routlaw

I am of the persuasion one can never have enough tow vehicle, (within reason) so with that in mind and as others have suggested I would not use an Ascent to tow the Elite 1. I like Subarus just not for towing. Trucks or heavier duty SUV would be a far better choice. Hope this helps.

We have camped at Monte Sano State Park many times in years past but it is a really nice park for sure. It also has just enough elevation to be cooler in the hot and sultry summer months vs being down in the TN River Valley area. Lots of great hiking, not strenuous at all as well as off road mountain biking. Watch out for the gigantic spiders and their webs on some of the trails though. Creepy doesn't even begin to describe it.

Watching this video reminds me of how much I detest these windows, my biggest Oliver complaint by far. Just went through this on my own windows yesterday but rain kept me from doing the last one. Maybe later today. I do want to reiterate what Steve stated above, it is very easy to remove those rubble glides from the tracks. What I have always done is to pull the window while pulling the rubber glide simultaneously which only takes a couple of strokes to remover it completely. I also take the top part out in order to thoroughly wash and clean the rubber glide. Normally the sliding window should remove easily after that though it may take a bit of maneuvering up and down to release from the tracks. The screen also needs to come out as well, just push down against the springs (bottom of screen) then the top should release from the upper track. This allows for a much easier and thorough cleaning of all parts, rubber glides, track and windows. Figure about an hour for each window doing it this way. In conclusion I also spray each of those rubber tracks with silicone lubricant both sides and doing this allows for very easy installation using the same method as removal. Just get the rubber glide started a few inches then push both window and glide together, pull the window back while keeping the glide in place. Repeat as often as needed until the glide clearly is past the window on opposite side from the feed at which point you can grab the rubber glide and pull it to its destination. Great idea using the wand for flushing!

You will be ok without the metal valve stems unless you want to inflate to max PSI of 80, for pressures in the 40's-50's those rubber should be fine. Agreed though with longer rubber ones they tend to flex too much.

Correction on Zion. I called them earlier in the year and the ranger on the phone said they have not implemented this RSVP system for this year. Regardless it is a very crowded park and it is my understanding visitors have to take the shuttle bus up the Virgin River Canyon beyond the turn off to Carmel Junction although I do not know what the cutoff dates for this are. Most likely available on the nps website though. The unfortunate and sad part is we are loving the national parks to death. There may be some relief coming though based upon the plummeting sales of new RV's this year. Winnebago and Thor Industries stock had taken a dive earlier in the year due to this very issue. One would assume this is a barometer of the over all industry with two major manufacturers with very diminished sales and demand. My goals this year are to explore and reach out to far lesser known or visited wilderness places.

It's all good, for now I have that wheel put back together for the time being. Just need to order new bearing parts for the heavier duty axles now and start over.

Yep, sure enough

Thanks for following up with this info. I will order a set of those for my 5200 lb axles. Big weekend surprise on this one.

This sounds like a good upgrade, and not too expensive, thanks for posting this.

So far I have come up with the following on the bearing/race: 15245/15123 & 25520/25580, not sure about the seal # and have not found Set values similar to the 17 & 4 for the 35 Lb axles. For those who have been through this would appreciate verifying I have the correct part #'s. Thanks as always. Rob

Well here it is, indeed 5200 lb axles. Just crawled underneath found the Dexter label and lo and behold! How on earth did this not get mentioned at delivery. Does anyone know what the bearing kit parts are for the correct Timken seals, races and bearings are for this set of axles? Thanks in advance if you do

Well unfortunately the entire thing is put back together so if I understand what you refer to as axle flange I would have to start all over by taking the entire enchilada apart again. Didn't pay much attention to that part just too busy dealing with other things. Trying to do a search for the correct beating parts but man is this a deep dive. Thanks

Yesterday turned out to be an unmitigated disaster, but thanks for the feedback. Decided to just jump into it after making the post, easy to determine my spindle castle nut to be 1.5 inches. Hub assembly came off easily, all good so far. Got the seal, bearings and races out no problem. As it turns out on the first wheel bearings and races looked brand new even after 25K + miles. Next up new bearings, but whoa they are far too small, seal, races and bearings, all of them. WTH! Part numbers looked good on the boxes. Turns out I must have oddball drums either that or 6000 lb axels. If you look at the Dexter website there are no 5000 lb axels listed. Cutting to the chase the seal that came out of the first drum is 3 3/8ths diameter and of course the bearings are huge by comparison to the Set 17 bearings. At this point I had no other choice but to repack existing bearings, re-install old races and try to track down a new seal. Luckily I was able to find one and one only within the entire town. Installation went fine with old set and new seal, just before it started raining, whew! But now what? Neither my wife or I recall anyone saying anything about installing the larger axles at delivery, but that was over 8 years ago. Weird to say the least. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Agree with the others, spare is a different size, and would not rotate into the mix. Leave it for an emergency road trip to the nearest tire store.

It's probably been covered or mentioned before but I can't seem to find the size of the bearing nut for the 3500lb Dexter Axles. An online search seems to return everything from 1 inch to 1 1/2 inch nut but all 14 thread. Would like to know before delving into the bearing change assuming it doesn't start raining. Thanks

Good info regarding the type of TPMS and batteries @MAX Burner well noted. What are brands worthy of consideration then?

From my experience I have never had any issues 8 years running with the factory tires set between 45-50 so you should be just fine. At this point I am definitely going to invest in a TMPS system though. Had I lived in the SW where road and air temps can really soar I would have done it long ago. Still experimenting with the truck however. Honestly I think I could easily get by with 45 front and 40 rear driving without load or towing. I plan to do the chalk test over the weekend to see what that determines. Good luck.

