Frank C

I always had that concern about getting locked out of the trailer and truck if I lost my keys while on the road, so I mounted a small mechanical (no battery) combination lockbox from Lowe’s inside the rear bumper storage area on one frame rail and kept an Ollie door key in there, and then kept a spare truck key hidden inside the Ollie so I could always get access to everything if I ever lost my primary keys while out away from the trailer.

We didn’t get the Oliver shower curtain track with our Elite II. The curtain track is an odd design, seems a bit expensive, and some owners have had issues with the track detaching from the inner hull ceiling because of a poor riveting job. But we wanted a shower curtain though, so I attached the small Command hooks all around on the bathroom ceiling directly above the perimeter of the shower pan in the floor, and then hung a standard shower curtain on those hooks to take our showers, and easy to quickly remove the curtain to let it dry outside the trailer when done. It was a cheap and effective solution to keeping the toilet area dry. And easy to remove it all completely if ever needed. Command strips/hooks are a great accessory for attaching lot of things on the Ollie interior.

The chains are necessary for the anti-sway function also. The chains connect to the “whale tail” at the bottom of the hitch ball tapered spindle, and any sway or turning of the trailer causes that ball spindle to rotate against the friction material of the hitch, damping the sway. If the chains aren’t connected to the whale tail then the trailer bulldog coupler just freely moves on the ball and there’s no anti-sway function. Here’s a pic from the Andersen website.

There are zerk fitting repair/extractor tools available at most auto stores & Tractor Supply. It’s a combination wrench/tap/extractor. I’ve used one in the past. If the fitting is broken off but the threaded part remains in the wet bolt, the extractor (the pointy tool) should allow you to unscrew the threaded portion. https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/workforce-all-in-one-grease-fitting-repair-tool-for-1-4-in-28-fittings

Make sure the red lever on the Optifuse resettable breaker is pushed inwards (see arrow on picture). The Optifuse breaker on the left shown in the photo is in the open state when the lever is popped out like that. The Optifuse on the right is closed. The red rubber covers on the outer two items are just contact covers on the other self resetting breakers. The Optifuse breakers can manually opened by pressing the little red button on them (which will make the red lever pop out), and then pushing the red lever back in to reset. And this is my first post in a long while since we sold our Ollie. A sad day when it was towed away, but it went to a good new owner. We’ve moved on to other travel plans now. But I still lurk here on the forums occasionally 🙂

It’s because of the greater distance from the rear axle of the RV or trailer to the rear bumper, compared to that same measurement on a car or pickup truck. That greater distance means the loaded bike rack experiences much larger movement up & down and side to side from bumps & potholes in the road, from going around corners, etc. That larger movement means much higher accelerations/forces acting on the hitch and rack. Some motorhomes have ridiculously long rear overhang distance.

Do you only have the plug in 12volt anti-freeze heater kit option installed instead of the standard filter? If so, then yes you will need a standard filter to do the de-calcification process. They are available on Amazon from Truma, but pricey! And check in the Truma compartment thoroughly by opening the outside Truma access door. Some owners (and Oliver service folks) tuck the standard filter into the Truma unit in the area of the wiring harnesses. It just fits in there for storage but can be well hidden. Truma AquaGo Replacement Filter | Compatible with Truma AquaGo Hot Water Heater https://a.co/d/3KBZRdb

I built a similar 2 stage filter system but mounted it in a standard 6 gallon milk crate. All hoses, regulator and fittings store in the crate and the whole thing slides easily into the basement storage area for travel. The filters are mounted using Camco filter mounts attached to aluminum “Z” hanger picture hanging brackets (one bracket on the filters and one bracket screwed to the milk crate) so the filter assembly lifts out to do filter changes. Quick connect fittings on everything so setup at the campground is quick.

It actually happened a couple years ago, back in 2021. https://www.marinebusinessworld.com/news/237945/Dometic-acquires-Zamp-Solar

I listed it on RV Trader and also the Oliver Trailers for Sale Facebook page. All of the legitimate potential buyer leads, and the eventual buyer, were from RV Trader inquires about the trailer. The Facebook page generated a lot of comments and likes but no actual buyer leads.

I added a Zamp port to our Oliver, on the hull near the battery compartment, since it was an easy location to access the correct locations for the positive and negative connections to the trailer 12vDC system, and used a portable Zamp 140 watt panel with an integrated charge controller. It worked very well on trips for our stays at Harvest Host locations, and our recent stay at the Circuit of the Americas track in Austin TX (plenty of sunshine!) for the Formula 1 race, when no power hookup was available. The 140 watt panel was about the biggest that I would want to carry. They are “portable” and they do fold up into a nice suitcase style carrying case but they can still be heavy and bulky to transport.

After ~5 wonderful years with our Ollie and many adventures around the United States and Canada, we are moving on to a new phase of travel in our lives (overseas, cruises, etc.). So our much loved Hull #461 has been sold to a new owner. This forum has been great for support and sharing among the Oliver owners community, and a thank you to all for the great discussions and information shared over the years. We are definitely going to miss our Ollie, but she is going to a good home with a new owner that is very knowledgeable about trailers in general and also Olivers specifically, and I expect he will be joining this forum (he might already be a guest member). Thanks again to all. I'll still hang around/lurk here on the forums, and safe travels to everyone. Frank

I've seen a few variations of rear bumper mounting for generators on other trailers. But if you made a permanent bolt-on mount on the Oliver rear bumper, that puts the generator right by the beds/back windows, bad for noise and VERY bad for exhaust fumes.

Phil was our main contact during our purchase, a huge help with the whole process, and a great contact during our ownership since then. Best wishes on your next phase of your career.

Ditto to this. I had this exact problem on one car that we owned. The stainless cover of the lug nuts split and the base metal underneath corroded and swelled to the point that a socket would not fit on properly. They were a huge pain the a** to remove. Several had to be cut off.