2008RN

I don't own any lithium batteries trailer batteries. I have considered updating my system in the past year. BB price point and warranty makes them a battery to be considered. I have scoured the internet on a few of the top name brands lithium batteries for this application. BB was one of the batteries I looked into. The most common negative comment I found was support blowing the customer off, when they had a failure and not standing behind their battery. With this video it makes me want to stay away from BB. I have no idea what their battery failure rate is, Hypothetically if 1/2 percent of their 400,000 batteries sold failed , that would be 2,000 batteries. In a community of higher end trailers, 2000 failures would stick out like a sore thumb. I know the Airstream uses BB, which is where I found some of the comments. As a side note Winnebago acquired Lithionics company in 2023, to have more control of the batteries used in their trailer and to make a saving using the Lithium technology.

With all of this good info @jd1923 and the other thread on greasing the head, I decided since the Oli is down for 3 months before we take her back out, I would Pull the jack apart and grease everything in the head, tubes and drive screw. A few thing I learned/did. 1. The helical drive gear on the Curb side motor had a small amount of wear, the other two were not visible. I think that I hit the top more often since it is hard to see across the trailer specially with the mud flaps added. 2. The 3 set screws holding the head to the shaft had red thread lock. Used a heat gun to help loosened them. 3. The 2 carriage bolts holding the Rear jacks to the bracket where Stainless steel with a two way lock nut (two dimples on nut). They used so much force to putting on the nut on that it gulled the thread inside. It took 80-100 ft/pounds to get the nuts completely off and was a rear bear. I got one off by my self, but it was tough holding the carriage hold in while trying to remove the nut. I ended up getting help with the others from my son. The last nut was so hard just to hold it in, when we got the nut far enough off we used a 1/2 open end wrench on the square of the carriage head. 4. The chalk on the outside of the trailer adhered to the jack , but not the trailer. when the carriage bolts were remove, the jacks just dropped down down about 1/4" and then I just lifted it back up through the whole. I luckily didn't find any signs of water inside the trailer. 5. The three 1/4" Socket head cap screws holding the outside tube to inner assembly had Gray thread lock, they were tight to remove but doable without heat. 6. The drive screws came out easily with two 1/2" dowels. 7. The grease between the tubes was clean on the top, and dirty on bottom. All of the grease was getting hard. 8. All of the drive screws had some grease on them, two had bare minimum, and one had slightly more. The front jack had a little more grease than the rears. 9 The rear jacks I remove the motor and left it in the trailer. So I could clean and partially grease the assembly on the work bench. then finished greasing during assembly in the trailer with redline CV2 . 10. I remove the whole front (tongue) jack as a unit and did the cleaning a greasing on the work bench. The front jack was little more time consuming to clean since the power wire run up into the bottom of the case and then wires run up through the top of the case. I removed the switches and light from the plastic case top and got it out of the way so I had more room to clean and grease the case halves. 11. I did re-grease in between the tubes, just because they did at the factory. I know it may make more work for me latter. 12. I really liked butyl tape idea for sealing the tube back in the trailer . I put a little more on the tube than @jd1923 and formed a slope on the bottom side. When the tube was inserted the butyl went all the way through the hole in the trailer. I work the butyl from the top making sure it was pressed tightly to the and in the hole. I did not caulk the bottom, I used butyl added a little more to the bottom to completely seal the bottom with 3/8 per side. I am not sure how well the butyl will continue to seal on the outside, but it couldn't be any worse than the caulking job that was done at the factory. 13. I did replace the original Carriage bolts with steel, Nylock lock nut, and lock washer. 14. I used an enamel pen marker making a mark 1-1/2" from the bottom of the inside tubes for a stopping point. Instead of allowing the foot to come too far up. I started with the Rear curb side jack (12hours), then the Front jack (7hours), lastly the Rear street side jack (5 hours). I also called Baker and receive 3 gaskets for free. before starting the project. I need one for the front. the other came off easily. I also use liberal amounts of redline CV2 grease on everything. Thanks for listening

