John E Davies

I won’t comment on the Truma since I know very little about it. However, I caution you to not rely on just one electrical source of heat, no matter what it is. If the shore power fails for any reason, your trailer will freeze. Also the small amount of waste heat that radiates from recirculating hot water lines is not nearly enough to heat the full fresh tank, the cold water lines and the standard toilet, you need lots more BTUs. We have discussed this many times, if you haven’t done a full winterization, you need two independent (and adequate) heat sources in case the primary one quits. You could try what you suggest, but leave the gas turned on and the furnace at a low setting, in case the water heater is inadequate or stops running. The problem with this scenario is that if the shore power fails, you will run down the batteries fairly quickly, unless the trailer is out in the sun with solar panels... It might be prudent to at least blow air through all the outside water ports and the outside shower, to limit the chance of one near the hull freezing.... and some sort of remote temperature alarm would let you sleep better, since you could keep a close watch on the inside temp and take action if it drops too low. BTW, you have not filled out your profile or signature, please do so we know more about you. Are you being affected by the Bomb Cyclone? Be safe. John Davies Spokane WA

Cooper makes tires in other countries, but it and Goodyear are the only two brands that started in the USA and they remain headquartered here. Their offroad tires are highly regarded in Australia, where the roads can be grim. John Davies Spokane WA

What Cooper tires? Michelins are good but when given the chance I would buy certain Cooper models over the LTX, any day. The LTX is a really hard compound, high mileage (70k) tire, not needed on a trailer that will be lucky to go 20,000 miles before they get old enough to scrap. The Coopers are probably not a downgrade. I can’t comment on the air conditioner except to say that you don’t need a 13.5 K unit in these tiny trailers. Except maybe if you parked in the summer sun in the Mojave desert. Welcome to the Ollie Club. John Davies Spokane WA

I have never seen a guard like that, it attaches to the front of a vehicle, it looks very effective, but you couldn't see past it.... No I meant one to attach to the tongue of the trailer. This is interesting, it shows the low pressure areas behind the Land Cruiser and trailer at speed on a dusty road. The Stone Stomper prevents most of that forward cloud, except at low speeds. You don't get that vast accumulation of grit and dirt on the front of the trailer, as in the upper pic. John Davies Spokane WA

Taylor, thanks so much for the interesting rack comments. I use nothing but Yakima products, I have never had a complaint about how they are put together, though I have had some issues with their basic design and function, like the IMHO stupidly dangerous Boat Loader. I am still using a decades old round bar system, I just swap it from vehicle to vehicle as I change trucks. John Davies Spokane WA

Wow, that is a nice caravan, will they build it to USA spec (right side entry, left side hookups, 120 VAC power)? If not I see that as a problem, short and long term, especially when you eventually sell it here. They have some very nice upgrades that I would love to see from Oliver - dual lithium batteries, diesel furnace, additional water capacity, disk brakes! Inverter air conditioning!! Have you found a place to rent a tow vehicle there? A Land Cruiser 4.7 diesel would work very well if you can use a WD hitch on the truck. The trailer is a little over 6000 pounds fully loaded. Will they let you tow off pavement with a rental? Do you need a special visitor drivers license to tow? Can you rent your small stuff like camp chairs and linens? How much will it cost to ship it and pay duty here? What about factory support. warranty etc? The Australian to US Dollar exchange rate is highly favorable right now (about 0.68 USD per 1.00 AUD). I don't think you would find a better time for a once in a lifetime adventure like this. I am more than a little jealous and stunned. .... Nice trailers, for sure: They are apparently planning to come to the USA! : ... https://expeditionportal.com/ultimate-rd-at-zone-rv/ John Davies Spokane WA

The fabric “pinned up” to allow access to rear hatch. Instead of swearing at the fabric, embrace its usefulness to hold groceries or the doghouse while you are doing other stuff. Here are the mid-guards, showing the stainless strips I added to stiffen them. John Davies Spokane WA

Taylor, I will answer to the best of my ability..... I used stainless fasteners for strength, they are not at all ideal in aluminum (but Oliver uses them everywhere in the frame). But these mid-flaps and also the flaps behind the tires, are not mounted into aluminum, but into the galvanized mild steel of the subframe. So if you used aluminum bolts here, you would still have the possibility of some dissimilar metal corrosion. Joining aluminum brackets to steel parts is a little spooky, you need to bed the parts completely and seal off the holes 100% with an excellent sealant to exclude all moisture, which would accelerate corrosion. Ground clearance. I chose this height because I felt it the best compromise between good coverage and not scraping the ground. I have no way of telling at what angle they actually “fly” at say 30 mph or 60 mph, I would have to mount a camera under there to see. But I do not see any signs that they are kicking up rooster tails of debris. Very stiff flaps would be a problem, IMHO. I did add stainless strips along the bottom to weight the flaps, I will try to add some pics. The rubber stayed curled and I needed the strips to keep them straight along the bottom edges. Sealing the bumper compartment. Yes, it does fill up with dust and grit. You could seal the big gaps in the sides and leading edges where it joins the hull, that will help a lot, but you can’t seal it up tight. It needs to drain and dry out after you spill grey water or worse there. You could mount a rubber stone guard strip across that area underneath. It would catch the larger stuff but I doubt that it would help with the fine dust. Rear mudflaps. If I were to recommend just one of these mods, it would be these. They stop debris from impacting your water fittings, and the lower curve of the hull, and from ricocheting off the front face of the bumper and back into the rear lights. Futzing. There is no doubt that a Stone Stomper requires a small amount of constant futzing. When unhitching, you have to unclip all the bungees in front and drag the mesh under the tongue to clear the jack. By clipping the outer bungees to the rear mounts, the fabric is help up off the ground, looks tidy and won’t blow around in a cross wind. When hitching, you have to bring the fabric back into place, and attach the front bungees. You cannot access the rear cargo area with the fabric in place, but it is dead simple to unclip two of them and let the fabric fall, or clip those bungees to the coupler handle. When it is clean, this is no problem. If it is wet and filthy, then it is not pleasant. I do try to not unhitch at all, if possible. I prefer to stay hooked up overnight and it greatly simplifies things. I prefer a dead level site or one that slopes slightly down from the road, so I can use no jacks at all, or lower just the rears to level the butt. You have to consider the many hours of drudgery and expense you save, not having to deal with chips, filth or damage to your trailer or TV. If you don’t care about how they look, and can live with a steady increase in chips and erosion, then you don’t need a Stone Stomper. I am actually astonished that boaters do not use these. An unprotected boat hull can get really damaged by just a few miles of gravel roads, or thirty miles of freshly chip sealed highway, even with Rock Tamers. Nobody likes to do gelcoat or paint chip repairs or pay a shop many hours of labor to fix it.... as I mentioned in another thread, after 10000 towing miles my trailer and frame look like new. The system works. If you don’t want to go with a Stone Stomper, consider a fixed wire mesh barrier like you see on many Australian caravans. They direct the debris up and outward. Which is good for your truck and trailer, but not so good for cars approaching that might get blasted by the stuff getting thrown into that lane... Tires: I am a huge fan of Coopers, and I have used AT3 s before on a couple of vehicles, but the bottom line is that they are not a great choice for graded gravel roads. They are rock slingers..... though not as bad as say a set of snow tires. My Nittos do not throw gravel much and they are very fine tires, but they are a very soft compound and short lived. I will probably replace them in a year with Cooper ST Maxx or Goodyear Duratracks. John Davies Spokane WA

The problem with any film that you put on the trailer is that it doesn’t stop rocks from bouncing back at your truck. You will find debris on top of your rear bumper, chips in the tailgate paint and license plate, pits in the glass and and possible a busted rear glass, if you are very unlucky. Taylor.coyote.... if you indeed are going to be spending half your towing miles on gravel (!) then you need to do what I did. https://olivertraveltrailers.com/topic/how-to-stone-stomper-gravel-guard/ https://olivertraveltrailers.com/topic/how-to-subframe-gravel-guard/ https://olivertraveltrailers.com/topic/how-to-rear-mud-flaps-for-the-ollie/ The Stone Stomper works magnificently. The downsides are that it requires a lot of custom fabrication since you can’t just screw some brackets into the front of the hull. Hitching and unhitching is more complicated, but you get used to the extra steps. You cannot use it in sticky, gloppy mud, it will get overloaded and damaged. For soupy mud, no worries. The manufacturer says to remove it for “offroad”, meaning any situation where it will get dragged into obstacles. The mesh sends all the chaos from the road - rocks, water, tar, dirt, fresh chip seal - underneath the frame. The area above the A frame stays very clean and dry, as does the back of the TV. But you need to catch all that stuff before it sand blasts your suspension, frame and under side of the hull, thus the need for rubber flaps. Which cause increased drag. At 60 mph in pouring rain, the rear glass and front of the trailer below the beltline remain almost dry. I seldom need to use the rear wiper until I slow down. I have used the Stone Stomper and associated flaps for over 10,000 miles now and I would not travel without it. The front of “Mouse” looks like new, as does the frame. The mesh is holding up very well, the only problem I had was with the center support poles. I used thin Schedule 40 PVC conduit and they started to fail after a couple of thousand miles (snapped in two). I replaced them with heavy wall Schedule 80 pipe and have had no further problems. I do carry spares, just in case, but you can buy a ten foot piece at any hardware store and cut it to length in a half hour at the campsite. Cost is reasonable and customer support has been stellar, the current exchange rate (1.00 AUD is less than 0.70 USD) makes it affordable. Shipping was very fast, but mine got held up at US Customs for a week. ;( I have used Rock Tamers in the past, but even when they are rigged “Aussie style” at a 30 degree static angle (to deflect rocks downwards, not back at the truck) they are only vaguely effective. Your choice of tires has an enormous effect on the quantity of rocks thrown up. A tight tread design like a typical All Terrain will constantly send up a barrage of the fine gravel typically found on graded roads. A mud tire with wide spacing (like my Nitto Ridge Grapplers) throws up maybe 10% as much. Plus it grips way better in turns, a big bonus when you are pulling three tons of trailer. John Davies Spokane WA

Don, I have never heard of MDC, what is their reputation in Australia? Like the Black Series, these are built for warm weather use only. I think the design looks great, although I do not care for the trendy glass bowl sink in the bathroom, nor for the sliding outside kitchen. The latter would be simple enough to remove if you wanted to use that volume for storage. Before I bought one of these Australian imports, I would want to crawl around underneath and inside for at least an hour, and look at how they run the wires and plumbing, and how stout things are like the “rock sliders” - are they cosmetic or do they actually function? How easy is to service appliances or electrical stuff when something fails? The video says that it has a diesel fired furnace, this is a huge plus for me, but I bet they use a propane one here in the USA, darn it... Has anybody at Expedition Portal discussed these? If not you might post your questions there and see what they say. .... https://expeditionportal.com/forum/forums/expedition-and-overland-trailers-retail-models.42/ Thanks for the info, those look very cool indeed. John Davies Spokane WA

I agree with Mike, you need to see your doc and get on strong antibiotics at least. Don’t delay. You don’t want to be on addictive pain meds any longer than absolutely necessary. https://www.healthline.com/health/signs-of-infection-after-surgery Good luck. John Davies Spokane WA

This is available for pre-order for a base MSRP of $46,000. https://www.sylvansport.com/vast/ That is definitely not a standard cookie cutter RV, but I have some huge doubts about it...... 500 pound cargo capacity. No holding or water tank capacities listed. ”2 batteries” but no mention of solar. It does have a roof AC so I guess it must have shore power. 7.9 foot width, fender to fender, but they expect you to hang bulky kayaks on the street side wall? The 200 pounds of off-center weight will make the trailer sag left, and there is risk of sway in gusty winds. You risk ripping them off onto a passing vehicle, and you could not see past them from the TV. If your load made the trailer more than 8’6” wide you would need an oversized permit for every state you travelled through....LOL. Long skinny slides for the nose cargo bin and kitchen, how sturdy will those be? Huge amount of openings, they reduce the structural strength and the seals will inevitably leak dust and water. Low ground clearance. Plastic parts will fade and crack, will replacements be available in ten years? Proprietary extruded aluminum caps and exterior frame for the structural panels. What happens when one gets damaged? The shower is only usable when the kitchen slide is extended. No built-in storage other than a small area under the galley and the front cargo bin. I should probably stop here and let somebody else find some more issues..... would you rather have an Ollie Elite or this .... thing? John Davies Spokane WA

Can we see pictures? How is your knee doing? John Davies Spokane WA

It looks like a low speed flip, some of the damage was perhaps done by the wrecker pulling it back up onto its wheels. I am very surprised that more stuff on the right side was not affected. The entry grab bar and fender flares look undamaged, how is this? The frame is badly twisted. Bad things often happen when a trailer goes over and the coupler binds on the ball. The forces involved are enormous..... this trailer looks as if it could be fixed but the cost would be more than a brand new one. If it had had an offroad coupler on it, the damage may have been repairable. Bulldog couplers are super strong. Maybe if this had a cheap coupler, it would have popped like an electrical fuse, and saved the frame. My guess is that the TV was totaled also. Interesting pics, thanks very much for posting them. John Davies Spokane WA

I agree for the most part, but a small Ollie Store with say a dozen different popular products, plus once weekly order processing and shipping, would be easy enough. Most clothing items would just need to be slid into padded envelopes and addressed. I don’t think people here expect the speed and output of an Amazon store, nor do they require a dedicated showroom with polished glass counters, lots of shelving and hat racks... Any old corner or unused large closet would be adequate to stack boxes. Any excess inventory gets given away free at rallies or RV shows. NOT having Ollie gear is lost advertising. Giving away extra items, that are both unexpected and cool, at rallies is a tremendous good will gesture. The highlight of the Overland rallies that I have attended is always the after dark bonfire and gift giveaway, where people are given numbers and the host draws them from a hat for prizes. Most prizes are worth only a few bucks, but some are jaw dropping. I don’t expect Oliver to give away valuable products, the sponsors supply those usually, but it would be a very nice way to give away inventory that is gathering dust. John Davies Spokane WA

NT entered in error.

