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ScubaRx

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Posts posted by ScubaRx

  1. 6 minutes ago, johnwen said:

    Hmmm...Sounds like my appt in September may be nixed.  Will have to talk with them tomorrow.  This was a surprise.  We'll figure something out.  A/C cleaning and lubrication of the 3 jacks... I'll need to study up on 🙂 ARGGG!  Hopefully the new service centers will be up to Oliver's standards and it will be in for only 1 night as it was with Oliver.  Should have ample feedback to tell before the end of the year.

    John

     

    Jason Essary will be calling any customer scheduled out past July to explain canceling the appointment. They currently have just a few appointments scattered from August to November. 

  2. 1 hour ago, Geronimo John said:

    Wow you must be photography buff.  You are correct. 

    I started in photography back in the mid 60's when everything was manual. No auto exposure or focus. My first camera did not even have a light meter. Had to use a hand held one and set the camera's aperture and shutter speed from that. Manipulating either or both to create different effects. Bought 35mm film in 100 foot rolls and wound my own cartridges in total darkness. It was all black and white. I thought I was Ansel Adams. I even lugged a big 2-1/4 square camera and tripod to the top of Sentinel Dome in Yosemite to duplicate AA's picture of the old Jeffrey Pine growing there.

    Here's Ansel Adams original:

    AAsJeffreyPine.thumb.jpg.dd4a25f0642df27197a6dfe0dc65a5b8.jpg

     

    Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, the tree had died during an extreme drought three summers before despite the rangers best efforts of hauling water to the top every day to try to save it. So all I have to show for my trek up the dome is a picture of a dead tree. Oh well, it was a famous tree.

    Scan656.thumb.jpg.80a1b25d7a7671e86cc15c87b6823451.jpg

    Scan159.thumb.jpg.1cb099497e9872034741fea5a1251560.jpg

     

     

     

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  3. Jack up the side of the trailer that the fittings are on that you are trying to grease. This will relieve any pressure being placed onto the wet bolts by the weight of the trailer. That usually makes it much easier to get them to take grease. You may never get it to squirt out both ends of the bushing equally.

    • Like 4
  4. 19 minutes ago, Half Fast Hugo said:

    Interesting thread! Unfortunately, being an avid mountain biker, I was immediately distracted by the Magic Mary in the background of the pic!

    And I think this thread has run its course.

    Et al. Please rest assured that Oliver is and has been aware of all the fine points everyone has pointed out. They are considering all possibilities and making decisions.

    In my opinion this will turn out to be a one off event. Since Oliver has never ordered anything but 7000 pound couplers since they came back online in 2013. I can only think of a couple of scenarios where a 5000 pound coupler could find its way onto a trailer made 10 years after the last previous one was installed.

    We've beat this horse to death. By now everyone has checked their trailer to make sure theirs is OK. Let's let the horse rest in peace.

    • Like 2
  5. 59 minutes ago, ADKCamper said:

    Just to help narrow-down the timeframe for when the switch was made from the older 5,000 lb BD to the 7,000 lb BD on the LE-I model, our LE-I (#409, mfg in Nov 2018) has the 7,000 lb Class 4 coupler with the gusset and the correct label to match...

    As I said earlier, only the Elites made between 2007 and 2009 were delivered with the 5000 pound couplers. The next Elite built by Oliver was Hull #073 delivered in 2015 and was equipped with a 7000 pound coupler. The current standard OEM for both the Elite and Elite II is the 7000 pound coupler. 

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  6. On 3/18/2024 at 10:14 AM, Rivernerd said:

    This piece of evidence suggests that Oliver uses 5K Bulldog couplers for Elite I builds.  It supports the conclusion that mounting a 5K coupler on Rideadeuce's Elite II may have resulted from simply pulling the coupler from the wrong parts slot.

    Given the potential consequences, Oliver would be well advised to physically separate the 5K Bulldog couplers from the 7K couplers, and to add redundant verification that the correct coupler was installed on all Elite IIs. 

    The earliest model elites (2007-2009) were equipped with the 5000lb Class Two BD couplers. That is no longer the case. All the current Elites have a 7000lb BD coupler.

