rideandfly

Reed & Karen, Congratulations on your new Ollie!!!!!! Really like the colors! Hopefully meet y'all camping in the near future!!!

GrayGhost, I always do everything the hard way the first time for some reason. :) In hind sight the easy way to clean the gasket is to remove the screws securing the fixture, ease the fixture off of the hull and clean and wash the gasket without disconnecting the wires, also preventing water from entering the hull. I was careful securing the fixture by cross tightening the screws, drawing the fixture down evenly while the gasket is compressed evenly between the fixture and hull to prevent damage to the fixture and hull. Hope that makes sense.

Put this project in front of the waxing the Ollie today. Cut out white 1/8" neoprene gasket material, installed and looked good, but failed to seal properly during water test. Reason for failure, the 1/8" gasket material is slightly harder (higher durometer) than the original gasket. It's also slightly thicker than the original by 1/32", thickness may not contribute to failure. My hands got plenty of black residue on them while handling the original black gasket. Decided to wash gasket with hot water & tooth brush. All of the black residue came off of the original gasket and it quit bleeding. Looks like if the black gaskets are washed when you have the bleeding issue, it appears to stop bleeding. Had to be careful and gently cross tighten the Furrion 110V outlet during installation to have a complete seal around the outlet. Can't predict long term results for washing the gasket, but I'm done with this project for now and going to finish waxing the Ollie before it rains tomorrow. :) Failed white gasket installation: Cleaned black gasket re-installed:

We washed and started waxing our Ollie yesterday. After we finish waxing the Ollie today, will start work making a new white gasket for the Furrion 110V external power receptacle. Using fiberglass boat cleaner/wax with UV protection, removes any stains found on our Ollie. Last month purchased White 1/8" thick Neoprene FDA food grade 12X12" sheet made by Allstate Gasket from Amazon. Will work on the gasket this afternoon and post if I'm successful or not with the project tomorrow. If successful will post photos, too. Since we have the old style LED porch lights, don't have issues with ours, but assume gaskets could be made for the late model porch lights, too. Next Ollie project is to repack wheel bearings and replace wheel seals. This will have our Ollie ready to camp for this season and looking forward to more Ollie adventures!!!!!!

Canoe12, Purchased an 18" 1/2" drive Breaker Bar from Harbor Freight, keep it with a short extension and 3/4" deep well socket for Ollie lug nuts.

Canoe12, So far, only needed standard wrenches for work on the Ollie.

Dave, Also found the caulking around the black tank vent on the roof starting to crack. Temporarily sealed the cracks with clear silicone. Purchased 3M 4200 white sealant to replace the cracked caulk in the near future.

Dave, I'm sure you know this, but will say it anyway. We keep the drain channels clear on the bottom of the windows so water can drain freely out of the window drains. If they are clogged, water can come in at the bottom of the window. We had an exterior LED running light over the rear window to leak, allowing water to come in around the rear window and leak out of the bottom of the window. Also had the exterior LED porch type light fixture to allow water to get into the Ollie through a wire or screw hole in the fiberglass for the LED light allowing water to come in at the top of the dinette window. New Ollies do not have this style of fixture. In both cases stopped the leaks temporarily before making permanent repairs. The exterior LED running light over the rear window, put clear silicone on and around this light stopping the leak until a permanent repair was made. Used white electrical tape around the exterior LED light fixture where it contacts the exterior shell over the dinette. During our last trip to Oliver TT, they replaced the rear running light LED and removed/resealed the exterior LED light over the dinette. We had up to 4" of rain over a two day period since the repair and everything is dry in the Ollie. Hope this helps,

Have a Canadian friend interested in buying an Ollie, too. Will send him a link to this thread. Thanks!

Mike, It rained on our Ollie during the last two weeks. It had a black streak below the Furrion black gasket on the 110V external power receptacle. Going to replace the black gasket with white gasket made with gasket material from McMaster-Carr during February. Will let you know how it works out. https://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-rubber-sheets/=15zaput

Malcolm and GrayGhost, Appreciate the information and fine photos!!!!! We have camped in a few western states, but everything we see and read about CO, puts it on the top of our next state to camp out west! Malcolm will PM when we a plan our next trip out west! Thanks!

We will be camping in the NC, TN, GA mountains, SC coast, and VA during 2017. Malcolm, We have not been to CO yet, but want to camp there during our next trip out west.

Pete, Agree on axle capacity! Our ready to camp weight is 4950 pounds with empty water tanks. We don't haul water in the tanks heading out to camp and dump the tanks at dump stations before leaving campgrounds. It's just how we camp, it's not due to our Ollie's weight capacity. Hope this helps,

Malcolm, Our Ollie and a few more may have been exceptions, will see. This statement on the Oliver site: "CHASSIS Quad Shocks on dual Dexter leaf spring axles with “Nev-R-Adjust” 12″ electric brakes for exceptional control and braking" may need to be updated. Bottom line, sounds like there are 3500 lb capacity and 5200 lb capacity axles on Elite II units. I advise everyone to check your axles before ordering parts like bearings and seals. It would not be good to be on the side of the road broke down when part stores are closed relying on parts purchased finding out they will not work. Took me about 1 or 2 minutes to take the photos and 5 minutes to call Dexter for them to email a spec sheet on my axles. They were also willing to give me any part number needed that can be purchased from Dexter or cross over their part numbers to lower priced parts that can be purchased from many vendors. Hope this helps. I'm confident Oliver will get back to us to clear up this issue! Agree with you, Oliver builds a fine product!!!!