I got an Idea on how to fix the original lights that were failing. First, I had 3 lights that went from randomly failing to one out of 10 times trying to turn it on the light my come on. I played with the ones over the kitchen counter for 6 months trying to get them working better. When the 3 light started failing I decided to upgrade to the 7" and 3" white and blue lights for the touch lights. As I was taking things apart I noticed that I could turn the light on/off every time by just touching the spring. I also found that I could get within about .050 of an inch (just less than 1/16 of an inch) of the spring the light would turn On/Off every time. After I finished installing the all of the new lights, I thought I would try something. I took the light that was failing the most, and drilled a 3/8 hole in the center of the cover. I put the cover back on the light and it looks ugly. I thought If I could find a piece of metal button I could make it look nicer. Then I remembered I had a couple of 5/16 push on axle nuts/caps. The axle cap fit perfect in my hole and I put the cap back on. The cover looks like it was manufactured like this. I hooked the light up to 12V and tested it. It works great. Just like the light did with me touching the spring. Not pushing required, just get real close or light touch on the axle cap. This is a cheap and quick way to possible getting your lights functioning again. You might try to use a 3/8 press on nut cap. And drill the hole to 7/16 so the spring would set inside the axle nut instead of on the flange of the cap. Although you might not have enough spring pressure to have the spring tightly touching the nut. BTW, I do like the new lights. The 7" cool white (5000K) model is almost as bright as the originals, the 3 inch ones are dimmer. We chose to use the 3" one over the beds and kitchen table.

I put 11K miles on this year, some of miles were very rough roads. Arizona and Arkansas were the worst. I had to tighten all of the white water connectors two times. I do not how often this needs to be done or if there is a good fix for them loosening. It is kind of a pain to remove the latex mattresses.

Mine was a night and day difference to the positive. When I purchased the Oli she would roll about 4-5" to each side going down a smooth interstate, and on some rough washboard roads the jouce was so bad it was hard to handle the truck. I had replaced shocks with bulldogs on the trailer and replaced the truck with High end Bilstein shocks all around and this made a some difference with side to side rolling and jouce about a year before doing the leaf upgrade . When this thread came out, I checked my leaf springs and the rears were completely straight. So they were probably bowing backwards when hitting road imperfections. As @Mountainman198 suggested, after my first 50 mile dry run on the new leafs, I decided to lower tire pressure from 55 to 45, which is actually the suggest PSI by the tire manufacture for the weight of the vehicle. i have put 8,500 miles on the Oli this year, and am happy with the upgrade. I did notice a difference in the ride softening after around 1,500 miles or so. I try to stay off the interstate highways when possible. I like going down the back roads at 55mph and see the sights along the way. This also means the roads will be a little rougher and less maintained in many cases. I'm also running a F250 Super duty XLT long box with WB 172" that weighs 1500 lbs. more than the Oliver trailer fully loaded going down the road which may help. Good luck,

I like your moving casters to put the assembly in place.

So sorry to hear about this. It is really frustrating.

So far after about 9,000 miles and plenty of rough roads there is no spider webbing. One thing that has probably helped is the original glueing/epoxying was still holding, so now I have bolts helping to support the original adhered joints. The things that I have put back on, I have roughed up and made slight grooves in a cross hatch pattern in the mating surfaces and then used JB weld to hold things in place. If the inverter would have fallen off before my proactive change, because of all of the weight I would have JB welded and bolted.

I have seen reports of this happening before to the inverters. I have had other things come off where it was adhered to the fiberglass. I made the decision to be proactive and when I was working in the area, and decided put #10 bolts through the marine board and through the fiber glass. I used and white plastic screw head cover on the outside to hide the bolts.

One of the things that happened on my 48 day trip, the 2 lights over the sink and stove became intermittent.

I have to agree with you. All monetary reasons. It is much cheaper, to upgrade to the strong leafs, it only cost is the difference between the 2 leaf packs. And as also mentioned it would most likely void Dexters warranty leaving Oliver holding the bag if there are problems. They would probably charge their customer several thousand more for the Alcans vs a $500 more for the extra $120 it will cost them to upsize to the PR4. They are in business to make a decent trailer for a niche market at a profit.

