Geronimo John

I HIGHLY recommend that when doing brake/bearing service that you verify that the EzFlex "Heart Bolt" is torqued to spec. Always put your torque wrench on the nut side as the bolt head has splines to keep it from turning. We have documented four instances where for what ever reason, the bolt head splines were compromised and that allowed the EzFlex to spin the bolt and nut. What happened then is that the nut walked away from the trailer and the bolt tried to follow. Fortunately the bolts were hanging on by their last two threads. Had these owner's trailer gone negative (Deep pot hole or catching air), the unloaded bolt likely would have flipped out. Not something that you want to experience on the highway at speed. Per BHNCB the center bolt nut should be torqued to 65-75 ft-lb. Per OTT, the flank of the center bolt (NOT the threads) should have Never-Seize applied. If you find your center bolt nut not close to specification torque, you likely have compromised splines. Apply say 50% of torque specification. If it spins, remove and inspect. If you find your splines are damaged..... be glad you caught it. If so, see BackOBeyond's the forum post "Dexter axle loose bolt at the equalizer " and my June 9, 2022 fix. GJ

CRM and JD: What labels or product do you use to label them? I have see JD's many times and wondered where I could get them. GJ

Good to know. My 2018 has the Michelins. GJ

I agree with Both Mike and Steve in their cautions. But, I suggest you have your tires inspected by a qualified technician: If your trailer came with Michelin LT tires, and don't have a lot of miles, there is a probability that they are still in pristine condition as they have been stored inside out of the sun and weather. My experience with Michelins is that they slowly age out compared to other brands. However if they are not Michelin tires, then the odds decline. Any age related defect, regardless of brand should result in a reshod of your Ollie. Follows is a lot of "IF''s": If you are towing your trailer long distances in areas where assistance is unlikely then stretching the life of the original tires is generally a bad idea. If you are traveling at or below the posted speed limits on paved roads. If on the other hand, the Tech finds no defects, and if you are camping local and if the sites are paved, then your risk factor may be acceptable. And the BIG IF is: Are you comfortable and capable of changing a flat trailer tire on the side of the road? That's a lot if "IF's". So basically for me, this is more about Risk Management and not a hard and fast rule that all tires should be retired at age X. Geronimo John

Winterization Step One: If you have a battery master switch, turn it to OFF. If not, disconnect the positive terminal that feeds power into the cabin. The parasitic losses in our trailers are small, but over winter the accumulate a lot and certainly can cause our batteries to suffer. OLD SCHOOL METHOD: Were I in your shoes, I would disconnect all four batteries and individually put a slow charger on them and try to bring them up to charge slowly. Once you get some voltage on them, you could then take the charging power up to 25 amps. Just keep an eye on their temperature. If hot to your hand or boiling, back the charge back to 2 amps or so. The process can take a lot of time slow charging, but the potential for more damage is much less. Once you think you have them charged, you could individually put one at a time on a battery load tester. It will load them up to 1500 watts load and you can calculate how much power they were able to deliver from full charge to the 50% voltage. Don't draw them down below this voltage. The answers between each of your four batteries should be very close. If one is not, bingo you know what failed. GJ

I like your version a lot better than my original "El Cheapo" approach!

Could you rob the shield off the Monroe shocks and use it with your KYB's and reuse the old Monroe cupped washers too? GJ

I thinking that vast majority of OTT owners would not need or want such a heavy, complex, costly to purchase and install, and expensive to maintain suspension. GJ

Best Idea I have heard all day! Bravo! GJ

Excellent comment.... but only up to the point of running out of roller. The root cause of "barber polling" is likely that the canopy has been stretched and is no longer a rectangle of the size it once was. This can easily happen over it's lifetime. Or it can be the direct result of owner error in adverse weather conditions such as high winds and/or heavy rain. Mine appears to have been caused by my lowering the outboard rear end support brace to the ground for the purpose of forcing rain to drain near the rear (Away from the door area). Was a great idea...up to the point that it wasn't. When it stretched they generally become a parallelogram. The amount of "barber poling" that a given set-up can tolerate is dependent upon how much extra top roller space you have. If your canopy is say 14 feet wide and your top roller shaft is two inches longer, then you can adjust the canopy left or right to allow for up to 2" of wonky roll-up. This is what my OEM Carefree (SIC) OTT canopy had. Problem was that I needed three more inches of top roller shaft.... For this reason, when ordering replacement canopies, I recommend buying one at least several inches narrower than the OEM canopy My new one has four inches of such space. With that space, it is possible to do as you suggested several times and not have to replace the canopy. Which I hope to make a moot issue by not being creative in my canopy drainage plan..... Cost Saving Rule of Thumb: Don't let water pond on your canopy. Crank it in and lower the leading edge so it drains well if rain is in the forecast.

