Rivernerd

See this excellent post by John Davies for instruction on how to adjust "Nev-R-Adjust" brakes on an Oliver.

Did you check the adjustment mechanism on the bottom of the assembly? You should be able to back off the adjustment screw a bit to create more separation between the shoe and the hub.

We not only asked, but got lucky. We were also initially told "no," because there were no open, later, production dates into which we could be slotted. So I put in a request, advising that if a later production date opened up, we would be happy to defer delivery to get the Truma AC upgrade. When that later (September 29) production date became available (which meant a November 10 delivery date), Rodney Lomax called to confirm, and we accepted, even though it meant towing our new Ollie back from Tennessee to Idaho in November instead of September--when driving conditions in the west can be icy. Mr. Lomax also made clear that getting the Truma AC was not a sure thing, because it depended on that first shipment of Aventa units from Truma being received before production began on our trailer. That shipment date was projected, but not guaranteed. We understood the risk, and accepted it, knowing that we might be driving back to Idaho in icy conditions with a Dometic Penguin II AC unit instead of a Truma. As it turned out, the shipment was timely received (in this era of supply chain issues). We got the Truma AC and, despite an early winter in the west, and the delays in Hohenwald detailed in my report, ended up with a timely weather window. It allowed us to complete the trip home on mostly dry roads (but dealing with some cold nights with lows in single digits and teens at high elevations). Our first notice that the $3800 Truma upgrade included the Varioheat furnace came when we received an updated Deposit Receipt from Oliver in July noting that the Truma upgrade included the Varioheat furnace instead of the stock Suburban. At the time, we were focused on the Truma Aventa AC, and honestly didn't have a preference for either furnace. But, since the Varioheat furnace came as part of the package, we hoped it would be an improvement. For what it's worth, we did have some furnace ignition issues on cold nights at high elevation in New Mexico, Colorado and Utah last week, but we suspect it was the elevation (4800 to 6200 feet) affecting propane gasification, which probably would have occurred with either furnace. But, as noted in my report, we are pleased with the more robust ducting, and the additional return air vent that came with the Varioheat. I am sorry you are having so much trouble with your furnace, and apparently wound up with balance beads without the screened valve stems. I recommend you submit a service ticket to Oliver, advise them that you have had two stuck valve stems, and ask them to ship to you 5 of the Counteract filtered valve stems they mailed to everyone else who mistakenly got balance beads. Swapping out valve stems should be much easier than trying to remove all of the balance beads. In your shoes, I would have a less positive view of Oliver as well...

I have EZ lube fittings on my raft trailer. They are great for extending the time between bearing repacks, but I am not comfortable letting my wheel bearings go more than 2-3 years without a full repack, even with a shot of grease into the zerk every 6 months or so. I go by the old saying "Its' not the age, its the mileage." If your trailer only gets used 4 weeks a year, and is only towed 4K miles during those 4 weeks, I would be comfortable waiting to repack the bearings until I got to 10K miles or 2 years. There are pros and cons to Nev-R-Lube bearings. See this thread:

Thanks for the tip!

I adopted John Davies' turnbuckle approach with our new Elite II picked up on November 10, 2022. After camping 12 nights at various places in 7 states, and towing more than 2000 miles, I am pleased with the setup. At one back-in campsite, the whale tail ended up angled relative to the hitch ball. When reattaching the whale tail, I further loosened the turnbuckle on the "long" side, which enabled me to get the whale tail onto the bottom of the ball mount. Then I snugged up both turnbuckles, completing the process with Robogrips. IMHO, this is an additional benefit of the turnbuckle system. But, the turnbuckles don't fully replace the front chain extensions on our 2022 Elite II. They replace 10 of the necessary 23 additional links, so before leaving for Hohenwald, I bought two 15-link lengths of 3/8" chain to serve as chain extensions, to ensure that I had enough chain. And, yep, I now get to cut two links off of each chain, as they turned out to be surplus. Thanks, John, for the idea!

After I replaced the empty tank with our full spare, we had that same thought. So, we put the lever between the two tanks, so it pulled fuel from both. But, alas, it only made a little bit of difference. At 6200 feet in Cortez, CO, even with the system drawing from both tanks, it still took up to 10 "whumps" to get ignition at ambient temps down to 11 degrees F.

If you don't get a resolution with Dometic, I would submit another service ticket to Oliver asking them to get you, through their supply channels, a replacement control board, and walk you through how to replace it. I hope they will at least take those steps for a 2022 trailer still under warranty.

I would call Oliver back on Monday and ask them to lean on Dometic to find a service center that will repair your furnace under warranty. I find it unacceptable that the Dometic service center declined to do warranty work on a Dometic furnace because it is installed in an Oliver. All Dometic products are installed in trailers manufactured by somebody, i.e., Airstream, Oliver, Casita, etc.

