ScubaRx

We were boondocking deep in the red rock country south of Sedona several years ago with some other Oliver owners. The morning after the first night, I got up and hit the switch to turn on our Suburban water heater. It went through its regular startup, I heard the igniter clicking, then the whoosh of the burner lighting, it running for a maybe 15-20 seconds and then shutting down. It did this the obligatory 3 times before giving up and not trying again until I re-initiated the startup procedure. Somewhere during all this, I heard our friend's water heater doing exactly the same thing. I went outside and found him pondering why both of them seemed to be having the exact same problem. We discussed this for a minute or two then remembered "something" that was done the night before. (This all happened several years ago and my memory fails me as to WHY this "something" was done...) But, my friend had licked the tip of his forefinger and wiped it across the gas orifice on both of our water heaters. Deciding that action was the only common denominator, each of us removed the orifice from our heaters and carefully ran a tiny copper wire through it. Nothing visible came out but after replacing the orifice's, each heater started right up and ran normally. Admittedly, I did go around the world to say that it literally takes "nothing" to interrupt the proper flow of gas.

As this area is caulked and well protected from moisture, I believe you are correct. I've never seen a complaint about this area on the forum anytime in the last 15 years.

The insulation to which you refer was used in all the first 49 trailers. They bought it in gigantic rolls. Robert Partee described it at the time as the same kind of stuff used to sew up insulated coats or vests.

I do not know when the changeover was made, but I bought a half sheet of the new stuff at the factory last week to use in my renovation.

I suppose I'm one of the "few people" as I calibrated my Harbor Freight Torque Wrench about a year ago. It was not hard to do and I saved myself almost $105,607.27 by doing it with this method. Surprisingly, it needed very little tweaking but I thought it was useful to have gone through the motions just to make sure a less than $25 torque wrench was close to being accurate. Oh and, by the way, I start my torquing procedure using several of these and this, then use the torque wrench to reach a final value of 90 pound feet. ** **Torque is usually measured in Newton metres (Nm), or pound feet (lb-ft) – the latter not to be confused with foot pounds (ft-lb), as one ft-lb refers not to a twisting force, but to the amount of energy required to raise a 1lb weight by a distance of 1ft.

Out with the old, in with new… I am about to glue the outside flanges on, and the outside shower box should be completed. I purposely made it a bit larger on the inside and the back is square as opposed to rounded on the original.

You may be right on the money. I do not have the same setup that you have as the Outlaw Oliver is Hulll #050. As such, I can only charge the batteries (on shore power) with the old PD4045. Also, it supplies the coach with 12vdc (again, on shore power). I am just not up to speed on how the newer setup with the Xantrex inverter/charger is wired, but having both seems possibly redundant.

Looks like you may be a keynote speaker at next years Owner's Rally. What time slot do you prefer?

His Oliver was built in 2008-2009. I believe he is the third owner.

The key word here is “structural”. Although, no longer used, the front wall that separates the bath and closet and them from the rest of the cabin plus the basement floor were originally made in-house from a very high grade plywood coated on both sides with fiberglass and gel coat. These areas are now constructed using a commercially available 1/2” thick polymer plastic sheeting cut to fit. My basement flooring right inside the exterior hatch was delaminating like yours from it having gotten wet so many times through the years. We store our hoses there and apparently I’ve occasionally stowed them away without making sure they were completely drained AND the seal on that hatch has been known to leak while driving in the pouring rain. In addition, there have been times the outside faucets were left slightly open and that water found its way onto the basement floor. All of this is user error, but I decided to tear the entire inside of the basement out and redo all. This is involving construction of a new outdoor faucet and tank valve box as all the early trailers had a vacuum formed box made of really thin plastic. Mine was broken all to pieces and looked horrible. Also, I plan to reroute the plumbing away from that cold susceptible area right next to the outer hull to a more inboard position where it will be subjected to more between the hulls heating. My plan is also place electric valves in those lines so they can be isolated from the rest of the plumbing and drained if necessary. There will be some effort made to relocate some of the electrical wires in that area.