We are just getting to washing the Oli after our 48 day trip. When we pulled the mattresses up we found signs of water under the condensation mats. So when we washed the Olivers outside. We pulled up the mats and mattresses and put them in the isle. When we sprayed the windows to wash of the soap both bed windows, kitchen window, and the bathroom window screen track over-flowed with water and ran down the wall. I removed the outside rubber and cleaned the out track and insured the weep holes were clean. I had my wife spray the windows at about 10 feet away with a 2ft pattern. The water went around the window and felt(?) in a couple of seconds and start filling up the screen track. In the past I never had problems with leaking when washing the windows. The outside rubbers are tight against and the end of the fixed window and there is about 1/2 space at the top of the window where the rubber stops. ie: the Rubber is short. I found the felt track was cover a weep hole between the window track and the in the street side bed window. I also noticed there was a big different between the felt/gasket in the exit window was much different than in the windows. I tried to get one end of the felt out in the street bed window, but it seemed like it was going to rip so I stopped. We never use the exit slider. We use the others window sliders constantly. The chalking around the windows appears to be in good all around? Questions. 1. Is it alright for the weep hole between the window track and the outside track to be covered up by the felt? 2. If the water leaking through/over/under the window and felt in seconds are the felts worn out? If it is can it be easily replaced? Does the Track under the felt need to be cleaned? 3. Is the outside rubber suppose to be tight against the window? Three pictures of close up of the felt are attached. one is the curb window showing the partial weep hole, the other is the street side bed window. The last in the exit felt which felt more like the rubber bump that sticks up 1/16" more and is plump and is tight against the slider then it opens. Thanks for your help, Bob Curb side with partial weep hole street side Exit window

I just got done with a trip 7,000+ miles. Wife is doing a deep cleaning after 48 days of travel. When I went by Hohenwald, and met another Owner and learn about the plastic in the lines, and adding flexible line in-between the PEX and the water heater Tee. So after reading this I decided to check all of the hand tightened fittings. Every one of the white fittings were loose, so they all got tightened. I didn't have any leaks luckily. I will have to put this on the maintenance list also.

I happened to take about a 10 mile section of a toll road in Indiana 3 weeks ago. Tried getting on their website to pay for the trip. The website is poor at best and I can not get it setup to recognize my vehicle and plate #. No searches return my plate number. Not sure if they want my money. This was the only toll road I hit in over 8,000 mile trip. I also agree there are some terrible roads out there.

I just figured we would try to hit 50 pages. I have gone back a couple of times through the thread when I couldn't sleep. better than counting sheep.😳

Dido

thanks great idea

I have 2 of the Eley hose reels with every thing has the Eley quick connects for the house. I have the male quick connect that I take off and on the 2 stage water filter for filling the fresh water at home. Never thought of fitting the Oliver and changing every thing to quick connects. so all I need is a pigtail to use at the camp site. The Eley products are pricey, but quality is top notch. I have almost 2 acres to water by hand in the summer, and have tried other reels, the Eley has out lasted the others, The hoses also have lasted longer than the big box stores. I dislike having to reach down under the edge of the trailer to hook the water up, especially when it is raining and the ground is filthy, and I have to work to get a nice tight connection. I think I will put a parts list together to upgrade filter/pressure regulator/hoses to Eley. i like the looks of the McKillans better than the Eleys but since I'm already intrenched with Eley at home, I will stay with Eley.

That tandem trailer ramp is a pretty cool idea, I like it.

Thats a horse of a different color. A return vent in the bathroom would make sense in the Elite I, since there is no Hot air output vent in the bathroom.

That is interesting with your furnace under the front dinette, our furnace is curb side in the rear of the trailer. Oliver had put in one main return in the the 2020 the is about 4-5" forward of the rear on the curb side. I have blocked off about 50% of the vent, to increase air return under other parts of the trailer. We also have a heater vent output just below the TP dispenser. So on My rig you would get nice warm air to the the bathroom plumbing if you added a return vent below the heater output. The down side you may not get as much air flow to warm the rest of the bathroom. I just put in the 2 vents (one up high and one down low) in the closet. With this you are just getting natural air flow/equalization with what is in the cabin. I was really surprised on how well this worked in making the the closet warmer. I know that at least one person has put the vent for the closet to under the sink to work as a return. With the changes I have made with hot air vent tubes on my rig, the area between the shells is about 5-10 degrees less then the main cabin at least up to the kitchen front seat. I have no idea what the temps are under the bathroom sink is.

Mark, I am not sure of what Oliver you have. I have a 2020 LE11. If you could put your Oliver year/model and same thing for your Tow vehicle in your signature section it would aid other owners in helping with answers. First, as shipped I consider my Oliver as a 3 season. I still winterize the camper for the winter months, and I still go camping. We just carry water with us. The lowest we keep the temp is 62 degrees at night, then 68 during the day. We have the Dometic Furnace, the newer Oli's have a Truma. I would like to update my Truma on demand water heater with the cool weather update, but haven't yet. Also Oliver changed the way the ventilation works on the newer models and vents the closet. Minnesota Oli posted "Breaking Subzero | Oliver Furnace Mod" for making changes to the Oliver for Dometic furnaces. There have been people that made vent changes in Closet, and Closet to under the bathroom sink. Maybe someone else can chime in on this subject. John E Davies may have also made vent changes. John E Davies had made tons of modifications, and information on up keep. He does have a page full of links that are helpful. John E Davies: HOW TO threads and Tech articles LINKS. I made the changes that Minnesota Oli did,but couldn't quite get the vent tube past the dinette floor. I Also just add the upper and lower vents to the front of the closet, and this really warmed up the closet.

