Leaderboard

Add "inspect tailpipe" to your checklists. @Lake Guntersville SP

Chuckle of the day!

@Steve Morris Thanks for you site-to-name list you maintained for this year's rally. It was very helpful to have it bookmarked on my phone to cross reference who I was face-to-face with. Hopefully someone will take up the torch for next year's rally. I know many of us have already reserved out site for next year.

When we lose one of the furry members of the family, it is a devastating day. We offer our condolences, and hugs. I know it's never an easy time. Sherry

We are staying at a hoity toity resort RV park in Bend OR, $210 for 2 nights. For the low rent spots. I think the best spots require your first born child. I seldom dump into a raised sewer pipe, so I never bought a sewer snake, I thought it would just gather dust. So I improvised with the ramp for the 1-Up bike tray. I dislike hookups that require you to lay your fresh water hose on ground that has been irrigated regularly with sewage spills, so I bypassed that area. Off to the ocean tomorrow - Tillicum Beach CG USFS, we will have to rough it once again. Then I can fret about rogue waves and tsunamis instead of germs. We lost one of our Australian Labradoodles the day before we departed home, we had to euthanize Zadie. Zack, her son for ten years, is quite lost and forlorn, as are my wife and I. John Davies Spokane WA

Please add your info at the bottom of your posts. There are instructions on how to do so. See above examples. It makes our responses much more accurate knowing the TV and your Ollie info. Thanks and good luck! GJ

If you (or someone) were to organize even a small caravan, you'd likely have a great time. Back in 2010, a few of us organized a trip we called "the mountain eggroll." We had 5 Olivers, and my friend's Casita. It wasn't a long trip, but it sure was fun. The longest run was from south of Asheville to PlumTree campground, via the Blue Ridge Parkway. (We did turn a lot of heads.) Two weeks, three weekends, bunches of fun visiting small regional festivals and restaurants. Probably doesn't seem like a big number, but the work is much the same. And, at the time, it was over ten per cent of the existing Olivers, so not a bad turnout. 😀 Lots of great memories, and we're all still in touch. A number I count as very close friends. We did a mini reprise two years ago. Only three trailers were able to attend--folks we have camped and sailed with on a regular basis. The weather was pretty bad, so we did our own Wolly Worm races, inside our pole barn, near Asheville, and bailed out of our reservations for a campground near Banner Elk. (Marcel, though a slow starter, won the wolly Worm race.) We've caravanned with just two trailers through eastern Canada, Montana to Alaska, Kansas to Colorado, and a number of other routes with Oliver friends. It's work. And so worth it, small scale. We've made lifelong friends in our small adventures. I personally wouldn't be up for organizing a big caravan or camping event, either. Not at this stage of my life. Maybe some of you younger folks will take the baton? I know I've said it before, but leaving the door open a bit, invites new friends, and adventures, into your life. PS, for any of you wondering, we released the wolly worms humanely back into the wild, after the race.

I’am so excited to kick off another camping season! Time to dewinterize our Oliver (yeah) and get it ready for some summertime glamping! I love decorating my camper, I recently added this mural to the bathroom, keeping my botanical theme.🌿🍃🪴😍 I also will be adding some new videos to my Oliver YouTube series starting next month, so many new items, decor, tips and organization hacks to share. Like and subscribe to get notified.😃 Happy camping!

Mileage seems about the same, but it sure does feel slick. I’m sure washing will be easier too.

I like the concept, but probably really only good for small sized hail. I doubt that it would do much for softball sized hail which is rare but does happen. I noticed a lot of one star reviews as well. But again, I like the idea. Probably better than pulling out blankets. 😀

🙏 Mossey

I wonder if this is why I’ve seen the diesel’s here with towels stuffed into their exhausts.

Tow vehicle Porsche Cayenne 2008: Sweet ride. Has plenty of horsepower! GJ 2008 Porsche Cayenne SUV Horsepower: 385 to 500 hp Engine: 4.8 L V8 Dimensions: 189″ L x 76″ W x 67″ H Curb weight: 4,949 to 5,191 lbs

How cool would it be to have a shot of 4 or 5 Ollies parked along the bulkhead sidewalk at Rocky Point...? La Playa Bonita RV PARK #1.pdf

Interesting. Carrie and I always carry our propane fire pit with us now. Growing up I was in the group of “it’s not camping without a big wood fire”. It’s good that some of us can evolve. Kirk

Making the border crossing.... Entrance to the Playa Bonita RV Park - roughly $35/nite... Magnus' intro to the salty water of the Sea of Cortez... Casablanca at the beach - tide goes WAY out in the AM...

