Chris Scarff

I only have 1 day before I depart for the Eggs & S'Mores rally in FL. No time to install springs with the need to work today. oh well. The UPS guy, who was quite large, carried both 50 lb boxes of Alcan springs in a bear-hug style. I was impressed. I'm ready with some awesome new tools.

Let's see if I can upload the short video of my proof of concept. I've spent more time on this video than I did creating the indexer. LOL oliver-specific-document-index-tool-v005.mp4

Yeah, I do want a new A/C too. Darn it.

No no, I'm good. I now have all the tools I need to make job easy, and, fingers crossed, no more than say.... three hours?! Will be my second set to install, and shocks are already in, saving a few minutes. Brake wires are good now. Sooooo, we'll see. Neuhaus might come down to help too. I told him I'll take him to my daughter's Italian restaurant. I sort of get a discount there. LOL

I'll need to do research on that remote thermostat. Not sure how they "separate" between furnace and A/C. Lots of digging into things, learning more and more.

@jd1923 when I'm near Arizona next, I'm taking you out for dinner.

I think we all missed the most important part about @Sam Heumann initial post.... He spelled Andersen correctly on the first post. He's okay in my book. LOL

I'm thinking an iPad, with all the docs, doc-apps, Bluetooth apps to talk to everything in the new Campers, etc. You know, Batteries, Smartshut, Tire monitors, radio, Inverters, whateva. I would LOVE a remote for the Dometic thermostat, so I would not have to get out of bed in the morning to turn up the heat. Or at least wire it near the bed. LOL A Smart Oliver Pad (SOP)

Those cups fell apart last year. LOL. A shame.

Okay, I have to go to "yucky" work now. But this is what I have so far. Run's on my MacOS, and if someone is s Linux person, like me, it runs there too. Windows (windoze) is to come later if someone can convince me. LOL

@Steve and MA this was very helpful. You'd think I had looked there before after all. these years. It's not perfect, for the 2016 as some equipment might have been different, AND much is certainly different now with newer components. I'm well into creating a program that will simply search a folder, maybe called Oliver-manuals/, and the web page will scan that and be ready to search in a few seconds. Pics to come.

I'm considering converting my old paper manuals to digital format. I'm not looking forward to the task, but if done well enough, might be a useful task, as least for the next owner. One thing I just thought to do, was to find as many original manuals online first in good PDF format. Saving tons of time. I might be able to create a stand-alone we page that points to the individual manuals and include a search function. That would allow me to search through just my manuals for key words or phrases. I'll keep pondering this. Has any of the owners of older campers done this - digitize? My 2016 only has a nice leather ring binder of documents. I suspect new Ollies come with a copy in digital format, but not sure how well done it is - have any reviews? I've seen some nicely bound books of Ollie manuals too. Cheers,

I'm not sure how useful this would be to others. I got tired of typing into google site:https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/ "some search term". This little html file works fantastic, but I had my Claude.AI create a page I could keep on my local computer, maybe on the desktop, where I can simply type in my search term and all the results only come from the forums pages, but via Google Results. Try it out. It's a single HTML document. Download it and type in something you wish to search for in these forums. I use Claude AI for work and find it to be the best in coding. oliver-forum-search.html

I put my new Bulldog HD shocks on yesterday. I'm not sure if I had THE original Monroe shocks, but I suspect I did. All four were shot/dead. Quick vid I posted in my Brake saga post. https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/uploads/monthly_2026_01/Old-Oliver-shocks-verus-new-bulldogs.mp4.db543c0ab47c29eb24a5c9c0373392a5.mp4 When the sun comes up, I will confirm that I snugged up the nuts well enough on all the shocks. Pro Tip: I kept two nuts, four plates, and two rubber bushings.... just in case I, or someone else I run into, needs them on the road. 😉 Also, I will "attempt" to randomly check these annually, since we do not yet have too much life-data on these. I'm "shocked" that they are so much less expensive than all other replacements. But, they seem fine so far. Better than 10 year old Monroes. LOL

Well, it was a good day, I now have some new toys tools to help do all this type of work, and WoW, what a different they made. I finally got a creeper, a set of ratcheting wrenches, and an off-road hydraulic roller jack which reaches 29 inches in hight. It's nearly 21 inches to the Oliver frame from the pavement. Man, it was a breeze to do now. I think putting the wheels on the creeper took half the time of the entire project. LOL The ratcheting wrenches were SUPER handy for the new Bulldog shocks - I've wanted a set for years. My new high-end crimper made great crimps on the new brake wire now running along the rear axle. I have not gotten to the front axle yet, got rained out. My old shocks were all dead, which "someone" at Oliver said were "good" just two summers ago. All four shocks would not open on their own and had to be pulled apart and were much easier to push closed than the new Bulldogs. I'm now ready for next week's trip to Florida's Eggs & S'Mores Rally at the Suwannee Music ground in Live Oaks. Can't wait to see "the gang". We'll have at least 4 or 5 Ollies in our group, along with Casitas. My Alcan springs should arrive next week, but no time to put them on yet. I used heavy duty exterior zip ties to secure the double insulated, 12-gauge, 2-wire brake wire to the axle. The eTrailer part number from eTrailer is C46GJ. My new mini heat-gun with wire shield did the trick nicely on the shrink tube butt-connectors. I was also able to find the serial number to the rear axle for future replacement - thank goodness for the new creeper. IMPORTANT: I did find a bad area on the wire I pulled out of the axle, which appeared to have been "calked" over, or something odd like that. Also found a break in the wire insulation of the brake assembly itself - it's getting brittle. All brake assemblies will be replaced after Alcan spring installation, or best yet, just get the axles replaced with new brakes. Then, the entire under carriage should be good-to-go. Passenger-side voltage is now at 2.98v. Very nice. Here's a quick video of the new -vs- old shocks, a short race to the finish. Old-Oliver-shocks-verus-new-bulldogs.mp4