Geronimo John

Thanks Craig. Many thanks. Also, nice wire racks! GJ

Please do confirm the number of feet to do them all. Thanks GJ

Those are great filter units. Which one do you carry in your Ollie? GJ

Our older hull 342 Owners Manual does show a cell Switch and a WiFi switch wiring. But it's location is not "to scale" shown. Where are your switches located? Knowing that would greatly reduce my "Easter Egg Hunt". thanks, GJ GJ

We're the HOT weather campers so.... Will the 7 cup fit in the door of the Dometic OEM frig? GJ

Frank: Great water process and planning for an emergency BugOut. The only caution I would suggest to new owners is to be aware that if they have LiFePO4 batteries, to know their specific charging requirements. For our Battleborns, it is not recommended to keep floating them to 100% for both use or for storage. Each mfg has specific charging and storage requirements for their batteries, and some, such as Battleborn, especially so for unattended deep cold winter storage, and it is not anywhere close to 100% SOC. Thanks for sharing your process. I'll be copycatting some of your thoughts into my routine as a result. GJ

Most importantly..... the good attitude will always carry a bad day with smiles. GJ

Yes, I did for many years. Then needed it. Don't now. 🙂

Craig: Don't know which furnace and stove you have, but if you check their BTU input ratings you could find the answer. If the actual required loads are less than the rated load, you're golden. Here is all the Suburban models that are in my 2018 hull 342 furnace O&M manual: I suspect as you are way under the rated load, you will be fine. But do add up all your gas usages (BBQ, Stove, etc.) just to be sure. JPRussell

Interesting question for sure. My family history is in the crude and natural gas transmission and drilling areas. No real experience on the refining side. So the below is just an educated guess. I do know that refineries have options on which product (AV fuel, gasoline, #2 Diesel and #6 heating oil, asphalt, and tars) that can be made. There are many combinations of percentages that they can operate at, some plants more efficient on some crudes than others to make the mix of their production. So, to answer your specific question: My intuition says that they will shift their production towards AV fuels and Diesel. However they will always be making gasoline.... at least during our collective lives anyway. GJ

Thank you Jeff for opening the door on this aspect of our "Clean Energy" asperations. The above comments are interesting and informative. I feel certain that the market will dictate where the Gas/Diesel fuel topic goes. I am more worried about the higher level aspect of where will all our energy to travel comes from. The below are my personal feelings and concerns with our energy infrastructure. Your hope is a good one, and I share it. But sadly I don't think there is any chance of that for many more years. As a country, and a world, we pretty much missed that boat 20 years ago. Why? Coal Power Plants: The EPA emission requirements for coal fired power plants have resulted in significant reduction of these "Cheap" to fuel environmentally dirty power plants. Down the road, it is not likely that they can or will be replaced as the older coal power plants are decommissioned due to age and high cost to meet Clean Air Act requirements. Significant coal investment on a national level died years ago. Nuclear: This for now, and likely 20 or more years, is the only power source that could meet the needs of the zooming EV and other needs. But they take way too long to build, and in some states it will ever happen. Hydro Power Plants: How many new lakes suitable for hydro power production have been built in the last 30 years? Basically none. How has hydro electrical production faired as a result of global weather change? Well down. With the EPA required environmental assessments becoming next to impossible to get approved, I don't anticipate this type of power production to be one to hang our hats on either. Wind/Solar: Yes, we are making huge investments in these technologies. Sadly the vast majority of this equipment is imported. Regardless, for sure in some locations, they will shoulder most of the DAY TIME power needed for the millions of EV's coming towards the market. But Wind/Solar can not be relied upon every day and night without major power storage. To date we just don't have the infrastructure or a technology to do so at a grid level. So back to burning more natural gas to charge all those EV's at night. So basically for the foreseeable future, I believe that Natural Gas will be used to fuel the vast majority of the power for the planned millions of EV's. But again our society has pretty much killed off the initiatives for the energy industry to build the pipelines necessary meet the pending demands of the EV. Worse, the energy industry as a whole does not trust that such billion dollar investments to be profitable to their share holders. Same problem with funding new refineries, pipelines, and drilling new fields as most of our existing fields are beyond their prime. The result is that there is a finite amount of natural gas that can be delivered and used for power production. Existing limitations will cause shortages and you can expect that the cost of power will rise significantly as time passes. Also that weather related problems will result in punishing costs to be incurred as we have not embraced buried utilities as many countries have. I can only hope that reliable battery technologies come on line, and we in the USA get our heads around the need for a comprehensive energy policy that addresses bridge technologies to get us through the next 20 years as we embrace the EV wave heading our direction. In the mean time: The utility companies are closely watching the Hawaii situation where our home and commercial use of solar panels have drastically changed the grid peak times for power production. Peak power production on Oahu used to be afternoons, and is now during late afternoon and evenings after sunset. Now they are moving us to time of NIGHT high power pricing. So if you are needing to replace appliances, recommend you consider ones that you can select when you want it to run. Investigate home solar panels, solar hot water generation, and solar produced power storage investments while there are federal, state and local incentives to do so. Have enough power storage so that you can use your investment when the grids are "temporarily" down. I think that the good news is that the Oil/Gas industry is not going away in our collective life spans. As such, our gas/diesel burning "old school" TV and Ollie will likely love the deserted roads at night when the solar powered EV power stations sit idle with thousands of EV's waiting their turn at the few grid powered Charging Stations. We'll beep beep our horn as they wait for sunup to get some juice into their batteries once again. I keep wondering why we rarely hear anything about addressing the capital costs for the needed electrical production, high voltage power lines and substations needed to feed the 50,000 power stations being built today. GJ

JD: Great graphic. I intuitively knew what was happening with air pressure and tire contact/drag forces, but had not seen it visually. thanks for sharing. It also makes a great justification for not going over 50 PSI on our OE2's unless it is way loaded. For us in the 6,000 pound group, doing so would appear to be little drag reduction with increased down sides as discussed above. Would be totally cool if OTT could run the OE2 over a glass plate at these pressures to see how close it mimics the Jeep visual. My gut says it would be really close. GJ

Yea, me too. Mine was a sheet of recycled military PSP (Perforated Steel Planking armoring a ditch crossing. Thank God Ollie was not under tow that day. Needless to say I got out the hack saw and significantly increased my hitch clearance.

