Overland

There’s roughly 0.2 gallons in the line from the water heater to the shower and 0.1 to the kitchen sink. That doesn’t seem like much, but with two showers and some sink use, and on a four to five gallon a day budget like we use when boondocking now, that adds up to over a full day of water wasted in the course of a week.

We had the same problem on our first trip. Bending out the clips is a possible solution but I’d also check your tire pressures. One of the sure signs of running Oliver’s factory pressures is shades falling off the walls. Ours haven’t given us any trouble since we lowered them down to something reasonable.

You’ll find that even taking the tank out for storage space gives limited benefit and isn’t all that easy. I had to chop mine into pieces to get it out, which was fun but also not fun. You could of course take out the toilet floor and remove the tank in one piece but that’s even more trouble. Then there’s the question of what to do with that space. It’s narrow and not easily accessed so you need to put some thought into what you’d actually store there before you go through the trouble. I cut out a hatch in the floor just smaller than the footprint of the toilet, added a tray underneath and that’s where I store extra bags of peat for the toilet. That actually works quite well since of course you have to remove the toilet to empty it, so there’s your extra peat. I also gained a bit more space under the dinette seat and that’s where I carry spares, my repair kit, and an electric heater.

It's been discussed several times before, but to my knowledge, no one has followed through with anything. I removed my black tank and use the space for storage, if that counts. I'm certain that something is possible, but only with a lot of work and lowered expectations. And I think that combination, combined with plentiful, inexpensive, and much simpler solutions for storing extra water elsewhere, is why no one ever follows up. Specifically to what you're thinking - I certainly wouldn't want to use the black tank for both fresh and grey water - I don't think you can sanitize it nearly as thoroughly as you'd need. I do think that you could fairly simply transfer fresh water from the black tank to the fresh, but you'd have to remove the drain connection between the black and grey tanks to prevent contamination, and then remove the check valve on the cleanout port so that you could use to it both fill and empty the tank. Perhaps replace it with a manual valve. And you'd have to add an overflow of some sort. But if you did all that, then you could just simply run hose from there to the boondocking port and pump the water in. But, I think that's a lot of trouble when compared to a couple of $15 plastic jugs in the bed of your truck.

People do get set in their ways when they get that old. 👴🏻

Their website now lists the max tongue weight as 771 lbs.

ok

According to this article, and also the Norcold manual, six degrees front to back and three degrees side to side are the limits. I think those angles are relative to the unit as opposed to the trailer. So a little rearward or forward tilt shouldn’t be a problem but don’t overdo it.

Here’s the Ike Gauntlet run for the Defender. The main drawbacks seem to be the lack of a tow haul mode for the transmission and no factory brake controller. Pros are the handling, power, and self leveling suspension. All together they rate it highly. It looks like it would be a good fit for an Elite II.

Not a silly question for me, since this is the first time I’ve seen instructions. I’ll give it a try since I’m planning to replace all those push connections on mine. I’ve looked at those connectors a dozen times and wondered why they have a push ring if I can’t get it to do anything, and why in the world do they have that bulky ribbed band around them. Never thought to twist the band, lol. Seems obvious once you know.

Can you do it long distance? We could make an app.

I haven’t had any luck. You should be able to press the ring and slide them off but I can’t do it even with a tool.

That's why we call these 50-year trailers. It takes that long to get all the plastic shavings out of the tank. My hoses have the plastic connectors. I assume Oliver uses whatever comes with the water pump kit, but maybe not.

It depends on how much you want to spend, but if I were in your situation, I'd get the smaller Ollie and with the money saved, get a pop-up camper shell, probably a Four Wheel, and place it on a one ton truck so that you can tow the Ollie too. You then have the option of doing some more remote and a little more primitive camping with just your son along. He'd love it, and I bet you would, too. Like I was saying in another thread, think of the Ollie as your base camp / chuck wagon with its kitchen, bath and storage, and a few berths for guests. The more I think about the idea, the more I start to wish I'd thought of it before buying our E2.

Gotcha - makes sense.

What’s the grey box on the right? I don’t have one of those.

Like Andrew, I suspect that you just have a valve turned wrong. Look on the underside of the hatch over the valves and there should be a diagram showing the correct orientation. If not, then your owners’ manual should have one. If your pump is running constantly then it’s likely that it’s the fill valve on the lower right that’s wrong, and the pump is just cycling water back into the tank. If that doesn’t do the trick, then check the filter on the pump as it may be clogged. It’s the clear plastic container connected to the pump. Another unlikely cause could be a broken valve. And always a chance that there’s not actually water in the tank. 😝 It’s no surprise that your tank drain just dripped - that seems to be a common problem that has been discussed here more than once. One good solution is to do just as you thought and just run the water into the grey tank.

Roughly how up to date is the radar data? I use the free version of the My Radar app and really like it, but the radar delay is around 10 minutes.

That’s exhausted my ideas. Hopefully someone else will chime in. Is your surge protector built in? Can it be bypassed? (Wondering if it was damaged by the power outage rather than actually doing its job.)

Have you tried it without the AC running to see if it's detecting an overload? Have you tried the generator on Normal mode vs Econ?

Even if they can’t, it’s just text and at the very least they could tell you the font and size and you could have it made locally.

I guess I’m curious why you need a pump at all. We have an adapter on our drain and when we’re allowed we just run a long hose out of the campsite and keep the drain open.

Nope.

I guess I’m the odd one who’s looking at the back of my eyelids when I’m in bed. 🤔 During the day, I can move a pillow if I want. I wouldn’t let that dictate how I’d sleep.

A macerator pump for grey water? 🤔