Overland

David, I'd be a little worried that if you stopped hard, your box could shift forward and possibly pull some wiring loose, particularly if you had something heavy in it. I wonder if you could make some sort of stop to prevent that from happening, or maybe tie the box somehow to the battery box support behind it?

Thanks. You can find a link to the nets in this post. They're screwed into the hull. It does require drilling pilot holes for the screws, and a good eye to get them straight, since there aren't any good edges to measure from.

You just have to extend the built in jacks. With some blocks underneath, like the lego style ones, they extend far enough to lift the entire trailer off the ground. I wouldn't recommend doing that however, as the trailer isn't particularly stable that way - the jacks aren't designed to take lateral forces and could easily fold over, leaving your trailer on the ground, hopefully without you under it. If you use the jacks to lift the trailer, always make sure that one set of tires is on the ground and chocked at all times. Also remember that Oliver doesn't even want you to do that anymore, due to some failures of the rear jack mounts in some early trailers (different mount design than now).

I think everyone who has the solid curtain rod had to do it themselves. Oliver was going to install mine for me (this was back when they did modifications), but they misunderstood and installed one in front of the door instead. So now I have two, lol. You can find the part list for the curtain rod in this post.

That’s right - in fact the curve is less severe and the two crates in the front actually line up. And the one in the rear I can turn 90 degrees so that there is extra space behind. It’s interesting that Oliver has started putting a false wall in there. I believe that on mine, there’s just a single loom of wiring there that goes to the attic. And the wiring is covered by insulation so it’s unlikely to be damaged by the crates shifting around. I’m sure if you wanted that you could remove the wall and get the space back but of course I’d understand if you wanted to leave well enough alone. I wonder at what point Oliver started doing that. It’s good info to know - obviously I’ve been a bit baffled as to why people seemed disinclined to believe my tall tales about milk crates.

Sorry, trying to be funny, not a jerk, but I do keep three full size crates in mine all the time with space to spare. And since the inner and outer hulls are what determine the basement size, and the hull sizes have never changed, I don’t get why anyone’s experience should be any different. I would say however that the difference between the shape of my basement and what you’ve drawn is that the rear wall of mine doesn’t curve like you’ve shown. It’s pretty much straight (with a small radius in the corner of course, to match the hull.) So I guess the question is do you have a wall of some sort built in the basement at the back of the trailer - on mine, it’s just the inner surface of the hull, with a layer of insulation covering some wiring.

I’m not sure how many times I’ll need to post that you can fit three 19” (24 qt.) crates in the basement, with room left over, but if anyone is keeping track, add 1 more. And as a reminder, these are the best. Also, half height milk crates are a thing, and you can also cut one side out of a crate for access.

I’ve kind of experimented with that. I didn’t get anything visible out of the drain and it still trickles. If you try it just know that you’re gambling that the overflow drain isn’t going to pop off the other end.

I suspect that even perfectly clear that drain wouldn't be very fast. Pro tip - open the drain on your water heater, turn on the pump and just pump the water out.

I have one of these mounted in the bed of my truck. Should do the job, lol. But that's for the truck. I'd just use the onboard jacks on the Ollie if needed.

It kills me that those plastic shavings are still a problem. Will someone please donate a vacuum cleaner to Oliver?

I don't know anything about that particular monitor, but this is a pretty old thread so the info above is likely out of date. It seems like most people who are replacing their battery monitors now are opting for the Victron BMV. If you search for that, you'll find a few threads on it and I think in a few, some alternatives are discussed.

The problem you'll run into is that the upper cabinet is shallower than the fridge cabinet below. So you'd have to find some way to build out a cabinet for the top half of the fridge. I'm sure that's possible, but I'd have a hard time envisioning a way to do it attractively. I think that building out something either in the closet, or reworking the dinette with a countertop and cabinet below would be a better route for a larger or extra fridge. But the easiest route by far is to just put a portable fridge freezer in the truck. Between our truck fridge and the trailer, we can carry three full weeks of food. You'll find that your cooktop uses so little percentage of your propane supply that it's really not a factor. If we're not using the furnace, we'll return from a three week trip with practically full tanks. In contrast, an induction cooktop would really gobble up battery power.

What's to argue about? The only likely problem you'll see is every single one that you listed.

Continuing the discussion on anti seize and torque, I ran across this diagram just now on boltscience.com: What caught my eye is the proportion of friction attributed to the nut face, rather than the threads. I'm going to guess that values for wet torque assume that the lubricant is only on the threads themselves and not the face of the nut. Maybe I'm wrong, but that would be my assumption - meaning that if you get too much anti seize on the threads and it squeezes onto the face of the nut, it could really alter the amount of torque needed to tighten the bolt. I've no idea if that's the case with John's bolt (is the silver on the bolt face from abrasion or is it aluminum from the anti seize?) but it's something to consider.

Cool, I'm glad it's working for you. We're redoing a bath in our house now - need to go buy a toilet, vanity and faucet this afternoon - and I'll probably swap out the aerator in the new faucet with the Mikado also.

John, it's sensational because you're trying to imply that it is somehow Oliver's fault that you either bought a bad bolt or overtorqued one when doing your own modifications. Oliver is not to blame for recommending what you yourself agree is the correct torque. Oliver's torque specifications are not vague, because they're intended for the bolts installed at the factory, or like for like replacements, and those are Grade 8.

I do know of one owner who fits that description. But really I never see anyone complain about not having enough pulling power. I just see people brag when they have it. There are limits of course, but as I said, unless you’re right on the edge, it’s mostly a question of ease rather than capability. On the other hand, I see people complain about gas mileage all the time. Personally, I’d trade power for mileage in a heartbeat. A typical trip for us sees 3000 miles on flat interstate and maybe 30 going up a mountain pass. Sure I enjoy the extra power for that 1/100th of my trip, but I’d save more time stopping one less time at a gas station than I’d lose by going slower up a hill. Of course you can buy a diesel and get both power and fuel efficiency but it’ll cost you more on the front end and likely more over the life of the truck. I get why people would want that - just that when someone asks “is it necessary”, the answer is clearly no. The same logic applies to gear ratios. Will a lower ratio pull better? Obviously. Should you get the lower ratio? Maybe - depends. Is the higher ratio enough? Absolutely.

We have an Elite 2, use and appreciate all the extra storage, but in truth the Elite would be a better fit for the two of us, since we do go off pavement regularly. Mostly, perhaps entirely, we regret the extra length when trying to get into a tight campsite. We’ve yet to encounter any switchbacks that would allow the smaller trailer and not the larger one, though I’m sure there are some out there. The extra room does allow some added glamping luxuries of course. But our philosophy is that we can always leave the trailer behind, and if we know or think that we might want to go someplace that the trailer won’t, we carry a tent and rough it for a night or three. As for soft roading it, the Ollie is a champ - and you won’t be disappointed so long as you go into it knowing that the trailer wasn’t specifically designed for that use. That is, you may want to do a few shake down trips to find any weaknesses and you might read up here on the things that some of us have done to ‘harden’ our trailers for going off pavement. On the jack situation, I use an XO jack and they’re easy to install on the Ollie’s tongue. I use mine in tandem with the power jack and haven’t had an issue, but of course you could use one on its own and just remove the power jack. But to be honest, while I was pretty concerned about clearances before we bought ours, in practice we’ve yet to run into any problems, figuratively or literally. Just looking at your photo of your Tab and trying to remember from the ones I’ve seen, I’d say that the Ollie will have much better clearance all around. Actually, I did bonk the steps once, coming off the pavement onto a gravel road with a big drop off, but the asphalt took all the damage.

Keep in mind that your actual tow weight will be more like 6000lbs so you’ll be well within your limits. The only thing that might make you want a higher ratio would be if you tow in the mountains a lot. Even then, it will be a matter of ease rather than actual mechanical limits. There are people here who tow with much more limited vehicles and do fine. The problem with asking advice on tow vehicles in forums is that everyone thinks that the vehicle they currently tow with is just the best. You’ll find those people with more limited vehicles who will say they’re fine and don’t know why you’d want more, and those with beefy ¾ ton diesels who’ll say you’re crazy to tow with less. I say trust the numbers. By the way, the wheel size won’t make a difference but the tire size will, at least for calculating torque. We had a thread here a bit ago about calculating the final pulling capacity for a vehicle - I’ll see if I can dig it up.

If that’s the case, then I go back to my original post - it’s either the bolt or the wrench. In any case, I don’t see how it’s an Oliver problem. This is an interesting and potentially valuable thread, but I really wish it had a less sensational title and first post.

Math says yes.

Yeah, I think it's just common sense that if you grease a bolt, you'll need less torque to achieve the desired tension. The only question for me is what % reduction should you use. I guess another question would be why use the stuff on bolts you don't plan to remove. It's great for spark plugs, but the one job of the nut on a coupler bolt is to not come off. Those nuts aren't too bright, so I don't want to make their job any harder than it needs to be. I don't know what to make of their "normal torque values". Maybe they mean normal wet torque values. Regardless, I think your own experience proves them wrong. If you really want to test it out, buy several bolts and test them to failure both with and without the grease. Then you'll know exactly how much to lower your torque value.

I’ve been looking around to see if I can find anything authoritative on how much to reduce torque values when using anti seize, but I haven’t found anything yet but forum posts. This particular post I found was interesting - 50% reduction for Teflon based anti seize. Wow. LUBRICANT OR PLATING TORQUE CHANGES Oil, Reduce torque 15% to 25% Dry Film (Teflon or moly based), Reduce torque 50% Dry Wax (Cetyl alcohol), Reduce torque 50% Chrome plating, No change Cadmium plating, Reduce torque 25% Zinc plating, Reduce torque 15%

Taking a look at your thread on replacing your coupler, I see that you used anti seize on the bolts. I’ve always been told that when you do that you have to lower your torque setting by 20%. So that’s possibly the answer.