Wayfinder

I'm sure it's been mentioned here too, but the Alcan wet bolts and shackles are heavier duty than that of Dexters. If keeping the Dexters, you may want to have a spare pair of shackles and bolt(s) if doing really long trips across the country. Updated: I don't want to reused stressed out Chinese parts with lots of miles on them. I'll start with all new heavy-duty parts from Alcan. You're asking for trouble re-using old parts. Why? To save a few bucks now, only to spend way more on the side of the road? No thanks. I even carry some old ones in case I run into some who again breaks a Dexter shackle or wet bolt. We've seen both. In regards to 4 or 5 leafs, I don't think anyone here really could tell a difference between the counts, in the long wrong. I have 5-leaf, but considered 4. Oh well - Horse is dead, but both will work fantastic for our light weight rigs. Just get the upgrade and go enjoy life.

@DanielBoondock or anyone. I don't have time to trudge thru all this, and I may have mentioned it somewhere in here, but before attempting to remove your old U-bolt nuts, or any, CLEAN the heck out of the visible threads on the bolts. So clean with a small wire brush, then penetrating fluid for a while. I did have one of my first nuts seize up on us, and it was a 30 to 45 minute stressful event to get that sucker off. We did remove it with a LOT of impacting, but man! What a fight and a half. Good to have an Impact and a couple charged batteries. I did have a Ryobi impack drill, a must have (any good brand). I just added to my tow vehicle tool build-out, the Ryobi 3/8" ratchet drill (again, pick your fav. brand). There were a few spots the ratchet drill would have fit better than the bulky impact drill. The ratchet drill is NOT necessary, but a good first-world tool to make some things easier. When that nut got stuck trying to remove it, I wish I had a grinder. That's my next tool to add to the truck. I now carry everything in my truck to do just about any job. No, I'm no expect, but I know a good bit more now than I did before doing two Olivers' leaf springs. Oh, VERY Important. If you are not in good shape with a strong back. Please God, think twice before doing this. I was laid up for a few weeks, but that's my own damn fault for being a computer IT guy for 35 years. Now I'm working out and stretching to make my soon-to-retirement (Dec 31st) a better experience. 😉 Lastly, there may have been questions about the 65 ft-lbs of torque on the hanger wet bolts. I will be inspecting my buddy's Oliver this weekend to see how his hanger look after two years of traveling a good bit. More to come on that with pics hopefully. I don't have much mileage on my Oliver since I did my springs, but I will check that too.

Oh boy. This entire thread sounds so similar to my own brake issues with hull #110. Nearly two years of doing similar checking & replacing. I should have just listened to others on this forum from day one, and pulled BOTH brake wires from the axles. Did I do BOTH at one time? Of course I didn't, I'm a nuckle-dragger. I got stopped by rain after finally pulling out and replacing the wire on the rear axle (this year), then still having brake issues with the truck, I finally got to doing the front axle. OMG!!! The wire in my front axle was an ABSOLUTE frayed mess in several locations. Once I had both new wires on the outside of the axles, I've not had an issue since. Now towing with my new-to-me 2024 F-250. No issues. But, I will say, doing all that troubleshooting and replacing 7-pin connectors and inspection the 7-pin wire connector to the trailer and redoing connections a few times.... well, I'm much better and braver now for it. WHEN the next person inquires about intermittent brake issues. Please have them pull BOTH break wires from the axles and save them many hours of troubleshooting. I think it should be the first step after checking basic voltage at the break assemblies. Just my 2cents. I have a thread around here about that "saga". @Boudicca908 I hope you're all fixed up now. I may have lost track in all the good info in the thread.

@Galway Girl has the same stove top I have in my 2016 demo unit (#110). Nice.

I'm sitting here trying to remember when they announced the dealership concept at the 2023 or 2024 Oliver rally. I feel like many people were upset at the idea, and others verbalized that it would not work out well. That's just my old brain perspective of recollection. Personally, I'd prefer to keep Oliver one of those unique, and somewhat mystical brands, there's true value in that. On the other hand, this adds more load to OTT themselves. In such a small "country" town, I'm not sure how challenging it is to find quality employees and much their rotation they experience.

Oh thanks for asking? I was okay not thinking about the price of it. It’s over $760 for the 14K, but I think many move up to the 20K. I will not use the capacity of the 20K. I only own one trailer. I also ordered their locking pins for $63. They are the highest quality pins I’ve ever seen. I’m truly amazed. All three are keyed the same for convenience.

@John Dorrer did I miss this info in the thread? What type of hitch do you use on the truck? I just upgraded my hitch on my new truck to a Shocker hitch, but I only have two long test drives under its belt. I was just wondering if a shocker-like hitch could reduce any excessive bouncing when hitting bridges or other repetitive oscillations on the rig.

You should see what Will posted 1 hour ago. Less than 5min vid. He’s going to clean these companies up. Like Dave’s Auto Center will help improve diesel engines.

@Olive2Roam or click this direct link: https://olivertraveltrailers.com/events/oliver-owners-rally/

In another recent video he shows build quality of popular lower-end batteries. He even jokingly said something like, “I hope I don’t get sued”. LOL BB is dead due to their decisions in this matter. No other reason. They just don’t know they’re dead yet. “Dead man walking”. Time to move on to better things.

I think I have heard good things about Fogatti WHs from RV techs on YouTube. I do like my Suburban though, for all the reasons mentioned above. It’s simple to be sure. Most things from WW-II were. I'm tired of everything getting more and more technical. And I’m a soon to be retired IT guy. LOL. I need a bumper sticker which reads “Suburban water heaters or death.” That goes for my Fiamma manual awning as well. Hehe

@routlaw I may have missed it, but which weather stripping (gutter) material did you get and where did you order it from? My old gutters from 2021 gave out recently (no more sticky) and I need more. How much length did you order for the way you installed it? I like your installation versus the way I did it years ago. Thanks,

Digging into document metadata, classic. Don’t mess with geeks.

I always thought it was not a great sign when a vendor would spend an entire week at a rally having to fix their product.

I'm interested in weather or not they kept the John Deer Truma water heater. Would be nice not to require a certified tech work work on the dang thing. Tankless uses more water anyways... so I've heard via comparisons.