Been there, done that, just letting them "air out" and overnight "dew wash" or at least "dew rinse" on lifelines, on sailing trips. If we camped in poison ivy country, I'd be afraid of turning any clothing inside out. (But then, we all drank from the garden hose, in those days, too, and we lived to tell the tale, right?) 😅😅😅

Here is the video I made last year about the AB Lifestyle sheets. Since making this video I have tried Beddy’s on the twins but didn’t care for the bulkiness/fit of them so I went back to the Lifestyle sheets. They have held up very well with repeated washes, no pilling and actually get softer with every wash.

We purchased our 2015 LE2 #75 used during 2016 from the original owners. Scheduled a plant tour with Jason during May 2016 and our new to us LE2 also came up for sale on the forum during the same week we were scheduled for the plant tour. After the plant tour we headed to MO that afternoon to see the used Ollie. Camped in Ollie that night on the previous owner's farm and purchased Ollie the next day. Towed Ollie home with a 2013 Nissan 4.0L Frontier. First thing learned even though our previous travel trailer was less than 1/2 the weight of Ollie with fuel economy at 13MPG, fuel economy increased to over 15MPG towing Ollie with the Frontier from MO to NC. Ollie had great towing manners and stopped nicely when someone pulled out in front of us during the trip home. Had some water leaks from the dinette window and rear Oliver sign. Once the leaks were fixed, no leaks since. 🙂 Now towing Ollie with a 2022 Toyota Tundra and getting over 15MPG in NC & TN. Our LE2 did not have original factory installed solar charging so we use portable suitcase solar charging with BattleBorn lithium battery. Always admired the white window shades in later model Ollies, so we purchased a set from Oliver. Next camping trips will be on the Blue Ridge Parkway in NC! Still get the comment "Is this a brand new camper"! 🙂 Valley of Fire NV: Blue Ridge Parkway NC: 🙂

Same here. I do my thing, Carol does her thing then we check each other.

Do you use the trailer while it is parked long term? How do you stow all the small stuff when on the road so it doesn’t rattle to pieces? Are the graphics easily removable? Do you travel with all those huge pillows? It’s indeed very pretty but IMHO it is neither practical nor easy to keep clean when actually camping… Can you please post a link to the pantry bins? And pics of your interior when full of food and clothes? BTW you forgot to tuck the red pull tabs underneath the cushions. They clash, color wise. It might make somebody think that there is an emergency exit hatch underneath. 😉 Thanks. John Davies Spokane WA

The original "oldest" , the one that started it all, is the John Oliver trailer, on display in Hohenwald. We all benefit from the labor of love of the twins, Jim and John, and the continued efforts of their family, and the extended family of Oliver employees. A side note: both our 46+ year sailboat, and our 2008 Oliver, are hulls #12. How very cool is that?

We bought our Oliver used. We did have some challenges in the beginning, a voltage issue and knowing nothing about the workings of anything let alone the voltage in the camper we were thrown into a needle in a haystack problem!! Many people in the forum as well as Jason at Oliver spent hours and days with us on the phone trying to troubleshoot. We finally found the loose wire that was the culprit! Since then it’s been perfect. What pleased us the most was even though we bought used, Oliver went above and beyond helping us. We were very impressed with the help we received.❤️

Love that pic. Says a lot.

...so here's a "2-fer". Top pic is a "chirpie" aerator nibbling on a full moon in Durango. Next one is Magnus after a long day on the road.