James: Ok, now down a notch in the test and eval: I assume your arms are "spring arms", and not gas strut driven arms. Please verify. Would be a good idea to inspect the "elbow" of each arm and check for any cracks that may reflect their having been broken. Does the tarp open symmetrically? Possible weak spring arm. Does it stop opening at the same place each time (Possible gear jamb at the motor.) Does your awning have a manual crank? If so, can you crank it open manually? Is it a smooth operation or does it bind in the process? If so where? Opening with a crank tends to be easier (Has spring assist and gravity) than closing against gravity and the springs as well. If you were to incrementally open the awning, and push on the arms, do all three of them feel as if they have the same tension on the tarp? Try again at various stages of opening. Focus before and after where it tends to bind up. If no, likely one of the arms has failed or partially failed. The next check has some risk and you should have two beefy helpers. Open the awning 100% fully and carefully mark where each arm bolts are attached to the leading edge. Open, the arms should have most of their spring tension released. Place ladders under the leading edge to support the awning leading edge. Tie them WELL to the awning leading edge for security and support. Cautiously remove one arm bolt at the leading edge and verify you can handle any remaining spring tension. If yes, untie the arm, and manually check the spring tension increases more or less lineally as you push it in the closing direction. You will be pushing directly towards the arm upper attachment point. You only need to push it part way to know if the spring closer is operating smoothly and with increasing tension. As you move towards the trailer, the spring arm resistance will increase greatly. Don't even try to go further than you can handle those increasing forces. The elbow will be closing and the action should be smooth. If so, all is good. Reattach the arm to the leading edge as marked. Tighten its bole and repeat for other two arms. This will identify if one of your arms is defective. If the above is inconclusive, then likely you have a motor/gear top spool issue and I do not recommend you doing further testing yourself. Time to get it to Girard experienced technician. I hope this helps. Hopefully other owners with this awing have additional ideas or any concerns about the above. If the above does not id the problem, I'm at a loss as well. GJ

I have the CareFree unit and as others have previously stated "It for sure isn't". That awning is THE most time intensive frustrating bugger I have worked on Ollie. I hope that your Girard 750 is much less so. Three cautions: Awning arms have tremendous torque and if not very securely roped down when doing service can get away from you in an instant. If it does, it will "Break it's back". I made this mistake and have one new arm. Be sure to read the owners manual and hopefully Girard has videos as well. I watched all the Carefree video's except one. See Item 1 above. All awnings stretch. So don't lower the back corner to cause rain to avoid falling off the awning near the entry door. Over a couple of seasons It will stretch the fabric and then it will not roll up square on the tube. When that happens you'll have a problem rolling up the tarp. I found out that this is a great way to have an opportunity to buy a new awning tarp. And also to learn about Item 2 and then Item 1 above. Needless to say, I really dislike working on my awning! As John D. says "Lots of bad words"......... GJ

JD: Did you remove the Mechanical/Electrical/Gas section from the box inside or outside of your Ollie Cabin? Great pictures. Thank you. GJ

James some question for understanding: When you look at the rolled up canopy, is it cleanly stacked or is it "barber poling". (I.E. not cleanly stacked by walking up/down the roller as it retracts?) When rolled up, is the canopy evenly rolled on the roll? I.E. the roller is longer than the width of the canopy. There should be some unused roller space as a result and it should be equally split on each end of the roller. Do you have a way to check the amp draw and voltage at the Motor? How does this compare with the O&M specifications? About how many times have you used the canopy? Did it work well each of those times? Are each of the arm bolts secure and not slipping? One end will have adjustment and if that bolt on one of the arms is slipping, it could prevent the canopy from keeping "Square" and bind the effort to extend. This would not be a problem on retract though. GJ

Two possible tongue in cheek answers: With my hearing that is a moot question! 🙂 My vision is far superior to my hearing. 🙂

