2008RN

Question for the more technical people. Now that I have the Fridge exhaust fans in place, I know to use it when on propane in hotter weather. Would it be beneficial to use it on 120V and/or 12V in hotter weather? Maybe make the fridge more efficient and take a little load of off the compressor from running as much? Would this maybe extend the life of the fridge?

I'm on an MacBook Pro, the original photo was in the correct orientation. When I attached it to my post, it showed upside down. So I edited it in Preview (Mac OS) and rotated the picture 180 degrees. Deleted the original attachment in the post and the reattached the new picture, and it still showed upside down. I read up on trying to crop with preview. I selected the area I wanted and then pressed: command + K at the same time. It cropped it and then attached it, and it worked. I did not do the best job of cropping and thanks mossemi for rotating my picture in the original post. Hopefully I can do it right the next time.

Geoff, Thanks for all the ground worked you did in testing and designing your fan system and such a great writeup. It really made this job a lot easier. I copied the bottom side of the installation pretty much what you had. The only change I made was the order of wires on the terminal Block. I started with the 12V+ on the bottom and then the 12V- on the top of the block, and did the flow up the terminal block just like your electric diagram: 12V+ ->Main switch -> Thermal Switch -> Fans -> 12V-. On the top side I had about 3.5 inches of opening clearance from the bottom of the opening to the fiberglass support for the microwave shelf. I did find a fan that was 92mm (3 5/8") with IP68 waterproof rating. I used a 1/2 aluminum angle stock and screwed downward into the middle of the outer shell and shimmed the aluminum angle up about 7/32" so the #8 Bolts heads would clear the plastic and I would have A little more contact of the fans against the upper section in the back. The top of the fans are not screwed in. They are setting against the upper fiber glass shelf with about 3-5 pounds of pressure. Nice tight fit. Sorry the picture is upside down I can't figure out get it correct. I tried rotating the original but that didn't help. Things I really like about this setup. 1. The terminal block Allows for quick diagnostic with a voltmeter. 2. Nothing is hardwired, All components have connectors so the thermal switch and fans are easily replaceable when there is a failure. 3. The thermal switch is very easily adjustable for height and location. 4. The wiring looks clean. I did a test on it yesterday. It was around 86 degrees outside. Took about 30 minutes for the thermal switch to kick on. Temp was between 120-125 degrees coming out of of the hottest side of the fans . I don't know why but I couldn't find a source for the original switches on the inside control panel without going through Oliver. I wanted to put in a dimmer for the outside porch lights and I was pressed for time to order an original switch from Oliver and to wait 2-4 weeks to get a part from them. So I bought a dimmer for the porch lights and received it in 2 days and moved the original porch light switch to the Street side awning position to use for the fans. Lastly, thanks for the info on removing the microwave, I never would have known about the jack screw. The inside of the microwave cabinet was slightly different. There was a step up in the back sort of like a backstop for the microwave the went clear across the back of the cabinet. So I removed 5 screws holding the bottom panel and backstop, This allowed full access to the back. After feeding the wires and loom through to the back of the fridge area, I resealed the hole with spray foam behind the microwave, and re-taped the Fridge area with aluminum duct tape around the loom and touched up some areas where the original tape was having some problems. It was a good thing I had to remove the microwave. The microwave was coated with fiberglass dust and there were piles of fiber glass dust in the cabinet. Now at least the back of the microwave and the cabinet is clean. I do not know what the air flow is inside and around the microwave, but I would hate to think that fiberglass dust got into the food/drinks.

