routlaw

Looked at the link, Redline CV-2 is not even mentioned on this review, but Lucas Red and Tacky is the winner.

I don’t have one, but have considered purchasing a small to medium size to use while camper is in our driveway. Too far from the exterior clean out to use directly but dumping especially gray water and rolling it over to our house sewage clean out would be a benefit. This way you can do a very thorough clean with out feeling pressured with a line of other campers behind you. Something to consider. However I don’t feel the need to carry one along on a trip.

Granted I’m responding to a very old thread here but would like some clarification on a few things. Just received my Timken bearing set 4 and set 17 and once the weather clears will be installing those. Don’t have the fortune of being able to work on my Oliver inside a garage. I’m tempted to just use the onboard jack/stabilizers to lift the wheels on one side at a time, then place jack stands on the frame for additional support. But in the interest of doing this “properly” what is meant and where are these steel plates everyone keeps referring to? Just crawled underneath mine ( #70) and other than the axles and leaf spring configurations I see nothing that looks like steel plates. There are two L shaped cross members that run from side to side but can’t believe these are strong enough to hold 3000 or so pounds. Raspy pointed out using hydraulic floor jacks under each leaf spring plate but the bolts from those protrude considerably past the plate itself. Somehow this seems like dubious approach. As a last point, if the frame itself is susceptible to damage by jacking up from the frame, then how on earth would placing two jack stands for support and security be any different? To my way of thinking I don’t see much difference. Thanks

Good ones, all of them

Also, once again if you keep your Oliver plugged 24/7 you will wear out your AGMs prematurely, just like boiling wet cell batteries dry. Unplug then, turn off all power to the camper so there is no phantom draw on the battery. Perhaps 24 hours before leaving on a trip, restore shore power.

Now wouldn't that be fun changing the entire axels on an already built Oliver. What a bummer.

Thats awesome, I'm jealous with this new change. Is there anyway to upgrade existing axels with the never lube variety?

Good info, but at least you avoided a potential major catastrophe. What I don't understand is why, well into the 21st Century we are dealing with this sort of bearing to begin with. How difficult is it to supply sealed bearings like all the autos and trucks manufactured over the last 20 or 30 years or more. This is such and outdated technology. Can you imagine if you had to service your tow vehicles bearings this often. Not looking forward to it, but with all the discussion lately on bearings I am close to doing this operation myself.

If you have left your batteries plugged in constantly via the charger converter most likely you have boiled those batteries dry, assuming they are lead acid. If so they surely are DOA.

FWIW, typically when plugged in we get a reading higher than 12.6 volts.

I'm having a hard time believing a few mili ohms of resistance is enough to get excited about let alone make a difference in terms of real heat build up. And even it did make a minute amount of difference the price spread is way beyond the ROI IMHO. Of course I'm willing to be proven wrong but the video above did nothing to convince me of spending that much more on a battery. Attaching a couple of videos below comparing the Battle Born vs the SOK at about half the price. And here is another review from Will Prowse

Nice! We've also been out to Horseshoe Canyon a few years ago too. Well worth the effort, great hike and amazing pictographs for sure. That Moonscape Overlook area is awesome. I'll have to investigate that one the next trip down there. Thanks for sharing.

That is correct the Behind the Reef Road is sort of close to Hanksville in relative terms and spurs off the main road called Temple Mount Road. We did not have the time to travel the full length of BtRR but its my understanding it gets very 4WD further down. We took it as far as the Wild Horse Canyon trailhead which was no sweat for most vehicles. I would take a wild guess some of those photos you're referring to might have been from Goblin Valley State Park. We did not venture into this park but would like to someday.

Thank you Kathy. Sadly it is true many of these to get vandalized in some form or the other.

Yeah with one of those I don’t think you would have a problem. Understand too there are a couple of well maintained gravel roads through both the south end and north end of the Swell/Reef which can become impassable when wet but otherwise most vehicles can travel over with no problem although they can get a bit rough in parts. Your van would be fine on those major routes in the area. Some of the roads within the Swell are true 4WD though. I would recommend the National Geographic Trail map that cover the entire San Rafael area. Highly recommended.

Sounds like you might have gone into the Buckhorn Wash and Canyon area? We had planned on doing this as well but a couple of days of pouring kept us out that area. Hope you can make it back again soon.