Just crawled under our 2015 Elite II Ollie, Hull 075, and took these photos. We have 5200 pound axles and Dexter confirms it by the serial numbers stamped on the axles. Here's some notes from Dexter in the spec/build list: Shop Order Notes: Order Date 10/17/2014 HF= 68.75,SC= 50.00,BEAM CAPACITY BASED ON OVERHANG IS: 5200,BEAM CAPACITY Customer Name: Precision Poylmers LLC DBA Oliver Fiberglass Products 609 Swan Ave Hohenwald Tn 38462

Mike, Purchased gasket material in the past from these folks: https://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-rubber-sheets/=15zaput Will post material used and if it worked. All I have to do is wash the Ollie with well water or let it rain to get the gasket to bleed, so the test should be easy.

Mike, We have the same issue with the Furrion gasket on the 110V external power receptacle. Looks like the gasket material sandwiched between the fixture & trailer hull is bleeding black. Different gasket material can be used that will not bleed and still seal. I will eventually cut a custom gasket to replace the Furrion gasket, but not until next month. Oliver could have fixtures supplied with different gasket material or have a gasket/seal vendor to cut custom gaskets in quantity with different material to stop the issue. We used to have custom hydraulic seals/gaskets cut in quantity for various applications, the cost was cheap, just required an extra step during the assembly process. Just a thought!

Met Jason at Oliver last week at 8:00AM EST or 7:00AM central time (their time). Believe Anita comes in at 8:00AM central time. Hope this helps.

On the Elite II 2017 standard list: "Quad Shocks on dual Dexter leaf spring axles with “Nev-R-Adjust” 12″ electric brakes for exceptional control and braking" Our 5200 pound Dexter axles have 12" electric brakes on our 2015 Ollie. Also worked on a friend's single axle 2015 Ollie and it has a 5200 pound capacity Dexter axle. Here is how the brakes are called out on the Dexter build/spec sheet on our Ollie's axle: "Brk Axle, 12x2, Elec". Please call Anita or Jason tomorrow to have them to confirm. Hope this helps!

Our Ollie's Bulldog hitch is rated at 7,000 pounds maximum capacity. Our Elite II weighs in at 4950 pounds with all water tanks empty ready to camp. That's the weight we normally tow our Ollie at. Hope this helps.

Here's the Dexter ID sticker and serial number stamped into one of the axles on our 2015 Elite II. Dexter will email a spec/build sheet for a axle assembly by calling their service department. Dexter will tell you which bearings and seals to use for your assembly that can be crossed over to bearings & seals sold at places like E-Trailer and Amazon.

John, Fine photos!!!! Appreciate information on taking the Ollie off pavement, too!

Bill, Jason is great to work with on the service side of things. They did a nice job on everything I wanted done and also made improvements free of charge on items I was not aware of. Their service cost is very reasonable, too. Even though we purchased our Ollie used, we have been welcomed into the Oliver Family. We are less than 500 miles from "Mother Ship", is that your term? I normally like to do the majority of the maintenance on stuff we own, but since we are not too far from Oliver, made the decision to let them do more of the maintenance/upgrades I normally do after this last visit. Had a fine discussion with Heather and Anita in Sales, about features non Ollie owners are looking for in a travel trailer that would cause them to consider Oliver. Hats off to Oliver's willingness to make improvements and upgrades based on input from new and experienced camper owners. Couple additional photos taken of OliverTravel Trailers receiving finishing touches on Wednesday earlier this week: Our Ollie is Left and closer unit in this photo:

Hats off to all the folks at Oliver, service was top quality! Good to see Jason, Heather, and Anita during the trip, too!!!!!! Randy, Thanks!!!! Just got home and ran through plenty of rain during the last three days. The rig is dirty, but the white on white is still looking good! Mike, Thanks!!! The snow was an added bonus for the photo. It was 32F when the photo was taken with snow on Tuesday. Woke up this Thursday morning at Fall Hollow TN and the inside temp in the Ollie was 69F, without heat. Experimented with and without cruise control during this trip in the TN & NC mountains. With cruise set at 61MPH for 200+ miles got 11.5MPG. Not using cruise for 200+ miles with target speed of 61MPH slowing to 55MPH going up hills and up to 65MPH down hills got 13.5MPG. Amazed at how easy the Ollie tows.

Oliver did some work on our Ollie this week: East of Asheville NC heading to Hohenwald TN: First Oliver Built: Camping at Fall Hollow TN: