ScubaRx

There were two early Oliver trailers that were painted and completed at the factory. Don't bother asking, they state they will NEVER do it again. Not because the trailers didn't look fantastic, but rather the amount of work involved. The ideal way would be to color the gel-coat during hull production. They won't do that either due to the amount of work involved in cleaning the equipment between colors. But...Since this is a fiberglass trailer it can easily be painted (think Corvette.) If you have the equipment and the know-how do it yourself. If not, find yourself a competent body shop and have them do it. I think it is a wonderful idea and, though it might be pricey, easily doable. Let us know if this comes to fruition. [attachment file=Campers Vegas 035.jpg] [attachment file=Campers Vegas 052.jpg]

"Are 12V batteries hooked up in series or parallel?" 12 Volt batteries are always hooked up parallel if your intention is to keep the system at 12V.

Duane, I am relieved you're at home although reading your account of the last part of the trip wore me out!!! Now the fun really begins.

Hello Trainman, I have been following the very "interesting" discussion over on the Escape forum about the body alignment issue and I will tell you here that I completely agree with your assessment. I decided it would not be prudent to comment as such on their forum but if I were interested in that model it would be a deal breaker for me. Anyway...welcome to our forum. I know you are looking to buy (something) and asking good questions and I thought I'd jump in and address some of yours. We have talked to many prospective owners over the 10 years we've owned an Oliver. The question of solar and whether it's needed always comes up. I always respond with the question "What kind of camping are you planning on doing?" You've already answered with "I personally don’t really care to Boondock." As others have pointed out, you will have no need for, nor will you benefit from, the available Solar Option. In addition you won't need an inverter and you won't need the larger battery bank. You might consider it because of the additional amp hours it will provide in case you wanted to boondock at Walmart or Cracker Barrel or where ever during travel days to save on paying for a place to just park overnight. Further your stated that you "...don’t think that Oliver trailers owners are that big on Boondocking..." To that I would beg to differ. Based on the number of folks that have attended mine and Tali's Boondocking seminars and the questions that are asked, I would say that more owners boondock that not. Nobody here is going to judge someone on their camping style. As you inferred, it's all about getting out away from home and enjoying whatever interests you. Good luck on your quest for your perfect trailer. We all hope you choose an Oliver and outfit it so it suits just you. If your do, I am confident that you will not be disappointed. My father always told me "Nobody was ever sorry they bought the best there is."

Our first tow vehicle for our (then) new 2008 Oliver was a brand new 2009 Jeep Wrangler unlimited. It turned out to be the worst towing experience you could imagine. First, the engine in that model was terribly underpowered. Second, at that time my knowledge of towing was Nada, Zip. But the most glaring problem was the towing capacity was only 3500 pounds. Any self respecting Elite will weigh more than that by several hundred pounds. It looked cool but I would have to say no to any vehicle with under a 5000 towing capacity and even that will be marginal anywhere you’d want to go in a Jeep.

This sounds like normal operation. When the bottle is empty and it auto changes, the indicator goes red to let you know that one is out of propane. Same thing happens if you unhook a bottle. The valve sees that hose as empty.

Marinco has always been my go to choice. I have a cord I made up over 10 years ago with Marinco adaptors and it’s been going strong since the first.

I too, at first, thought that was a bit expensive for an assembly charge even if it was “expert.” But, thinking it might be useful, I went on and included it with the initial purchase of our clam. It has worked out nicely in that the company actually sends out a team to wherever you’re camping and sets it up. Then, whenever you’re ready to leave, they will come back and pack it up for you. This has proven to be a great timesaver for us. Even though that price is for only for one year, as much as we travel it’s well worth the $35 a month to not have to worry about the time and trouble we would spend setting up our clam every time we want to use it.

From Yamaha: NOTE: The EF2400iSHC will NOT run most Air Conditioner units and does NOT have a 30 amp electrical receptacle. Yamahagenerators.com does not recommend purchasing this model to run your Air Conditioner. Please contact Customer Service to help you find the correct size generator for your need. I suspect this is realistically the case with any 2000-2400 watt generators trying to deal with our 13,500 btu air conditioners. Even with the addition of Easy Start technologies, any excecessive altitude or conversion to propane will render these units marginal at best.

We always refill our own tanks. It’s way cheaper (you only pay for what you get) and you’re always dealing with the same tanks. The best (cheapest) place we’ve found is TSC. I’m sure there are similar places in your neck of the woods. At 12 pounds, the 22 pound Viking tank is roughly half the weight of a 30 pound steel tank but only holds about 2/3 the volume of propane and is about twice the cost. If weight is a major factor and cost and capacity are not, these would be a very good choice. Or a cheaper alternative would be to just go with two 20 pound tanks. Good luck with your quest to make your new Oliver perfect. It’s fun and rewarding to see it come together to be uniquely yours.

