Maverick

While we were on our western trip in July and August we visited Rocky Mountain National Park, we ran upon a herd of 200 – 300 elk in a meadow.

John: From the confirmation that I received after requesting a replacement their reply was: "Upon receipt of your new fire extinguisher you will find instructions on what to do with your affected fire extinguisher". All of our other fire extinguisher are a much higher quality.

John: Thanks for the information; the fire extinguisher that is installed in our trailer falls under the recall. I have requested a replacement unit and they said it would be between 15 -20 business days to arrive.

Hello Ray & Betty Jo: Welcome aboard, we know you will enjoy your Oliver Travel Trailer. There are many outstanding places in this country to explore with your trailer.

Nice looking truck.

Robert gave us a tour of the factor in 2015 and we ordered our trailer through him. Our condolences and prayers to his family.

Phillip: I have owned many travel trailers over the last 50 years and I have NEVER had a trailer where the tow vehicle negative and the onboard battery negative was NOT bonded together. Our trailer was delivered on September 2, 2015; so when did OTT start bonding the two negatives together. The trailer ball is NOT a good ground; if you are using a Anderson Weight Distribution Hitch the ball is floated in a cone that does not conduct electricity. So in your method the ground is only obtained through the safety chains, etc. I have a dozen or so travel trailers in my neighbor hood that are between 1 and 5 years old and I have checked with each of them and both tow vehicle negative and onboard battery negative are tied together. According to what you said above about the bonding of the two negatives the tow vehicle could NEVER charge the trailer battery. The trailer breaks is a major safety issue that should be corrected ASAP. Is OTT going to contact the owners of these effected trailer with the wiring issue and how to correct the problem?

Where is the Side Navigation Bar, missing again?

Steve: Thank you for getting involved with this grounding issue on the Oliver Travel Trailers. This is a major safety issue that could result in a life effecting condition. When Oliver Travel Trailers first learned of this problem, they should have contacted ALL trailer owners about the problem and a solution. I understand that most of the time the trailer breaks would work to some extent because of being connected to the tow vehicle, obtaining a ground through the trailer ball. If you are only obtaining a ground through the trailer ball connection, which is high resistance there is a reduced voltage being delivered to the trailer breaks. Hopefully Oliver Travel Trailer Management will contact all owners of trailers affected by this grounding problem very quickly; with directions on how to correct this problem. Not all trailer owners are electrical engineers or have the ability to correct this grounding problem. I like our Elite II trailer and I believe that Oliver Travel Trailers provides good customer service; but a safety issue needs attention ASAP.

Steve: I disagree with you about your statement that Oliver repairs the grounding issue when these trailers come back to the factory. We delivered our trailer to Jason Essary at the Oliver factory on May 16, 2017 at 0700 and it was not returned to us until Thursday May 18, 2017 after 1800. During this time Oliver installed the EZ Flex system and repacked the wheel bearings, plus replaced the bike rack; if they knew about this grounding issue it should have been corrected at that time! Jason and his staff had time they could have corrected the grounding issue at that time. This morning conversation with Richie Carroll, he said nothing about Oliver was aware of this problem before I made him aware of it last week. Our trailer took about five feet of cable to correct the ground issue like it should have been done when the trailer was constructed. Oliver Travel Trailers’ failure to properly connect the tow vehicles ground wire (battery negative) to the trailer is a MAJOR SAFETY issue with the trailer braking ability and I suggest everyone check their trailer to see if they have the problem, if so it needs correction immediately.

Raspy: The trailer brakes POSITIVE wire (blue wire in the cable that plugs into your tow vehicle) goes to the trailer brakes. However the trailer brakes NEGATIVE wire goes to the on board battery NEGATIVE buss bar; therefore trailer brakes is only making contact with the tow vehicle battery negative through the trailer ball. Oliver did connect their on board battery negative buss bar to the trailer frame. Read my previous reply to Reed and hopefully that clears up some of your comments. The original wiring that Oliver used to connect my batteries was 6 gage very stiff wires. While replacing a defective battery rack, I replaced the 6 gage wire with some very flexible 6 gage that I purchased from West Marine.

