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GarryandKristi

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Everything posted by GarryandKristi

  1. I recently had the shackle pin back completely out. Fortunately just as were pulling out of campsite. I am going to “mouse” them to the shackle body with black annealed tie wire. I found the attached on-line.
  2. Likely overtightened. Looked pretty “squeezed” when I last looked.
  3. I agree that the real problem is the cable. I did lube the gate channels by loosening the screws and dosed with a spray can straw with some lithium or silicone spray (don’t remember exactly). It worked for a few operations then back to the default of being about 1/4 “ of full bottomed -out closure. The issue is the torturous cable path of the black tank valve with an insufficient straight final run to the slide valve. I haven’t lubed the cable but I think that is the best solution. I tried the coconut oil stuff and it didn’t solve the lack of full closure issue. Another “solution is just to remove the dinette seat and underlying hatch and just push the slide gate fully closed at the center near the cable termination.
  4. Our OEII is less than 2 years old and all shock bushings are pretty severely cracked - probably have been that way for some time. Trailer has about 6,500 miles on it. Nothing off road or weird.
  5. Replacing them would give peace of mind. The GFCI outlet under the dinette is a standard outlet and connection with a separate outlet box. I am wondering if the non-gfci receptacles that are the scd type are code for trailers and mobile homes? I just hate pulling “big amps” with the microwave at the end of the line with 2 splices prior and a potentially dicey connection at its receptacle. I guess the good thing is that one normally doesn’t run a microwave that long.
  6. We went dry camping this past weekend and when my wife started the Kuerig using an outlet on the bed stand. The machine started then stopped. I thought it was an inverter issue as the microwave went dead too. Went we got home I started debugging and found that not all outlets were dead and all behaved the same whether on shore power or inverter. Turns out a splice in the outlet on the twin bed street side had come loose. All the outlets are on one circuit but both receptacles on each bed side (twin bed arrangement) have splices in the receptacles and a bad splice means that all “downstream” outlets will not work. The outlets are SCD (self-contained device style and instead of terminal screws or push connects have slotted copper bands where the neutral, hot, and ground wires go. They can be wired as pass-through or spliced or end of line. It requires an installation tool to properly press the wire into the SCD slots. The top slice virtually fell out as I opened the receptacle cover. If the Oliver folks used a tool, they didn’t do a very good job. I also opened the receptacle that the Kuerig was plugged into and that pass-through insertion was not solid either. The receptacle specs and installation guide is here: https://mobilehomepartsstore.com/Merchant2/documents/scd-instructions.pdf I decided to get this installation tool as I figure there is a strong possibility that this issue may surface again https://www.magicmobilehomesupply.com/SCDT-Tool-p/3795.htm I also noted that the wiring diagram had errors. There is not a separate leg to the microwave outlet - all outlets are served by 1- 12/2 Rolex cable. The breaker for the outlets was also mislabeled (we have Truma/inverter/no solar. We also have a receptacle inside the closet as well as outside and only one was on the wiring diagram. I think the outlet inside the closet was added a couple years ago. The photo shows the inside of the SCD with the failed spice connection. The slice connection is listed as one of the connection methods but a pass-through would probably be better as it would not affect the other “downstream” receptacles. Hopefully this will help someone if something similar happens. I spent hours tracing wires checking voltage and continuity, etc. before I found the issue.
  7. Actually I misspoke. Our inverter only serves the outlets so even if I wanted to run AC with batteries and inverter I couldn’t. Maybe other configurations have different circuits served by the inverter. That is ok with me - we have the AGMs but I would not want to run the AC if dry camping because I would want to save the battery capacity for other things. If I wanted to run AC without shore power I would run it with a generator. We don’t have solar. Increased battery capacity is nice - I just don’t see it as a solution to running AC in normal situations
  8. An amp-hour is still an amp-hour and there and when you consider having to invert 12 to 120 volts, there is quite a price to pay in amperage draw. My guess is that instead of being able to run about 1 hour with agms, you might get double? Then of course you have depleted you power supply if off shore power. So I think “running the ac” is more of a gimmick promotion.
  9. We just got back (two days ago) from camping at mistletoe state park in Georgia. Nice park and we had a great site overlooking the lake with plenty of space. RV sites were about 2/3 occupied. South Carolina state parks opened today and Tennessee state parks are taking reservations for 5/15 forward.
  10. We are headed out to a Georgia state park this coming Monday for 3 days. I don’t see where camping in ones RV is a big deal. I can see issues with groups, etc. My one comment would be that a one size fits all set of restrictions is not necessarily appropriate. It is easier to communicate and “implement” so probably is why officials do it. We have a daughter in health care and told her we were going camping. She had much more of an issue with me going to Lowe’s for house projects than camping.
  11. Second Campendium. Use that quite a bit. Reserve America is used as the booking system for many state parks. We normally just use the web site but they also have an app. It is called RA camping.
  12. After pulling the shades off and mounting ring to check for foam tape and possibility of using butyl tape to seal windows as someone suggested under another topic, I don’t think replacing foam tape with butyl is the solution. That appears to be where the window is mounted from the outside. The window flange is caulked around the entire perimeter so I don’t believe there is a path for water egress there. I still believe it is pretty much solely a window track issue. The outer removable rubber strips won’t completely seal the sliding window and the “trough” and weep holes are there for a reason. I do think that the issue is more than just the weep holes and getting them “started” with pipe cleaners etc to provide wicking and overcome the surface tension. When I was cleaning the rubber strips I noticed the the “trough” at the bottom of the sliding window has regularly spaced square openings that allow drainage into the trough then ultimate outlet via the weep holes. My openings and trough had tiny leaves and bits and obvious accumulation of dirt/stuff. So I think the trough that empties to the weep holes as well as the entrances to the trough can get partially clogged and can impede the drainage. I just ordered ez gutters and hope between keeping the tracks/ trough and weep holes clean and adding the gutters the water entrance problem will be mostly solved. It is the really the only issue we have had with our Oliver. Keeping those expensive mattresses dry is important.
  13. Personally I go with Dr. Grabow pipe cleaners. Then again that’s my last name and I do have a PhD. No relation. The plant is inSparta NC and the name was “borrowed” randomly from a dentist in Chicago. They started up during WW2 when briar wood from Europe was hard to get. They substituted mountain laurel. They are sort of known as low-end pipes. Oh well.
  14. LOL. I go the cheap labor route too. Would be handy if you were camping by yourself, but pricey.
  15. I have found that while it increases the signal strength, it does not increase the speed while using a phone as a hotspot. I tested all configurations with a Roku streaming stick and found that direct to the roku rather than via the wi-if ranger was faster (either wireless or direct connection from phone to hdmi adapter. I use the cellular booster. If you think about it, going through the WiFi ranger is just sending the data through another router, so could not speed things up.
  16. Ours makes quite a noise too. I believe it is normal and may be attributable to the gear.
  17. We strap our temperature sensor so that it hangs a bit from a small slatted table we deploy under the awning. That way it is both shaded and nominally ventilated (probably not to NWS specs but hey it’s an attempt). Seems to work well, but I have been known to forget about it while packing up the table. We just move the sensor inside to one of the kitchen drawers between trips. Readout display is mounted by door with command strips.
  18. After testing all combinations (tethered cellular, wireless cellular to Wifi ranger, and finally direct cellular with weboost booster to Roku stick) bypassing the Wifi ranger is fastest. Bottom line is that while Wifi ranger finds and amplifies signals from local Wifi networks, as it is a router it slows down the rate while streaming video. In all of our camping experiences so far we have been strictly on cellular. I think the only real reason for us to have the Wifi ranger is if we are at a distance from trailer and need to run cellular through Wifi ranger to boost broadcast distance.
  19. Thanks for the suggestion David. I used your idea to tether my iPhone with usb. The one thing that may be different with some phones and your jet pack is the usb protocol. My iPhone 8 has usb 2.0. I just started comparing USB tethering with WiFi tethering to the WiFi Ranger. I actually think the WiFi May be faster in my case. In either case am positioning the phone next to cell antenna. I have yet to prove anything, just a bit of empirical findings.
  20. Does the jack-it tower sway as much as it appears to do in the manufacturers video? thanks, Garry
  21. Since you already have the bike wing rack, you might think about this mount. It’s the Lippert version aka “Jack-It”. I don’t think you can buy the tower alone, but you could think of something along those lines. Mike <noscript><img class="gdbbx-bbcode-attachment-image" alt="20190522_153445" src="https://olivertraveltrailers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/20190522_153445.jpg" /></noscript> The video on the manufacturers site shows quire a bit odd deflection (wobble) due to the tower and high center of gravity. (Jack-it). Have you had any issues with this? Thanks.
  22. Since you already have the bike wing rack, you might think about this mount. It’s the Lippert version aka “Jack-It”. I don’t think you can buy the tower alone, but you could think of something along those lines. Mike <noscript><img class="gdbbx-bbcode-attachment-image" alt="20190522_153445" src="https://olivertraveltrailers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/20190522_153445.jpg" /></noscript> The video on the manufacturers site shows quire a bit odd deflection (wobble) due to the tower and high center of gravity. (Jack-it). Have you had any issues with this?
  23. Since you already have the bike wing rack, you might think about this mount. It’s the Lippert version aka “Jack-It”. I don’t think you can buy the tower alone, but you could think of something along those lines. Mike <noscript><img class="gdbbx-bbcode-attachment-image" alt="20190522_153445" src="https://olivertraveltrailers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/20190522_153445.jpg" /></noscript> Watched a video from the manufacturer site and the “jack-it” seems to have a lot of deflection (wobble) when the vehicle/trailer is in motion. The unit is a novel idea but have you found excess or concerning wobble in yours? Thanks.
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