Overland

I agree with Raspy on the above. I don't think you want to fiddle with the spring rate much and one of the reasons I've not looked further into the Lippert or MorRyde systems is concern over what that might do to stability. The truth is that however much gravel and dirt each of us sees, we still do 90% of our travel on the highway and safety there trumps anything else. I've read a few cases over on Expedition portal where guys who have bought Australian campers or US ones with offroad suspensions have had to go back and add big sway bars to eliminate the sway on highways. I've also noticed that most of my suspension woes come from poor paved roads and not gravel/dirt. On gravel, and especially dirt, you're traveling at slow enough speeds that the bigger bumps are taken just by the trailer tilting back and forth. I've seen no need for a long travel suspension anywhere that I'm willing to risk taking the trailer*. Same goes for clearance. I've hit the steps once, but haven't scraped the bumper yet. The primary issue off pavement for me is vibration. On the other hand, big dips, potholes and bumps on a poorly paved road often take you by surprise and you can't slow down quickly enough to make them not hurt. And wow have I had some moments of hurt, even on interstates. Much, much worse than anything I've experienced off pavement. *Frankly, while those Australian suspension systems look amazing, I've come to really question the need. Long travel suspensions are either for absorbing big high speed whoops, like a Baja truck, or for rock crawling. On a trailer you don't need a rock crawling suspension because you have no traction to gain. And if you're traveling on gravel fast enough to need a Baja suspension, you're just going way too fast.

The best kind of Ollies have holes in their bellies.

I’d be curious to know if that’s true. Mine has the same filler but it’s fairly neatly done and sanded smooth like the better one in John Davies’ picture. If it’s something that they do in the production line then I can’t see them taking the time to have someone crawl under every trailer and repair both holes with gel coat. I mean maybe they do but I’d be amazed. The question for me is if the failure of the filler on yours is the norm and something we all need to watch for, or if it’s the exception. One example doesn’t worry me but the fact that John has one hole where the filler seems to be failing makes me think that it’s more common. After all, most people don’t crawl under their trailers very often, so it could be more common a problem than we know. Like I said, just out of curiosity I’ll be interested to hear why these holes are there. And if there’s an issue with the longevity of the filler then I’ll want to know that Oliver will cover the repair (which I’m certain they would). Definitely keep us informed on what Oliver has to say. I’m sure that there are quite a few people watching this thread with interest.

Same here. Mine seem a bit more neatly cut out and patched. I assume everyone has them and it's part of the manufacturing process. I wonder if they drill them from the inside and that's why the gelcoat side has varying degrees of damage. I rarely turn my trailer over to admire the bottom, so I'm not bothered by them - so long as the patches stay put. I'm very curious now what they're for though.

Something on my long term to do is to look more into the Lippert Centerpoint equalizers. They're supposed to add about an inch in height, along with smoothing out the ride. Might be a solution. I've got the same dings, as I suspect most owners do. The MorRyde suspension might do the same, if you prefer rubber bands over balloons. Another option would be to weld on longer leaf spring hangers.

I’ll have to give that some thought. Maybe I should charge a per minute fee.

This is the adapter I used. I cut off the extra threads and then had to drill out the inside diameter to make it fit the existing hose. I actually think that the threading was slightly off, but it doesn't leak so I'm not swapping it. I used a rubber O ring as a washer. The problem is the custom connector on the existing hose, which is why I say it's probably better just to replace the whole thing. I thought that I might be able to replace the hose, but I couldn't find a way to get either end to go through the faucet and come out. Maybe someone can figure out an easy way to do it, but I couldn't. Replacing the faucet wouldn't be hard, but it would require taking out the insert on the front of the vanity, which I didn't have time to do before our trip. I think this summer I'll try to tackle that job, more because I'm having ideas about the sink than just wanting to do a better job on the faucet. I can't find the exact faucet on Amazon that I bought, but it was essentially this one with the grip handle. I bought mine directly from High Sierra. The chrome handle probably looks better. Most people would probably want the brushed nickel, but I've been slowly swapping out all the brushed stuff in the trailer with chrome/stainless, since I think it matches the trailer better.

The Dill looks like a nice system. I may have to switch to that when I replace my tires. Do you ever have trouble getting a signal? How is the battery life?