Reed: The seven wire cable that attaches to the tow vehicle is located under the front dinette seat; which is easy accessible. At that point I cut out all of Oliver’s connectors and installed an additional 10 gage white wire and quality electrical connectors. The 10 gage white wire that I installed was run to the rear dinette seat area. If you open up the access cover under the seat, just behind the electrical panel is a ¼ - 20 bolt where Oliver grounded to the frame the on board battery negative. Oliver used a 6 gage yellow wire from their battery negative buss bar. Their 6 gage yellow wire is about 14 inches long. I just attached my 10 gage white wire to the same ¼ - 20 stud; this way both the on board battery negative and the tow vehicle negative are bonded together at the same point. As I said in my original post, go to the trailer plug with a multiple meter; one lead on the trailer frame and the other multiple meter lead on the plug that goes to the tow vehicle. At that point if everything is wired correctly you should have a short; which means everything is correct. But is you have an open circuit that means the two negatives are not bonded or connected together. I have attached a sketch of the end of the trailer plug for reference.

2015 Oliver Elite II 12 VDC “NEGATIVE” Connection Issue After replacing the battery tray and the stiff wiring going to the batteries in our 2015 Oliver Elite II trailer; I checked out the trailer electrical system. I discover that the trailers on board battery negative was never bonded to the negative coming from the tow vehicle. Because the two negatives were never connected together it created two problems. First the tow vehicle would never charge the trailers on board batteries. Second the trailer brakes negative lead was connected to the trailers on board battery negative buss bar. Second the trailer brakes were obtaining the negative connection only through the trailer ball when connected to the tow vehicle. The tow vehicle’s negative lead was only connected to the exterior lights on the trailer (marker lights, turn signals and back up lights). Up until the past two months our trips have been a max of a day or two travels. During July and August we travel throughout the west, after the first couple of weeks I started logging the start of the days battery voltage and then logging the end of the travel days battery voltage and all of the time it was about ½ a volt lower at the end of the day (we don’t have solar); for all of the other travel trailers we have owned the tow vehicle would keep the trailers on board batteries charged. I have bonded the two negative systems together, which has corrected both issues. I located several pictures of wiring diagrams that Robert Partee – Oliver TT Sales Manager at the time we purchased our trailer gave us. The pictures were so bad you could not read anything. After blowing up the pictures, there was one of the tow vehicle cable and how it routed throughout the trailer and it did not show any connection between the two 12 VDC negative systems. Also it did show that the brakes negative lead was connected to the trailers on board battery negative buss bar; as I described above. I have discussed this issue with Richie Carroll at Oliver Travel Trailers. There is a simple test you can perform to see if your trailers tow vehicle 12 VDC negative lead is connected to the trailers on board battery negative buss. Using a multiple meter at the tongue of your trailer and the cable that connects to your tow vehicle; connect one lead from the multiple meter to a metal point on the trailer and the other multiple meter lead on the ground terminal of the trailer cable. If the two systems are connected together you will read a shorted connection; if not your meter will show an open connection. If you obtain an open connection, I suggest you correct the issue.

The new battery tray including shipping cost $183.81.

Yesterday I replaced the defective battery tray, after obtaining all new mounting hardware. The original battery tray was mounted with four 1 ½ inch x ¼ inch self drilling/tap screws which were stainless steel. And four ¾ inch x ¼ inch self drilling/tap screws which were not stainless steel. The replacement hardware was four 1 ¼ inch x ¼ 20 with flat washers and nuts with nylon locking. These can be reached from the inside of the trailer which allowed me to use washers and lock nuts. However on the four that can not be accessed from the inside of the trailer, I used #14 x ¾ inch screws with flat washers. All hardware is stainless steel. The failure occurred because of the sliding rails on the rear had plastic rail stops that just came apart. The new sliding rails have metal end stops; also the sliding rails have more rivets holding them to the battery tray. The new tray is a direct fit for the old tray but much better built. I have attached several pictures that you can see the sliding rail rear end stops on both the original battery tray and the replacement tray. Also I replaced the battery stiff wire with a much more flexible wire while I had the battery tray out of the trailer.