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  7. 6 hours ago, Rivernerd said:

    Yes.  It is identical to the 2-5/16" Bulldog coupler mounted on our Hull #1291 by Oliver during manufacturing. 

    See photo below.

    BulldogCoupler.thumb.jpg.75a7e66821a57022a31d6f5d991dd4dc.jpg

    I didn't know it when ordering, but there was little chance that a 2-5/16" coupler would be confused with a 2" coupler rated for only 5K lbs.  Another reason I like to overbuild.

    Nobody was ever sorry they bought a tool that outperformed the job at hand. Superior trailer, bigger truck, stronger axles, beefier hitch and heavier springs. Some folks are minimalists and hope everything will be fine. I contend Hope is not a strategy. Minimalism is just getting by.

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  8. 9 hours ago, Steph and Dud B said:

    @mountainoliver, is this the gusset you're referring to? And, should I be concerned about that weld on the left side of this photo?

    PXL_20240315_134255375.thumb.jpg.59e8d8f8b89f3f028c15d207a622e40d.jpg

    I agree that the weld on the left looks a little sparse. Might have been the last one on a Friday and he was anxious to go buy a couple of six-packs!  It would, however, be easy to strengthen it up.

     

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  9. 2 hours ago, rich.dev said:

    This is a pic of these stock white “shark bite” like fittings on our Truma water heater. They are definitely not shark bite fittings, believe they are “John Guest” push to connect fittings.
    image.thumb.jpeg.48118ebc62437a12dd91cb6941f8b617.jpeg

    @Toby if you do have these John Guest fittings, the big white knurled like caps can come lose, twist/turn them clockwise to tighten/lock them again, like in below pic. 
    image.thumb.jpeg.abb942d86ce0d51d991d5f81b9928080.jpeg

    I do believe you are correct. At first glance,  these could easily be confused as shark bites. Our older model has something very similar, screw on connectors, the only difference being that the rings have wings on them to assist with tightening or loosening.

  10. On 2/11/2024 at 6:16 PM, Toby said:

    Well, did as Ray suggested and water was flowing out of plastic shark-bite like fitting in back of Truma Aquago Instant water heater. Hopefully it's just the plastic fitting and not the Temperature Stabilizer Tank. Now to figure out how to remove unit so I can access the fitting. Hoping this isn't a cascade of problems including air leaks upstream as topgun2 mentioned. The Truma manual does not describe removal of the entire heater so I'll call Oliver tomorrow. In the interim, has anyone remove the Truma unit? 

    Steve, did you buy your Hull #329 new? To the best of my knowledge, Oliver has never used Shark Bite fittings during their regular production. Do you think that the fitting is original from Truma?

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  11. 5 hours ago, routlaw said:

    This reminds me of trip, might have been our Oliver pick up trip, driving through Texas on the return. Gassed up in Lubbock where it was calm and quite warm but by the time we were on the north end of the city wind picked up noticeably and continued to get much worse. We knew 70-90 mph winds were supposed to be in west TX that day and sure enough it happened. Made to Palo Dura State Park just outside of Amarillo, pitch dark and temps had gone from mid 80's in Lubbock to 40 ± degrees at Palo Duro and all I had on was a t-shirt, shorts and sandals freezing to death trying to get the gate unlocked in the dark, then setting up the Ollie. There might have been half a dozen locks on the gate chain. 

    The amazing part was the second I shut the door as we were getting settled in you could hear a pin drop. Trudi and looked at each other WTH, howling wind outside but quiet as a church mouse inside. Opened the door again, sure enough still howling wind. 

    The most surprising thing about this story is the fact that a good ole boy from Montana would admit to owning, much less wearing, a pair of sandals.

    😊

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  12. 1 hour ago, jd1923 said:

    Hey Scuba, your Olivers (yes, plural case) are so, soooooo old! Weren't they just made better, back in the day! (you have always had a special connection to OTT to make yours one of the BEST). Most of us who have endured a long hard lifetime, working hard every day. That has made us better!