I carry a little aluminum 3ft ladder. I set bottle on the top, then step up on the ladder to hoist it over. We just bought 2 20# we are going to try out for this next year. I can carry an extra 20# strapped into the truck if I need to.

We are doing something similar only we are starting in Oregon and taking a southern route down to Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma Arkansas, back to Tennessee, Kentucky back up to Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, then back across the top of the US on highway 2 (turns into 20) then BC, Canada to Hope, then Vancouver, then back down home. I am trying my best to use 2 lane roads and minimize the interstate(not always possible). We are going to Boon Dock at Harvest Hosts sites, then hit a Full hookup every 4-5 days. Trying to keep the travels to 4-5 hours a day when on the road. I noticed you are turning around right around the California border. Might want to go a little farther and see the Red Woods.

Well, I finished my other projects, semi-retired and I was able to get back to the Shackles on the Oliver. I emailed Alcan around December 16, 2024 and the special die set for punching the shackles without bending them was on still on backorder. So I canceled my order with them. Got some hot rolled low carbon steel, and purchased some Cobalt drills from drill bit warehouse. BTW, I have never used the cobalt drills before. Man are they nice. Cut that hot roll like butter. Never use them in a hand drill they can break easily. Only use something like a mill, Drill press, etc. I only had a .002" variance in Center line on the holes and they assembled easily. I made my Shackles 2-5/8" on centers. The original shackles were 2-1/4". When I was replacing the the leaf springs originally, I found rub marks on all EZ-Flex arms where the original Dexter leafs had rubbed against the arm. With the Original shackles and the new Alcan leafs I had .040 clearance between the 2nd leaf and the EZ-flex arm. The thickness of the individual leaf was about 3/8. So I added 3/8" to the Hole to hole distance making them 2-5/8. THis set the distance close to what the original distance was on the Dexters. This lowered the trailer back down by 3/16", The Alcans raised the height by 1/2" so a net gain of about 5/16" in height. I also went back to the original Dexter Wet bolts. The reason I did this I was having problems getting grease pumped through the bushings with the wet (grease-able) shackle bolts from Alcan when torqued down to 60 Ft/#. The Dexter bolts are shoulder bolts and the Alcan's are straight bolts. The shoulder/wet bolts measured about .010-.015 wider then the shackles/leafs or hangers/leafs. So that meant that Dexter designed that .010-.015 of side to side slop so that grease could moved to all surfaces and the EZ-FLEX could move freely. So I am using the Dexter Wet bolts. I finished all of this before the end of the year. I decided it was time to change all my coolant hoses on the truck before a cross country adventure, added larger heated mirrors with blinkers to the old F250 SD diesel, and did some other maintenance. So I just got the Oliver out on dry pavement (that does happen often in the Pacific NW). I took her on a 105 mile trip. 45 miles was small curvy roads and about 10 miles was rutted, sunken, patch road. The Oliver performed great. I could barely feel her / see her move, and she didn't rock around all over like before. I did my Torques at 9, 45,68,105 mile points. I will plan on torquing her again at 250, 500, 1000 mile marks. I may also do more torques if there is any movement at the 1000 mile point. I feel comfortable where I am at with the suspension. I may go back in a 2-3 years when it is time to re-grease the axle bearings. At that time I will check bushings, wet bolt wear with the leafs and ez-flex. The ex-flex bushings in the arms are not the thickest metal. and I will replace what is needed. When I put the new leafs on I replaced all of the axle bearing with Timken bearings. I also had small spots of rust al over the 3" axle tubes and leaf plates. So I sanded the tubes/plates and what I could of the Brake Backing plates, then coated with a Rust neutralized, primed and painted and coated with Cosmomline RP-342 after everything was reassembled. Hopefully this will stop/deter the rust. I was disappointed that the tubes had a small amount of rust on it when we got the Oli at 9 months old. We also frequent the Pacific NW beaches a lot so that did not help the rust increasing.