theOrca

Well, evidently trip killers to me are merely minor inconveniences to some others. Who knew? I remain comfortable with my choice, even in the face of some minor snark in one of the above posts. BTW, Oliver handled this in an outstanding manner. Evidently a “one of” type failure.

The RV world is very familiar with the concept of "Trip Killers." Things like: no heat during a mid winter hunting trip, a roof leak over the bed, tire blow-out which does severe damage to the trailer, etc., etc., and etc. Most RV'rs are able and willing to make small repairs on the fly as needed, but some things are just not doable. I just discovered a new catagory which is engineered-in to the Legacy Elite II. Two days ago I left Oak Harbor on my way to visit Hohenwald and get some delivery warrantee problems fixed. I got as far as Stevens Pass, a three hours drive. When using the toilet, a loud "snap" sound occurred and the toilet came completely free of the trailer hull. I took things apart and found that there is a plastic bracket made by Oatley which is evidently modified by Oliver (according to Mike Sharpe) and then used to join toilet and hull. Service said they could ship me the part, but.... it would be three days to get it. (I'm not sure that UPS would deliver to the roadside at Stevens Pass..) My choices were: 1. Wait, install part, and drive hard to make my appointment, 2. Wait, install part and make a rescheduled appointment later this summer, or 3. hire a commercial hauler to take my trailer back to the mother ship. I chose number 3. You can be sure that my spare parts kit will now also contain one of those "special" brackets that I cannot buy at the average RV parts store. Dang, but I hate trip killer failures!! Bill

I recommend you go to my posting on this subject. I have what, where, and how-to with pictures. Bill

I modified my sail switch by bending it so as to make it more sensitive to the fan air. Fixed that. Now if I can just get the darned limit switch to keep from kicking off the propane every minute or so (for 20 seconds)... Oh well, at least the sail switch is workingl..

I think I have figured out why Oliver no longer uses the Dometic Awnings... My "purchase" date of Hull 615 was 6 April 2020. I had it delivered, so the first time I saw it was 11 April. Within 10 days I had noted a hole in my awning, and deep drag marks in the fabric, in the fore and aft direction versus open and close direction. I sent pictures to the Oliver Service department, and was told that I would need to take the trailer to a Service Facility for a Dometic Rep to take a look. (That was actually an error, as I found out that I could have communicated with Dometic myself. Camping World merely took pictures and sent them off to Dometic.) Dometic denied my claim! They claim that I only had 30 days to make such a claim vice the one year warrantee that is stated in the awning documentation. The awning has only been opened two times that I know of. Once by me, and once by Camping World (who agree that the defect was Dometic's fault, and should be covered by warrantee.) I saw no rush to get the awning looked at since I had documented the defect, and did not intend to use the awning again until the fabric was replaced. This coming week I will raise the issue with Oliver Service and see it they will intercede with Dometic for me. If that fails, I intend to lawyer-up an sue Dometic under Washington State law, which is pretty specific as to warrantee issues. No wonder Oliver dumped Dometic. Even United Airlines has better customer service than Dometic...

Wow! Your "easy" is several orders of magnitude beyond mine. What a great job!

I chose 100W heaters as a function of maximum load (three heaters, or 300W). That wattage at 12 volts equals 25 actual amps. I think even that amount of load will seriously deplete my battery bank by dawn on a really cold night. Hopefully the combination of my Honda 2200 for 3 to 4 hours the next day, PLUS the solar will allow full recovery. I will have the option to run one, two or all three heaters as needed/possible. I cannot see any way to get more reflectix between the two water lines and the lower hull on the drivers side... (Bummer!)

Note: I'll bet that only the outside lamps of all four assemblies are the ones lighting up.... The running lights are the wire right next to the 7 pin "hot" wire that goes to the batteries.

I just posted a similar story... Disassemble your trailer 7 pin connector. The moisture and corrosion is on the back side of the plug, not the front side. You are going to find a mess. Clean it up. Add a bunch of dielectric grease and put it together again. LED lamps have a very low "light off" voltage. Leakage which you would have never seen with old style lights will show up early with LEDs;.