    I have found that our older Hull #113 has very few of the problems cited at length in this forum. Older is better IMHO, reason why I have an older OTT and an older TV too! I can see why @SeaDawg has relished hers, for what now 16 years?

    My street bike is a 1984 GL1200, just hit it's 40th anniversary! I know y'all are biased, thinking nothing prettier than a kept Oliver, right? This old classic looks pretty good for 40, right! I'd say older, mo' better! The main thing I enjoy (relish) re this forum, is us like-minded individuals. Those of us wanting to work hard to make this very important OTT investment, better and better!

    It would be hard to say that the Older Oliver's were "made better."  They were certainly made more slowly, taking an average of about 3 months of actual construction time. This was partly because the company was in a state of constant flux. They were always coming up with better ways of building them but basically they were still built one at a time making each system as they went along. It took them over 3 years to make the first 49 trailers and there were no two exactly alike. There were also some major setbacks during that early 2007-2010 run that caused Oliver to make some tough financial decisions including one that involved a recall of every trailer they had built up until that time and another that shut their doors for four years. Find me at the rally for full details. And the owner's must of been a major pain in their ass as we were always changing our mind throughout our builds. Poor Robert Partee, the former sales manager and, to many of us, the face and voice of Oliver, it was he that had to field our numerous requests and then find a way to try and make them happen. But, to his credit, it seems like he always did. The one thing he balked at and staunchly refused to entertain was my request to have my first Oliver painted green. To paraphrase his response, "No frickin' way, Buddy..."

    The main thing that differentiates a brand new 2024 model and my 10 year old 2014 model is the amount of innovation and improvement Oliver has poured into the trailers through the years. Solar was a relative new frontier in 2014 and now there is hardly an Oliver sold without it. Who would have thought that in this short decade we'd go from choosing between Flooded Lead-Acid batteries or upgrading to AGMs to now trying to decide how many hundreds of amp hours of Lithium we can't live without.

    The new 2024 Oliver Elites and Elite II's are, by far, much slicker than those built even a couple of years ago let alone those built a decade or more ago. Many people have been very happy with their trailer and have kept them for many years. Proof of this is seen in the number of units that are still in the possession of their original Owners. For the past few years I have been assisting Anita compile as accurate a list as is possible on the provenance of the older trailers and the people who have owned them through the years. We have been using early company data as well as records I compiled myself with information gleaned during the early days. To date, the Oldest Trailer still in the Original Owner's possession we found to be Hull # 007, delivered in early January of 2008. It was delivered to some guy named Bond.... 😄 just kidding about the name.

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  13. 2 hours ago, jd1923 said:

    Is this what's OEM on our Elite II trailers? 4-Leaf Double-Eye Spring for 5,000-lb Trailer Axles - 25-1/4" Long etrailer Trailer Leaf Springs e44SR

    I could measure myself and/or search the forum, but if one of you know...

    Our OTT has 4 very straight leaf spring assemblies. I just worked the brakes, replaced the bearings with Timken... If this is a direct replacement, I should just buy one and put it first in the bottom of my truck toolbox.

    John, The springs ARE 25-1/4" on center to the spring eyes. The spring eyes are 11/16" ID. They ARE 4-leaf springs, 1.75" wide steel and they should have distinct bow to them about 3 inches deep as measured on a long bow, string to grip. They should NOT appear as "very straight leaf spring assemblies". This would indicate to me that they have flattened and are failing.

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  14. 9 hours ago, John Welte said:

    We have #1290.  We're in Australia now, but do you know if the leaf springs that we have are 4 or 5 leaf?  We mostly keep to freeways, but some freeways are dodgy.  I am thinking of I70 in eastern Colorado.  I am just wondering how serious the issue is with mostly freeway driving.

    John 

    John, I don’t think there’s any rhyme or reason to why, or when the springs are breaking. They are breaking due to metal fatigue, and or the quality of the steel that they were originally made from.

    • Like 5
  15. 10 hours ago, jd1923 said:

    I thought there would be a run on these as soon as ALCAN contact info was posted! Great to hear they are going to rush one for you. Smart to have your mechanic scheduled too!

