Overland

Here’s a photo of the original light grey, or putty: After that color was discontinued, Oliver switched to the off white, which was much complained about at the time. I think that the only other choice that Oliver had from their supplier at the time was black, or perhaps a dark bronze color. This photo is from the factory, so you can see that they had that ‘yellowed’ look from day one: Around mid-2017, Oliver was able to get a pure white version that matches the interior fiberglass, and that’s what they still use today:

There's not really anything about buying, maintaining, or using a travel trailer that is financially responsible. My advice is to spend what you want, not more than you can afford, and enjoy your trailer. If you want to save money, forgo the trailer entirely - $70,000 pays for a lot of hotel rooms.

As my jr. high math teacher would say, show your work or it doesn't count. 😜

Doesn't matter if you do or not - (4 x 6) + (10 x 6) = 14 x 6, if I understand what Steve is saying. The 'trick', I think, is that the bottom trailer is drawn slightly differently, telling you to break out the components from the start. So the bottom trailer isn't the same 30 points as the top ones.

I see two potential answers, depending on how you want to interpret it. First, at face value, trailer = 30, tire = 5, window = 6, so the answer would be 5 + 30 x 6 = 185. Probably not the right answer. Second, since the top and bottom row trailers are drawn differently, you'd consider the window and tire values separate from the base trailer. So to get the base trailer value, subtract 4 tires (20) and one window (6) from 30 = 4. That gives a value for the bottom trailer of 14, since there's only two tires and no window ( 4 + 10 + 0 ). The final answer would be 5 + 14 x 6 = 89.

Back when I installed my Victron inverter, I talked with Oliver about how they should offer it, and one reason they didn't want to touch it was because it was too complicated. Things change. One nice thing about the Victron is that Oliver could potentially diagnose and change software settings remotely. This seems similar to a problem that I ran into with my Victron when installing it. When the inverter was plugged into a separate controller/display, then it would wait for the controller to tell it to power up. That was normally fine, but if you were starting everything up cold, then the controller wouldn't see that you had an inverter to turn on, since it hadn't been powered up. So the inverter was waiting for a signal to turn itself on that could only be sent if it had already turned on and announced itself to the controller. The solution was to unplug the controller so that the inverter would default back to its internal controls and turn itself on. Then you could plug the controller back in and everything would be fine from then on. They've since fixed that with software, but it definitely gave me a scare when after installing everything, the big moment came to turn it all on and... nothing.

FYI, the bridge is now back open. Might even be safe to use.

The Duragloss magic mixture mentioned above (4 parts 923 and 1 part 952) works well on the bugs, and freshens up the wax job while you’re at it.

A few people have posted in the past about the temperature switch going out, so you might try bypassing it to see if that solves your problem. It's at the bottom right of this photo that I grabbed from another thread:

Pretty cool. I’d love to see it in person. My only concern is that it would be difficult to clean, with the texture and all the joints. Is it?

You can certainly make a financial argument for buying an Ollie over another trailer but in all honesty I think you’ll just be rationalizing a decision that you’ve already made for some other, probably more important, reason. Buy it because you like it. Because you want something you can be proud of. Something that will be nice enough that you’ll actually want to get out there and use it. And something that is dependable enough and well enough designed that you don’t spend your trip thinking about it rather than all the cool things it’s allowing you to experience.

Have to agree with Steve - I’m immensely impressed at the dexterity and patience involved there. Another route that people have used when making repairs in that space has been to cut access hatches in the bottom of the drawer cabinet. Oliver should really do that in construction anyway. It’s easy to do with a router, using the sides of the cabinets as your jig. They don’t lessen the cabinet’s structural integrity and will save you a bit of weight. Plus you save all that time of training the octopus. If you do that, though, just be sure to cut some ¼” plywood covers for the hatches since things in the drawers can bounce out and end up in that space, and you don’t want to have to search through the hull space for an adventurous fork.

I agree that there needs to be a better solution for the furnace hold down. On mine, Oliver ran the strap over the entire unit, side to side, so it’s secured on both sides. But it originally had about an inch of play which I didn’t think was too great for something that had a gas line attached to it. I was able to tighten it up but I really want to figure out something better. BTW, you say furnace but your photo is of the water heater. I’d have to check to be 100% certain, but I don’t think that my Truma has any hold down strap on it at all. It seems pretty well secured just by it’s front mounting plate.

My suggestion for sleeping kids has always been a tent. Give them the camping experience while giving yourself the extra space. Add a cot or an air mattress if they want a bit of luxury. But to answer your question, I don’t think anyone has done anything like that. It seems possible in theory but IMO also seems like it would be a pain in practice. Perhaps if it’s something lightweight that could be taken down except when sleeping? As for the hatches, the forward one on the curb side gives access to the water valves if you think you’ll use them, but otherwise you’ll only need to access the hatches if something is broken.

Perhaps it was something that they were experimenting with in '17, when they were first grappling with the expanded production woes. It makes sense to keep track of it all, and of course to provide that info to owners. When my hull was making its way through the line, this and a few other sheets were taped to the side to keep track of these numbers, QC checks, etc. They were also keeping track of a few things the old fashioned way 😂

I thought they did. My production sheet - the one that is taped to the trailer in production - had all the serial numbers for the components. Some of that made it into my folder of manuals and stuff but not all - I assumed that was just because of my rushed delivery.

The round compression locks that are on the pantry and closet. These days, Oliver uses it on the nightstand and upper cabinets as well.

Oliver used this Sierra Pacific latch on mine, but a quick google search didn't turn up a source. If you can't find it, you could try Oliver. Southco makes an almost identical model and Oliver uses the lockable version of theirs for the basement door.

I think I’d go for a small job site fan rather than something that plugs in. They’re durable and obviously easily moved around. This Makita is 12 volt and comes with an AC adapter that I’m sure could easily be converted to a cigarette plug if you wanted. But I understand that they last for a good long time on a battery charge.

Oh, all the Raptors are being saved for the Mars mission. The dunes there are a bit much for a Chevy.

If you're nice, I'll let you borrow my camping quilts at the next rally.

Fixed it for you. I’ve considered doing something similar - have you noticed a difference in signal strength?

Steve, if you put a foam noodle around your shoehorn and Velcro it above the door, you’d kill two birds with one stone. Stick a few corsage pins in the noodle and now you’ve got a place for your corsage pins. And another shoehorn.

Looks great. The gutter is definitely a dirt magnet. I can't make out the knit rug in the back, but it sounds interesting. I'm curious how people deal with campsite dirt when you've got a big runner like that. We're constantly sweeping our trailer out - enough that I've thought about getting some sort of mat similar to our teak shower mat, so that dirt can just filter down and I can pretend that it's not there. We leave dirty hiking shoes outside, but just going in an out with camp shoes seems to bring way too much of the campsite in with us. So is it just us bringing all this dirt in the trailer, or do you guys vacuum, take the rug out and shake it off or what?

I’m with you there @Foy_Mirna