Tires and their specs are certainly an interesting topic. Over the last couple of weeks I've put new tires on both my tow vehicle and Oliver using the same tire for both which in this case is the Vredestein Pinza AT. Had never heard of this brand until recently while researching replacements on Tire Rack.com but they seem to receive great praise topping out on the list of possible replacements. Vredestein is in the Netherlands. Link below for Oliver if interested. https://www.tirerack.com/tires/TireSearchResults.jsp?zip-code=59715&width=225/&ratio=75&diameter=16&rearWidth=275/&rearRatio=65&rearDiameter=18&performance=ALL Thus far I like them a lot. What is most interesting is how the shop had dealt with the two different applications. Install on the F150 kept the tire pressure the exact same of 35 PSI on all 4 as though they were P-metric rather than the recommended 50 PSI for a 10 ply LT tire. At this size LT275/65/18 the load rating is (123) or 3417 lbs per tire. However using the same tire in a smaller size to fit the Oliver (LT225/75/16) results in a load rating of (115) or 2679 lbs while the tire store not only installed heavy duty solid metal valve stems they also went with 80 PSI the max amount for the tire. Needless to say I came home and reduced the pressure to mid 40's on the Oliver. Seriously 80 PSI for a small trailer with about 1500 lbs ± on each wheel! The odd part at least to me, when I questioned the tire store in this case Les Schwab Tires about the 35 PSI setting for the truck the response was quiet emphatic this is the correct setting for that tire and vehicle. As many of you know this will reduce the load carrying capacity of the vehicle using this tire at 35 PSI. Granted I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact a heavier duty tire actually has less load capacity than an equivalent P rated tire at the same PSI setting but it's the reality of the situation. I could keep the F150 at 35 PSI and just live with the reduced load capacity with no idea of how tread wear plays out for LT tires at this setting. Just curious anyone else wrestled with this situation? Thanks

This does not surprise. From the chart above one could even assume a tire pressure of 40 and perhaps even 35 might be adequate given the weight of a 6000 lb trailer. From various other online charts I've come across they tend to be approximately the same as above. Thanks

Took my Oliver in this morning for new tires after 8 years +, just didn’t want the worry of something going wrong. The only place in my area that supplied the tires I wanted was Les Schwab which tends to be more expensive for what ever reason. They told me 15 & 16 inch tires will always be around for a long time to come. Abundant choices however might be a different issue.

Just now caught up on this thread, thanks for all the info. Oliver may be backing themselves into a corner yet again because apparently from what I have learned not only are 16 inch tires and wheels becoming obsolete but so are 15 inch tires and wheels. This information can be found all over the internet. Apparently everything seems to be moving toward much larger wheels such as 18 inch or larger with lower profile tires. I am right now currently considering putting a new set of tires on the Ollie since my original BF Goodriches are approximately 8 years old albeit in good shape. There seems to be an abundance of 6x5.5 wheels available in the 15 inch size online but I am questioning if this is an appropriate option given this size is also going bye bye. Perhaps just sticking with the 16's is the best option. Its certainly less expensive for now. Going back to tent camping is starting to look easier. 😂

Perhaps we are getting a bit off track with tire pressure for a jack point thread but after yesterdays comments I've sort been going down the rabbit hole about tire pressure, load limits and related information. Just this past week I changed the tires on my F150 from a Metric tire 275/65/18 with 116 load rating to a set of LT tires of the same size with load rating E. They were purchased and installed from a Les Schwab Tire store locally and oddly enough they used a 35 PSI setting, same as the OEM tire rating. Unfortunately checking the pressure this morning no two tires were anywhere near identical in their pressure but that's another story for another time. To my surprise today has been a very useful education which has turned my head around on many issues. Linking a YouTube video below by a young man who seems to know a lot about this and has a very interesting and apparently effective method for setting tire pressure for truck tires all dependent upon the individual tire, truck and other factors but definitely not a standard one pressure fits all vehicles in all circumstance. In addition there is also some useful calculators at https://tirepressure.com/tire-pressure-calculator which determines I should be running my new tires at 50 PSI but this assumes a fully loaded truck to its rated load capacity which is not what we normally are doing unless towing and hauling. I hope others can find the two links useful in their decisions for tire inflation not only for their tow vehicle but also their Oliver Travel Trailers. Thanks.

Also why on earth does any vehicle manufacturer use sleeved wheel nuts? I don’t get it.

Interesting all this came up again because just recently I became aware of the torque values for my F150 pickup. Ford states in the manual 150 ft lbs of torque. Given that the size of the Oliver LE2’s have about the same size wheel and tire configuration why wouldn’t 120 ft lbs be more accurate. There is barely any difference in weight either between the two assuming a fully loaded trailer. And as for tire pressure I have always ran mine between 45-50 with no issues and still on the original tires. What would be the advantage if any running them at their max rated pressure. Seems like it would be a bumpier harder ride for the contents of the trailer.

Agreed, I wasn't concerned about the value of my Oliver but rather how this translates into people camping over the next few years as Mountainman implied. My wife and I just returned from a week trip to SW Utah. We noticed one very popular campground that had a few openings still at sunset even with no RSVP tags on the post. Perusing the BLM dispersed areas also return the same results. Now it is important to note the weather down there has been off the charts wet and unseasonably cold. We were bundled up for ever hike we did, 6 years ago same time give or take a week it was all t-shirts and shorts. Cutting to the chase in other forum threads my prediction was many of the people who bought into this during the pandemic will not stick with it. It wouldn't surprise to see a glut on the market wit used RV's for sale soon.