems, it's probably a Optifuse like in the Elite 2s. I don't know where it would be located on an Elite but probably under a seat or bunk. The load side of this breaker connects to the fuse panel. The input side is connected to the +12V bus bar.

In our 2019 E2 we have reverse polarity fuses.

I've never heard of a Blueitti. However there are a similar issues with a Jackery. They have what's called a floating neutral. Also common in some generators. So yes, a floating neutral requires a neutral to ground bonding plug. Otherwise the Electrical Management System (EMS) will see it as an open ground. But there is a problem. Many (if not all) of these power packs have no reference to ground what-so-ever. So the "u-ground" pin hole of the receptacle is not connected to anything, it's just an open hole. So a neutral to ground bonding plug wouldn't connect to anything in the ground pin hole, and it won't work. Now that I've confused everyone, including myself, there is a bypass trick. Use a 1-outlet to 3-outlet adapter, or an extension cord with a "Wye" that provides 3 extra outlets to plug into. Plug the neutral to ground bonding plug into one the extra outlets to effectively bond the neutral and ground... despite there being no ground on the power pack. Cool huh. This is one of many reasons to have a $10 plug-in circuit tester, the ones with three lights that show various conditions such as open grounds. I recommend you test all circuits when rigging such power supplies. Cheers! Geoff

You can get an idea of the water quality at a campground by looking for places where their lawn or landscaping sprinklers have been spraying and at the faucet, pipe, post, and ground under the water hook ups. If these areas are stained there’s a good chance that the water might not be the quality that you are accustomed to. Bill

What a scare that must have been. Glad you are ok. I wonder if it helps that attaching an Andersen anti-sway hitch requires me to lock the coupler on the ball and then raise the ball quite a ways in order to get the hitch attached? If the coupler were not secure on the ball I would never be able to connect the Andersen,.

Especially this geek! If you haven’t checked out Louis Rossmann’s channel, you should. He’s now siding with Will Prowse, and I think BB is toast! Here’s another good video from him to watch.

The plot thickens. Louis Rossmann weighs in. https://youtu.be/lrORu-N6erY?is=OYjAWpKF-BPF1lrE

Since you had the latch pinned, I would assume that the issue was caused by the wire part that connected from the latch to the collar. I don't see how that collar can slide back allowing the coupler to open without some type of deformation to, or disconnection of, that wire. Let us know what Bulldog tells you.

AND - IF all of this is true (I suspect it is true), we just might get our "classified section" back here on the Forum. Bill

Seems like they have tuned up customer service too.

Yeah, I imagine the hope was to increase sales, but the original sales model was best, should have been left alone. Dealers are going to promote/sell where they get the greatest sales volume and profit margin which is not Oliver.

Or, three or four! I do know of a person (me) that was leaving VERY early one morning from a campsite in Yellowstone and just had this "funny" feeling that all was not right. I (oops - this person that I know) stopped at the camp entrance just to take a look around and saw that while the bulldog was clamped shut and locked, it was "resting" on the top of the ball - NOT down and clamped around the ball as it should have been. This person has never told me just how he got the bulldog closed and locked without being down on the ball. I've accused him of not being as careful as he should have been and he claims that in the early morning darkness plus being in a hurry may have had something to do with the issue.🥴 Bill

Lots of us saw this coming when they first announced they were going to dealer sales.

The Oliver factory sales is the best way to go. The factory is honest and very helpful, always a great experience. Nice people there.

If you are interested, here is the link to BB Technical White Paper. https://battlebornbatteries.com/technical-note-on-the-safety-and-design-of-the-battle-born-100ah-positive-terminal/

I watch a good bit of Will's content these days. He pretty much sticks with the same tests. However, over the years he has added to his tool chest with better and better diagnostic equipment. Creators trying to educate, do not usually make it to 1.1 million subscribers. Compared to where he came from, pretty much homeless, it's very impressive, especially for young folks these days. I used to watch Will when he was full-timing in a beat up trailer teaching himself his craft. Many years ago... nine years, I just checked. Here's the first video I remember watching from him.

I would like to Will Prowse do this strenuous testing with intact battery to other manufacturers like Epoch, Lithonics and then cut them open after the ridged testing. Then we could really compare. Maybe he has, I just haven't taken the time to look. I agree I think the BB interview was a PR stunt. Lithium batteries are still semi new technology and still evolving. Just because they meet an industry standard does not mean they are well built. It is like high jumping and setting the bar at one foot. As long as you jump over the bar you're good to go. Also Will could take a brand new BB battery and cut it apart to see if he really caused the internal problems he showed. But I highly doubt that kind of melting happened just from cutting the tops off. I understand this takes some financial backing to do these types of test. I don't mean to dish Will, but is he completely impartial in this. There are a lot of variables.

Let's consider the Ollie Frame as a loaded beam running to the hitch ball. The front jack is between the hitch ball and the back jacks. Raising the back jacks then shifts load to the front jack witch is retarded somewhat by the TV suspension. The higher you raise the back of the trailer, the more load the pivit point (Front jack) receives from the back jacks. But it also compresses the springs on the TV resulting in additional load as well. Can this place over 3,000 pounds of load? Not likely in my eyes, but is something to consider. So in addition to your well stated comments: I only lightly plant the front jack. Set the parking brake of the TV. Tie a red/pink flag to the steering wheel as a reminder NO GO. Collect up all copies of the TV key sets if others are around who may not be tuned in to the situtation. GJ