2008RN

John, thanks for the heads up. Just started investigating the switch over to lithium a week or so an ago. I checked out Battle Born last week. I’am minimum of a 17 months out, but I put myself on the mailing list. again thanks

We took possession of our used Oli almost 2 years ago. We like the original decals that the previous owners put on, although we would like to put a decal on that would be our own. My wife saw a cougar on the back of stick built trailer, she liked it, but it is not original nor is it “us”. Me, well I like the Fighting Oregon ducks. This is neither original, nor is it “us”. Thanks for starting this thread is giving me some ideas.

I'm with you guys. An inconsiderate fee; 3 times the normal fee for each night stay.

I have been making reservations for Oregon state camp grounds and National camp grounds in Oregon for the year, and within the first 8 hours of the dates being available 25% of the spots are taken. I learned from last year when 5 months ahead of time I only found 1 spot available along the whole Oregon coast line. Fortunately the federal parks in the cascades don't fill up as quickly, since you are basically boon-docking.

John ,et. al. I bought two of the suggest elbows and they are little bit of a tight fit getting by the water line once past the line everything slid in easily. The only problems I had was the vent tube from the defuser under the bed was a couple of inches short to make it to the rear outfit with the elbows on. I have to get a replace the tube and make it about 4-6 inches long. I hooked everything up above the access panels and then just slid them in place. This is a picture before I slid it in.

We love to Storm watch off the Oregon coast. No Leaks so far. I just hate walking in 1-2" of water standing around the curb side of the trailer, then end up dragging wet muddy junk in the camper. Moisture inside is also an issue. Between days of 100% rain, and wet clothes and shoes, It takes constant work to keep condensation off the walls. The wind storms will still buffet the trailer, but nothing that moved the trailer. I worry more about limbs falling on the Oli and crushing the Oli and us.

I went with a 12ft high x 14ft wide and it is 30 ft long. I really like the 14 ft wide, for being able to work on the Oli and it gives me extra width for getting backed into place (still working on the backing skills). The extra height is also nice to get up on top. I had enough room I could have gone 36ft long, and I wish I had. When I was going over things with the contractor he told me that for resale I should do a 14ft high opening, and max the length out. We had set a financial limit on what we could spend on Oli, truck, RV port/garage, and accessories to get going. When it comes down to it, we hope this house will be our last, and we will never go with bigger RV/Trailer. I had a GMC greyhound bus conversion many years ago which was fun, and it had lots of room and storage. Although it was to big to get in placing that I can get the Oli into. We really like the Oli trailer setup better, and I no longer have to take care of a towed vehicle. So my decision for the RV garage was right for me. My Children will have to worry about resale in the future, I hope to be to darn old to worry about it. What I do regret is that 10 years ago I built a 10ft high x 24ft wide x 36ft deep garage with 2 stalls . I wish I would have be more forward thinking and built a 40ft wide x 36ft deep with 12-14ft height with 3 stalls. I would have saved 1/2 of the cost of the RV garage doing it all at once, and had more room. Good luck with your decisions.

Happy Thanksgiving, Enjoy the Turkey day. May your travels be safe, and your time with family memorable. For those that do have to work on this day - Thank you for your sacrifices.

Here in the Left Coast we are down to 4.19 Gas, 4.98 Diesel.

North America! I need a bigger bucket for a complete list. I guess we will keep trying to see something new until I am to old. So many places, not enough years left. See what we can get done over the next 20 years, God willing. 2 more years until retirement, then the adventures start. Until then the Pacific North West is my playground.

I did not see an open slot on my Oli for another fuse. I used fish tape and went from the kitchen seat, and routed towards the center of the Oli. Plenty of space. I just had to reach down through the cabinet to pull the fish tape up.