Hello, welcome to the Oliver Forum it is a great place to obtain lots of information about the Oliver trailers.

Dominion Energy has sent hundreds of employees and equipment from Virginia to Florida to aid in the restoration process.

Raspy: It is my battery rack that has the problem; the slide out rail on one side is coming apart. The rear section of the right rail has lost most of the ball bearings which I found in the bottom of the rack assembly itself. The inter part of the slide rail that hold the ball bearings is coming apart; normally you do not see this section of the slide rails but it is coming out towards the battery box door. There has only been about 1/32" movement from the time of deliver of our trailer; which has been checked multiple times. Not sure what caused the slide rail failure, we found the problem after returning for a six week trip. During the trip everything in the battery box including battery water was checked three times a week. The last time it was checked was in Nashville, TN and everything was great; then two days later we arrived home in Virginia, that's when we discover the sliding rail failure.

Thanks for the information for each of you. This morning I had the chance to look inside the trailer from the access port under the bed and the access port under the rear dinette seat. Oliver installed the rail with two 1/4" self taping machine screws on each side. the screws does go through a aluminum place on each side. The screws are very easy to get to from the bed access port and the dinette seat port. I will be replacing these screws with SS machine screws, large fender washers and nylon lock nuts. I agree with John, due to the weight of the batteries the self taping machine screws was not the best mounting method. I will try to take some pictures thru the replacement rack process and post here on the forum. Richie Carroll shipped me the replacement rack this morning, so I should be getting it in a few days.

I have a defective battery rack; the slide out rail on one side is coming apart. I contacted Oliver TT Service this morning about purchasing a replacement rack. The rack is bolted in with machine bolts that goes thru the battery box. Has anyone replaced their battery rack, if so could you reach the nuts from the inside of the trailer? I am working with the new Oliver Service Manager (Richie Carroll); he is a great person to work with. I ask him the same question about access to the nuts from the inside of the trailer; he said he would check it out and get back to me.

topgun2 I sent Sage a PM last week and when he answered several days later, the only thing he said a new cone was being sent to me. He said nothing about there was a new design.

If Anderson Hitches has come up with a new design that will get rid of this noise issue once and for all, then it would be nice if Sage-AndersonHitches would come up with a special price for all current Oliver Travel Trailer owners to purchase the replace hitch for a reduced price. I have replaced the cone four times, if you include the original cone that makes five cones. After the cone gets wet the first time, the noise starts all over again. This is not an easy task to keep replacing the cone after each trip. Yes I have had other weight distribution hitches and they would make a noise some time, but very rarely. I sent a PM to Sage last week after we returned from a six week trip; and all he said was a replacement cone was being ship to me. He never said anything about there was a new design that would correct this noise issue. I would like to thank topgun2 for the information. I plan on calling the Anderson factory tomorrow to see about this new design unit that gets rid of the noise issue. I like the Anderson Hitch very much, but the noise problem needs to go.

The biggest issue I see with the Anderson Hitch is the noise generated when making turns. I have replaced the cone three times which makes four cones counting the original. The last replacement of the Anderson WDH cone was early in July 2017 before we left on vacation, we just returned after almost two months on the road. The cone that is in there now started making noises the first time it rained; which we lived with for almost two months. Now it needs replacement again, I have been calling Anderson and they would send me a replacement cone. This time I sent Sage a PM to see what he could do about the noise issue. I have been pulling travel trailers and using WDH for 50 years and this if the first WDH that has generated this type of noise. I like the Anderson hitch except for the noise.

I did not take any pictures; just installed a new plug.

Problem corrected, discovered the trailer cord plug was corroded on the inside of the connector; looked great on the outside. Replaced plug, this appears to have corrected the issue.