Steve and MA

Well, I put one of these grills in my shopping cart on the Sansujyuku webstore, but did not follow through due to the price fluctuations. Today I was contacted by another seller, GW Store, asking if I still wanted to order the grill. Sounded odd since I had never contacted GW before and didn't know who they were. They already had my shipping address and asked if I wanted to finish the order, at the regular retail price of $329. No thanks, I cancelled. JD, I know you're on the road. Did you save the box the grill was shipped in. It might be telling whether Sansujyuku shows as the sender, or someone else. A little research (below) reveals that Sansujyuku is likely to be a scammer. Though they do deliver to some customers, others have simply been cheated out of their money with no product delivered. You did receive your grill, but it could still be a scam. One of the tricks is for the scammer to set up fake ID credit card accounts, then they take your order and use their fake ID account to pay and have the product shipped to you from another vendor. The scammer gets your money. The actual product is effectively stolen; either the credit card company or the vendor that actually shipped the product takes the loss. I'm not saying that's the case with your purchase, but you know the old saying, if it sounds too good to be true.... https://www.trustpilot.com/review/sansujyuku.com

We have a Clearsource Ultra water filter and Blu Tech water softener mounted in our TV. We rarely connect the trailer directly to city water and instead fill its fresh tank with filtered and softened water. We've been wanting to add a UV water filter for drinking water, but until recently haven't found one that uses 12v power that we liked. Blu Tech recently introduced their UVC Purification Faucet and it's just what we were looking for. UV water filters haven't been discussed very much on this forum, and since this is a new product there's not much information about it on the internet. We decided to go for it anyway. This YouTube video review was posted earlier today, about a week after we bought one. You may ask, why do we want a UV filter? It makes sense for us because we don't want to carry around disposable bottles of drinking water. We want to be confident that our filtered and softened tap water is safe for drinking. Since our "pure" water sits in a reservoir for a week or longer, even if unlikely, microbial contamination is still possible. The UV filter is our final defense against pathogens. The install in our Oliver was very easy. It does require drilling a hole in the countertop, but the Blu Tech UVC faucet looks like it belongs there. The kit came with a 120 volt AC adapter that supplies the UVC faucet with 12 volts DC at 2 amps. We don't always run the inverter and we're not always on shore power. For our install we ditched the AC adapter and purchased a DC5521 connector so we could wire directly to a 12 volt circuit. The Norcold refrigerator is on a 20 amp fuse, so we tapped into its power supply and added a 3 amp fuse at the splice. Blu Tech doesn't supply a separate DC5521 connector for direct wiring, and we didn't want to cut it off from the supplied ac adapter in case we need to send it back. Besides the DC connector, we also had to purchase the parts to tie it into our freshwater line. The faucet requires 1/4 inch PEX. We inserted a threaded t-connector with a 1/4 inch PEX fitting in-between the existing cold water PEX to braided stainless faucet fitting under the sink. After installation I saw that the counterweight for the kitchen faucet hose bumped against the new t-connector. We used zip ties to hold the water lines away from the counterweight when it goes up/down. So far so good. A blue light glows at the faucet base when the water is running. The style of the faucet is a close match to the original.

We don't have this grill...yet. It's been around for years at over $300, but hard to resist for just $201. It gets high marks from several reviewers and does well in comparison tests. Since the PitmasteRx reviewer didn't show its regulator in his video, I was pointing out that the manufacturer offers a low-pressure RV connector. If this grill had high pressure burners it wouldn't be possible (or at least not practical) to use the RV quick connects. I have a Camp Chef stove with two 20,000 BTU high pressure propane burners. Its regulator has to be connected directly to a propane tank to get full heat. I've rigged it to connect to the RV propane quick connects and it works, but the burners just put out a fraction of their maximum. The main complaint reviewers have with the TravelQ PRO285 is with the short (20 inch) hose for 20 lb tanks, and that it's incompatible with 1 lb bottles. I agree that even a 6' hose is too short. If we decide to get one, then I'd put a quick connect nipple directly on the grill. We already have several quick connect extension hoses of various lengths.

JD, that's a great deal for a Napoleon grill. Thanks for sharing. GJ, apparently the video is misleading. The manufacturer offers a low-pressure RV hose as an option.

