SeaDawg

Well, that's actually the name of the company, I guess. This nifty line of bathroom accessories and safety/grab bars requires no holes drilled in the pristine fiberglass of your Oliver, according to their videos. And, they're removable... not as easily as Command hooks or suction cups, but removable. I saw these on HGTV or Diy network a year or so ago, but, hadn't run across them on a website. Here's a link, in case you'd like to see them. Even if you're not interested in towel bars at the moment, the video is rather entertaining. http://www.fixtureuniverse.com/hooks/no-drilling-required-hu241-chr-robe-hook-chrome_6906066.html Anyone else ever tried them? Sherry

Congrats on your first trip! Glad you had a great time! Sherry and Paul PS We'll look for your photos on your fb page. You can insert some of them here using the img button above, if you'd like, one at a time...

Closing up the camper after our trip to NC last week, I pulled the black knob to turn the fan to manual, and the housing snapped at the corners. I just got off the phone with FanTastic Vent customer service. A very nice rep, Tara, went through the fan features with me to identify the model, took my name and address, and ordered a new housing for me at no charge, and no shipping. The fan is now four and a half years old. Can't beat that for efficient, friendly customer service. Sherry

Sounds like a wonderful addition to your camper, Doug. I've seen "hinged" mattresses like that in boats. Certainly makes the storage more convenient. I don't store anything that's used often under in the bins beneath the bed. Too awkward, as we leave the back dinette made up as a bed all the time. Hope you and Geneva are doing well, and enjoying camping! Who manufactured your custom mattress for the Oliver? Sherry

This slideshow from the weather channel highlights some of the world's most amazing drives: http://www.weather.com/travel/driving-scenic-drives/15-most-amazing-roads-20120816 Looking at some of them, I don't think I'd want to be towing even a small trailer.... Sherry

SteveP, Paul and I often wonder how we had time to work... as you said. Retirement is wonderful. That said, welcome to the Oliver Forum, as well as the Every Day is Saturday Club... We wish you a wonderful trip out and back with the new Oliver. Sherry and Paul

Our summer travels have been limited by circumstances (read life) the last two summers. The furthest north we've been driving is North Carolina, a number of times. The trees, breeze, cool temps and shade have made the (relatively) short trips worthwhile . Ten degrees in temp and humidity make a world of difference in attitude/latitude. Hope all of you have had a great summer. Where are you? Sherry PS I miss Canadian summers.

Steve, We tow at highway and interstate speeds, with the traffic flow, with a Dodgen Ram half ton Hemi 4x4 most of the time . Sometimes, we'll do 650 miles in a day; other times, 65. Depends on where we want to be at the end of the day. We don't go west into the heat, though. We chase the cooler weather, as much as we can, and I'm not a fan of the deserts. Going thru South Carolina and Georgia are usually the hottest parts of our drives--not the kind of extended heat you could be possibly dealing with in the western highways. About two years ago, we installed tire monitors on our valve stems to alert us to a blowout/sudden drop in pressure. They are made by TST (I think), and we changed out the valve stems to quality metal stems at that time. Fairly inexpensive, and we had them in about a week's time ordering direct on line from the manufacturer. I talked to Pete today. He recently changed to the 16s and LT tires. Next time around (which could be a few years), we'll relook the sts vs new rims and lts, and see what the options are. We haven't been able to travel that much the last two years, so the newest Maxxis probably have around ten to twelve thousand miles on them, I think. Florida to New York a few times, Florida to North Carolina/DC/Virginia a number of times. I'm curious if the 16s/LTs required a modification to the spare tire cover. I hope Pete and Steve, and anyone else who has changed rim size and tires to the LT, will chime in, as well as the folks with Maxxis who have driven in the west. It's an investment in safety, three tires, or three tires and rims. We had a tough time even finding the Maxxis here in Tampa Bay. That's probably another point in favor of LT tires: more choices, and availability, if you're ever stuck in an odd spot. We had a nail in the right rear tire on the truck in Quebec in a very small town, and were lucky enough to be able to a: find someone who spoke much English better than I speak French b: find a really honest tire mechanic who plugged the tire and c: discover that he had a used one that matched our tires in case the plug didn't hold. Have you checked locally on availability? I'm guessing you'll want to take the rims and tires with you to pick up the trailer, if that's your decision, or be assured that they're on had at the pickup location when you arrive. Sherry