When I first tried to get one of my track liners out with a small screw driver it also started to crack. I was extremely paranoid to continue on. I tried other things to clean the tracks. Then I final gave it another shot. when I loosen the sides with the picks I do at least 6-8" ahead. Then using the 90 degree pick I place it under the bottom side of the where I am trying to pry that side out. Since I get it out far enough to grab with my fingers I pull it up a little then continue to work it with the picks while slowly rotating the side side out. I still had one side start to crack. I have no idea if those track liners can be purchased to replace the old ones. I did get daring on one window a slide the track liner one way be a few inches. It was snug so I stopped not wanting to any more damage to the fragile track liners. I do agree, these windows suck! What happens when these windows fail completely? Is there a way to salvage this expensive shell to make it back into a usable camper??? I know that components in the camper are going to fail. There are things that will be hard to replace, Like the bathroom door/ handle, the fridge, all of the windows. I know that many Camper Trailers with 22K miles and 6 years old would have started to fall apart already. But these are not a cheap A-- Trailers. I bought Oliver for the quality and longevity and not an Airstream. Sorry for the rant.

On my Oli, I removed the rubber track cover and exposed the end of the felt track insert. I used two picks from my small O'ring pick and hook set to loosen the sides of the track and lifted one side of the track and then gently pull the one side up and rotated the track out of the slot. I was able to exposed the track bottom within about 3-4 inch of the center divider. I was then able to enlarge to drain holes and completely clean the inner track bottom. If you can get the Felt track insert up, then you will have a lot more room to get a small tube of chalk in the area and force it through the hole.

Geoff, How did you mount, suspend the temperature switch above the fins so it could be moved easily. Did you mount on the tube above the condenser fins, or did you hang it off of the fan bracket? Thanks

I think I would remove the stopper, then pump some caulk down the screw hole and the level it off on top so it does not impede the draining of the tracks. What a Pain.

I am on my first repack of my Timken bearings after 13,073 miles and 14 months. I have noticed that the Front Axel bearing show they got a little warm. The rear axel bearings show no discoloration. I used CV2 grease which is a Light or Faded Red color see picture below. The front axel outer bearings are the worst with a darker areas on the bearings surface there is no pitting or galling. The grease in and around the bearing is a light gray color. The grease has not thickened at all. still the same consistency as the original gear. I had repacked the Chinese Dexter bearing every 6,000 miles, and never saw the darkening, but had pitting and galling on those bearings. I'm I over tightening the bearings. My Procedure for setting the bearings. 1. As I'm tightening the bearing I slowly turn the hub for the first 15-20 ft/lbs to make sure everything is seated. After that I no longer turn the hub. I finish by torquing to 50 ft/pounds per Dexter. 2. I then loosen the nut making sure the Hub does rotate at all. 3. I then I hand snug the nut, and then back the nut off about 3/32 of an inch (probably about 1/32 of a full rotation. 4. I lock the nut in place with the retainer. I check the hub and tire temps during and 50% of my stops, and always after coming dow a mountain pass. They are always within about 5-10 degrees of each other. The highest temps have been around 130 degrees and mostly running around 115-120 degrees. I use a bearing packer for the bearing and alway push through about 1/2 of extra grease so I know that there the bearing is full of grease. I putt about 1/8 of an inch of grease around cones and 1/16 in on the axel. I try not to over pack the hub with grease. After pressing the seal in place. I put about a 1/16 inch of grease on the inner surface of the inner bearing and pack a little extra grease between the seal and bearing. I do the same type of procedure for the outer bearing. After making sure the hub and outer bearing is fully seated by hand I add little each grease before placing the washer in place. There is also slight discoloration on the spindles where the bearings ride. This is consistent among all spindles, and there is no pitting or galling. I check the hub and tire temps during and 50% of my stops, and always after coming dow a mountain pass. They are always within about 5-10 degrees of each other. The highest temps have been around 130 degrees and mostly running around 115-120 degrees. Also I had my tires balanced about 18,000 miles ago and I always make sure the weight is still in place on the inner rim when the tires are removed. I have the Cooper Discoverer HT3 LT Tires, and just replaced them with new tires due to age (6.5 years). Lastly I do have the Alcan 5 leaf springs and am using the Dexter Shoulder wet bolts, to insure I can easily grease the bolts and the shackles and Ez-Flex moves without restrictions. Should I be worried about the discoloration. Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to included any information related to the Dexter assembly. This is the worst bearing sets. The other front axel the discoloration faded 1/2 way up the rollers. This is the CV2 grease. Thanks

I totally agree. During my intense cleaning this winter. I removed the bumper and slid the tracks around to get things clean. That was one of the first things I noticed that it was a leak point. Secondly the stopper clamps down enough on the track that it would probably that it would stop the flow of water out the weep holes. I have thought about leaving the stopper out and plugging the hole with chalk.