tl;dr - absolutely buy this, and depending on how you use your kitchen sink, maybe buy this. When we started looking at campers/trailers one of my requirements was that we should be able to go for a full week without refilling our water supply, using an estimated 7 gallons of water per day for both my wife and me, which included a daily shower for each of us. That was ~50 gallons, so we knew we couldn't get that with the Ollie, but were hoping that with some diligence and an extra 12 gallons carried in the truck that we could stretch a calculated 6 days into 7. That never happened, and of course we actually slid the other direction, getting more like 5 days - 3.5 from the trailer tank and another 1.5 from the extra water. I think if we really ran the tanks dry that we'd have gotten 6 full days but we never had a situation to really test that, mostly since we'd start to get nervous around the 20% mark and would go find water. Then last year I replaced the kitchen faucet, and the new one had an aerator that really had no flow restriction at all. It was rated at 2.5 gallons/minute vs 1.5 for the standard Delta faucet Oliver uses. And it also has a short little lever that made it hard to adjust to a small stream to save water. We could do it, but it was a pain. I realized last month though that the faucet would take a standard sized aerator, so I decided to buy a few to test them out. The ones I got were better, but made my cool kitchen faucet seem average, and I couldn't have that. But a little internet sleuthing led me to The Mikado. It restricts the flow to an amazing 0.35 gallons per minute and has the coolest spiral spray pattern you've ever seen. At only 0.35 gpm, I imagine you'd get pretty frustrated if you wanted to fill a glass of water; but we use bottled water and only use the kitchen faucet to do dishes and wash hands, so that low of a flow rate actually works out perfectly for us. We lost the ability to switch between two different sprays, but we never used that feature anyway. With that success, I decided to take on the shower. The highest rated low flow shower head I could find is the High Sierra. It's not a looker by any means - it's downright ugly. But it seemed like anyone who's ever rated shower heads has placed them at the top of their list, and it has a flow rate of only 1.5 gpm vs Oliver's 2.2, so I put my aesthetic sense to the side and ordered it. In its favor, it feels great in the hand - very heavy and solid, and it also has a trickle feature like the faucets Oliver used to use, which is great for keeping the water warm while sudsing up. Not in its favor is that I found it nearly impossible to connect to the hose from Oliver's faucet. I ended up having to order an oddball adapter and then modifying that to make it work. (It would have been easier just to have swapped out the entire faucet, which is what I'd recommend anyone else do.) But even with the adapter, it does slide back into the faucet just like the original, so apart from being a pain to make work, it does work just the same. But I have to say that this shower head is truly amazing. It has a surprisingly forceful stream that feels as if it's using twice as much water as before, if not more. It works so well that I didn't believe it was only using 1.5 gpm and had to test it myself - which made me even more surprised since I actually got a little less. I'm not exaggerating when I say that this really transformed the shower, and I highly recommend it to everyone, whether you're trying to save water or not. But it is ugly. After both of those mods, I thought I'd see if lowering the water pressure would make any difference, and found that 40 psi was about the point that I started to notice some drop off in the shower output. The sink stayed the same regardless what I set the pressure at. In fact it will actually run for a good while with the pump off, just from residual pressure in the pipes. So I've set both the pump and my external pressure regulator to 40 now, which I suppose helps my plumbing and maybe makes some dent in water usage though I doubt much. The result? 8 full days this past trip with both of us taking showers each day, split roughly 5/3 for the Ollie's tank and the extra gallons in the truck. So 2+ extra days of water while at the same time improving the quality of the water at both the sink and the shower and being able to lower the water pressure. Really A+ results. I don't know how often we'll actually need a full week's worth of water, but on this last trip it worked out well for us since only once were we someplace that we could actually hook up the trailer to a hose, which meant a lot fewer trips to get water. Also it means a little less stress and obsessing over water use, which is a good thing. By the way, the replacement aerator may work with the stock faucet, but I'm embarrassed to say that somehow I've lost mine* so I can't check. *Along with the sink. How do you lose a sink?

I might also add that if you don’t have an internal TPMS sensor, whatever way you’re measuring the tire temperature is a bit of a kludge since what you want to know is the internal air temperature. Valve sensors, regardless how accurate they may be in themselves (I doubt very), will always show a lower temperature since the air in the valve stem is constantly being cooled by surrounding air. Getting the sidewall or tread temperature with an infrared thermometer is surely more accurate but arguably less relevant (outside of F1). I’ve also read vastly different figures given as safe, everything from 250 degrees to the oddly specific 122. So I think you have to take it all in context, not read too much into individual readings, and if some reading makes you nervous then just stop and check to ease your mind. For what it’s worth, I don’t think my valve sensors have ever read anything over 95 or so and they certainly vary a good bit at times with no real indication as to why. Maybe other systems are better, but thats my experience. I always feel the sidewalls of the tires at fuel stops and heck if I could ever say if they’re anything but “warm”, and always less so than the truck’s tires, both front and rear. Maybe there’s something important that can be inferred from that but I doubt it.

FYI, rule to return the wrench to zero is only relevant to spring type (micrometer) wrenches. The split beam design, like the Precision Instruments that I linked to above, doesn’t require that. By the way, Snap On sells the exact same wrench with their name on it, if anyone wants to pay double. ;)

I think the most likely answer is that your trailer probably runs slightly nose down. Even with the equalizer, that will put a bit more pressure on the front set of tires. I’ve noticed the same on mine, even though my trailer is only pitched down an inch or so, depending on what other load I have in the truck. On mine, the temp difference is only about 5 degrees, and so I haven’t worried about it (though I’m actually doing some suspension modifications after the rally that should lift the rear of the truck a bit). The closer you get to the minimum pressure, or the bigger the temperature difference, the more important I think it would be to correct the problem, either by leveling the trailer (if that’s the issue), or compensating by running a different tire pressure on each axle. You also might make sure that you regularly rotate the tires front to back to give them equal wear. Another thing to check for is that the shackles haven’t flipped on one of the axles, which can happen if the trailer has been lifted completely off the ground. That will put considerably more load on one axle and also bind the equalizer so that it can’t do its job.

