mossemi

I can understand the coupler pulling up the ball and cone a little bit if the locking collar was not released and you were actually lifting the TV with the trailer while trying to create slack in the chains while unhooking. I don’t understand how that could happen while hooking up unless you have actually connected the the coupler and ball and are again lifting the TV with the trailer to create slack in the chains. There is a good video on YouTube showing how to connect a shackle to the Whale Tail plate if one of the chains is long enough to connect and the other is too short. It allows the trailer to pull the Whale Tail straight enough to allow the short chain to be connected. The method best for me is as follows: 1. Chock the wheels on both sides of the trailer 2. Unlatch the coupler 3. Use the front jack to raise the coupler off of the ball and if the chains are still too tight, keep raising the coupler enough to allow the TV to be backed up a couple of inches. 4. The chains should now have enough slack for easy removal of the Whale Tail or the shackles. 5. Level the trailer as you normally do. If you use this procedure to hook up, be sure to leave the chocks in place and raise the rear jacks before lifting the trailer on the front jack. Good luck, Mike

We used both dogs?. Oh well! And the only place I can find a replacement is at eTrailer, although I haven’t talked to OTT about it either. Mike

Drawer Locks There have been quite a few postings about galley drawers opening during travel. I am constantly amazed at the ingenuity and craftsmanship of my fellow forum members. My first drawer management version consisted of small Harbor Freight suction cups and 1/2” PVC pipe. It was a simple fix and worked well, but then I followed topgun2's recommendation to clean the inside of the dog house with the Norton's Duragloss recipe. The inside was clean, shiny and so slick, I couldn’t get the suction cups to stay in place any longer. So we once again had the unexpected open drawer experience during our rally trip this year and the hunt was on for a new solution. This was the product I chose and we will test it on our next trip with fingers crossed. And this is how I mounted them to the cabinet supports and drawers. Edit: The drawer locks worked very well on our last 2900 mile trip. Edit: The link above to Amazon actually takes you to the 8 lb. version of the latch. I used the 5 lb. version and corrected the Amazon link. Mike

After reading your original post about the Mikado and High Sierra products, I thought about adding a diverter after a mixing valve to avoid the hassle you dealt with adding an adapter. It sounds like the direction your going. Good luck and keep us up to date on your progress. Mike

Since my propane detector has gone off twice this morning, sitting in the driveway, I am now wondering if mine that goes off all of the time is the defective one. Or is the ones that have never gone off that are defective. Just thinking out loud. Does anyone have a test procedure for verifying a propane detector functionality that they can share? Mike Mossey

So that's where the half bottle of REJEX I found in our camp site at the Rally came from??. And I thought it was the Norton's that we’re spreading gospel about Duragloss. One of us is losing it and I haven’t spent the last 2 months casting flies in Mountian streams for large mouth bass bait. Mike Mossey

We also suffer from Propane false alarms. I must admit that I have placed a fan near the detector to clear the air on occasion and run the MaxxFan nearly 24/7. The statement about detector location made me search for recommendations and I found the following statement from this website. Propane is heavier than air, accordingly it will sink and accumulate near the floor of any room. Place the Propane detector on the wall 2 feet from the floor, and at least 2 feet from any corner. So maybe the solution is to move the detector. I’ll have to consider that. Mike and Krunch

This is what I use at home to keep peace in the house. I do not know about the one WhatDa recommended, but this one allows me to totally mute the television while listening on my Bose 35's. Mossey

I’m not sure what you are talking about with “ locking collar and springed rings”. edit: I re-read your original post and now understand you reference to springed rings and locking collar, sorry. I do believe the problem is the hose you bought has a 3/8” male quick connect fitting and the Oliver comes with 1/4” female quick connect fittings. Mossey

My Ollie requires a type 250 male quick connect fitting on the accessory hose in order to plug into the type 250 female quick connect fitting mounted on the tongue. For my hose, it does not matter if the gas shutoff lever on the female fitting is on or off. I slide the locking collar toward the inside of the trailer, plug in the hose and slide the collar back toward the outside. Look for a type 250 or 1/4” male quick connect fitting. Mossey