I don't know if it is going to help but I use a Dremel bit and increase the Drain slot height from about 3/32 to a little over 1/8' on both the inside and outside drain slots. I also put gutter "J" tracks over the windows, mostly to help the street side windows. We did have a couple days of rain in Yosemite in April, and no leaks. They weren't flooding rains though. There are other threads about window leaking, I also cleaned all tracks throughly inside and out. Good luck.

Wow, I have gone 70-80 days on our filters. I have never seen the my filters like that. You did get some bad water. We use two standard 10" x 2.5" cartridges. One is a 5 micron filter like yours, the 2nd filter is a 5 micron carbon. I usually change them out yearly. If we are going to be at home for more than a month. I empty the canister and set out the filters to dry. I did try a 0.5 micron filter but it dropped the pressure at the faucet. taking a shower was tough. The restriction is not as bad with the 5 micron filters.

Just got my Epoch Essential batteries. Been looking through all of the specs on the Epoch I found conflicting information on the torque specs. The Data Sheet shows 8-12N.m or 6-9 ft/lb and the User Manual: 20 to 35Nm or 15-25ft/lbs. Any input on what you guy have torqued bolts?

Interesting, but not interested. Oliver is simple, well designed for the space available. It is not full of gadgetry. KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). I think I'm showing my age. SkyDream is just the opposite. The only thing they have in Common is they are made out of Fiberglass. Probably half the places I camp the deck would useless due to thing being in the way. Also in the Pacific North West (PNW) I would worry about leaks. Although when I saw the newest walk through video on the new LEII, I had reservations over the awning with the solar panels on top. It is great having that much extra charging power. I don't think the longevity of these flexible panels would come near the useful life span of the solid mounted roof top panels. Replacing the awning I'm sure would be very expensive. I have trouble getting the regular awning clean and dry in the PNW due to the 7-8 months of rain. When I do have the opportunity to roll out awning and clean and let it dry completely the Oliver and Awning ends up blocking the whole driveway. So it has to be a planned project. I do pack a small Stihl blower and a ladder so I try to blow off the pine needle/leaves/twigs off of the top before finally rolling it up for travel.

Or for the Milwaukee for over $152. It takes me 1 year to go through 1 can. Dust off on Amazon has a deal right now for 2 cans for $6.29. I paid $12.38 for the 2 cans in January.

I do not know who said this in a post about 6 months ago, but when I read it I was running out of canned air in the garage (I only use it on fine stuff like electricronics, other wise I use my air compressor). So I bought 2 cans, one for the old and one for the garage. I did see small hose about 1/8 inch with a valve on it to reduce flow that hooks up to a standard air compressor hose. but I didn't purchase it. might be nice for home instead of a can. But the can is nice and portable for working on stuff inside the house.