Hi John: Skill counts for quite a bit. I watched a friend bring his 1 ton Ford towing a 15,000# toy hauler work his way down the east side of Waconda Pass into Republic on 4 to 6 inches of compact snow and ice. (A lot of ice!) West side of Waconda was snow free. He thought he was in 4 wheel drive. Turns out his truck was lying to him. The front auto-lock did NOT lock up his front wheels. His voice was getting squeeky by the time we rolled into Republic, but he made it. I was very comfortable with my Oliver and 1/2 ton Ram in 4WD

Sure do, 2,800'.

Just a simple data point: During the second half of a recent hunting trip the temperatures averaged 24 degrees at night. In 6 days I used 7 1/2 gallons of propane for the RV heater, and only 2 gallons of propane to run the Honda 2200 for 3 hours every night. I have the Hutch Mountain conversion.

In late October this year I took my Elite II Oliver (Hull 615) to Republic, Washington for Elk hunting. There was 2 to 6 inches of snow on the ground and temperatures of 8 degrees F at night, and highs of 22 degrees F during the day. I stayed in an RV park so as to have AC power readily available. I have a 5 probe digital temperature system installed in my trailer. Probe #1 is near the propane tanks, #2 is under the forward dinette seat, #3 is under the drivers side bunk, #4 is under the passenger side bunk, and #5 is attached to the spare tire. (Note, numbers 2, 3, and 4 are as low is I could get them.) During my first night I noted that #2 temp was at 28 degrees, #3 was at 22 degrees and #4 was at 38 degrees. The "ducted" heat kept ONLY the starboard side of the trailer above freezing. I put small AC heaters under the dinette seat and under the port side bunk. After that, all internal temps stayed above freezing. The drivers side bunk area never got above 36 degrees, even with the 300 watt heater. Having foreknowledge of the expected temperatures, I pumped 8 oz of pink antifreeze into all 3 of the exterior water fittings. I then wrapped the fittings in pipe insulation. I believe that I had not done that, all three fittings would have frozen and cracked. I completely forgot about the exterior shower, but evidently lucked out as there has been no leak so far. I intend to purchase 3 each 100W DC heaters, and install one under the forward dinette and 2 under the drivers side bunk. There is a spare fuse for the drivers side awning which I will use to wire all three heaters through. Have not decided where to put the switches yet. NOTE: Pulling the Olly over salt covered roads can cause a real mess inside the RV 7 pin plug. Oliver service talked me through a very strange set of symptoms, but a set they knew quite well. Symptoms were - with trailer in a camp, no AC connected, occasionally the outside lamps of all 4 of the trailer running light/turn signal assemblies would come on (very dimly). The would stay on until late at night when the battery charge fell below 12.6V. Then they would go out. Service said "it is stray voltage from your 7 pin plug, take it apart, clean it and put some dielectric grease in there." When I took it apart it was so corroded that I replaced the 7 pin plug. Remember, this trailer was delivered to me last March (2020). Service told me that they have switched to a molded 7 pin plug to prevent recent trailers from experiencing this problem. The exterior of the plug looked pretty good, but the interior was a mess!

Your idea works great John. Thank you! BTW, when my unit was delivered to me here in Washington, one of the 4 black wing nuts securing the solar panels was within two threads of falling off. One of the remaining three was merely touching the lock washer. I did as you recommended and drilled one end of each wing nut for the use of zip ties to keep the wing nuts from backing off. Zip ties are sure easier to apply and remove than the "safety wire" I had to use when I was a USN Aviation Electronics Tech! Bill Simons Oak Harbor, WA

Stand by for sticker shock if you have to buy Marinco products. The standard joke in the local boating community is that if it is "yellow" it has to come with a 100% mark-up because it is "Marine Grade" just from being yellow! I bought a 50' Marinco cable because the local West Marine store just wanted it to heck out of their store (heavy, big, took a lot of shelf space, had it for two years, etc.). The gave me a smoking good price, like half off! I then cut it up and made-up the sections and connectors I needed.

Nope, the box is essentially light weight diamond plate aluminum with 3 Deck Hatches and a door. The base plate is 1/8" steel. I put two layers of vibration isolating material between the generator and the trailer. (I had not intended to, that was just the way things worked out!) It would not be a problem to apply the "one side sticky/other side foil" (and expensive) sound attenuation material that stereo installers use, but it would add about 10 to 15 pounds of weight. Three campers ago we owned an Arctic Fox 29' fifth wheel. The generator was located directly below the bed... I applied $120 dollars worth of that stuff in an attempt to be able to sleep with the generator running. It did not work unless you were really, really tired!