John , I appreciate your feedback, 1. I did not like my kludge to the trapped air problem. Sorry I do not have your common sense. I have NO experience at cutting and adding a vent port to tank like this. I do not know where to begin. Maybe you have resource information on how to do this. 2. The awning fuse slot was the ONLY fuse slot not being used on my 2020 Oliver. I replaced the fuse with a 3 Amp when I set it up, but thanks for mentioning it so someone would just assume you could use the higher amp fuse. Natures head states to use between 2-5amps. 3. We like to get out and camp about once every 2 months, with our schedule it hard to go out more than that, so what we normally do is let the fan run for about 2 weeks after camping during that 2 week period we are in/out the camper doing things so we turn the agitator when we are out there, then the fan is shut it off until we start getting ready for the next adventure. We clean it out once a year at winterizing time. In a years time, we probably have around 5 BM's in the head. So far it has not got gross inside. I always worry about having a connection failure from plugging and unplugging things all the time. I know this violates the KISS principle, but I have seen to many connector failures in the my past, and for me the redundant pump switch was not needed.

I ran a wire from the fuse box , I think I used the fuse labeled Streetside awning under the floor into the area below the bathroom sink. We do not use the Pump switch in the bathroom, so I use that switch to turn the Natures head fan off on and off. I purchase an extra flange and 2 of the rubber boots for the tubing to run the compost vent into the trailer vent. I ended up cutting out about 6" of the vent pipe from the Black tank., and you can see where I used a rubber cap to seal it. I also drill a small hole through the flags to fish eh wire through. On a side note, after I had finished the Nature Head Install I then decided I wanted to use the Black tank for extra gray water storage when we are boon docking. Oops, the cap I put on the pipe from the black tank did not allow air out of the tank. So I had to open the cabinet back up, I cheated and drilled a .125 hole in the top of the rubber cap, so the black tank would vent. I set a timer when ever I am pumping from the gray to the black tank, and only fill to 80% capacity. I know it is venting into a open cavity. I haven't any bad smell yet. I clean the black tank out good after use. This is the upper portion of the tubing that goes into the camper vent system. I used a rubber reducer to go from the camper vent size down to the Compost vent size, and then used a piece of white PVC pipe to connect the two.

Everything went pretty well, thankfully all of the different things people have written online has helped. The Dexter China made bearing are still looking good at 7K miles. So I repacked the old bearings, in 2 years I will replaced the bearings with Timken. I have always packed my bearings by hand, after doing one side of the trailer by hand, I decided to pick up a bearing packer. I purchased a Lisle from a local auto parts store. The packer did a good job, although it was very hard to push done. I had to put the packer on the floor and push down with all of my upper body. THis saved me a lot of time vs doing it by hand. I saw a Gearwrench packer online, but no one had one locally. The Gearwrench had a smaller diameter than the Lisle. It was still big enough for the Oliver bearing. The smaller diameter should have made it somewhat easier to press down. I have read that someone used their foot to press down on the Lisle unit, and it worked without breaking it. I really like the clip to hold the axle nut in place. I thought it was pretty cool over using a cotter pin. The Dexter dust caps are ill fitting at best. To of them almost I had purchased Balkamp Dust caps from NAPA as suggested in the forum. I tried putting my first dust cap on with a Dust Cap application tool. I had to pound like H_ll to get it on, Like an idiot I just kept pounding. It’s on now, It is going to be really darn hard to get that off in 2 years. The caps are suppose to be 1.986” OD, Balkamp measured out @ 1.998” OD at the outside edge and 1.987-1.990 next to the flange. The ID of the hub is around 1.975. That is 0.025 of interference. I went to NAPA and measure all the caps that they have in stock. They all measured the same. I decided to use the bench grinder and grind down the OD at a taper. I took a couple of taps to get it started, and 3 good wacks to set it in place. I had one lug nut that was mangled fro the factory. I had to pound a deep well socket on the lug nut. Once the lug nut was off, I had use a drift punch to get the lug nut off. The outside of the lugs nuts are a thin sheet metal. I went to a local tire shop and bought enough solid metal chrome lugnuts to replace all cheap lugnuts. They match perfectly with the old lug nuts. I also bought 2 spares just in case. I was suprised that the tires where not balances. I got all of the tires balanced. hopefully the trailer will ride smoother. I decided to lube the suspension since very thing is easy to get to. All of the zerks took grease with the chassis jacked up and wheels of except the 3 zerks around the rear tire and the street side. I tried jacking up the axel and this didn’t help. I was resined to pulling apart the rear suspension, but then I thought I lubed everything last year with all tires on the ground. I put the wheels on, lowered the Oli back down and I was able to get grease on those 3 bolts. Not sure why? It is lubed for now. The things I forgot: To chalk the emblems on the inside of the chrome dust cap wheel covers. I think it was John Davis who suggested this. Although 2 of the emblems already have a small area where the thick rubber coating is delaminating. They are good for now, but I may need to try to find some nice looking dust cap wheel covers to replace the originals. I completey forgot to get the spare balanced. Sorry for the long winded right up.