When brake inconsistencies pop up, one of the basic and easy to do checks is to measure the amperage of power going to each brake actuator (magnet). If they are all the same, then it eliminates them from the stew. If you find that one or more of them are not drawing the amps (3 amps for our model and likely yours) per brake, then the temperature of the drums on the other side will be elevated. I fought the same problem as you did and ultimately my problem was that the brakes on the street side were not adjusted properly. Likely by the dude doing the annual brake service. Oh.... sorry.... that was me. Once i tightened them up about 20 clicks the temp's equalized and the brakes work great. PS: years ago, JD suggested (and I implemented) the removal of the Ollie rim fat "hubcaps". It makes getting a direct temp reading of the rotors SO much easier. Also, it makes inspection of the grease cap (is it still there) or adjusting the spindle nut with the tire still installed (but off the ground) possible as well. And at $9 for the little hub cap plastic cover no longer necessary it saves a few $$ too.

As such, one could logically deduce that the refrigerator is on a different circuit, and OTT has run the wire to it in such a way that it passes behind the sink. Should this be the case, when I upgrade my refrigerator down the road, I will have the ability to better consider routing of power to the frig. I'll look hard at replacing this line in such a manner that it does not even transit this potentially wet area. GJ

That's a great idea. Which brand has worked for you? GJ

These bolts are important to at least look at when servicing our propane tanks. Thank you for the reminder! These bolts, are among many hundreds on our travel trailers. Should they loosen and fall down, they likely will escape the confines of the Dog House. Their dropping to the pavement could do some damage as they bounced around and exited the area . Most likely the TV operator would not know when this happens due to having two rubber security straps still in place. However, finding the now lost bolts along the highway could certainly be a PITA. Should this happen, I would have wished that I had been reminded of a very simple way to ensure at least that these bolts didn't run away from home. So, again I thank you for bringing up the topic of loose dog house cover fixing bolts, and now how to avoid their roadside loss as well. Mahalo, GJ

Where I have bitter ends of bolts sticking out with extra threads showing, I like the idea of giving them the "Vice Grip Nut Retainer" trick. Best to do so about 1/4" from the bitter end so that should you need to remove the nuts/washers and lock washers you can drive the nut off and reinstall another new one on clean and pretty much undamaged old threads. The obvious advantage of having a means to retain the hardware, is that should you notice its loose, you just need to tighten things up.... with a bit of Locktite as suggested. The alternatives are to either double nut (more weight and cost) or center punch the bolt end to make nut loss, and replacement more difficult. But the VGNR approach costs nothing and saves time, adds no weight, and prevents loss of hardware in the first place. Good reminder so THANKS! GJ

Spot on. Impact during difficult times will be that OTT and other OEM's will be scouting for batteries and the price for their product will be higher than Winnebago's making the Winnebago travel trailers/campers less expensive by comparison. Would behoove OTT to set up a preferred supplier with companies like Battleborn and Victron. GJ

Under the refrigerator?

This is our pre-departure check list. It is printed on both sides and one has inside trailer and the other copy has outside trailer highlighted. This allows us to remember where respectively they STAY ...... and eliminated "who lost it" discussions. Sending as a word document so you can edit it for your trailer. More than a few things have changed since Hull 342 hatched. GJ CHECKLIST 2023 OE2 Pre-Departure Check Lists (25 NOV 2022 Version).docx

This is our first trip arrival and service check list. It has all the items that I do when taking our Ollie out of deep winter storage. Hope this is helpful. PS: I have sent ours as a word document so you can update it as you desire for your needs. Some of our 2018 items will not apply to your rig. GJ CHECKLIST 2023 OLLIE ARRIVAL AND SERVICE CHECKLIST (11 MARCH 2023 Version).docx

5 years ago I did the same thing with 3M VHB Heavy Duty Mounting tape (Amazon.com). I very carefully leveled the dispenser over the kitchen counter area with my six inch level and it has been in place faithfully after many miles. That was my first effort not to use screws and mounting an item in Ollie. About a year later, I was sitting at the dinette and noticed that the dispenser was tilted. First thought was "Drats that VHB tape is slipping". Tried to push it back "level" again. Nope. That tape is tenaciously adhered. Problem is that when I installed the dispenser, Ollie was not level. DUHHHHHH... (Picture Homer Simpson with Ice Cream Cone on forehead.) RECOMMENDATION: Don't use very much of that tape. Really! One little strip is all you need for your kitchen paper towel or magnetic cooking utensil or knife holder. QUESTION: Anybody have any thoughts how to remove a VERY WELL adhered dispenser without creating a giant divot in the inner hull? GJ