John E Davies

Good video but I have some comments. Draining the standard water heater: relieve the pressure at the valve, then close it again. This traps air so the water does not gush out all over your legs when you remove the anode. Then step away and open the valve for a full drain. Using a flush wand, flush the sediment from the heater, (then blow out any residual water if you have compressed air), then reinstall the anode (or a new one). Close the pressure valve. Partial winterization: the vulnerable parts of any RV plumbing system are the ones that penetrate or are very close to the outside of the hull. Instead of pumping (undrinkable) antifreeze into all the service ports, use compressed air and a blowout fitting to blow the water out. Include the outside shower in this process. This way you can keep the fresh tank full and the system functional, but have little or no water in the outside lines. This is only good for mild winter temperatures when the cabin is kept heated. Make sure that you regulate the pressure to no more than 60 psi, and if your fitting has a restrictor in it, drill it out to allow more air flow. The restrictor is there to hopefully prevent damage when a lunatic hooks up unregulated 140 psi shop air to the fitting! Fresh, gray and black tanks: these should be emptied before a full winterization. A tank can withstand a little layer of frozen water at the bottom, but a full tank can freeze solid and rupture. The black tank should be kept wet enough to prevent the crud at the bottom from hardening. The other tanks do not need to have water in them. **** IMPORTANT NOTE ****** Unless your trailer has the latest fresh water pickup tube modification, the fresh tank cannot be emptied without tilting the tongue WAY up high. When level, there are 12 gallons that are trapped and unusable due to the location of the factory pickup opening. That opening feeds both the pump and the drain pipe. Tilting will get most of that extra water out. If you have the new pickup tube that comes in from the top, you can run the fresh water pump to scavenge any remaining water. Composting toilet: service the pee tank by emptying and cleaning it, do not add vinegar until warm weather returns. Blow out or flush with AF the unused water supply line that is dead ended at the valve behind the toilet. This line can be disconnected and capped under the vanity to eliminate this messy requirement. Liquids in the lockers, fridge, cabinets and drawers: remove everything that can freeze, including cleaning sprays and canned goods. Don’t forget the drinking water hoses, and water filter and regulator, if you have these! Some people don’t bother to use antifreeze in the plumbing but instead just blow all the water out. Air cannot freeze and any small amount of residual moisture will probably not hurt anything. Maybe. There are no guarantees with this method. Regardless, the sink and floor traps need to have AF poured down them. Make sure you blow air through ALL the lines, by cycling all service valves. If a section of line is left with water in it, that part might freeze. Blowing out the system will dump more water into the gray tank, so leave draining that tank until the last step... You can use a bucket to catch all the water coming out of the faucets, so that it doesn't go into your gray tank. In the video AF is sprayed directly on the ground..... really?!! Use a bucket so you don’t track it everywhere, especially into the cabin. It is non toxic but very messy! Hose off any spilled stuff. Buying antifreeze: any hardware store has this for less than 3 bucks per gallon, don't pay inflated prices, especially for the stupid Camco 30611 "concentrated" package - two bottles of concentrate, just add water to make 2 gallons, $20! I also have a bridge for sale. Antifreeze 101: AF WILL crystalize at about +12 F but it will not solidify and expand until about -50 F. So don't be alarmed if very cold AF appears slushy. That is normal. Unless it has been diluted with residual fresh water that did not get flushed out, which is bad. More volume of AF is better when winterizing. An extra gallon will give better protection. https://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/document.do?docId=1144 I keep Mouse in an insulated but unheated garage. I plan to use compressed air for a partial winterization, but keep the fresh tank and inner plumbing serviced and ready for use in the event of a winter emergency. Deviating from Oliver’s instructions may result in plumbing damage due to freezing which will not be covered under warranty! There are some other steps needed for putting your Ollie to bed for the winter, but that should not be part of this thread. John Davies Spokane WA

Cash is not a significant factor for me. Nor do I care about drilling holes. Three or four of theose HF cups would probably do fine to support a few wet beach towels,, if the area you wanted to mount it to was dead flat, but do you really want something that huge and ugly sticking down from the ceiling? Where I am planning to hang the line, the ceiling has some curvature. https://t.harborfreight.com/4-1-2-half-inch-diameter-suction-cup-40993.html?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F The smaller type with multiple cups would be better IMHO. They would adjust to a slight comtour a little better.... John Davies Spokane WA