At age ten that would be a blast. I didn't have the opportunity to drive a tractor until I was in my 20s. Had the chance to cut and rake a field so it could be baled. Spent a whole day doing it. I Loved it.

My grandfather was an Oliver dealer back in the 40s and 50s. I feel a connection to the name Oliver

We use the same setup , the Camco jack stands, and X-Chocks. The Camco jack stands really firms up the trailer. You barely even notice any movement with someone coming in the trailer. If I am only staying 1night I don't worry about the jacks Any longer stay I put them up. I really don't like to be woke up at night when my wife has to use the Lou as the trailer rocks slightly walking back and forth from the front. I am a light sleeper. As far as the X-chocks, If I am unhooking the the trailer for more than 1/2 hour, The X-chocks get put in place. I have never really go without them. For me they are extra protection for having the trailer roll ( I still use regular chock blocks), and I figure it is one more thing a thief will have to deal with when attempting to steal the trailer (along with several other locks...)

I don't have Lithium Batteries, but I agree with some of the other postings that it would take a lot of batteries to run the AC for any length of time. I had bus conversion with 640AH of batteries, and I could not run the AC for any long length of time without a generator. The other side of the equation, is to getting those batteries charged up after being drained down with the solar. It is just not enough power. I ended up buying the Honda EU2200i generators to run the AC while boon docking. We only need it a couple of times a year, but we boondocks 3 weeks ago for 5 days and it was between 95-100 degrees. We hiked all day long and had a great time, but it was nice to be able to cool down the trailer in the evening so we could sleep. The AC had to run for 3 plus hours to get the temps down inside. It was also nice to be able to cook dinner inside the trailer in some comfort when it was really hot outside, without heating the inside of the trailer more from cooking. I love it that I can enjoy being out in nature, and still live in some luxury, No more backpacking and sleeping on the ground for me. Sometimes we will use the Microwave on the batteries/inverter to heat up water for our night time teas. The batteries can do this just fine, but you are only taxing the system for a few minutes.

My klos travel guitar, although we have been thinking about a screen room.

I bought ours during covad. It took 2 months to get tagged. At the time the state realized the difficulties in getting into the DMV

We keep our Oli EII @ 55psi also. For a couple reasons. 1. I have calculated the weight for the Oliver while towing, the tongue weight, and the weight on both my front and rear axles of the truck with everything fully loaded for towing. 2. The truck uses the same psi and all I have to remember is 55 psi for all the tires. 3. I figure that at 55 psi it’s a little high for the Oliver but it allows that if one tire goes bad the other three tires still have enough strength to carry the load. If I remember correctly I did the calculations for 6500 trailer weight. Not that I am planning on driving on three tires on the Ollie I just wanted that extra safety factor so by the time I found out that a tired gone bad I’d still have time to get it parked over on the side of the road and maybe limp it to someplace where I could change it without getting someone hurt