DdDd DDdD DdDd DDdD Ddd d DdD ddDDD dDDd dDdd DD DdD ddDDD dDDd dDdd DD Great thread, thanks for starting it! I always envisioned The Wonder Egg being a rolling ham shack. During the build (in the early days) I asked Oliver to wire the trailer for ham radio operations with an so239 connector outside, running the coax between the shells to the dinette area with another so239. But for many years, I was so busy traveling around the country making new friends and seeing new sights that I never sat still long enough to study for the FCC license and get on the air . . . until COVID, that is. It was the best social distancing hobby I could have ever participated in during the dreaded lock down. Now my home shack has an FTdx101D joined to a Palstar HF Auto and Palstar LA1k for my primary tranceiver. HTs abound as well. The antenna farm includes an EFHV stretched across the back yard for 133 ft, a Xeigu VG4 vertical up at 29 ft, and my go-to for DX is a HexBeam on a tower at 35ft. I also have a dual band Comet GP-1 mounted on a flagpole at 25 ft. My F150 is fully bonded together with 15 wide brass straps and my Diamondback aluminum tonneau is a great platform for my HF ATAS-120A and for my dual band CA-2X4SR. I tend to hear a lot of crickets on VHF and UHF, but on HF I communicate all over the world while driving down the highway. Inside the F150 I have an FT857D and FTM 400XDR/DE. Inside The Wonder Egg I'll have an ICOM IC-7300 and a Yaesu FT5D HT. I have too many choices of antennas to bring them all with me as I travel. This year I'll be bringing a portable BuddiHEX from Buddipole, a TW2010 with 40M and 80M options from DX Engineering, and a CHA LEFS Lightweight End Fed Sloper from Chameleon Antennas. There is a dual band VHF/UHF antenna mounted on The Wonder Egg. It will be great to meet fellow enthusiasts at the rally and down the road. 73, Pete, K2PLM P.S. Folks, sorry for the NERDing out thing here . . . it's an unfortunate condition of ham radio operators. Thanks for understanding . . . .

You'll be very pleased with the outcome. The Wonder Egg's owner isn't nearly as old as Twist's owner, and he looks much better. 🙂

It depends. If it is always filled with chlorinated city water, that is fine. If you are filling from unknown wells, that can be very risky. Always use a basic filter at your inlet port, change it at least annually. Shock treat with bleach annually. In between, it’s up to you to decide if you want to dump or treat more often. What is your risk tolerance? On short weekend trips I fill up only at home with softened city water, and I leave the tank partially full until the next trip, when I run about 30 gallons of extra water through to flush it out. On long trips I try to choose my water sources wisely. For long term storage, I keep only soft water in my system to avoid mineral buildup. I no longer bother to winterize because my indoor storage stays warm. And with soft water I don’t have to use vinegar any more. Soft water sitting or flowing in pipes actually cleans them over the space of six months. BTW it isn’t a stupid question at all. John Davies Spokane WA

Yes it does need to be raised enough to remove the screws that the cups are attached with. You can see the screws in Steve’s picture. I flipped mine over on its back while it was still on the roof. That made it a little easier to remove the old gasket and sealant. But before removing or raising the AC, you should remove the plastic evaporator cover under the foam insulation. That will allow you troubleshoot a little further. It is attached with press in tabs around the perimeter and a few screws. I was then able to use a measuring cup to put water into the drain channels to pinpoint the leak. Mossey

I noticed AC condensate water dripping off the rear curb side roof at a COE campground along the Arkansas River and chalked it up the the high humidity we were experiencing. The next day we were at Choctaw Lake in Mississippi and the water started running off over the curb side window. After experimenting with leveling the trailer, I found that when the curb side was low, the water ran off that side. I could move the runoff water to the rear by raising the nose. And best of all , I could stop all roof runoff by raising the curb side and all of the water drained from condensate drain tube. We did some troubleshooting at home and found that water would leak from the curb side condensate drain cup whenever the curb side was low. I finally found a posting on the Airstream forum about installing the drain pan kit. I ordered the kit and an extra foam gasket. I completed the drain kit installation when I gained access to a shop and could take my time removing the AC and find out the source of the leak, which was a broken nipple on the curb side drain cup. I don’t know if this will have any bearing on your issue, but I know my troubleshooting took me in a different direction than I was heading in at the very start. Mossey

Hi John, No, I had a local detailer here in Bakersfield, CA do it for us. I googled "ceramic auto coating" and received about 5 detailers in our area that professed to do it. After checking all the reviews, especially companies with lots of reviews, I choose my company. FYI: I paid $500 per coat (which I think was a very good deal - and the detailer confirmed it was far more work than he had anticipated). With the PPF film I paid $1300 for the entire job.

So everything I’m going to say here applies to CGI detailing. When you get your trailer ceramic coated they don’t just wash it and apply the coding. They detail the trailer first They’re going to remove all the old oxidation and really make it shine before they put the ceramic coating on. If you have an older trailer and really want to bring back to shine and make it a whole lot easier to clean and and keep up I would highly recommend the ceramic coating and I highly recommend CGI.