Krunch and I visited this area in our pre-RV days on multiple occasions while staying in cabins and lodges. The Custer, SD area is beautiful even if you don’t like motorcycles and there are usually a lot of them in the area. We really liked Custer SP and if Wind Cave is closed, try Jewel Cave National Monument. It’s a different type of cave and didn’t have an elevator when we visited. There is a mammoth dig site it Hot Springs, SD that we thought was pretty cool in 1996 and I hope it still is. And don’t forget Devils Tower NM. I think Dave and Cindy recently posted about camping there. We really enjoy the town of St. Mary on the eastern side of Glacier NP for the smaller crowds and be sure to stop at the Park Cafe for a meal or a slice of pie. The Many Glacier area of GNP has great hiking is just north of St. Mary and is on the way to Waterton Lakes NP in Canada. Watertown-Glacier International Peace Park was the first of it's kind and any visit to the area should include time for both parks. We have taken the boat ride on Watertown Lake and there is a drop off for the Cript Lake hike. It is a pretty strenuous hike, but worth the effort. Or you can take the boat to the south end of Watertown Lake and exit at the American ranger station and walk back to Watertown Township on the west side of the lake while crossing the International border. There is a loop road through Yellowstone and we like the eastern route and the NE entrance to the park goes through Lamar valley which is great for wildlife viewing. Look for people set up along side of the road with telescopes, looking for bears, wolves and their prey. The Tetons are special and it sounds like Don has a good camping spot there. Safe travels, Mossey

Maybe this post will answer your questions about the Andersen WD hitch. https://olivertraveltrailers.com/topic/hooking-up-and-unhooking-the-anderson/#post-181476 Mike

Thank you for the kind words about the travel trailer I chose for my first “RV”. It is interesting to have such positive comments from someone with the experience you have with Airstreams. And just so you know, there have been a variety of solutions concerning the non-locking drawers from our creative Oliver community. Thank you, ‘Mike

Mike, I didn’t know you had the Zamp Sidewall port until I saw your Timbren SES post which was after I had asked Jeff about his Zamp port. I run the Timbren SES's on my Land Cruiser. I had wondered why there were some many SAE reverse polarity adapters available and now I know. Did you install your own Zamp Sidewall port or did OTT do it? I was going to buy a 25' MC4 to MC4 extension cable and wack about 6' off and splice in an SAE connector and use the cutoff to reach the batteries inside from the Zamp port. I’ll pay attention to the polarity as I go about adding the SAE connector and the Zamp Sidewall port. Thanks for the heads up and since there are so many Mike's on the forum, I should probably switch to, Mossey

This is what I see when I look at your profile. I hope it’s like you left it. Mike

Overland said: Starting a new thread since the other one seems flaky. This is mostly for Mike since I can’t figure out how to send photos via PM. I’ll do a big post on my electrical setup someday, after I’ve redone a few things <b> and added a different hookup for my portable solar.</b> I bought the Renogy 100W suitcase last week on Prime Day. Thanks Mike and JD. And now I need a solar port. I know some people have used the Furrion solar port, Raspy used the CNLINKO and you have the Zamp solar port. And that’s my question, have you changed out your factory Zamp sidewall port? If not have you used it and are you satisfied with it? Thanks, Mike

Thank you for the clarifications. If we decide to follow that path, I’ll reach out for your recommendations. It’s been in the back of my mind for a while and I want a new roof prior to solar panels. The solar option on the Ollie has really been a revelation as to its benefits. We have had two 4 hour outages in the past two weeks and we have discussed a larger generator. I know from my work in wireless communications that fuel is the biggest hurdle during widespread, long term power outages. We also lost power for 7 days after Charley and 4 days with Irma and both hurricanes really devastated fuel supplies, so the solar option is very appealing. Thanks, Mike

Your graph pictures are labeled with Tesla, so I assume you have Tesla panels. Do you also have the Tesla battery wall? I think that’s what they call it. Are you happy with the ROI of your system? My neighbor certainly is happy with his Tesla panels, but last we talked, he was waiting on the batteries or battery wall. Mike

Not sure if Mike/rideadeuce has a HD Deuce or not, but if so maybe he could hang it from the rafters with those. Or you could replace your safety chains as they seem to meet the weight requirements. ? Mike

In the old days the adapter we charged our cellular phones with was called a CLA or cigarette lighter adapter. But you could also smoke in restaurants in those days. I vote for charger socket, but what about the USB port at the same location? I guess that could be a charger socket as well. Mike

Looks like the pictures got lost, maybe in the server upgrade. Mike

Townesw said, I had to go in under the bathroom sink to work on the faucet. I’ll post about that later. Thank you for the pictures. Although Steve's explanation certainly made sense, a visual reference is a good thing. And since I haven’t opened the vanity yet, it answers some questions that I have been pondering. Looking forward to to your post about the faucet. Mike