Haloview Rear view camera review. The following is the installation and review of Haloview camera. About 12 months ago I put feelers out there about rearview cameras other than Furrion. I had read about to many people unhappy with the performance of the Furrion. I had read John Davis’s installation of the Garmin with a remote transmitter and I like the idea. I took a lot of Ideas from John’s writeup and implemented them to fit my wants. Thanks John for your writeup. I purchased the following directly from Haloview. Note: Haloview does not have any support in the USA. Haloview’s support and products come direct from China. All support is submitting request via the internet. RD7 monitor and camera with 33ft of cable. The 33ft cable was overkill. I was uncertain if the Haloview would connect as reliably from the Front bathroom cabinet area like John did (plan A), or if I would have to route it to the front Propane doghouse area (plan B). The Haloview was intended to be installed across the top of the camper with the camera mount on the back and the transmitter to be on the front outside of the camper. I really didn’t want wiring running across the top of the camper. License plate Camera. CA109 This was for the front license plate. It was not intended replacement for a Dash cam, but to aid in hooking up the trailer to the front end so that I could park the Oli reliably in the 3 sided RV port. Memory You have to purchase a memory card in order to record audio/video. I decided to max it out at 128GB, So I could keep more data. Rearview mirror Monitor adapter: This adapter plate allows you to mount the monitor over the front of the mirror. I like this because it attaches/de attaches easily. and does not sit on the dash. DC 5.5mm x 2.5mm Male Plug The Haloview comes with a long cigarette lighter power cord. I really don’t like a bunch of cords dangling around the cab. I had looked at several different cables on Amazon, I had found another cable that was 9ft long, but messed up and ordered this instead. I will just add the extra wire I need to make the run to hardware it to my truck. Mounting the Camera I mounted the rear camera above the Oliver sign on the top of the roof. I like the U channel idea that John Davis installed. The depth of the camera was about 2.3inches. I found a piece of scrap aluminum 3” angle. I cut two 7” lengths and made my own U-channel. Angle Aluminum is attached with 1/4-20 stainless steel bolts The camera cable connector is 5/8” diameter and the cable itself is about .220”. I found a shifter bushing at Orielly’s that worked as a grommet. I cut a slot in the bushing so I could get the bushing on the cable. I also had to trim the leading edge of the bushing so I could get it started, It was a tight fit. I also made a 7/8 slot in the aluminum where the bushing resides, instead of just drill a hole in the alumimun. This will hopefully allow keep water from building up around the bushing. Sorry I didn’t take pictures of aluminum before assembly, Above: Male end of the connector with rubber boot The Wiring The wiring came into the upper rear cabinet inside the Oli. When pulled the street side panel off from the inside of the cabinet, I was lucky enough to find a 2 wire bundle with one wire marked “cam”, and the other wire was a ground. The DC power cable that came with the Haloview had 22 gauge wires, and the Oli has 14 gauge wires. So the soldered a small length of 18 gauge DC wire to the 22 gauge and reinforce the smaller wires and connections with a couple layers of heat shrink to reinforce the 22 gauge wires from breaking as easily. I then made a mechanical connection with the 18 gauge wires to the Oli’s 14 gauge. I purchased a LED switch from Oliver and added it to the Master switch panel. I love it that Oliver already had a slot for the camera. It made it easy to add power and ground to the switch and connect the “cam” wire on the panel side. Above: Wires inside the upper cabinet just behind the Oliver sign. Below: Haloview wiring setup. The 33 ft Cable going to the transmitter was the only big cable run the I had to do. I want to step back a week in time just after I received the Haloview products. I wanted to test the equipment and where I was actually going to place the transmitter. I kludged together some stuff to place the camera just inside the back window. Then connected all of the haloview cables together and powered them up with a battery jumper box. I place the transmitter inside the bathroom cabinet and taped to the front bulkhead. I used painters tape to secure everything in place for a drive. I mounted the monitor in the truck and went for a 40 mile drive on 2 lane roads and a good freeway stretch. I found the the Haloview transmitter communicated well with the monitor in the truck. I will cover my results later in my review. The 33ft cable run The 33 ft cable was ran through the street side cabinets. I ran into one snag, I was unable to get a fishtape through the pantry cabinet area. I tried for about 45 minutes and then gave up. OK, time to start plan “B”. I know that getting a wire through the bottom street side waste plumbing areas was doable. So I made sure I could get a fishtape from the bottom storage area to the top rear cabinet, this was no problem at all. The only part of plan “B” that I really didn’t like was getting the bathroom sink cover off, and drilling a hole through the front hull into the doghouse area, and plugging it; yet another point of possible leaks, plus it wouldn’t get finished this week. Then the thought came to mind, if I am willing to cut another hole through the hull, why not just cut 2 holes in the pantry and go back to plan “A”. Time to get the executive committee (Dawn and I ) and make a decision. The committee weighed the facts and unanimously decided on plan “A”. FYI: if you run the wire as I did, Plan “A” Haloview has a 26ft length of wire at will work better, If you do plan “B” and run it below to the Propane doghouse the 33ft length of wire will probably be needed. The Connectors on the rear camera cables are large. They are running power,ground, audio, and video through it. Kind of clunky, but I really do not know any better way. I cut two 3/4” holes in each side of the pantry cabinet. I went a little oversize since 5/8” hole is a very snug fit with the cable connectors and boot. upper pantry shelf It worked great, running the wire and mounting the transmitter only took another hour. I first tested the setup before attaching the transmitter to the bulk head; every worked great. The transmitter was then attached to the front bulkhead with 3mm double faced tape. I had to use 2 pieces thick to get it to stick because of the slight curve in the hull. The transmitter fit neatly in the wire trough and takes up very little space. The area around the transmitter only stores wash cloths and hand towels. Review and Lag Time Results: Rearview Camera: The monitor is 720p resolution, and the camera has a 130º view. Furrion is a 480P with 120º. Because of the viewing angle, things appear farther away than they are. The image appears to be clear with good color. A small vehicle can be seen at about 150yards. Semi trucks at about 300yards. This is enough to keep track of vehicles approaching from the rear. According to Haloview viewing distance is only 32ft at night. This does not seem to be very far. I have not had a chance to test it at night. Hopefully this would be enough to see what is close when backing into a site in the late evening. As far as being out on the freeway hopefully you will be able to see car lights further back than 32 feet. I try not to do much traveling in the dark with the camper attached. Lag time: Lag time has always been a problem on wireless cameras. I tested the lag time by measuring road imperfections. When the road imperfection was at the front tires of the truck I would start a timer, and would stop the timer when I would see it in the camera in the rear. Rearview lag at 65mph was about 0.7 seconds lag from the front tires of truck until seen in the back of the truck. This distance is approximately 55ft total distance from the front of the truck to when seen in the back camera. At 65mph is equates to 95.3ft/sec. At 0.7 sec @ 65mph this is 66.7ft, So 66.7ft minus 55ft is approximately 12 feet delay. 