Well I had an interested 19 day trip to Yosemite, Arches, Canyonlands and dinosaur monument National Parks. I had 4 different failures. I hadn't used my truck in a month before the trip and I have an alarm system in the truck the uses a lot of energy communicating with me and the factory and it drew the batteries in the truck way down. I tried starting the truck a few days before the trip and the batteries were dead. I recharged the batteries and they settled down to 12.6 volts after the charge instead of 12.8v. Just for safety sake I took a 660 Amp jumper battery along, but never had a problem again with the truck batteries the whole trip. Now the AGM batteries in the Oli are just over 6 years old. I haven't had any problems with them, in fact last year we are out for more than 60 day total boon docking on them over half the time and they did great. This trip out they failed the first night at 3AM with an alarm going off after using 34 Amp/hours. I was down to 10.4 volts from a full charge.. I was using a CPAP and the furnace was on set at 57 degrees. I isolated and checked all 4 batteries. Their volts were within 0.1 volts total so it wasn't one battery taking them all down, they are all just tired. I was planning the Epoch upgrade next year, but Oli forced my hand. Luckily I packed the jumper battery and hooked it into the system at night and recharged during the day. We went down to 11.9 volts in the morning heating the olive oil back up to 65 degree to take the chill off. No more alarms going off. I figured that the jumper was 5 years old and was the price of a good lead acid battery. So if I fried the jumper on the trip it was not a big loss. The jumper battery is still running good and holding a charge. Here is the jumper batter hooked into the system. That took care of the first failure. I had been using the heated truck mirror at Yosemite. The last day at Yosemite they blew a fuse and I didn't realize it until we were a 200 miles away from the park and my auxiliary diesel tank pump wouldn't work (same fuse). We got to our destination with a 1/8 in the main tank. I shotgunned the problem after blowing a couple of fuses and found it was the mirror heaters. I disconnect the heaters from the circuit and then we could pump fuel from the auxiliary tank. I will find the short this winter when I have the time to disassemble the dash and doors to trace it down. That night we pulled in and my wife tells me the Fridge would not work on gas. O' no what next. It was late that night and we had hook ups that night, so I waited until morning. When I looked in the compartment everything was very dusty. So I start by physically cleaning out the lower compartment. with a windex and paper towels. After everything dried, I reset all the spade connector in the compartment. Next I took the shield off around the burner and wipe off around the burner and then used canned air to blow out the burner from the air intake holes then the outside of the burner and the rest of the compartment. I tested it out and the first 2 clicks I heard the 2 relays into the electric box click, then the gas solenoid click the flame started on the first click of the ignitor. Nice full blue flame and no flickering or yellw/orange colors. Wow was I happy! OK 3 failures, I'm done now for the trip. Right! Well not quite I had one more minor failure; I bought these white/Blue LED lights for the interior lighting, and one failed the next to the last day of the trip. It stayed on with the blue light. The only way to turn it off was turn off the main switch controlling all the lights. I am now planning a couple weeks of maintenance and upgrades to the trailer and truck. Planning on attacking the Colorado Rockies this summer during the hottest time of the year with lots of long hard climbs and some boon docking . I ordered battery wire and lugs to make cables and i'm going to order Epochs on Monday. I will do a fan upgrade to the fridge, repack axle bearing and check brakes, again. We still have the original brakes with 23K miles on the Oli , just want to make sure every thing is working correctly and checking wear on drums and shoes. Will also fix a few small items on the Oliver. I also have regular maintenance on the truck and the boost is down little on the turbo, and oil temp is up little. So I am taking the truck in to get the turbo boots checked for leaks and the oil heat exchanger replaced on the old Ford 7.3 engine. I know all of this info does really belong in this thread, but I did want to start a new thread about thing that happen. This is the first real major failures since I bought the Oli besides the window tracks overflowing with water.

I had up graded all my touch lights with the 7.3" over the kitchen and the 4.75" for the beds and table lighting. I had 22 days on the flight and I had one of the 7.3 lights over the kitchen fail. I touched the light to turn it off and it would not turn off. I only had 22 travel days on these lights. I wasn't real happy. I will replace the it again with the same thing only because we light the low light of the blue. If it happens again , I will try another solution.

When I took my Zirk’s out, I had to hold the wet nut bolt with a wrench, and then use vice grips on the Zirk head to loosen it up. The hex heads on the desserts just stripped out with me needless to say I had to replace all of the Zirk’s.

Looks pretty good to me, Combines both the greasing wet bolts and physical inspection of operations and rough cleaning without remove the drums. I have never removed a drum with sealed bearings, I have done many vehicles over my years that have the old style tappered bearing. How easy is it to pull the drums of the Never-lube bearings (sealed bearings)? Even if everything looks good physically at some point the drum needs to be removed to check wear of drum and brake shoes. The nice thing with normal vehicles that have sealed bearing they have brake calipers, pads and rotors, being able to check everything with external inspections.