Usually some creative thinking will let you do stuff like that. For example, using a stiff wire as a fish, you can pull a backing plate into position with a little fussing. The hard part is getting the fish through a screw hole and out to where you can reach it. Or you can saw a larger hole in the center of the mounting area, cut a wedge out of the backing plate and “screw” it into the opening. There are lots of ways. John Davies Spokane WA

I like those but they might be a little fragile, they have a very small hinge pin that all the weight would hang from, plus they use teeny number 6 screws and require a big hole in the roof. Here’s the other end of the spectrum. These are strong enough for motorcycle tie downs. I plan to order one of their track systems for my generator tray, but theses stand alone ones would work here. The bases are roundly contoured and fairly low when the rings are removed. https://www.youtube.com/embed/IpxxKyLNfpg?autoplay=1&rel=0&wmode=transparent It would be pretty easy to manuever the backing plates into position above the ceiling since the nuts are captive. I think! http://www.macscustomtiedowns.com/product/versatie-anchor-plate-assembly-4-pack/D-Rings BTW I hang stuff outside in good weather, but there are some places that forbid that, and sometimes the weather does not cooperate. John Davies Spokane WA

Dave, the span is too great, it needs a minumum of one ceiling fixture to support the center. I want to use steel cable so it won’t stretch and loop way down when heavily loaded with a few big wet beach towels. D rings are fine, but I was hoping for some more upscale yacht type hardware.... Those dinky little retractable RV lines are fine for ladies scanties, tee shirts and hand towels, but hopeless when subjected to a lot of weight. My design will take a lot of abuse, you won’t be able to do chin ups but it will be very solid. John Davies Spokane WA

I want to fabricate a clothes line that will reach from the rear overhead cabinet to the bathroom wall. It will clip onto the ceiling in a couple of places; the line will be plastic coated steel cable so that there is no stretch. I will use simple dog-leash snap hooks or similar quick release fasteners so I can rig the line in a few seconds. It will run along the street side of the cabin so hanging towels won’t be too much in the way of movement. In warm weather you can get natural cross ventilation and they should dry quickly. In cold weather, the furnace will assist. I haven’t decided on how to secure it to the ceiling, the best I have come up with so far is these mini flush lift rings. ($19 at Amazon): http://www.suncorstainless.com/sites/default/files/S3851-0.pdf Big problem, they are not spring loaded so they will hang down all the time.....! Any ideas or links to a small yet heavy duty spring loaded flush fitting that will accept a carabiner or similar device? Here’s a retractable clothes line that uses a swaged end fitting and the small slotted receptacle for it, that sort of setup would work well for each end, at the vertical attach points. Thanks for your ideas. I will do a How To thread once I get things sorted.... John Davies Spokane WA

A Moderator can do it, but you can just edit it yourself and delete all the content. Replace it with just the word “Duplicate” if you like. It won’t go away entirely but you won’t feel so much like an idiot. (Been there!) John Davies Spokane WA

Matt, do you also want negative recommendations, AKA “stay away from these guys”? If so, stay away from R&R RV, Spokane WA..... Thanks for starting this thread, I do hope you can find a good northwest shop to partner with. Try to find one that is willing and able to get a rig into their shop within two weeks, not two months ;( I think you are going to have to find one in a smaller town, not in a big metro area like Seattle or Spokane since those are usually swamped doing warranty repairs on the @#$&* stick built trailers they sell.... outlying small towns would be way better for many reasons.... Bend, OR attracts small high-end RV manufacturers, Earthcruiser, for example. It’s probably due to the very affluent population and business tax incentives. I bet there are some good shops there but I have no experience with them. Earthcruiser is not a repair shop per se, but they do service and repairs on their wonderful machines and might possibly want to partner with you to do warranty, crash repair, highly professional mods or other stuff for some extra cash flow. It’s definitely worth a phone call to Lance Gillies, owner extrordinaire. https://www.facebook.com/earthcruiseroverlandvehicles/ John Davies Spokane WA