We own a Yamaha 3000 Watt EF3000iSEB. It has traveled on the tongue of our two Oliver’s for about 100K miles. We rarely use it but, unlike the problems currently being discussed on another thread about the smaller wattage generators not consistently powering their air conditioners, this one has powered anything and everything we’ve ever thrown at it and has done so flawlessly for over ten years. With a fuel capacity of over 3 gallons it will run for days. We generally just top off the tank when we stop for diesel for the truck. If we need extra gasoline we have 20L Scepter military fuel cans. I don’t have a dog in this race, but I’m a great believer in overkill. If you want complete confidence that you’ll always have all the power you need, consider something larger than 2200 watts.

I think this is doable, not necessarily easy though. During our build of hull # 050 back in late 2013, we discussed using an auxiliary pump to utilize gray water to flush the commode. That idea was a abandoned due to RVIA requirements. My idea was to conserve fresh water for our boondocking adventures and I may yet revisit it. In over ten years of owning two different Oliver’s we’ve never found a need to have greater grey water capacity. We NEVER put any food particles down the kitchen sink as all dishes (that are not disposable) are washed in a tub. Therefore our grey water consists of nothing but water and a little biodegradable soap from the shower or lavatory. When we are boondocking, the gray water is used to water the local plants. On the rare occasion that we are actually in a campground, it goes out at the dump station with the black water.

These are the two on the OOII.

Bill, we are here through Sunday. Tell your friends to “come on down.” We’ll be happy to show the the Outlaw Oliver. They can call us to let us know when is convenient for them. Six 6 two-2 five 5-Oh 1 Eight 1.

We are currently at the other state park in Tennessee named for Mr. Crockett - Davy Crockett Birthplace State Park in Eastern Tennessee near the town of Limestone. We are attending the “King of the Wild Frontier Rally.”

Saw an Oliver Elite II with gold stripes, pulled by a white van traveling West on I-24 heading out of Chattanooga.

We have both. The Fiamma Privacy Room and the 140 x 140 Clam. The privacy room is, by far, the nicest of the two. But, it will take two people at least 30-45 minutes to erect (it takes us well over an hour and a half to do.) Plus, it’s over 4x the price of the clam and weighs twice as much. You will have to have a full size pickup with at least a 6.5 foot bed for either one (unless you’re willing to haul it diagonally.) I don’t even carry it with us unless we’re going to be in one place for several weeks (think Quartzsite.) The Clam, on the other hand, sets up in under a minute by one person. The one most of us have will easily seat 6-8 people.

The refrigerator does not "automatically" switch to DC unless there is no propane. When the Auto button is activated, the fridge will auto change between 120VAC and propane. As a last resort, if you are out of gas (or for some reason the valves are off) it would go to DC . From our standpoint, our gas is always on and we never run the fridge in the very power hungry and inefficient DC mode.

I have no personal experience with a cover for the Oliver. We owned one of the 2008 models just like the one you have recently purchased. These folks make a fine product and they custom fit for Casita and Scamp travel trailers. I would expect that they could make one that would be a perfect match for your Oliver.

That rack was not designed to allow access to the spare tire without removing it first.

We had a 2008 Elite I for 5 years. We sold it and bought a 2014 Elite II, the first to roll off the line. We did it simply to have more room. We travel a lot, with several dogs one of which weighs over 100 pounds. He needs a place to sleep so he gets the side dinette made down into his bed every night. We liked the Elite I but we love the Elite II.

I changed out our bulldog hitch for the 2-5/16" to take advantage of the larger hitch platform on the 2500 Silverado. Did I need it? Probably, to be safe. The standard bulldog hitch is rated at 7000 pounds. The OOII weighs over that. The larger bulldog is rated at 12,500 pounds. You can do this easily yourself, it's certainly not brain surgery. This is the hitch you will need to order. You will have to drill the holes in the sides to run the bolts through.

We traded our 1500 6.2L gas burner GMC Sierra for a 2500 6.6L Duramax diesel Silverado. I wanted the "overkill" that the Silverado gives us. I liked that diesel so much that we bought a GMC Canyon with the 2.8L "Baby" Duramax for Tali as a daily driver. We will probably actually use it to pull the OOII on short trips as it has a towing capacity of 7600 pounds. The best towing mileage we've ever gotten is 21.9 mpg but we still average 14 mpg in the 2500 pulling the Oliver. We were getting about 11.5 mpg in the Sierra 1500. I can't recommend the diesels strongly enough. They just keep on going no matter the terrain.

Thanks Ken, friends like you are rare indeed.

I discovered that you can’t hold pressure on your tongue. 90% of the problem that night was the warfarin. Oral vitamin K reversed the warfarin and finally helped staunch the blood.