LongStride

Excellent work! Very impressive.

To the Honda EU2200i owners reading this... Don't be lulled into a false sense of security with the fuel shutoff setting to drain the carb for long term storage. Yes, it will run on this setting until the carburetor is starved and then it will kill the engine. However, it still leaves enough gas in there to varnish the surfaces of the carb if it is not removed and left to sit for months at a time. I found this out when I put up my genset for the winter. I followed protocol for long term storage and I was surprised to find a little more than a teaspoon full of gas in the carb when I opened the drain. The Westinghouse looks like a good unit as well, and a bargain at that. It sounds like those who own one are quite pleased with their purchase.

I purchased a Viair 400P-RV air compressor this past summer. I am really happy with it. Unfortunately mine was not on sale and I paid full price. If they have a deal on one get it. They are pretty pricey otherwise. I use it to maintain proper pressure in all of our vehicles. It is so convenient to use rather than to drag out the hose on my big compressor and then have to bleed the air/moisture out of the tank when finished. It is quiet too. I also used it to blow the water lines out when winterizing our Ollie. I only put 45 psi on the lines and just used it to get the majority of the water out before putting in the antifreeze. I really think that attempting to blow the system "dry" puts a strain on the water pump. I could hear the pump spinning when the majority of the water was cleared out of the lines. The pump is water lubricated and spinning it dry is IMHO not a good practice. Rather than purchase the Viair "winterizing kit", I just went to Menards and picked up a regulator and fittings. It ends up being a cheaper option and does just as well.

Meguiar's Flagship appears to be the choice of many others as well. We used it to wax our Elite just prior to putting it to bed for the winter.

@Islandgrl these are the first AGM's that I have owned, so I can't speak from experience. However, I did a good bit of research and SeaDawg's comment appears to be spot on. Maintenance and proper operation are the key to getting the maximum life out of your batteries. Read the owners guide for your batteries. It can be a bit intimidating if you are not accustomed to reading technical manuals. The manual will tell you how to care for them and will say what type of charger you will require. Any old charger won't do. You will be able to charge all four of them at the same time by jumpering them together like @topgun2 suggested. As it was explained to me, it just turns them into one huge 12v battery. The NOCO Genius 10 brings the batteries up to full charge in stages (like the owners manual says to do) and when they get close to full charge the green indicator light will slowly fade on and off. It will turn solid green at full charge. At that point, the charger is in the maintenance mode and will keep your AGM's in top shape. Leave it plugged in all the time when in storage to keep your batteries in prime condition. Mike

I have had a NOCO Genius 10 on my batteries for a few days now. I wired my (2) 6V AGM's together as suggested by JD and I am using the 12V AGM setting. The batteries are charged up and the unit is in the "maintenance" mode. No problems whatsoever. I like it. Thank you all for your helpful suggestions.

The dealership has disconnected the battery and will do nothing further until a Toyota inspector comes to look at it. Due to the serious nature of this failure Toyota wants to send their own expert to try and determine how this happened. I had to call Toyota USA and report the incident so they could open a case file. They gave me a case number and said that an investigator will call me back. I used a dry chemical fire extinguisher on the fire and used up about the whole thing. It was a full size household type. Never smelled gas when I went out to the truck. I can't rule out rodent damage, but I have never had a problem with them fooling around in my vehicles. Plenty of more comfortable places for them in my 92 year old garage! Thanks to all of you for your concern. We are sad and upset but safe and unharmed. We are fortunate this happened at home rather than on the freeway with our Ollie in tow!

Hopped into the truck yesterday afternoon to go to the market and it burst into flames. When I started it, smoke started rolling out from under the hood. I told my wife to get out, move away from the truck and call 911. When I got out of the truck there were flames in the drivers side wheel well and my driveway was on fire under the engine bay. I ran to the house and grabbed a fire extinguisher. I killed the flames under the truck and then the flames in the wheel well. I stepped back and it burst into flames again. I gave it another shot and put it out (or so I thought). I opened the hood and there were still flames so I attacked it from above and finally extinguished it. Fire dept. showed up and made certain that the fire was out. My truck is a 2020 with less than 8,000 miles on it. Not happy. Not a good time to buy a new truck if they total it. Even if they can repair it I don't think I want to keep it after it suffered a fire like that. Who knows what hidden damage it caused in addition to the obvious.

Thanks guys. I had given thought to hooking two of them together to make a 12v battery pak and charge with the 12v AGM setting but I was not certain if it would be problematic. I am still early in the learning curve for 12v electrical systems. Mechanical things I understand pretty well but I am a little weak at electrical in general. If I may tap your wealth of knowledge some more, can you tell me why (2) 12v deep cycle batteries come standard on the Elite, yet if you get the solar option (2) 6v AGM's are provided instead of the 12v deep cycle ones? Does the 12v output from two 6v AGM's provide more amp hours than the 12v output of two 12v deep cycle ones? From what I have seen from your past posts you guys probably know the answer but it sure has me scratching my head 🤪!