Precision Instruments ½” You can get a more expensive digital one that will be more precise, provided it’s handled with kit gloves and calibrated regularly. Great if you’re building Porsche engines. The PI is more than accurate enough, super easy to set and use, and most importantly can bump around in the back of your truck for years without losing any of that accuracy.

That’s a really good point. Would explain the missing wheel and also the failure of the other one.

Yeah I suspect our problem is really with the E/H actuator, but I thought I’d mention it just in case.

We have the 5200 axles and larger brakes and the only thing I’d caution is that we’ve had trouble with the brakes locking. No idea if that’s from the larger brakes or from some other element (we have electric over hydraulic discs) but it’s worth giving at least some thought.

The wear on mine, after about 18,000 miles, is even across the tire. About a third of that mileage was done with Oliver pressures (over 70), a third at 50, then the last third at 45. There was no point during that time that I noticed uneven wear. I do have some wear that I suspect was caused by locking brakes, as that’s been an issue for us. It looks like the sort of wear you’d see on a tire that’s been abused by doing burnouts. Obviously that’s not the problem but I figure locking the brakes would produce similar damage. Could be from scrub but I suspect it’s the braking. And it seems like that wear isn’t getting worse after I first noticed, so perhaps it happened all in the first stint with the highest pressures, when the brake locking was the worst. We just did another 3 week trip at 45 psi and no issues to report. Trailer was stable and tires stayed cool to the touch. We did a good bit of gravel road on this one - Chaco, Valley of the Gods, Moab, etc., and some bad paved roads as well. We bounced her around a good bit and happy to report zero damage. Ran across another poor couple on the east road to Chaco who’d completely destroyed a tire on their car. The rangers told me that road eats a few tires a week, but we cruised through with no problem. I’m not big on lowering tire pressures for offroad except for sand, so we just kept them as they were. Raspy got me thinking about running a lower pressure, so I’m going to experiment with 40 psi on the short trip down to the rally, just to see. I’m not willing to go to 35 unless I read some clarification from Michelin about their chart. The way I read it, 3000 lbs is the maximum weight allowed at 35 psi and I’m at 2750+, which is too close for me. But as I mentioned, we’ve had issues with locking brakes and each time I’ve lowered the tire pressure it’s helped, so why not at least try 40.

Very odd indeed. I’m a bit fuzzy on where the failure points were. Is it that the front wheel lugs sheared off and the rear wheel pulled the lugs out of the hub - so the wheel itself didn’t fail? (I imagine they took a beating regardless.) Wondering if the lugs had been overtorqued at some point by an overzealous mechanic. I think I’d want to replace them on the other side just to be sure. Of course the opposite could be true as well - if they hadn’t been tightened properly that would continually stress the lugs, and the pothole just finished the job. Also, what tire pressure do you run? A high pressure wouldn’t allow for much force to be absorbed by the tires.

I'll be curious to see how that gets worked out. Of course we've had a few Ollies that were delivered with a laundry list of problems, especially the early #200 hulls when Oliver added their second production line - so in the case of a new product like the Nest, I'm more interested in how Airstream responds, both in making that customer happy and fixing their production problems.

Given the location of the red switch, it could be a cutoff for the solar. It's a high amp DC switch, so it would either be that or as previously mentioned, a disconnect for the batteries. I believe that the earlier models had these switches and at some point they stopped putting them in. I'm guessing that Oliver experimented a bit in where they were located as well. That, or the previous owner installed it.

You must not have been too far behind us. We were going to stay the night at Black Kettle Grasslands but the weather pushed us on. We ended up in Clinton for the night. Then they closed the interstate in front of us because of a big accident the next morning.

Don’t know about the lake tour but lose the awning and I could park my Ollie on that deck for an instant boat house.

There’s no shame in leaving the Ollie to fend for itself for a night...

Since you’re getting the Victron charge controller, I’d highly recommend that you get a Victron monitor as well. Not only is it highly rated but you’ll have the option to later add the Victron color control which is a super nice upgrade.

Our campfire also works right off the quick connect with no problem. I forget the brand. But I’ve noticed that the flames are lower than when connected directly to a bottle. Our charbroil grill will light but it won’t get hot enough unless I swap its regulator for a simple valve. Then our partner stove won’t even light unless it’s connected directly to the bottle. So it does depend on the particular appliance and for grills I suspect it depends somewhat on how hot of a grill you prefer.