mountainoliver

Very nice install!

That looks great! Are the two aluminum bars that mount the frame solid 2x2?

Great work!

When I changed out my lead acid batteries with three Battle Born batteries a few months ago, I added a voltage regulator (shown below) to the Maxxfan and bath fan circuit for that very reason. The Maxxfan control board is not known for over voltage reliability. But I have not had any trouble with the other control boards. Actually the only one that is stock is the furnace board. I replaced the water heater board with a Dinosaur board a couple years ago and the compressor fridge can handle 12-24 volts DC or 110-220volts (50-60 HZ) AC. I think that relatively inexpensive voltage regulators are available that could handle the furnace and would be much less expensive than a new control board, but not sure?

This would be an ideal use of a panel mounted fuse holder (probably under the rear dinette seat) visible from the trailer cabin. In particular a fuse holder that lights up when the fuse is blown. Periodic testing would be more important with a fuse installed in the emergency brake power wire.

Before we found Oliver, we drove to Elkhart and toured every manufacturer. We were in Elkhart for a full week and walked away with a large box of brochures. We attended several large RV shows in Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. I toured the Airstream factory in Jackson Center on three occasions. In all this I didn’t see the quality that I was looking for. Being a mechanical design engineer (form follows function) I saw a lot of both design mistakes (personal opinion) and assembly mistakes. The very first time I saw an Oliver I knew that I had found what I was looking for! When we took the plant tour we were even more positive and placed our order that day! Now going on four years of ownership the problems seen are the same as with every other camper manufactured. Oliver is bound by the available appliances which as noted before are not the best quality. Within reason there is no other choice in appliances. Also, for what it’s worth (a lot by the way) Oliver service, overall experience is second to none, period!

John, I did basically the same thing you’re thinking a couple of years ago. I took two low amperage 12 volt computer fans and mounted them to the inside of the furnace return grill. Now that I have removed the problematic propane fridge, I use the fridge fan switch by the entry door to operate these fans. I don’t use a thermostat but just turn them on and let them run. They are able to take the conditioned cabin air and force it into the basement. Not a lot of flow but I can feel a slight bit leaking thru the converter grill under the dinette. A higher capacity fan(s) would be great but I would be careful not to have so much that you run the risk of activating the furnace sail switch.

Seeing the shower head changes reminded me that when I ordered our trailer I wasn’t real fond of the shower arrangement so had Oliver make a modification for me. I liked the idea of being able to select the shower head that I wanted and be able to replace it whenever. I used Shurflo brand “Trinidad” model shower diverter valve. Both bath/kitchen faucets are the same design for fewer parts inventory and are the Shurflo “Trinidad” type as well.

If nothing else, all of the battery photos show that in a mobile application such as in our campers there is almost constant movement between the batteries and the tray. For this reason I don’t think using solid buss bars between batteries is a good thing. I would think that there would be battery lug or internal damage caused. I bring this up because there have been posts about lithium changeover projects lately and this post highlights the need of being somewhat flexible with battery inter connections.

The “older” trailers did use the Blue Sky solar controller. While probably not the best by today’s standards, the Blue Sky is an MPPT type unit. I ordered my trailer without the solar option because I didn’t know enough about solar at the time and the Zamp equipment was just beginning to be used. In later discussions with ScubaRx I found out that the Blue Sky equipment was probably the best at the time so he and I installed that brand. It is fully and easily programmed for any battery chemistry. Fast forward, last summer I installed three Battle Born batteries and did some wiring changes as well. The Blue Sky controller brings the batteries to 100% each day and the lithium speced shore power charger brings them to 100% very quickly. Also as a side, I plugged the battery box door vents and insulated the door with 1/2 inch thick closed cell neoprene foam. So far camping in freezing weather, the battery box has stayed comfortably warm without battery heaters.

We have the Anderson wedges and love them. 0-4 inch lift for side to side leveling. No need to cut them to fit between the tires (at least on the 2017 model).

I put together this tester at the suggestion of another Oliver owner and keep it handy in my truck door pocket. The voltage display was ordered from Amazon and is advertised as a night light as well. This combination tests the pedestal for not only the typical wiring problems but also for over/under voltage issues. It does not however check for incorrect cycles (above or below 60). I do this very quick test before plugging in. After that the installed surge protector shows and filters out typical voltage, wiring and incorrect cycles issues.

RB, I’ve never heard of them. I changed out mine about two months ago and made several wiring changes in the process. I went with three Battle Born 100 AH batteries. I’ve been very happy with this setup so far.

Great! I’m glad that you were able to get the parts you needed.

A couple of years ago I went through the same issues. Dometic had a difficult time finding the correct boards and Dinosaur didn’t have the eyebrow board. I got their main board but it wouldn’t communicate with the Dometic eyebrow board.

Check the junction box located just below the transfer switch. I and others have had loose connections in this area. There are solid wires and stranded wires connected together with wire nuts in this box. This is a difficult type of connection and it is possible that a loose connection in this box could cause the issues that you may be experiencing. Please make sure that your trailer is not connected to shore power and be sure that the inverter is off as well before removing the junction box cover.