JD, This picture is from my 2014 Land Cruiser manual. [attachment file=291D2362-F26Aattachment-file181974] Now as I explained, I do not have as much RVING experience as most people on this forum, but as a young man, I was a member of IUOE Local 925. As an apprentice and journeyman Operating Engineer I had the opportunity to lift, haul and drive some very heavy loads. Does this apply to towing an Oliver? A little bit in my opinion, because I did learn quite a bit about safe working loads. It's always safer to error on the side of caution. I believe the circled statement means my LEII, which has a factory sticker weight of 5180 lbs would exceed Toyota's requirement even when empty and with Krunch's traveling wardrobe, ? it's definitely a need. Mike

Just to clarify my position, a little background. Our Toyota Land Cruiser requires a weight distributing hitch for the load of a LEII. The Oliver is our first RV, Trailer or camper we have owned. We have rented a class C before and that helped with the decision of what I wanted to own. I started out wanting an Airstream after seeing a vintage 16 footer that was probably a Bambi, in a camp ground in Northern California in 2001. It was as shiny as a mirror and was pulled by a red 1954 Ford F-100 and that set the hook. I watched Airstream's both vintage and newer and never found anything I could afford without getting divorced, as my wife wanted absolutely nothing to do with camping after about 1980. She was quite comfortable staying in cabins in National Parks or hotels nearby. We visited about 70 of the properties within the National Park System in that fashion and she was quite comfortable with that arrangement. So I faced an uphill battle in my desire to purchase my own motel room. I saw my first Casita in 2005 while visiting my mother in Ottawa, IL. After talking with the owner, I set off in a different direction, fiberglass. And although the price point was within reach, I still struggled getting approval from the WAR department. So I kept looking and dreaming and stumbled onto Oliver's shortly before Chris and Cherie of technomadia fame were upgrading from a TAB Trailer to an Oliver Elite and that really lit my ?. I started following Oliver’s from afar and remember the red and black Elite's being offered for sale in Quartzite and then production stopped and Oliver's were very, very scarce. Fast forward to 2014 and Oliver's were back in production and then Krunch and I met Mountianborn at a rest area north of Tampa in 2015. Larry gave me a great tour of the EliteII and Krunch showed her displeasure by staying in the car. Then in 2016, we stopped by Hohenwald on our way back from buying the Land Cruiser in Kentucky and Krunch and I visited the sales office and the factory. We had turned the corner, my persistence was beginning to pay off and my plans were coming together. I volunteered for early retirement in November 2017, leaving 5 months earlier than planned and immediately found a 2017 LEII for sale. I ignored it for a month as my dream was to order my own and I was waiting until the first of the year. In December I talked Krunch into going to Georgia just to look. Of course we bought it and went back in January to pick it up. Now that I have made a long story longer, let's talk about the Andersen. I knew I needed a weight distributing hitch prior to buying the Land Cruiser as a tow vehicle. I ordered an Andersen from Amazon, saw a couple of postings about the center frame connection and also saw it in Andersen's installation guide. Using information from JD's center frame how-to, I picked up the additional truckers chain and miscellaneous hardware needed. We put the hitch together in a parking lot after picking up the Ollie and headed home. We stopped about 50 miles down the road and tightened things up and it’s been all good ever since. Sure, it is sometimes difficult to connect or disconnect. Andersen's YouTube videos have helped with that aspect. Sometimes I have to throw a tarp down and loosen or tighten up the nuts, no big deal. And I am sure that sometime in the future, I will have change a tire on my TV or the Ollie while parked on the side of the road and it won’t be fun. But when we get to the next camping spot, it will be forgotten. Then the first cone made some noise and Andersen sent me a new and improved one, no questions asked and no charge. I have purchased other Andersen products and always felt like they have value. I gave the Andersen rep's that attended the 2019 OTT rally a locking drawbar pin that I could not unlock anymore and a month later a new one was at the house. One thing I have discovered in my limited RVing experience is that it is a participation sport. Sure we could all go to a lodge somewhere and have someone else light the campfire fire, but who, here on this forum does that? There may be better options than the Andersen weight distributing hitch, but I’m not looking for it. I have to have one and I am quite happy with mine. Sorry to take up so much of your time, but you asked. Mike

Wow! You sure have been busy. Once again a very nice installation. You should’ve let us know you were going down this rabbit hole, I would have bought some Victron and Zamp stock. Mike