Hi John. Good point. One thing you said is "22 minutes". No way mine drains in that time. More like 5 hours. I remember shortly after I picked it up, I had to replace the pump and there were a lot of plastic shreds in the filter. I also seem to remember the first time I drained the tank prior it did drain faster. I have a strong suspicion I have some plastic filings caught in the drain valve. I will blow it out from the bottom with air, but likely that will be temporary as they will just float back down there. Probably will have to cut the line behind the valve, then blow out and reconnect with alligator clip. Thanks for mentioning 22 minutes!

An accumulator tank is a water chamber which has a pre-pressurized internal air bladder. They are installed on the pressured side of your pump and dampen water pressure 'spikes', reduce pump cycling, help increase the pump's life and also save battery power.

Installing a bigger valve will help, but just a little; the problem is not really the size of the opening, it is the lack of head pressure. If your water tank were located up high, say on the roof, the water would shoot out of that little valve like a fire hose.... well, almost. To get a really fast drain you would need a great big dump valve, like 1/2”. Big, expensive, clunky, heavy. Raising the front of the trailer helps a little to increase the head pressure (at first) and gets rid of those few last gallons. Since the Ollie tank is so very low, maybe the best solution is to accept it for what it is and just go do something else productive while it dribbles out. Mine takes 22 minutes. Irritating, but not the end of the world. If yours takes much longer than that, there may be a blockage in the outside line, like a dead bug. If the water is a little stale, rather than drain it, I just let the fill hose run for an extra five minutes to flush the old tank contents out the big vent line. That is nearly as effective as a drain and fill, and lots quicker. John Davies Spokane WA

Forgot to mention this thread on Alternate Plumbing Diagrams has some good updates from various Forum Members...

Yep, SLOW is the word. I usually let it drain overnight.

Similar to Steve, mine has the drain because I asked Oliver to do weird stuff to my trailer. I’ve been using it to empty the fresh tank but now that I’ve discovered that I can pump it out the water heater itself I’ll probably do that since it seemed to be a lot faster.

Mike, our trailer was the first one built and we were just making it up as we went. It has the standard water heater. I requested a drain in the hot line and it was apparently not something they regularly did on subsequent builds. It was only this past fall that I discovered it would do what Overland has described. I’ve not studied the plumbing diagram enough to know why it drains with this valve open and the pump on. I think it may have something to do with elves or maybe Elvis. The drain is located on the floor of the outer shell right beside the cold water drain. As as far as the tank draining slowly, think about draining 30-something gallons of water through a hole the size of a pencil.

It certainly seems like a common problem, if not normal. I experimented with mine while sanitizing the fresh tank a few weeks ago by covering the overflow with my hand while filling the tank and having the drain open. I was hoping that the drain might be blocked with plastic shavings or something and that it would push out with some extra pressure. No luck, though I didn't want to let the pressure build up too much for fear that it would pop the overflow drain hose off the tank. I did find out though that if you have the Truma you can do the same trick that you can if you had the extra hot water line drain like Steve and I do. Just open the Truma drain and turn on the pump, and it will pump all the water out the Truma. You may be able to do the same trick with the standard water heater.

That's interesting. I have the drain on the hot water line, but for the reason above. I really like having it - since my regular tank drain just sort of dribbles, I can open the other one, turn on the pump, and pump all the water out in no time flat.

When I had our Oliver built I instructed the guys to put in a second drain for the hot water system. Mike, being as yours is one of the early trailers that is most likely what the second drain is for. They quit putting the second drain in soon afterwards.

Do you have the Truma with the circulation pump? If so, the second valve is to drain the circulation line for winterization.

There is only the valve in the floor of the trailer that needs to be opened to drain the fresh water tank. Raising the nose will definitely help.

Have you attempted to see if a bug/mud-dobber is clogging up the outlet? If it is blocked with a foreign object, perhaps a pipe cleaner or something similar could dislodge it. Do you have a source of pressurized air? A short burst of air could help. And do be sure to double check your valve placement to ensure they really are set for draining. You mentioned that you turned the "valves" to drain. On my old model Elite, from 2008, it only requires one valve (the one in line with the drain port) to be repositioned in order for the fresh water tank to drain. Does your newer unit call for turning two? One last thought . . . if the nose of your trailer is low and the water has all sloshed up towards the front of the tank, you will not be able to drain normally. An elevated nose is best for that operation. Let us know how it finally works out. Good luck.

West Texas sunset.

We’ve only had a few adventures so far, but here’s a couple pictures. One is boondocking near Salida, CO. The other is my daughter reading during a rainy afternoon at Arapaho Bay CG- you can see that she has really made her little corner her own!