The propane tank heater blanket available through the link below pulls only 50 watts (2.4 amps a 120V). So, you may be able to run it from your batteries, through the inverter, for many hours at a time. You could then recharge the batteries with a generator, which might only take an hour or two. https://arcticwarmers.com/product/cylinder-heater-warming-wrap-40-high-temperature-for-lp-tanks/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIr5rMhs7K-wIVE21vBB1uxg0PEAQYBCABEgJR-fD_BwE With our Lithium Pro Package we have 390 Ah of battery capacity. Conservatively figuring 80% usable capacity, at 24 amp draw (since the inverter requires 10X the amp draw), we could run the tank heater for 13 hours. Since we would likely only need to run the tank heater at night (say 12 hours per night in the winter), in theory we could get 1 full night (with no other amp draw) before generator recharge was required. Just a thought.

Could you run a generator ?

Our Elite II picked up 15 days ago came with a locking 30A, 25' power cord. But, we purchased a non-locking extension cord beforehand just in case. Since the primary cord Oliver supplies has a locking collar on only the trailer end (not the pedestal end), any extension cord does not need to have a locking collar--just a Ziploc bag to protect the connection between the primary and extension cords if it rains.

During our 7-day voyage from Hohenwald back to Idaho last week, we encountered overnight temps in the teens at about 5000 feet in Santa Rosa, New Mexico, at 6200 feet in Cortez, Colorado and at 4200 feet in Provo, UT. In New Mexico and Colorado, our Varioheat furnace sometimes took up to 10 tries to ignite, but it eventually did on each occasion. It took a few ignition attempts in Utah, but not as many as at the higher elevations. Each ignition attempt caused a "whump" sound that, at first, made us wonder where it came from. This did not happen either before or after those three nights, when we camped at lower elevations with overnight lows in the 20's, in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Idaho. We wondered if the combination of temps in the teens (it got down to 11 degrees F in Cortez) and high elevation inhibited propane gasification, as referenced by Topgun2 above. We noted frost on the outside of the tanks up to the propane level, but not above. Our short-term solution was to substitute our full spare propane tank for the one of the two that was low. This seemed to help somewhat, but did not make the issue go away. Were we planning a trip like the one you propose, we would definitely look into a propane tank heating blanket. You could draw from the one tank that is heated, then move the blanket to the full tank when needed. A quick Google search yielded this one from Amazon, currently on a Black Friday deal: https://www.amazon.com/Powerblanket-PBL20-Cylinder-Propane-Charcoal/dp/B00PKKHC2Y/ref=sr_1_3?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIvfrLluvJ-wIVIRh9Ch3O9g27EAAYAiAAEgLP_PD_BwE&hvadid=410083089776&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9029558&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=1331052575274189197&hvtargid=kwd-591569910607&hydadcr=7466_11110449&keywords=propane+tank+warmer+blanket&qid=1669396665&sr=8-3 As these blankets all appear to operate on 120V power, I expect you would need to have shore power available, and carry a separate extension cord to connect the blanket to the outside 120V receptacle. We had shore power available at all three high-elevation locations, so the heater blanket would have worked for us. Good luck!

I have the Harbor Freight solid rubber chocks as well. But, I also use X-chocks. We have found that the X-chocks add some stability to the trailer, working together with the stabilizer jacks.

I hope the ones I ordered fit our new Ollie. One of the comments on Amazon advised they are "universal fit," but you never know until you install them. Mine are scheduled to arrive Tuesday. I will post if they don't fit....

The site referenced by JWalmsley didn't work for me either. But this site did: https://www.epgsoft.com/visited-states-map/app/visited-united-states-map.php Good luck! With regard to management of LiFePO4 batteries during storage, if you have either the Lithium Pro or Platinum package and shore power where you store your Ollie, Mike Sharpe with Oliver Service has advised that you can leave the batteries in the trailer, with the trailer plugged into shore power, for the winter. Doing so relies on the internal heaters in the 315 Ah batteries and the external heater installed by Oliver under the 130 Ah batteries to keep them above freezing. That is my plan, although I also plan to do the discharge/recharge cycle specified by Lithionics once after 3 months of storage, out of an abundance of caution. I will then reconnect to shore power for the balance of the winter. But, there are different opinions on this topic, as highlighted by this thread. Read it and draw your own conclusions:

Goodyear Wrangler LT225/75R16. E-rated. Max load=2680 lbs. per tire. They are 28.3" in diameter. According to this Tire Rack web page for the Goodyear Endurance ST225/75R15 tire, it is also 28.3" in diameter. https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIwvbOyIXI-wIVsWpvBB2d9QcjEAQYASABEgL6CfD_BwE&tireMake=Goodyear&tireModel=Endurance&partnum=275NR5END&GCID=C13674x012-tire&KEYWORD=tires.jsp_Goodyear_Endurance_Tire&code=yes&ef_id=EAIaIQobChMIwvbOyIXI-wIVsWpvBB2d9QcjEAQYASABEgL6CfD_BwE:G:s&s_kwcid=AL!3756!3!537118804928!!!u!293946777986!&gclsrc=aw.ds

I just ordered two sets of 4 rubber brake backing plate adjuster plugs from Amazon for a total of $13.50. Link below: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B002EP9U50/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Apparently, Oliver's choice to not provide these plugs with the Dexter drum brakes is not unique. I found reviews noting that other folks' RVs did not come with these either. It's a cheap and easy preventive measure.

Whether it is a downgrade is a matter of opinion. I would have preferred the 15" wheels with ST tires. Too bad we can't swap! ST ("Special Trailer") tires are designed for trailer use, and have thicker, stronger sidewalls than LT ("light truck") tires, which are designed for "Light Truck" use. ST tires have higher load ratings because of the thicker sidewalls. And, with 15" wheels, you have more rubber and less metal, which provides a softer ride. I believe a softer ride is better for a "tiny house" on wheels, with all of the plumbing, electrical, refrigerator, TV on a hinged bracket, etc.

During our recent trip from Idaho to Hohenwald, we found that gas prices dropped, generally, the further east we went. We paid $2.99 per gallon for 85 octane gas at one place, I believe, in Arkansas. Most places in Tennessee were a bit above $3 per gallon. We found the reverse as we traveled back west. The closer to home we got, the higher the price. The highest price for gas we paid was in Idaho, over $4 per gallon for 85 octane regular.

I have received multiple requests to post the inspection checklist I created before we took delivery on our Elite II on November 10, 2022. I have been hesitant to post it publicly, as it was not initially created with public consumption in mind, but only for my private use. My original version contains many personal notes that will not apply to others. I am also concerned that the inspection checklist may create the mis-impression that Oliver makes lots of production mistakes. Please remember that this list was compiled from hundreds of posts on this forum covering more than 5 years, and that only a few posters found multiple issues with their trailers. But, I reflected on the fact that Oliver encourages buyers to conduct careful inspections after delivery, and to bring their trailers back to the Sales and Service Center before leaving Tennessee (like we did) so any issues can be addressed. In the spirit of that commendable policy, I have created an updated and edited version of the document which does not include personal notes, but does include some additional comments in bold font based on what I learned during the delivery process. Thus, a Word version of my edited inspection checklist appears below. It now has fewer items, as I found during our delivery process that some were not relevant to the trailers being manufactured now. Please remember that my thorough inspection after delivery revealed only one production error, of the nearly 100 defects on my original list, in our trailer (a roof leak). It is my impression that Oliver is now paying much better attention to detail than at some times in the past, and that my fears that arose from compiling that long list of defects were mostly unfounded. Please keep in mind that the Oliver team, including Operations Manager Rodney Lomax and Service Manager Jason Essary, did an outstanding job of promptly and effectively responding to the issues we raised when we took delivery. They are great people with outstanding business integrity. It would hurt me deeply if my list were used to cause them grief, after they went the “extra mile” to take such good care of us. SO, PLEASE USE IT RESPECTFULLY AND WISELY. Ralph Pond a/k/a Rivernerd 1010819054_THINGSTOCHECKONOLIVERELITEIIONINITIALINSPECTION.docx

It is an Eva-Dry, model EV1100.

As reported in an earlier thread, Goodyear's acquisition of Cooper Tires forced Oliver to substitute Goodyear tires going forward. Although Oliver obviously can get Goodyear Wrangler LT 16" tires now, (that is what is installed on our Elite II delivered November 10), Oliver has decided to go with Goodyear ST tires on 15" wheels starting in March, 2023. They did not offer a reason. For what it's worth, we would have preferred the 15" wheels with ST tires. ST ("Special Trailer") tires are designed for trailer use, and have thicker, stronger sidewalls than LT tires, which are designed for "Light Truck" use. And, with 15" wheels, you have more rubber and less metal, which provides a softer ride.

I received a request for pictures of the Truma Varioheat installation and ductwork. Now that we are safely home in Idaho, I have had time to take photos. They are attached.

Now that we are safely home, I have had time to take some photos. See attached. The first photo shows the supply air vent in the bathroom. The second photo shows the rear supply air vent and the return air grill in the main cabin. The third photo shows the return air vent in the bath, beside the toilet. The fourth photo shows the return air vent in the bathroom from inside the front dinette seat. This allows return air flow into the air space underneath the trailer. The fifth photo shows the two supply vents in the main cabin.