12ft divided by 95.3ft per second is about 0.126 second delay. I watch vehicles pulling out in the lane behind me using the rear view camera. When I would see them start to cross the dotted line I would look in the side mirror. During that time the car would be about 2 ft over the line. I also did the reverse watch cars pulling in behind me from the inside lane watching through the side mirror. As the car cross the dotted line, I would look at the rear view monitor and the car would be about 2 ft over the line. I think the 2 ft differences is the amount of time it takes me to turn my head and refocus. So I think that the small delay is imperceptible. Monitor: What I did notice is that the monitor does not have a fluid smooth motion. It was more like an old black and white silent movie that that flickered in movements jumped just slightly with the refresh of the screen. At highway speeds this really wasn’t a big deal, because you were just glancing in the rear view monitor then back to the road and then scanning the side mirrors. To many things to watch for at highway speeds than just staring at the monitor. In town when going 25mph you might have a full second or two you could concentrate and see the jumpiness in the refresh of the image. This really does not both me. The last time I had experience with a backup monitor was when I Installed a Black & white hardwired 9” tube type monitor in a 35” gray hound bus. So my experience is limited. Audio: The cameras have audio. I have not really tested it. I had it on for a while when I was driving. It just made road noise. Road noise is not enjoyable to listen to. When I had a chance, I pulled over and muted the sound. Depending on how well it works, it might be nice when I am backing up that I can hear my wife. The negative is that you have to go into the menu to change the sound setting. Would be nice if the monitor had buttons that would changing the volume. Backup lines: I was disappointed in the lack of adjustability in the lines. You can in and out and front to back in large steps. Not really super functional. I have 2 different Pioneer stereos with backup lines that each of the 4 points of the lines can be adjusted in both axes. Setup: The program works, but is clunky. Sort of old school technology. This unit can handle up to 4 cameras. There is a lot of ways to set the cameras up for viewing. No wifi/bluetooth to connect to phone There is no way to transfer data from the monitor to a computer or phone besides taking the memory card, microSD, out and putting it into my MacBook. I then have to convert the AVI file to MP4, so it can be read on any (i)phone/computer. ie: Apple does’t do AVI since it was an early 1990s Microsoft technology and uses a lot of space. Cables: Power to monitor takes extra connections. 3 cables totally 9 feet to get to a cigarette lighter adapter. Really! No mater what I do I will still have 5 feet of cable hidden behind the monitor. Front License Plate Camera. The front license plate Camera is only to aid in attaching the trailer tongue to the front ball. Due to the Angle of the camera to ball, the camera only works for this purpose. This use is also limited. I can only see the tongue when I am within about 8 feet away. This after practicing one time, I was able to properly get the ball properly positioned under the tongue 3 more times in a row on the first shot. The camera is only turned on when it is needed for hooking up to the trailer. If I pointed the camera up, I would not be able to use it as an aid in hooking up the trailer. Also this technology is not quite suited as a fully functioning Dash Cam. There is a video delay on front licenses plate camera. The delay was variable from imperceptible to 1.2 seconds. I test it by driving forward in the driveway and then slamming on the brakes and measure the time delay. Fortunately as I got close to the ball the delay seemed to be imperceptible most likely because I was creeping forward, slower than a idle. The camera is mounted on the front of a custom 1/4in thick bumper. The metal may have caused the problems with the reception. Overview: Positives: Haloview had already paired the cameras. I just powered everything up and they worked. Quality appears to be pretty good. Everything was packaged nicely and it took 10 days to get here from China. (not bad from China) I like the rearview mirror mounting adapter. When in use it attaches to my rear view mirror. I do not the rear view mirror when towing, I get tired of just seeing the emblem on the front of the Oli, This unit can handle up to 4 cameras. There is a lot of ways to set the cameras up for viewing. Price was reasonable. I spent over $700 for my 1998 wired rear view camera setup. Technology has came a long way since then. Furrion is $200 more for a similar camera. Records video and audio. Many other setups do not. Negatives: Getting the data off of the Monitor. There is no bluetooth/wifi connection. Kind of a PITA. Since this a totally based Chinese company, I do not know how good there service will be. The Haloview products took about 10 days to arrive from China. Amazon does sell Haloview. I do not know if the support will be any better/different. I did use the online web tool to ask information. In both cases I had a reply in less than 24hours. Finding the communication tool is difficult to find on their website. No phone # to call. Viewing angle of front bumper camera is poor. This could be as much my problem with the angle of setup. Lag time on front bumper is as much as 1.2 seconds. Night time viewing probably poor have not tested. limited to 32ft maximum. Power to monitor takes extra connections. 3 cables totaling 9 feet. Monitor function/setup clunky. Looks like 1990s software technology. Looking online other manufactures are just as bad. This is not a replacement for a real dash cam Adjusting sound is not as easy as just pushing a button. Overall I am satisfied with the investment. For a wireless camera it is good. It is usable and does the job I bought it for. I think the only way of getting better video quality at this time is to hardwire from the camera to the monitor. I really did not want something else to connect when hooking up the trailer.