Well, I need someone to come to Tupelo with their ladder and help me wash The Outlaw Oliver. We’ve got water, electricity and a dump station.

So now you understand why all of us bought Oliver’s.

I don’t use a ladder anymore. After being bitten by some weird looking spider in the Amazonian jungle several years ago, I found that I could just crawl up the side of the trailer.

Well, any other place and conditions would not have made for as interesting a story and memory for you guys.

Call your sales representative.

We have Blue Sky equipment in our Oliver. With all the different brands, to have a good setup, you have to have a solar controller, a shunt and a display. The Victron display Oliver is installing is the BMV-712. It is Bluetooth enabled and I think it provides the best bang for your buck. Shop around for the best price. As far as the shunt, one is included with the BMV-712. The solar controller you need will be dependent on the total wattage of all the panels you plan to connect to it. You will want to install it as close to the batteries as possible to lessen voltage loss from a long run of wires. Do not mount it in the battery compartment. I would put it under the street side bed if possible. The 712 display needs to be inside the cabin in a location that is easy to view. Ideally I would put it where the Zamp is now. Just fabricate a panel large enough to cover the hole and mount the 712 in it. If you need further help with that, PM me.

I used to wonder if using Teflon tape would somehow (electrically) insulate the anode from the tank thereby somewhat reducing its effectiveness. But, I used to wonder about a lot of things that don’t seem to bother me anymore. Never mind.

I am in the middle of a project where I am rebuilding the basement. I have decided to reroute the supply lines for the outside shower to a position more inboard than they are now. This is mainly to allow the new floor that I intend to install to be lower and completely flat. In rerouting those lines it will put them in a position closer to the centerline of the trailer as opposed to right next to the outside wall. This should have a positive effect on insulating those lines. I had not thought of putting valves into those lines, but it does sound like a good idea, and in their new position, it will be easy to do. I will probably put electric motorized valves in since I would not be able to easily access manual ones from the outside. Thanks for the idea.

Good try there, John. I found a hundred dollar bill while walking our dogs years ago. Tali demanded I give to her for safekeeping. I never saw it again.

No I am not looking for advice. And I agree that that I would be really distressed we’re I to lose something that cost that much. The point of my post is that I found this knife, it is in great shape and I have reason to believe it was lost by someone who owns an Oliver. If someone has lost this knife, please let me know where you were camped when you last had it.

I’m wondering if anyone out there recognizes this or owns one…

The Xantrex 3000 watt inverter/charger is necessary to have in order to be able to run the air conditioner off the batteries. It also is able to recharge the lithium batteries at up to 150 amps per hour, 3x that of the PD4045.

You didn’t mention in the Oliver vs BB comparison the Oliver has ditched the inadequate Zamp equipment for Victron. It won’t make up for the $$ difference but it is light years better in capability. I swapped my Trojan AGM’s for three BB’s a couple of years ago. We rarely use more than 12% during the dark hours and we are back to 100% by noon with good sun and we only have 300 watts of solar. We were not hobbled with the Zamp stuff as our Hull #050 (and the next 150 trailers) was outfitted with Blue Sky equipment. A 100 watt panel can only put out about 8 amps so you can calculate how long it would take to replace amps used with whatever number of watts of solar you have. With either the Blue Sky or Victron equipment, you’ll get a few extra amps because their controllers are MPPT vs PWM on the Zamp. Older trailers will also need to replace the PD4045 charger with a lithium compatible model ($200+).

We’ve only gone from Silverton to Ouray, not the opposite direction. I don’t if Tali would go for that as she would be riding on the edge looking down.

A magnesium anode protects better and lasts longer than Aluminum Anodes. Sacrificial Anodes are used to protect the hulls of ships, water heaters and other metals in contact with water or a dissimilar metal.