The furnace fan is REALLY loud, you know when it is running. I am not sure if it has a separate fuse than the rest of the unit, but I doubt it. So when the unit lights and heats up, the fan should also be powered on. Are you positive that you don't simply have all the air control vanes closed completely? That would restrict airflow significantly. Also the return air register should be open. You can remove the movable vane in the bathroom heated duct so that it is unrestricted, to heat that room a little better, but you should keep the other two in place for temperature control (distribution). To get the vane out, pry off the round cover carefully. Good luck. I hope you have an aux source for heat.... John Davies Spokane WA

Once a year for a trailer that sits outside all the time sounds appropriate. How long for one that is indoors when not on the road? My trailer is three years old and I have never seen any issues with the factory sealant. John Davies Spokane WA

Bill is maybe a little over the top when he checks his trailer lights after every stop. Typically I will check them every time I connect the harness to the TV and every morning before a departure if the harness was plugged in overnight.... . The most likely problems happens when plugging in, if one of the contacts is a little flaky or dirty you can wiggle the plug and it will start working fine. It is also prudent to walk around your TV while the lights, signals etc are on, to make sure you don’t have a blown bulb, tho with LEDs this is becoming much less common. Be sure to check the white reverse lights of the trailer, they are important in two ways - they light up a dark campsite but also alert following drivers that your are backing up, if you need to do that unexpectedly in a high traffic area. I hope your knee gets better soon, when do you think you will be able to take your new Ollie for an outing? John Davies Spokane WA

You are a lucky man.... the bolt has shallow splines close to the head that grip the steel of the hole in the spring mount. It is important to not turn the head, instead tighten the nut while holding the head motionless with a big wrench. If you let the head turn the splines will wallow out the hole, making a loose fit. It would be interesting to inspect the failed bolt, set it down beside the new one to see if there are any obvious flaws.... Check all the other nuts and also the ubolts holding on the axles. I bet there are others that need tightening. Please keep us updated. John Davies Spokane WA

That’s a bigger size coupling and Andersen ball than you have, and the newest style whaletail, but the older 2” ones hook up just the same. You must lower the open coupler onto the ball, latch it, and then lift the ball and entire back end of the truck up several inches using the electric jack to slacken the chains and make it easier to slide the whaletail in place on the extension below the ball. Once you do it a few times it will get easier, but it is always going to be a bit of a pain, there is no way around that. If you hitch up in this manner, hopefully you will not have to fuss with the big socket and adjuster nuts too often.... The black coiled cables are to catch the trailer if it should become disconnected. I have no trouble hooking them up. The small red coiled cable is the electric brake safety switch lanyard, that will apply the brakes full hard if this happens. It should ideally clip onto the truck hitch receiver, not the hitch itself. The intent is to prevent your disconnected trailer from becoming an uncontrolled projectile that could hit other vehicles. It would mess up your trailer and truck but hopefully not kill a bus load of people. John Davies Spokane WA

Nan, you should have documentation for the Andersen hitch, if not go here and look at the FAQ and other info. I believe your tow vehicle is a late model Tundra, is that correct? If so you probably need to set the chains with a small amount of compression on the big red bushings (item 13). Proper setup including ball height is important so that it works as intended. The Andersen comes with a big 1 1/4” special deep socket that you should have received. You must use a common 1/2” drive ratchet handle to turn it. https://help.andersenhitches.com/wd-help Post pictures please. John Davies Spokane WA

Lots and LOTS of 404 messages, it is very frustrating. The speed seems OK, when it actually loads a page. It is ironic- I searched for "404" to find this thread, clicked the link and got a 404 message for it. LOL. At least it is consistent. John Davies Spokane WA

Very nice, which way are the prevailing winds and will they blow rain under the overhang? John Davies Spokane WA

If you are referring to the longer Elite II, then yes, maybe, possibly. We have two Australian Labradoodles, 40 pounds each, and it is acceptable. But we are always tripping over them, since they haven't the wits to stay under the dinette or remain in the entry. The center isle is rather narrow (less than 2 ft) since this is a 7 ft wide trailer. We love our dogs but they and we are much happier when they are not with us. Even without them we usually have to do a little dance to get around each other when one is at the galley. It is an unavoidable factor. We are both normal sized adults, very large individuals will have a much harder time. A visit to the factory or to a nearby Oliver would answer your concerns. If you are referring to the Elite (single axle) then no, you will have problems for sure. Consider the implications of two sopping wet dogs, coming in from the dark..... you need some floor space. Welcome to the forums. John Davies Spokane WA