We have a composting toilet, and no you don’t really want to get extra water in there especially if there is chlorine in the water. I am a little paranoid about getting water in the fan/ electrical connections also. so we just cover the toilet with a trash bag and then reuse trash bag when it is dry.

Honda just released a new 3200watt (26.6 ) amp generator. It is in the same format of the EU 2200i. It will fit under a tonneau cover an should also fit in the front basket. I haven’t measure the basket yet thought. 60 pounds, fuel injection, and all of the same features of the EU2200. It is a little expensive at list price $2999, the 2200 main and companion together are about $500 cheaper than the 3200. If I hadn’t just bought the EU2200i main and companion I would really consider this because of the space savings and one less generator to maintain. The 2 Eu2200i are 4400 watts or 36.6 amps vs 26.6 amps of the 3200

Hi John, I don't have the standard mattress, I have the older KTT mattress. It is the most comfortable mattress I have slept on. We have a firm mattress at home and I put a 1" foam egg crate foam under the mattress cover. I love going camping because of the comfort. If you decide to go with the standard mattress and do the wool topper and don't like it, there are a couple of custom mattress shops in Portland that could make something for you. And yes the only complaint about the latex is the it is really heavy. it is like moving a 60 pound wet noodle that is 6ft long. Do make sure you get the hypervent under the mattresses. In my opinion it is a must in the in the Northwest. I you are a summer camper only it's not really needed. If you go camping in the winter you will need it. We go camping as long as we can safely get to the beach in the winter weather and it is really easy to get the moisture on the walls. We have vents open and pushing a small amount of air through the Oli all winter long to keep the moisture in control. Thought about doing a Dehumidifier next winter. Thanks, Bob Sweethome, OR