There are so many great projects on these forums that I felt obligated to document mine (partly so that others can avoid my mis-steps!). We dry camp the majority of the time. During the winter (until the snow flies) that is not a problem, but summer time on the Eastern side of Washington State can be uncomfortably hot. When we bought the Ollie we knew that the solar system would take care of most of our needs, but that we really wanted a generator capable of running the A/C. We specified the optional soft start add-on for the A/C so that the trailer would be ready. A bit of research showed that the new Honda 2200 would run the A/C, even if it was running on propane. We chose “Hutch Mountain” as the best propane conversion for the Honda 2200. After 10 years of putting generators into and out of the truck I knew that some kind of generator carrier attached to the trailer was a must-have. We chose “Generator Box” as they have one sized perfectly for the Honda 2200. I asked Hutch Mountain if they would do their magic by installing all needed gear inside a Generator Box. They said they would be glad to do so. I had “Generator Box” directly ship the box to Hutch mountain. They did an install and then shipped to us. Perfect !! I did the install of the Hutch Mountain conversion kit into our new generator. BTW Honda service centers get very twitchy about propane conversions. There was/is a recall of a circuit board in the 2200. My local shop will do the recall, but will not even start the generator afterwards. I may have to school them about modifications NOT invalidating an entire warrantee. In my case the engine is now out of warrantee, but the generator section is still fully covered (federal law on this subject is well established). We bought the storage box on our Ollie. I wanted to save as much space in the box as I could for lightweight things, so I designed a frame to support the Generator Box. I initially intended to have the box dropped down into the storage unit by about and inch and a half. That was a bad idea as the latching assembly which secures the box to the mounting plate will not operate with more than about 3/8” of drop below the edge of the storage box. I used aluminum flat stock and 70 durometer Sorbothane to raise the box and give a little vibration dampening. Parts list, purchased or modified by me: Honda 2200 Companion generator to get the 30 amp locking connector 5 feet of aluminum 2” C-channel, ¼” wall thickness 5 feet of aluminum 1½” angle 10 1” SS ¼” x 20 screws with NyLock and two flat washers each 6 1½” SS ¼” x 20 screws with NyLock and two flat washers each 30 1” SS 10x32 screws with Nylock and 2 flat washers each I made a 69” section of Marinco 10 ga power cord Hutch Mountain made a 69” connection hose to hook-up the front end trailer propane supply to the Generator Box quick disconnect. Pictures follow… Any questions, please ask! Bill and Dorothy

Oh yes!

Actually there are three of those yellow fuse holders just aft of the battery compartment, and accessible thru the forward hatch of the port side bunk bed . I now know what two of them do, but not the third. The front jack has it's own fuse holder right at the bottom of the jack...

Within 48 hours of receiving my new rig (Hull #615) I managed to blow the driver side "leveler jack" fuse. After the usual language and self flagelation I figured out which of the three yellow fuse holders located just forward of the jack held the correct fuse. Then I blew it again. Hmmm, sez I, I did not blow the bow jack or the starboard jack... what am I doing differently with this one. It turns out that if you change your mind about jack direction, LET GO OF THE SWITCH, then press it the way you want it to go. If you have the jack going in one direction and you reverse the switch position quickly, you stand a very good chance of blowing the fuse. The momentary current load for an instantaneous direction change must be pretty high! At least now I have a plethora of spare 30 amp MDL fuses... Oh, yes,,, the yellow fuse holder for the driver side jack now has a dab of red paint on it, and the curb side has a dab of green paint.

It was interesting to talk to the Timken rep about seals. National receives the seals, in bulk, wrapped with a piece of plastic from their contract suppliers in Taiwan and other places. National then packages the seals into boxes that Timken provides. The Timken seal boxes do not have QR codes, but DO have the word "Timken" in the latitude and longitude lines on the rear of the box. The seals I had purchased from Amazon were clearly counterfeit as there was Chinese script in the lat/long lines. Returned them, got my money back and reordered from a different Amazon seller. Those were legit. Mission complete...

Now THAT made me snort coffee onto my keyboard!!

After having an Airstream (may it rest in Hades forever), where nothing was ever readily available, I plan on reveling in the stockpile of parts I will accumulate and have for the Oliver...