My 2017 hull number 208 has the same issue. It’s around the rear window in two places and on the driver’s side rear most window in one small area. I first noticed this maybe a year after I had Oliver take all of the windows out and reseal them with a “new” method that they were starting to use. I am assuming that they used a black sealing putty that comes in a roll and so the color is bleeding through the white silicone that was smeared all around the window frames outside and (unfortunately) well onto the fiberglass. As an aside, does anyone have a good way to cleanly remove some of the white silicone that is smeared on the fiberglass?

Thank you for that timely reminder! We are certainly blessed!

I have had the same problem with my detector as well. It would go off more and more frequently even though it was only less that three years old. Probably a combination of age, normal dust, and the fact that my trailer had been in Oliver service very frequently. Remember the old service area was very dusty. Anyway, I decided to just replace the detector. I found the Atwood 36681 detector in white at Panther RV Products for $49.95. I paid around $20.00 for shipping but that may have been for quicker shipping, don’t remember. That was about a year ago and I haven’t had any issues since. These detectors don’t seem to have a very long service life to begin with (depending on environment) so I think that there are a couple things that can be done to lengthen the detector life. Cover or remove and seal it in a ziplock type bag would protect it during solvent cleaning in the trailer or if the trailer is in a heavily dusty place such as the old service area or similar. Simply covering with plastic wrap would help greatly. In reality, the detectors should be sealed in plastic at the factory (due to dust and solvent) At installation and until delivery day so that the customers can have a new detector with full life expectancy.

John just today I was doing an electrical modification and went to Home Depo to buy a piece of vinyl board. Lowe’s has it as well. They have various thickness and shapes.

John, I took all three of my jacks apart about six months after I purchased our 2017 LEII. I took mine apart because one jack was (is) very loud running in either direction. The grease used in the gearboxes in mine is a white lithium type. I didn’t think there was quite enough used so, I ordered a can of white lithium and added much more. What was factory installed was soft but just skimpy IMHO. The extra grease sadly didn’t change the sound so I’m no longer concerned that the gears may be running dry.

Keep in mind that our fresh water tanks come with a lot of built in trash and that there is a lot of trash that comes in from the many questionable water sources that we either fill our fresh water tanks with or use directly. Any faucets used should be trash/dirt tolerant otherwise you’ll be disassembling or repairing them often. I would think that an automatic temperature control may be sensitive to trash. The faucets and shower mixer that I used are made by Shurflo(?) and are the Trinidad model. The shower head is the Oxygenics brand and has a shutoff valve attached. They advertise that it is guaranteed not to clog with water sediment, and hasn’t so far. Because it’s not an integral part of the sink faucet, the shower head can easily be replaced with any brand I choose. Anyway, clogging is something to consider.

This my bathroom shower/faucet arraignment and was installed by Oliver when our trailer was built. I wanted to have my choice of shower heads and also have the same faucet in both the bath and kitchen.

Our winter trip to Quartzsite was the first long test of our NovaKool fridge. We left home December 20th and arrived back home February the 24th. The first three days on the road it was cloudy and rainy. I don’t know that I had to but, on the third evening I ran my generator for about an hour. Several days of travel out to Quartzsite we boon docked with one night on shore power. Four nights at Lost Dutchman State Park with a day or so of clouds. Ran the generator one morning for a couple hours. We were at Quartzsite for ten nights with mostly sunny days so didn’t need the generator. Traveling home was a little disjointed so there were some shore power days and a bunch of boon dock days but didn’t need the generator on the trip home. Our fridge typically draws about 4 amps while running. Sometimes running more than 50% of the time and sometimes way under 50% of the time. All the while holding fridge temperature at about 34 degrees and freezer at around 19 degrees. We did need to defrost the fridge on the way home. Don’t know if excess frost affected the cycle time or not. Anyway, with our typical power usage we were overall pleased with the ability of the Oliver LEII solar/lead acid battery performance. One issue which Lithium batteries may solve is the Lithium batteries ability to charge quicker than a conventional battery. There were a couple of times that there just wasn’t quite enough hours of sun to get the job done. The next day of full sun was able to top off the batteries. Either more solar panels, quicker charging batteries, or a little of both would solve that issue. I think that the standard LEII solar setup is right on the edge but is probably about 80% or so adequate. Testing continues....when we’re allowed out of our house. Great information Overland! Your assumptions are spot on based on your actual experience, others actual experience, and my experience so far. We liked the extra capacity and relatively quick recovery when loading room temperature items. With the extra capacity, we found that an extra cooler was not needed except maybe if camping many miles away from anywhere to buy food.

Yes, that’s the one. Currently it is imported and installed by Advanced RV in Willoughby, Ohio. They list a cost of $2,749.00 installed. You correctly listed the YouTube video showing the inside of the unit. I agree it would be great to have an AC unit using the Danfoss inverter driven compressor.