    I'll get a set at some point. I'm fully convinced on the 5-leaf 2000 LB rating now. If mine looked like they were starting to sag, I would have ordered yesterday too. But considering after tax and shipping these would be, what about a $900 outlay? I need to do this later since we can. We're not heading to Alaska anytime soon!

    To do this right, it may make sense to buy 5200 LB axles, with the best hub/bearing/brake set possible and mount new axles on these springs, given our hull is now 8 years old. Likely be close to $2K total on this idea. Should not have spent $200 on new Timken bearings just 6 months ago, if I knew then what I know now!

    I agree about the axles. I don't think I could recommend putting these springs on a 3500 pound axle. Then the weakest link would be the axles rather than the springs!

     

    • Like 2
  16. On 3/7/2024 at 7:02 AM, CRM said:

    Our LE2 was built with 5200lb axles but with just the 4-leaf springs. Plan on changing them out and using the same USA made springs that @Mountainman198 is using but just a little worried about the possibility of a rougher ride putting addition stress on the trailer and components. Have you experienced any such issues running the 5-leaf springs?

    Never had any interior problems. Our trailer, with water and ready to camp, has always weighed north of 7000 pounds. And, for years we ran 80 psi in all our tires.

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  17. 6 hours ago, rideandfly said:

    John,

    Our 2015 LE2 #75 has 5200 pound axles and springs. Understand at the time Oliver ran out of 3500 pound axles, so Legacy Elite axles/springs were installed on our Ollie. 99% highway use with no spring issues.

    Here's the springs on our Ollie:

    OllieSprings.jpg.cef21925a99915c4f311bf18a4f7f996.jpg

    When we were in the early build stage of our Hull #050 back in late 2013, I asked Jim Oliver what he suggested for axles for our new Elite II. We were coming from a 2008 Elite that had a 5200 pound axle with five leaf spring packs under it. He quickly said that he would want the same ones we had on our first trailer. So that's what we went with. The plan at that time was to use 2 x 3500 pound axles with four leaf spring packs on the regular production Elite II's. With the exception of a few trailers built in 2015 with the 5200 pound setup for the reason stated previously by @rideandfly this has been the standard on all production units since the first 2014 models rolled off the line and continued that way through model year 2021.

    The 2022 to current Elite II models saw a change in their axles. The Elite's axle remained the same as they had always been but, In an effort to streamline production and simplify their inventory, the decision was made to use the same size axles on both the Elite and Elite II trailers. All trailers delivered since 2022 have been supplied with two 5200 pound axles with the Dexter Nev-R- Lube hubs on them. However, they stuck with the 3500 pound 4-Leaf spring packs that have always accompanied the 3500 pound axles rather than the 5-Leaf spring packs that are standard on the 5200 pound axles. Their reasoning is that the stiffer springs would cause a rougher ride and could lead to drawers coming open or cabinet doors opening up while under tow. This why the GVWR remains at 7000 pounds. In addition, Oliver has also changed from 16" wheels with LT tires to 15" wheels with ST tires.

    There has been some recent owner interest in obtaining the Dexter Nev-R- Lube hubs. This requires a complete axle swap as they are not compatible with the axles all the older trailers (pre-2022) are equipped with. If you are contemplating ditching the OEM 3500 pound axles for the new setups with the higher rated axles, be aware of this spring issue. I can personally attest to knowing of at least 10 spring failures on the 4-Leaf spring packs on both the older trailers and a few that have recently been delivered over the past year or so. All of these springs have broken in exactly the same place. Also, I have never heard of a single failure in any of the trailers that are equipped with the 5200 pound axle with the 5-Leaf spring pack. This includes all the Elites ever built and, to my knowledge, none of the Elites II’s that were originally built with the 5200 pound axles and the 5-Leaf spring packs.

    My predication is that the 4-Leaf spring packs will continue to fail no matter which axle they are installed with. My advice is if you are changing out your four leaf springs for any reason, consider a stiffer spring that the originals and to purchase and carry with you at least one extra spring pack. If you’re going to Alaska carry two sets. One owner was up around the Arctic Circle when he discovered his were broken. Not the ideal locale for a FUBAR.

     

     

     

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