Mike and Carol

Dave and Kimberly, welcome and congrats on the upcoming Oliver. I hope you’ll find it a good match for your travel and camping needs. We’re in our 6th year in our EII and are having a great time. We’re on our way to Maine and just spent a couple of days in Ohio. Hope to see you on the road! Mike

My installation may not win any awards, but it has worked well for the last couple of years. I had some of those interlocking foam mats that I cut to provide a surface under the box. One thickness on the fiberglass area, and two thicknesses on the aluminum tongue. I got some stainless steel bolts and nuts and some rubber washers from Home Depot. I drilled three holes through the box and the fiberglass in front of the propane tanks. I used the Home Depot hardware to secure the box with the foam mats underneath. It has been rock solid ever since. I cut a piece of the foam to fit on the bottom of the box to fit over the hardware. Here are a some pics of the holes I drilled.

I always call the park and tell them we’re attending the Oliver Rally. If I had to pick I’d probably say Friday and Saturday nights. It’s a nice park, the lodge is a nice place for group dinners and other activities. Mike

Good luck! We will be looking forward to your reappearance! Mike

I’d be interested in any recommendations for replacement hoses, too. Ours are over 5 years old, looked okay when we started this trip but will go check them as soon as the rain stops! Mike

5+ years with our 3 way. No issues. We drive with propane on. We have never used 12V. The freezer keeps ice cream solid. We put warm cans/bottles in and they cool down, just like home. It uses very little propane. I don’t think this is something you need to worry about. Mike

Carol’s dad had a Maverick like that only the orangish/yellow color. 3 speed on the column. We had a number of high school dates in that car. Mike

I”ll bet it was thorough hand off, maybe you should send a copy of the video to Oliver!! Keep us posted on your new activities. We’ll miss your Oliver insights…. Mike

Never heard of this. We never did anything different in bad weather. We towed in all kinds of weather for 5 years. Mike

This seems to be an updated Elite II to me. An Elite III would need to be longer and wider (and a lot heavier). The option of a walk around queen bed, separate dinette for four and a dry bath would be an Elite III. It’s fun to imagine! Mike

Your fridge works best on propane. It’s clean, safe and efficient.

They still make Tang? Takes me back to childhood….

Hey Greg, welcome. Lots of Ollies have made the trip to Alaska and back, some several times. I’m sure they can tell you how they did. The Oliver is a pretty durable unit, I know of several with over 100K miles on them. Ours is a little over 5 years old and we’re over 60K miles with just standard maintenance. Suspension lube, brake adjustments and bearing repacks. We replaced the original tires this year and replaced the original 4 AGM batteries with a couple of lithium’s. Other than that, we just travel and camp! Mike

My window gutters have been on for several years and are doing well. My first installation attempt failed because the weather went from 80s to 30s before they had a chance to set and the cold weather reduced the gutter flexibility so they wanted to return to their curled up state. The second installation is doing fine. You can see the rain being diverted around the window. Mike

We’re at Prairie Flower COE north of Des Moines. 59 degrees as I sit here. There’s been plenty of rain. This is a very nice campground. We leave this morning for Indiana Dunes National Park. Staying at Indiana Dunes State Park next door to the NP.

Well, have a good trip. We’re in Iowa tonight on our way to Maine. Weird weather, 60 degrees this morning and only got up to low 70s. Sunny. Mike

Folks had high hopes about Nest. Especially since backed by Airstream. What a disappointment.

Kampfirekid, good questions! I would try to see an Oliver in person, if you look on the website there is a program for owners to show their trailers. We’ve done it many times. I’ve got a bunch of reasons why you should be in an Oliver but at 6’5” you’ll need to see if the bath and beds would be comfortable long term. We have some tall owners and maybe they will chime in. At 5’11” I’m extremely comfortable with everything. These are extremely well built trailers. Issues are quickly addressed by the company. We have the standard RV appliances, so in that respect we aren’t too much different than normal trailers. The frame and body make this trailer very different. Other than bearing repacks, brake adjustments and suspension lubes there isn’t much regular maintenance to do. In 5+ years, out of the ordinary maintenance or repairs haven’t been an issue. Mike

Ralph, for a newer trailer that is surprising. Looks like an easy fix but not something that should happen. Mike

They may end up making a nice trailer, but everything they’ve done leading up to it has been sketchy. There is a long thread over on the Fiberglass forums where they are severely criticized for several things, mainly the name Cortes due to his history….

Our bath fan routinely opened while we were driving. Now we use a rolled up microfiber towel (the one we use to wipe things down after a shower) through the handle like Bill does above. Works well. I’ve also been looking for an excuse to replace that noisy fan! Mike

Two points on my installation. First, I wanted the magnet as high on the door as I could get it to minimize door bend when closing it. Second, my first installation had the other half of the magnet on the outside of the dinette seat, then I moved it to the inside under the dinette seat, an idea from @Spike (Jeff) in Arizona. It works great, lessens the magnetic pull but is still strong enough to hold the door. Plus you only see one magnet. Mike

We use three of those towel racks. One on the fridge, one between the sink and cooktop and one in the bath below the mirror.

That is an odd link to have in the specs for their trailer. Obviously they’ve been doing their research!

The specs say Furrion AC but the trailer in the video has a Dometic AC. Wait and see…. Mike