I am in the process of putting up my Elite for the winter. The Calmark cover that I am going to put on will prevent the solar panels from maintaining a charge on the batteries. I don't have power at the pad where Ollie resides, so I am going to remove the batteries and store them in my garage. I have just spent a couple of hours trying to figure out what charger I need to properly maintain my AGM's while in storage. I can find three and four stage chargers that have a setting specifically for AGM's but they are all 12v. For example, I have been looking at the Noco Genius series and they have the following settings: 12v, 12v AGM, 12v Lithium, and 6v. No setting for 6v AGM. I looked at their literature for a setting to use and the 6v setting does not make mention of AGM's, just wet cell, gel cell, and flooded maintenance free. I don't want to screw up my new batteries with the wrong charger. Can someone with 6v AGM experience please share with me what type of charger they use to maintain their batteries while in storage? Thanks, Mike

The rear tail light leak is a known issue caused by failure of the exterior caulking. it is likely that the leak in the front closet is due to the same thing. Exterior caulk inspection and maintenance is a normal task for any RV or travel trailer. Caulking issues are by no means an indication that you have a "lemon", and it is no surprise that the caulk needs a little TLC on a four year old trailer. Faulty blinds, bad regulator, leaking window, and blown shocks are all components manufactured by others and installed by Oliver. Unfortunately the overall quality of many RV components available in the USA market is not the caliber that Oliver would like to see. I was told by an Oliver employee that they have voiced complaints to vendors and were pretty much told to "take it or leave it". The onus is on Oliver for the fresh water pick up tube, as well as for lifting flooring and over-torqued fasteners. Take a look on the forums of SOB's and see what woes they experience on four year old travel trailers and you will be grateful that you purchased an Oliver. Good luck with your shock replacement!

I agree that adding fender washers is a great idea. Any other means would require modifying the bracket which would be a royal PITA. In looking at various photos in this thread it would appear that this issue has been around for a few years. That being said, I can only imagine that Dexter is aware of the problem and just won't lift a finger to correct it. That's unconscionable. It is just a simple bracket and and a design change would cost them very little.

Is there a way to adjust the size of a photo when you attach it, or do you need to resize prior to attaching?

Update... I went out this morning hoping to find that the bracket was indeed a slot and that the shock could be loosened and pushed inboard a bit. No such luck. It is a hole, and its centerline is only 1/2" from the end of the bracket. There is no logical reason for this. The hole could easily have been another 3/8" inboard which would have allowed the rubber bushing to have 360 deg. contact with the bracket. It would only make sense that the hole was punched in the bracket prior to it being welded onto the subframe assembly. That being said, this is either a manufacturing defect or a poor design. Now that I have taken a closer look at the bushings I don't believe that they are over torqued. It doesn't help that they are deformed because they hang over the edge of the bracket, but the cracking is likely due to poor quality rubber than anything else.

I'll need to investigate further tomorrow morning. I just took a quick look under there to see how much they were compressed and if they were cracked. That is when I noticed that they were close to the edge of the bracket. I suspect that it is a slot because there is plenty of room inboard of the bracket, and why would they put the hole so close to the edge? Of course it could be that the bracket was manufactured with the hole too far outboard and no one noticed. We shall see.

I agree Frank that your bushings don't appear to be over torqued. You may be spot on about crappy materials though. The compression of yours and those in the first photo of the thread look to be about right. The ones in the photos sent by Fritz are definitely over torqued. In all cases, the bushings are not meant to hang over the edge and deform.

Went out and checked my shock bushings today. My Elite is just over five months old with less than 2K miles on it. My bushings appear to be over-torqued and are starting to crack. They also appear to be fastened very close to the edge of the bracket on the frame like the photo provided by Fritz. It looks as if there is a calamity of errors here. Improper installation and poor engineering. When bushings of this type are compressed to the point that there is no flex left in them, they no longer serve the intent of their design. The rubber bushings were also designed to have 360 deg. contact on their faces. They were not designed to hang over the edge of a bracket causing them to deform. Bracket and bushings are mismatched. I don't know if the responsibility for this issue lies with Dexter, Oliver, or shared between the two. At any rate I am going to open a service ticket on this while still under warranty.

John, I have no issue using thread locker on a SS fastener that I never plan on removing. If it were something critical that I still wanted to be able to remove if necessary sometime down the road, I would use anti-seize and double nut it. I agree with you that 3/8" and smaller stainless bolts snap pretty easily. However, I don't think that I would attempt that if the fastener was sandwiching a fiberglass component that I did not want to damage. I would use a cutoff wheel instead.

Picked up four gallons at Menards yesterday. They had plenty in two different flavors.

If anyone else finds that these bolts are loose, there is an easier fix. Rather than removing the vanity to access the head of the bolts for a holdback, clamp a pair of vice grips on the threaded portion of the bolts and then tighten up the nuts. If it were me, I would back off the nuts a tad so that I could put on some Locktite before snugging them down. Obviously this will only work if the bolts are long enough like the ones in the photo. Yes the vice grips will damage the threads, but it is unlikely that you would ever have the need to remove these particular fasteners. If they ever had to be removed you would need to cut off the damaged portion to remove the nuts.

Since you are full timing I assume that you staying at a full service RV park. That being said, I recommend that you look into an electric space heater. Unless you are in the mountains, winter temps are pretty moderate in NC. There are a number of folks on this forum who use them as supplemental heat.

Same condition exists on the LE l. We leave the rear bed set up all the time, so even getting to the access port requires laying on the floor. Like many of the rest of you, I just use the access panel under the bedding.

That looks terrific! Nice job.

I agree with @mossemithat it would be best to support the flex duct from the inside when applying the tape. Unfortunately that may be difficult due to location or the duct being too small to get your hand into. Most aluminum HVAC tape is about 2" wide. That should be wide enough to easily span the distance between the spiral coils of the wire that give the duct its body and support. If you can go all the way around the duct with the tape while pressing it against the coils it will seal the tear. If you try just pressing against the "skin" of the duct you will struggle and perhaps make it worse. HVAC tape is wonderful stuff. It is widely used by professional insulators when applying foil faced sheet insulation to metal ductwork. Oliver probably used some to seal the seams in the insulation on your trailer. I think that I ran across some in mine. Good luck with your repair.

While static. I should have added that.