Jim we only drove in part of the way, then parked and hiked the rest. After parking some parts of the road were a bit rough even for high clearance vehicles. I suppose you could say it was a mixed bag. We only saw one other hiker lady who had parked her Sprinter Van further back up the road and another gal who was running the Jeep trail. From the highway (I-70) it was a few miles of basic soft dirt road driving until you arrive at the canyon mouth.

Thanks! They are amazing indeed and there are literally thousands of these artifacts in the 4 corners region.

Thanks really appreciate it. Get out there is what its all about too.

Thanks, and agreed its impossible to get enough of this place. True about the Olivers as well, very easy to get into almost any space and back country roads as long as they don’t too extreme.

Thanks a bunch, glad it was helpful. I will not be able to make it to the rally however. Good luck with your photography endeavors though.

Adding a few more from the trip mostly from Nine Mile Canyon in the Book Cliffs area. Stayed a couple of nights at the Nine Mile Ranch which is around 7,000 feet elevation and were told we were the first campers as they had just opened for the season. They do have cabins and bed & breakfast facilities here. Very nice people, seems to be well run but you wouldn't mistake it for a 5 Star facility, considerably more rustic than that. No cell service in here and it is NOT nine miles long, nor 9 miles from anything. No idea where the name came from. All BLM land interspersed with private ranch land and very undeveloped. There are no other camping facilities throughout the canyon and apparently pull off camping is discouraged however there are some gravel roads that intersect from the paved canyon road where boodocking is a possibility. The canyon road itself is smooth as a baby's butt, but go slow there are numerous large dips due to flash floods from adjoining creeks should anyone decide to go in here. Nine Mile Ranch camground View of the Nine Mile Canyon looking west Ancient Freemont Culture Village Petroglyph Detail of Book Cliffs geology and rock formations The Big Hunt The Big Bison petroglyph pictograph Larger view of pictograph above with more recent cowboy inclusions Known as the Owl petroglyph Wild Horse Canyon view Large group site in the San Rafael Reef area, not recommended during the weekends. Note the only facility are a few picnic tables and pit toilets. NO WATER anywhere within miles. Bring your own. Black Dragon Canyon Large Pictograph in Black Dragon Canyon Detail from above Another detail Little Horse Canyon in the slot Another long view of the Blue Mountains and San Rafael Swell

Also just a quick word about the camera gear sensing that many on this forum have a deep interest in photography to one degree or the other. These photos were taken with either a Nikon Z7 mirrorless, Nikon D810 or my iPhone 13 shooting in RAW and developing in Lightroom then off to Photoshop for final edits. For the iPhone I use either Pro Cam or Halide for the app to capture in RAW, the difference between either of these two and the built in camera is night and day but does require some post production work. Hopefully this will be helpful for those interested.

I hear you @SeaDawg on occasion you can find some of these amazing pieces of rockart in pristine condition but its not usually the case. The thing is it still goes on. If you dig around on the internet for locations normally you'll find post people keeping these a tight secret, under lock and key so to speak and for good reason. The people on this forum I would trust a considerably more and thus provide some general info about where they are, but if posting on Instagram and Facebook I do not provide one hint about there location and that includes even very well known ones such as the Rochester Panel above. Thanks

Thanks @dewdev and @Patriotto answer the question the temps and weather were unseasonably cooler than normal. We arrived the last week of March and returned around April 4th I think. Night temps were below freezing every night with a couple into the 20's. The highest temp my truck recorded for outside was 61º but that only lasted an hour or so. Most hikes in the 40's to low 50's heat of the day with wind, and in those slot canyons those temps with wind can be cool. A couple of days it poured rain, buckets and sheets coming down from all directions which kept us off some back roads in the northern part of San Rafael area. I've learned my lesson when it says not passable when wet they are not kidding. We got out of the area where the Sinbad pictographs are just in the nick of time too. The road bed there is very soft deep sand, looking at torrential downpours in our rear view mirror on that one. The pictographs generally represent hunter and gatherer societies, nomads on the move and tend to be roughly 2,000 to 10,000 years old but this particular panel blew us away due to its pristine condition. Petroglyphs are more recent normally considered 700-1400 years old. Sadly many of these ancient archives have been vandalized severely, everything from bullet holes to spray paint. Brought shorts, never put them on the entire trip, LOL.