bugeyedriver

Daniel, I can tell you've had a great time researching and deciding on your trailer. It reminds me of myself, 18 years ago. I had one year until retirement and did extensive research into all available fiberglass trailers available at the time. During the search, someone on the FiberglassRV forum mentioned "a new guy in town", which was the Oliver family's foray into the travel trailer industry. I met Jim Oliver and he told me about his family, his company, and his dreams for the Oliver travel trailer. I was sold. Being in on the ground floor, so to speak, I was coordinating with an eager company who wanted high satisfaction for each and every buyer. Their production was in low numbers, and fortunately, for us early customers, the company was nimble and able to make modifications on-the-fly the the build in order to fit our every wish. While not an engineer, I still had several personal desires they accommodated which were not in the original design. Now, with more than 140,000 miles of wandering, I am convinced I made the right choice. You did too! It was an exciting year! I know you are having a great time dreaming of your Elite II and looking forward to retirement. Enjoy the anticipation and may you have many wonderful years traveling throughout this great land. See you down the road . . .

Will the 1UP not enter the receiver at all, or not slide in far enough? Have you been able to try it in some other 2" receiver to compare?

Looks awesome. Those CGI fellows are true magicians.

Welcome to the family. Expect many, many years of faithful service from #1553. Bosker and I have #14, and it's still going strong after 17 years. See you down the road!

Your update took so long because you tasked it with displaying all the best trout holes in the US.

Welcome to the Ollie family! You've jumped in, headfirst, with a great break-in walkabout. Very nice picture setups and captures . . . looking forward to many more in the future.

Great idea. I've used Winlink via VARA HF when the "shack" is operational. I think the idea of direct web interface will be useful for Winlink

Has anyone here deployed the SL Mini inside the trailer, for expediency during very inclement weather, I realize it has an IP67 waterproof rating for heavy rain. This issue is my personal waterproof rating is somewhat less. The Ollie is fiberglass, and transparent to radio signals. Do you think the internal electronics, stored pots and pans, and the A/C unit above would muck it up?

Steve has a reasonable question about why there is any liquid in the fresh tank at all. Best to have no fluids there at all . . . nothing to freeze. About the slow drainage, well yeah, you do have a tiny drain pipe exiting the trailer from the fresh water tank. The tank is many feet long, but only several inches tall. Not a lot of pressure in the line is available from this configuration, resulting in a puny discharge rate when the trailer is perfectly level. To fix this, raise the nose of the trailer as high as possible, thus giving more depth to the column of water and resulting in a higher pressure at the discharge port and a higher flow rate. It will still take a bit of time, but not as bad as a perfectly level unit. As Steve states, opening the drain while driving is a good tactic, but be prepared for all of the folks passing you, honking and pointing to the back of your trailer as the tank empties. Ha! Good luck.

After reading all of the positive comments about using the SL Mini, Bosker insisted we up our game. We now have one, with a waterproof case, the Anker Prime Power Bank, an extra 50' power cord for the mini for when the Bison chomps the old one, and a USBC to DC5521 adapter cord. Bosker and I are ready to rock-n-roll, with continual connectivity this summer, on our trip from Texas to Yellowknife, NWT, Canada!! (according to SL, Yellowknife has connectivity all way up there at 62.4N) Thanks, everyone, for blazing this trail and informing the Ollie family about this great accessory.

I've had the RAS installed on two tow vehicles that have pulled my Elite tens of thousands of miles. First, on a Toyota Tacoma, and now on my F150. They have worked very well, indeed. The ride is much better with, or without the trailer attached.

Oscar and I joined a group of Casita friends across Route66 in 2010. At that time, I was maintaining a travel blog, and wrote about this slow roll, 6 week rolling rally. What an experience. You may see the blog entries for each leg below . . . Route 66 https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3007645756726633026/1827028768887329538 https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3007645756726633026/8557206823382872761 https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3007645756726633026/2370223351315749809 https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3007645756726633026/7528988860661103017 https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3007645756726633026/3350449929685143274 https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3007645756726633026/1792859826806688906 https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3007645756726633026/5491990304103997971 https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3007645756726633026/7005605717953597183 https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3007645756726633026/2075147676490719768 https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3007645756726633026/5599260935664730409 https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3007645756726633026/8860680107278109509 https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3007645756726633026/6688281851089301235 https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3007645756726633026/6688281851089301235 https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3007645756726633026/4051672574782160612 https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3007645756726633026/8051115801610050117 https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/3007645756726633026/959990365241343917

100% Satisfied customer!! This thing is a BEAST.

Welcome to the family! Let the wandering begin . . .

Welcome to the family, Joey! Get ready for many wonderful adventures ahead.

How sad, seeing your Ollie 'laying down'. It's like a family member being wounded. Glad no human or pet was injured. Thanks for posting this for all to learn from.

finally leaving Texas

The Wonder Egg was born with a 'spring over axle' configuration and sits higher than the average Ollie. I always travel with full tanks, for convenience and most importantly, to lower the center of gravity and provide extra stability in high wind conditions and cornering.

Nicely thought out project and installation. Well done. Enjoy your air fryer creations!

Nice. Placing the vents at the upper portion of the space makes sense, after all, hot air rises. Did you consider a switch activated 12 volt miniature fan to increase cooling when using the air fryer?

Come one, one of those prize racks would surely garner a lot of attention going down the highway on the brow of your Ollie. You can do IT!

I alwaze thouhgt a diatribe wuz a bunch of folk gittin together as a big group, figurin new recipees for wate loss.

Here are pictures of the two air vents in my 2008 Elite. You can see one is located on the wall as you exit the trailer, and the other is in the galley area, on the wall to the left of the sink. They provide passive venting from the rear of the space containing the oven. Not sure of a source for the vents, but you get the idea and should be able to find something similar. If you are particularly handy and inspired, consider a tiny switch activated fan mounted behind one of the vents which could turn it from a passive to an active heat protection. Good luck! Be sure to post pictures of your finished project.

is up yonder

Ron, Thanks for the post. It is a good reminder for all of us (especially single axle Elite owners) to use a TPMS system to monitor the pressure of our tires. Question: Did you have a metal valve stem? The centrifugal forces exerted on the valve stems by the mass of the monitor can result in over stressing a rubber valve stem, so metal stems are preferred with TPMS. So glad your system alerted you to the loss of pressure in time for you to safely get off the road. Pete