Scubarx put the lt tires and 16 inch wheels on his Oliver almost two years ago. If he doesn't see this post, you might want to send him a pm about his feelings, two years later. Last time I saw him, the tires were new. Since then, I think they've been out west once or twice. You can see some lengthy discussions on tires on almost every forum, including this one. If you haven't already, you might want to read this thread: Interesting that Airstream is offering light duty truck tires as an upgrade now. I'm sure that decision was made with some careful consideration and research. I too have read many horror stories on cheap Chinese trailer tires. Sherry

I think at least one person put LT tires on their Oliver, but I'm not a fan of the idea. LT tires are not truly made for trailering. We have 15 inch tires, load range E ST (trailer) tires. Maxxis brand We've been very happy with them so far. A few other forum members have the same tires, and have had them longer. I'll look in the log, but I think we got them about a year and a half ago. Maybe longer. Our old Duro load Ds did very well (over 25,000 miles), but we couldn't get Duros locally when we needed them in preparation for a long trip. I'm not sure they're sold anymore. There have been a lot of discussions here, and on other forums, about tires. We stick with trailer tires, as they're built for the needs. Sherry

Welcome to the forum, Steve. I have sent a pm to your mailbox. Sorry it took so long to get you on the forum. We're camping, and I just now got Cheri's email. Congrats on your new Oliver... and best wishes for wonderful camping adventures! Sherry (Seadawg)

TerryG, I noticed the Oliver Travel Trailer website was down a month or so ago. Oliver suspended production of the travel trailers in 2009. At that time, they had hoped to resume production when the economy improved. They concentrated their manufacturing staff and facility on other products. There have been a few pre-owned Olivers for sale this year. I believe there may still be a really nice one for sale in Arizona at this time. Sherry

We have an (original) inline fuse in our line from battery to tongue jack. Wouldn't solve all the problems, and has caused us a (few) extra problems, but it is at least a fuse between the battery and the jack. Personally, I wish it had been set up as an inside switch, in line with the battery cutoff. Would have made a lot of sense. Steve's arrangement has a lot of promise. Sherry

Are you still in the Rockies? Hope all of you are out of the path of the wildfires. Sherry

Any not=miss roads in your part of the country? One of these days, I'll get past my aversion to the deserts, and we'll go west again. Sherry

Sorry, it's been awhile since we replaced the switch, and we also looked a long time for the correct one. I think Paul may actually have found it at our local Ace Hardware store, but not positive. Could also have been at the marine supply store. We looked in a lot of places. Paul suggested the key words "momentary contact switch" if you're trying an on-line search. Sherry

Steve, We had difficulties with our tongue jack switch a few years ago. It worked intermittently at first, then finally quit completely. Paul purchased a replacement switch and a new watertight boot, and installed them, and it's worked fine since. Perhaps the switch is your problem, as well. Sherry

I think I caused the original problem by the way I loaded the refrigerator. I had three quart and 1/2 bottle on the door shelf, plus other items, which probably caused the door to bow and leave a gap at the bottom. I also had the fins pretty well covered up with a wine box and other items on the top shelf. I won't do that again. Today, we've been monitoring all day, and everything is working fine with plenty of air circulation and the excessive weight off the door (The water alone on the bottom shelf was probably close to 9 lbs.. The door was actually "creaking" when I opened it. I should have known better.) I think the excessive weight caused the door to bow a bit, and allowed cold air to spill out the bottom, keeping the refrigerator from doing its job, and causing the "n" fault. Paul checked everything else in the flow chart, so I'm pretty sure the problems were all caused by the way i loaded the fridge. The burner carried a clear blue flame, nothing was dirty, igniter was working, etc. I'm lucky he's so handy. Sherry