Cool Reed, I like pickups. What are the payload specs for your truck, fully optioned? WD hitch? Regardless of the brute power of the 6.2 liter, I think you will miss the torque of your Merc at high altitude. I sure miss the power and fuel economy of my Cummins.... but I miss nothing else about that bone shaker truck, John Davies Spokane WA

Hey, the rest of us need this info, please! Why not start a new thread with “Blinds Manufacturer Information” in the header, so the lame search engine might be able to find it? John Davies Spokane WA

Very nice, is this it? http://www.homedepot.com/p/Husky-27-in-Hardwood-Tool-Cabinet-Top-for-Rolling-Cabinet-HOCN260001/203949843 Did you bother to seal the wood where you cut it? John Davies Spokane WA

I think it is fairly safe to assume that grounding is not a problem if your brakes work great and the battery seems to charge off the TV..... but I plan to look at my wiring just in case. I will probably wait until off-season. Maverick, thanks for starting this thread. I really don't understand why some of these really important issues haven't already appeared as Tech Bulletins. John Davies Spokane WA

Alison, in your severe climate a carport or enclosed garage would be really so much better. I can’t really comment beyond that about outside options, because Mouse resides inside my attached insulated RV bay. Having to continuously clear lots of snow and ice off the roof throughout the winter, without damaging the panels and antennas, was the main reason I decided on inside storage when we had our new house built a year ago, and I have no regrets whatsoever. Spokane gets 40 inches of snow on average, plus or minus 20... in the dead of winter I can go out into the Hanger Deck and lounge around inside the trailer, do maintenance or mods, show it to a potential buyer, or use it for guest housing. How neat is that? Plus fully enclosed RV storage around here is $300 to $550 monthly. Ouch. John Davies Spokane WA

Congratulations on the new baby. You can download the map data for the Google Maps app for offline use for when you lose a cell signal. I haven't tried navigating offline, I think it won't work. The map data has to be updated every 30 days but it will remind you. Update over wifi, the files are big. There are a number of nav apps that don't require cell service, but I always recommend a stand alone unit, Garmin is my favorite brand, I think this is way better than most factory nav systems: https://www.amazon.com/Garmin-RV-660LMT-6-Inch-Navigator/dp/B00YY3UBV2 Free quarterly map and Point of Interest updates and it won't ever freeze up on you! John Davies Spokane WA

I should not laugh since this is a very serious subject. This happened to me over and over again, such that I intentionally started numbering my questions, so that it would be easier to ask for more information about specific sections. OTH this is not at all isolated to Oliver, I see it frequently with other companies whenever you have more than a couple of questions. When communicating by email, I think it is important for you as the customer to present a well organised letter with definite spaces between each subject so that it is obvious for the receiver, who maybe distracted or tired, where the “breaks” are. Numbering does highlight them! I have never done telephone customer service work, but my suspicion is that to do it really well, one must be alert and focussed to a single task. A quiet and separate office or cubical would be mandatory, I believe. Full noise cancelling headsets that filter out background noise should work great if they are comfortble enough to be worn full time. Small wireless handsfree headsets just encourage multi-tasking, which is exactly the opposite of what is desired. IMHO of course. Thanks for the comments. I am not sure if we are accomplishing anything, but at least I know that I was not alone in feeling frustrated. In the past I have recommended to Oliver reps that they send out questionaires to all their customers, asking for feedback and suggestions. Do you folks think that would be appropriate? John Davies Spokane WA