Cool hitch. Could I use it to plow up my asphalt driveway? 🙂 GJ

Trailer's have been wearing out tires for ages. They can run in an amazingly wide range of tire pressures successfully. However running above or below that "Sweet Range" and the tires will make you quite angry. So bottom line we are talking about where in the Sweet Range we should run our OE2's. I submit that all the recommendations above are less than optimal and should not blindly be used. So before you get out your flame throwers, ponder the below first. I believe that within the "Sweet Range": A. Tires run at a lower pressure likely have a better ride for Ollie, but they also require greater power to run down the highway. B. Tires run at lower pressure when damaged get to flat quicker than ones at a higher pressure. This results in less opportunity to get pulled over before you start trashing the highway with dismembered rubber tire components. C. Tires run at higher pressures are more prone to puncture from pot holes and road hazards. Especially so when off road. QUESTION: So GJ, how do you run most efficiently, at a pressure to be the most flat resistant mode, while giving Ollie the best ride, and provide my family the best safety margin should you have a puncture? Answer: You can't have it all at the same time. QUESTION: OK GJ, what tire pressure do you run your Ollie at? Answer: Depends. If I am on the interstate or good roads running at highways speeds I use 50 PSI. When I go off road, I air down to 30 PSI for most conditions. If I am transiting soft ground and need maximum sink resistance, then down to 20 PSI. QUESTION: But GJ that's a PITA isn't it? Answer: Nope. I use a TPMS and an IR temperature reader to keep a watch on bearings (With hub caps removed as JD suggested), have a quality calibrated air gauge, and have a 20V Dewalt compressor. Takes me less than 12 minutes to air up/down four Ollie tires between highway and off road mode. Point is that each of us have different trailer weights that can vary depending on our loads at the time. We also travel different paths that our trailers must endure. SO, is it "OK" to say I air my trailer tires to XX PSI? Sure if it is in the sweet spot. It may be OK, but it sure is not optimal for all purposes as your trailer weight varies, as do your road surfaces and speed. Hence, my recommended Ollie tire pressure is.... It depends. GJ

Did you include the ROF (Retired Ole Fart) tail gate step, mud flaps, FX4 and HD Trailer package? They likely would bring it closer to the $80K number. 🙂 Just having fun. GJ

That would work as it is "Minimal-expanding, low pressure foam that will not bow or bend window or door frame". Use the expanding type and you would have a huge issue and mess for sure. I made that mistake on some window frames ONCE. It was not funny at the time, but it sure taught me a good lesson about how much power expanding foam has. GJ

2019 F-150 3.5 EB, Super Crew FX4 Lariat: $52K 2023 Toyota Sequoia $80K. There just is not $28K in value added and inflation. Sad commentary from a life long Toyota guy. GJ

I think that the absorption refrigerators are dinosaur's and because of their many safety hazards, will at some time be eliminated from all new RV's by code changes. Only a matter of time. Pre solar and Litho's, this was not possible. Now days, it is very possible to boondock with a 12V refrigerator. GJ

I'll keep my F-150 for sure. Drats I'm a Sequoia fan but their marketing team missed the mark for some of us. For example: Don't want the third row. Don't want just a 1360# payload so ditch the hybrid system and increase the payload! Must have the Center Transfer Case with ability to select 2H, 4H, 4A, and 4L capability. Factory ability to TPMS four of Ollie's tires. Camera system that allows an Ollie rear camera to be added in at a reasonable cost. No dealer markup. At $65K+, surely they can provide a more capable machine for our boondockers. I figure in about 3 or 4 years, Toyota will have gotten the message. GJ

Using a Swiffer may help remove some of the dust. These blinds are pretty fragile so I would not want to hose them down. You may want to check with the MFG. GJ

One issue with eliminating airflow around the control board is that over time, especially in four season environments, condensation will result and the control panel can for sure be degraded. Back to the air movement and thinking outside of the box: Would a can of "non-expanding" foam be feasible for fully sealing the refrig and the compartment? Would make removal for service a PITA, but for sure it would stop the wind into the cabin issue. In your original post, you mentioned smelling gas at the rear of the trailer. For our model, we purchased the rear and front extra propane ports option. Designed mostly for BBQ's. This could also be a cause of intermittent gas leaks. You new sniffer would work great on this. GJ

I agree. That said, there are Darwin Award Nominees all around us. If they choose to be unenlightened, and become the Annual Award Winner, great ,,,so long as they are not around any of us when they do so. On the other hand, IF we can influence them in a kind way by presenting the reality with FACTS, and it causes them to rethink their safety margins... then maybe we have saved them from being that year's award winner. And that is the whole point of all of the above, not to chastise or demean. At least, that's how I read the comments. But then, I'm just another ROF (Retired Ole Fart) GJ

With the on board tanks shut off, if an Owner fount themselves in a frosty environment for the winter..... I shutter to even contemplate such an event with my Hawaii thin chicken skiin, ... they could call a local propane company to deliver a real tank and your idea would be really handy. Hawaii/Safety/Geronimo John 🙂

From my understanding of Ollie winter camping it is not a problem with freezing the tank water, its all the water lines that are at risk first. GJ