I am getting close to upgrading to the epoch essentials 300AH. Planning on 2 batteries. Seems like they fit the batteries slide the best. I have a question. I was reading about when installing multiple lithium batteries they said all should be charged up up completely before the installing. Meaning each battery is completely full. I do not have a Lithium stand alone battery charger. So I got to thinking should I buy a separate battery charger for lithium batteries? Do I go with the Epoch that is only designed for epoch, or is their other good lithium charger that would work? I feel like an infant when dealing with all of the different manufacture specs for chargers. Epoch charger looks like it would only fit an epoch battery and nothing else. Thanks everyone, Bob

I was just looking at the threads for mounting fans for the fridge. I was favoring the vertical mounting position. I did some measurements from the back of the wall ( fiberglass support) where the top of the fans would be mounted to the back of the top plastic cover. I got about 1" +/- 1/16" The beach lane fans sawy they are between 1" to 1.5" . That is quite a variance. Did any of you has to cut /grind down the fiberglass support to get the fans to fit? How much clearance do you need on the top? Still out on the road, heading home in a 1/2 weeks. Just trying to plan ahead. of time Since I have had the trailer the fridge it has had problems with temps above 90 degree. I just can't keep up. We are heading out in the heat of the summer for our next trip and thought this would be a great upgrade.

Ya, We were visiting son last year in Kentucky, and decided to go down to the mother ship in Hohenwald. Driving through Nashville wasn't fun. At least the larger roads are better in Oregon. THe back roads in Oregon and Tennessee are pretty much the same. (yuk). We got a truma repair and a new AC. We enjoyed the last year's models on the sales floor. Several updates I liked, but not enough to buy upgrade. Good to know that Salem, Oregon has someone that could do some repairs.

I never had a FB account until 5 years ago when a boss decided it was an easy way to curcimvent manage rules dealing with unions. So she posted al sort of changes happening at work on a private FB Group. The Hospital also had thier own FB group which was part info, part PR propaganda. I changed departments and removed them. I do use Marketplace, sometimes good/ many times bad (still on craigslist). I have been on the FB Oliver group. There is not a lot of structure to FB and does not lend intensely to the structure our forums does. The only thing that is real positive for the Oliver FB group is that it is the really the only way to list an Oliver for sale or parts for sale to people that are truly interested in Olivers since Oliver made regulation changes to the Forum.

I would like to Will Prowse do this strenuous testing with intact battery to other manufacturers like Epoch, Lithonics and then cut them open after the ridged testing. Then we could really compare. Maybe he has, I just haven't taken the time to look. I agree I think the BB interview was a PR stunt. Lithium batteries are still semi new technology and still evolving. Just because they meet an industry standard does not mean they are well built. It is like high jumping and setting the bar at one foot. As long as you jump over the bar you're good to go. Also Will could take a brand new BB battery and cut it apart to see if he really caused the internal problems he showed. But I highly doubt that kind of melting happened just from cutting the tops off. I understand this takes some financial backing to do these types of test. I don't mean to dish Will, but is he completely impartial in this. There are a lot of variables.

We have the 3.5K axels I put the 5 leaf springs on the Oli. I have almost 11K miles on them. The first couple of days (750 miles) seemed a little rougher then they mellowed out. I do go on gravel, and some of the 2 lane roads in the nation are as bad or worst than gravel roads. I just got done doing a lub on the wet bolts and checking everything out. All seems fine. The Oli weighs about 6500 pounds when loaded. I haven't notice any problems in the interior, it was worse with the original springs. The trailer stays pretty mellow with movements of an inch or two after uneven pavement. Where it used to bob and weave like a drunken sailor before making it harder to control. After the leafs no control issues. I think you would be fine either way.