I've read and participated on this form for over 4 years. There's always been a strong bias expressed in favor of 3/4 and 1 ton trucks. I think some of the cautionary feedback is coming from this bias. Initially I towed with a 2016 GMC Canyon Diesel using the Anderson hitch and it performed just fine for me. I don't disagree that a heavier truck is a better (more stable) TV. My current TV is a Mercedes 3500 van, but the main reason for the van is cargo, not tow, capacity. Wasn't the question of the BW Continuum hitch setup the point of this thread? The Sierra EV curb weight is over 8500 lbs. That's about 1000 lbs more than a Sierra 3500. I don't think an Anderson, BW Continuum or any other anti-sway or weight distributing hitch would be needed with a Sierra EV in combination with an Oliver LE2. I can't find that GMC has a hitch recommendation. As far as driving dynamics are concerned, the Sierra EV will probably be a great TV without a special hitch. As to the range anxiety that some have raised, maybe that's an issue for some. I think you've stated your expectations well and an EV will work for your use case. Until someone tries, we won't know how well an EV truck performs in real life. Keep us posted. Steve

Both doors clear the front basket when the trailer is straight behind, but one door or the other will stop at the basket if not close to straight. The van probably should be discussed under the Towing an Oliver topic. I've gotten several questions about it recently due to its appearance at the rally. I'll probably start a Sprinter van as TV thread sometime soon. On Tuesday night 5/6 the park was maybe 10-15% occupied. There are about 100 sites, but less than half are premium waterfront with the large concrete parking pads. I didn't notice a swimming beach area on the lake. There's a swimming pool though. More info here: Roosevelt State Park

It's a 2021 3500xd cargo van with 144" wheelbase rated for 7500 lbs towing, 750 lbs tongue weight. Cargo capacity is 5600 lbs. The relatively low towing limit (for a one ton truck) is because of its unit body construction. The dually rear wheels keep the rig quite stable, even in the severe crosswinds we've encountered on IH-10 in New Mexico. The 1500 and 2500 Sprinters as well as the extended body 177" wheelbase 3500's have a 5000 lb max tow rating.

This post is just an FYI. On the way back home to TX from the rally, we looked for a convenient overnight stop along IH-20 and made an uninformed selection of Roosevelt State Park just east of Jackson MS. It turned out to be a lucky guess. It's just 5 minutes off the interstate and has some of the best campsite parking pads that we've run across anywhere. The premium sites are better than what most private RV parks have to offer; they're large, level and deep. Only one of the premium sites isn't on the waterfront, #37, which is the only pull-through. We picked it without seeing it or any of the other sites because we didn't want to unhitch for our quick overnight stop. It turned out that all of the premium sites are deep and level enough that we wouldn't have had to unhitch our trailer. Our luck was even better because through the 22nd this month the sites are half price. The park staff told us that they had been closed for renovations for about a year and recently reopened. The special pricing is to encourage people to rediscover the park. Regular daily prices are $47 weekdays & $57 weekends for premium, or $37 or $47 respectively for regular sites on weekdays or weekends. The regular sites are also nice, but they consist of smaller asphalt strips that aren't as large as the premium sites and may require you to unhitch to level the trailer. The state park prices are less than what many less desirable private RV parks charge and was especially a bargain at $23.50 for our one-night stay. We plan to go back before or after next year's rally, expecting to pay the regular daily price. In the picture you can see the size of the site. We didn't take a picture of a waterfront site because it was raining most of the time we were there, but all the premium sites have similar sized concrete pads, easily big enough for 4 LE2s (though only enough hookups for one). Steve

The disadvantages of an Airstream for 2-3 x the cost 😉

We use quick connects on our freshwater fill without issues. We seldom connect directly to city water. There are two good quality quick connects that we've used. One is the design from McKillans (typically stainless steel) and the other more common one was from Camco (typically brass). We haven't used the Eley brand mentioned above. None of these have backflow check valves, so there's some leakage upon disconnect. The Camco and McKillans types are similar but not compatible with one another. We used the Camco connectors until we added a Blue Technologies water softener and hose reels. Blue Tech has McKillans style connectors and a mix of NPT 1/2 inch and garden hose threaded connections. The Blue Tech softener and reels, along with a Clearsource water filter system, are mounted in our TV and are used to fill our fresh tank. Steve

