trumpetguy

Nice. Will this design change improve water flow from the pump?

On August 5th, 2016 My wife and I set out on our annual trip to North Carolina to escape the steamy weather of Northwest Florida. Our plan was to work our way up the Blue Ridge Parkway through North Carolina and into Virginia, then maybe on to PA as time permitted. My first mistake was thinking I could tough it out with a torn Meniscus in my left knee. It soon became apparent that the act of kneeling, stooping, hauling, and all the physical activities associated with setting up and breaking down camp place a huge strain on the knees and pain became a constant companion making me a miserable companion. So after only ten days we gave up and headed home. A few things learned... Camping is physical and you need to be healthy. Some things on the Oliver are just not designed for function. ie. The sewer connection is very difficult to reach when your newly purchased Rhino hose separates from the fitting. I will be modding this to extend that connection to outside the bumper. Lesson learned...always check the connection before opening the gate valve. The water connections are just inconveniently located. Not only must you kneel to access them, they are underneath the trailer so you must kneel And reach. OK if you are healthy but a real struggle with a bad knee. Again I will mod these somehow so they are easier to reach. The fridge is way small, and again down low so that you must kneel to gain access. Holy cow...even the $30,000 Escape has a 7CU fridge mounted at eye level. Rain. What can I say. Just no good solution to living indoors when it raining and your campsite is a lake. 100 square feet and no comfortable chairs gets old after a few days. One good thing we learned is that the shower curtain my wife made works great and having a shower inside the trailer is a real bonus. I suppose we all will experience some bumps in the road and this will not be our last less than good trip. In the twenty months we have owned our trailer we have had over a dozen great outings, all in the Southeastern U.S. and all but this last one have been great. I see the surgeon tomorrow and hopefully the knee will get repaired soon. My new mantra is "Always check your sewer connection".

I converted my Honda 2000 to propane with a Central Maine Diesel three way kit. It will run on gasoline, LP, or Natural gas. The only draw back is you lose some power with LP due to lower BTUs per gallon. I need to install a quick connect to the Ollie to complete the process.

Very nice truck.

Welcome to the family. You will love your new Ollie. A good way to meet other owners is through rallies and a good one is Eggs on River in Hiawassee. We had five Olivers there last year.

Well John, since you know all why post a question? I assume you own an Oliver so just remove the spare tire cover and be done with it. Sheesh!

I have a reciever on the front of my Avalanche for a bike rack, but can't see using it to push a white wall around. That's what you would see...just a white wall, no rear view mirrors. I have put my Ollie in some pretty tight spaces without even a backup camera (I just added the Tadi Brothers digital). I saw a Teardrop camper maneuver into a space using an electric winch wheel with remote. That was pretty cool, but it weighed less than 1000 pounds.

The spare tire cover protects the tire from UV. It is also good for art work, mounting a rear view camera, and just overall appearance enhancement.

When you say East Coast how far are you going. We will camping all along the Blue Ridge Parkway August and into September. I know the Seadogs spend time around Asheville in Summer. Maybe we can meet up for a rally.

If I could do it over I would opt for 3000 watt inverter, but that's due to running the AC on battery. When you do the installation be sure to make it easy to access the readout as well as the connections and plugs. Mine is under the dinette seat closest to the larder and I have to put my head into the seat well to read it. I agree with Steve that there are several parts and a change in wiring that make it work so a trip to AM solar may be good if you are camping in the Northwest. Our inverter has become an essential part of camping and allows us to use an induction cooktop, toaster oven, microwave, 110v lamp, cube heater, and AC. Would not want to be without it.

Has anyone priced a fully loaded 2017? Interested to know how far north of 50K they are.

So now I am thinking about a standard cargo van for a tow vehicle. The GMC or Chevy 2500 can be built with a 6.0 V8 or even a diesel. It has a 10000 lb. towing capacity. The attraction is that one can customize it to any degree so I would add some ergonomic recliners, a big screen TV, roof air, cassette potty, beer fridge, and call it the Family room...a place to relax and watch TV, read, etc. Then retire to the Ollie for sleep. We just returned from a trip to Dallas without Ollie and it would have been great to have some creature comforts on board. My thought is as long as we must have a tow vehicle why not make it part of the living experience.

A connection would need to be made between the two tanks somewhere inside the coach area. That would allow gray water to fill one tank then overflow into the black tank.

When the Wynns did theirs they connected the gray and black together for more gray water capacity. I like this idea and it should not be too difficult a mod.

Well, I guess that' s "throwing the baby out with the bathwater". C'mon guys lighten up. Oliver is a production line trailer. True they do bend over backwards to accomodate requests, but these things are not custom built. My guess is there is another reason to leave the black tank in. Prolly to do with certification.

It would be good to have installation instructions for a retrofit.

You might run AC but not much else at the same time. Just be careful with microwave, induction cooking, hair drier, etc.

I think it is a good thing and will have one installed sometime. The only drawback is the height. We measured our present Thetford and the Natures Head is seven inches taller. Might need a foot stool.

I am considering a new to me tow vehicle and the Ram 1500 looks like a good fit for our trailers or even larger if needed with a 10,000 tow capacity. I will appreciate any insight you all may have on this truck. My chevy 5.3 is the old version with less hp that 2013 and up. Ok for flat land but she struggles on steep grades. Regards, David

Our trailer is 18 months old with about 10,000 miles so yesterday I hauled it to Camping World for a bearing pack. When I picked up the mechanic asked if I had just had them done because the grease looked new. That was encouraging. Better to be safe than sorry. He also asked me why I have truck tires and not trailer tires because in his opinion truck tires do not have a sufficient bead to hold the tire on the rim during the sharp turns we make in our campers. Any thoughts on this. Would like to hear from the factory as to their logic.

Sorry to hear of your mishap. I pitched the Anderson after three trips where I spent way too much time trying to get the thing properly attached. I did finally learn about raising the trailer which helped somewhat. Your Tahoe has the same suspension as my Avalanche which has coil springs in the rear...not as strong as a regular truck. As I have posted several times my solution was to have Firestone leveling bags with the on board compressor installed. This allows me to hitch the Ollie then just press a button under my dash until the air bags lift the rear end to level. Sway has not been a problem, nor do I experience porpoising...even on concrete bridges. You might want to take a look at this option for stressless hitching and towing. Dave

For me it's more a function of time. At only 18 gallons the black tank gets full quickly even with agressive management. The Wynns say you can get about 60 poops before dumping and re charging. That plus the ability to combine black and gray tanks has me researching composting and electric toilets.

We bought extra hooks from Oliver and have attached with screws in convenient locations. Bought an extra bathroom towel bar, cut it to length and fastened with screws to the pantry door. A good place to hang dish towels.

Is anyone using a Nature's Head. I am thinking about installing one and then connecting the Black tank to the Gray for a total of 50 gallons. Chime in with your thoughts. I really hate the dump station and the stinky slinky.

Bill, The AC runs fine on just the batteries. We let the AC run while loading up last week and after four hours were still at 12 v. I have bought two additional T105s to install in the nose cone behind the tanks. This will give me 335 usable amps at 50% draw down. one thing I have learned is that batteries need high volts to get a full charge. I set my blue sky to 15 v in and that makes a huge difference.