Once again, we had a problem with our Norcold refrigerator giving us an "n" code. This has happened to us once before, but we were under warranty at the time. Since it's a holiday, there is no one open to look at the problem, and I have a refrigerator full of food for this afternoon's cookout. The problem with many of the fault codes listed in the back of our thin manuals that come with the camper is this: if you reset the refrigerator by turning it off and on, and the code reappears, the board locks out all power sources. Even if there is a problem only with the gas operation, the board locks out all power sources (gas, a/c, and d/c) until the board is reset. Resourceful Paul found the manual online, via a forum post on another forum, and it appears that we have solved the immediate problem, at least for now, and are running on a/c power to the fridge. The "n" code can mean a number of things, including inadequate circulation of air to the fins and thermister that hangs off the fins. (This may have been our problem, as the top shelf was packed full.) Other causes are listed in the manual. Here's a link to the manual, which you may want to print off and add to your book. http://bryantrv.com/docs2/docs/n5051.pdf The manual describes two ways to reset the board. One is very involved, removing lots of wires and using a jumper. Not the way an average person would like to attempt, as a wrong move could "fry" the board. The second method restarts modern boards through a series of steps on the control panel. That's what Paul used, so we could try the refrigerator on A/C mode. Directions are on page 56, Screen 6, Erase Fault Data History. This fault can be caused by a number of things, including wasps' nests, dirty burner, etc. All of these will need to be checked on ours, however, at least for now we're running on A/C power and the food (and beer!) will stay cold. Other links to read: http://www.justanswer.com/rv-motorhome/40nbc-hi-norcold-n412-3-lance-camper-locked.html http://bryantrv.com/docs2/docs/reset.pdf http://bryantrv.com/docs2/docs/newreset.pdf We thank the repair man who posted these links, as it's saving our cookout today. Hope it helps one of you someday. I removed the stuff blocking the fins before Paul did the reset, and he checked for wasps' nests, etc, before he did the reset. Working ok for now. Sherry

Geri (Earthdancer) sent me this link. The photos are beautiful. Places to dream about.... http://travel.yahoo.com/ideas/top-10-all-american-road-trips.html?page=1

This morning's Tampa Bay Times carried this article: http://www.tampabay.com/incoming/in-july-internet-may-go-dark-for-hackers-hundreds-of-thousands-of-victims/1226184 Although the people in charge of creating the bogus servers have been arrested, hundreds of thousands of computers remain affected and could go dark in July. The article explains how to check your computers. Sherry

Welcome to the forum, Redrover! Sherry

Well, my guess is accurate. The two-hour wait for a table has become a ten minute wait. If you haven't been here this winter, it's a great time to visit Florida. Nights are cool, days are warm, and the highways are less crowded, outside rush hour, of course... Sher

For all of our Oliver friends who like to camp, I think there should be plenty of spaces in Florida for awhile. We drove up I-95 Monday in an Easter Parade of motorhomes, fifth-wheels and travel trailers with out-of-state, and Canadian plates. First prize for most (and largest) floats in the parade goes to Quebec. 2nd prize to New York, with runner up Ontario. From there, the population spanned out everywhere from New Jersey to California, with one lonely Alaska plate in the segment we drove. In the entire trip, we saw one lonely Casita among the sunblockers. I'm guessing that now we're back home in Florida, traffic will be a little lighter without our winter guests.... and some camping spaces should be available for awhile. Our weather is beautiful, but then again, it's an early spring around most of the country Sherry

Great to talk to you a few days ago. Hope to see you ... and the "hillbilly camp stove"... very soon. Sherry