B17, Steve and MA, Steve & Mary Allyn, Texas, “Un Œuf”, 969

Did the ranger have them turn their rig around so their streetside was against the campground hookups, or did they just keep their curbside facing you but with more room? I haven't camped at Mustang Island State Park since the '80's, but in a tent on the beach. Google Maps show the RV sites to alternate head-in/back-in with no pull throughs, making it difficult to disconnect your TV if you have a head-in site. It is an odd layout. This probably works well for motorhomes, but not so much for trailers. Usually when every other campsite shares the same electric hookup the sites are pull-throughs that work well for all types of campers. Steve

Last week during some unusually cold south Texas weather we ran both of our 30 lb tanks to completely empty. We took them to a nearby U-Haul for refill while the temperatures were still in the low 20's. We were charged for volume (16.9 gallons), not weight of propane. After getting them home, as the weather warmed, we noticed a faint smell of the gas odorant. We found that the pressure relief valves were bleeding off propane. We had a serious fire hazard. A little online research suggested that based on volume, tanks are sometimes overfilled in cold weather. Liquid propane is denser at low temperatures, so more (by weight) can be filled in colder temperatures before the Overfill Protection Device (OPD) shuts off the flow. There are also recommendations for the entire valve to be replaced whenever the pressure relief has popped. We took the tanks to Propane Depot, a specialty supplier. They weighed the tanks. One weighed 65 lb and the other 66 lb. The tare weight for our tanks is 25.5 lb each. Neither should have weighed more than about 55.5 lb when full. They had been overfilled by about 20% of their rated capacity. Texas regulations state "containers of less than 101 pounds LP-gas capacity shall be filled by weight only", so this rule was not observed when the tanks were refilled. After bleeding off the excess, the guys at Propane Depot checked the pressure relief and the tanks were no longer leaking. They didn't think the temperature had been cold enough to explain the extreme overfill so the OPD is suspect, though it seems odd to have failed on both our tanks. The propane guys said they only refill by weight and never depend on the OPD. We plan on replacing the valves before the next refill anyway. The takeaway is to make sure the tanks are weighed before and after being refilled. The filled tank shouldn't weigh more than its rated capacity plus its tare weight. Stay safe, Steve

Why not get another quick connector and thread it on to the plastic plug that was previously used to cover the water port?

We've been very pleased with the basket and boxes. Now that we've had them for almost 6 months we can give more feedback. First, many have asked about their weight limit. As @Patriot mentions, this is a question better answered by Oliver. Sea Biscuit doesn't provide a weight limit, but the basket and boxes are very robust. Oliver has a 150 lb limit on their optional bumper receiver. Our unladen receiver weighs 26 lb, so we're looking at a maximum of about 176 lb hanging on the rear bumper. The Oliver receiver could probably handle more weight, but you also have to consider front/rear weight balance. Our Sea Biscuit basket and empty boxes combined weigh 74 lb. If we observe the Oliver weight limit, we can carry 102 lb maximum in the boxes. We only carry about 30 lb of bulky/dirty items in the boxes: chocks and blocks in one rear box and a (very) small grill in the other. We also have the Oliver front basket, sometimes loaded with 70-80 lb of gear (e.g. generator and fuel) which helps offset the weight on the rear. Access to the dump hoses stored in the bumper is a minor inconvenience, but less so if you keep the hoses attached. Since we have the Nature's Head, we only have to deal with gray water. If we had a black tank, then we wouldn't want to troubleshoot a leaky hose or connection while the basket is attached. That brings us to another access issue. The basket must be pulled out about 4-5 inches to remove the spare tire cover. This isn't a big issue though. We can just pull the pins holding the basket on the bumper and slide it back a little without removing it from the mounts. No tools required. Fortunately, we haven't had to use the spare, but the basket won't be a problem if we do. Besides the convenient storage, especially the easy access to the chocks and blocks, an unexpected big benefit is that the boxes are at countertop height when parked on level ground. We always have an outdoor table set up. The boxes are also strong enough for a 225 lb person to stand on, making it easy to visually check things on the roof. Steve