Please post your experiences. I have had some trouble in several areas. Online Service Request (website): I only used this a couple of times. Once it was answered by a phone call within a day. The other was lost in space and I never heard from anyone. I think it is an awkward setup, at best. Email: I used to send emails directly to Jason, the old service manager. He was pretty good about responding within a day or two. I did have some issues with him not sending me all the stuff I requested. Telephone: I have called the general service number several times. Each time I had to leave a message. Response was variable. Lately I have not been getting anything back. When I have talked in person - I hate to admit this - I had a really hard time understanding either Jason or the new SM, who I can't recall his name - due to their very heavy southern country accents. Maybe that is my problem, I don't know, but I think the people selected to talk to the public should be easily understandable. (OTH I have hung up politely on more than one large corporation customer service rep from India that I just could not understand.) I will comment that nearly all of Oliver's buyers are older folks, many of whom might have hearing loss ;) Here's what I think is the problem, and I am hoping for suggestions about what Oliver should do to fix it. They are relying too much on old fashioned face to face communication which is obviously not working. They are just too busy now to be able to deal with issues and ship parts in an efficient and timely manner. They need to set up a better system that does not require the SM to deal with petty details like sending a replacement widget. What that system would look like, I have no idea. I do know that it should include regular e-commerce standard features like email notification, receipt, and tracking information. Perhaps half of the parts shipments I have received were incomplete and none had a packing list or invoice of any type in the box. They also need to add an About Us page to the website that lists the employees who interact with the Oliver community by department and position. I know the SM has changed, I still don't know his name and it should be so easy to find stuff like this since we are supposed to deal one on one with each other. As they continue to grow this problem is only going to get more frustrating for us as owners. Please comment with your personal experiences and any suggestions for Ollie owners or for management. I hope this isn't out of line, I thought a long time before deciding to start this thread. BTW I am going to call Service yet again tomorrow to see if I can get a response to my broken drawer problem.... They sent half the parts I needed. Thanks, John Davies Spokane WA

I have the 320 watt Zamp system and it is fine for me. I did ask for an external port to be added at the shore power connector, which now appears to be standard? I suggest you go with their standard system and you can always buy a good quality suitcase unit and a 50 ft heavy gauge extension cable for those times when it is really cloudy or you want to park in the shade to reduce the heat load on the cabin. You may find that extra watts are not needed... If you get the solar port be sure to check that the positive wire has its own separate fuse where it connects to the batteries! Mine did not, and they told me it was “installed as per manufactures instructions”. Which was simply wrong. It HAS to have a fuse since it is an “always hot” wire, even if there is no external panel plugged in. That unit will have its own fuse. OTH Oliver gladly sent me an inline fuse holder and fuse, which I installed in the solar cable, using a weatherproof butt splice and ring terminal. John Davies Spokane WA

Hmm, my system is a Tire Traker and the sensors have replaceable button cells good for one year, and they go to sleep after fifteen minutes of no motion. The monitor shows the last values when you start to drive off, then it quickly updates with the current pressures and temps. Or you can just flip each one with a finger as you do your walk around and that wakes them up immediately... What brand is yours? Do you have them marked so you can get them back to the correct position? John Davies Spokane WA

1 - You don’t need a WD hitch, any HD pickup will be fine with a regular 7500 pound rated, 2 inch ball with an appropriate drop to give you about a 24 inch height with a normal load in the bed. There are many folks here towing with big trucks and dead weight hitches. I towed with a Ram 3500 and it did not really notice the tongue weight. No noise either, but I used a clamp-on hitch quieter thing, to eliminate all the play in the receiver hole. Notice that I used an extended shank ball, intended to go through a bumper, and I added a stack of Grade 8 washers. I thought I might want to fine tune the tongue height by rearranging them, but in this instance it wasn’t needed. It is nice to be able to adjust the ball in approximately 1/8 inch increments to get it dialed in 100%... Don’t use plain washers, they need to be hardened. 2 - Backup assist - There are many options. I used an iPhone temporarily mounted to a Ram Mounts 1 inch ball that I screwed to my canopy window frame.I attached a cradle and phone to it and I just called myself using Facetime, and watched the video on my iPad. It worked great as long as you had cell service. And of course you could not drive around with it back there. An aftermarket camera would be a good choice, or go buy a newer truck;) I elected to not buy the factory back up camera. Instead I installed a Garmin BC30 in back of the trailer. If I need to I can install additional ones, since my GPS will accept up to four video inputs. Since I switched tow vehicles, I do not ned an extra one since my Land Cruiser has one, tho it is off center on the hatch, and thus gives wrong visual cues when aligning the ball to the coupler. Frustrating, but usable. If you decide to use a passenger for help, phones work great for communicating. I carry a set of handheld family sevice radios just in case there is no service. Either method sure beats arm waving, shouting and cursing. Especially in the dark or in inclement weather when your mirrors or camera are fogged up or dirty! There are clamp on or magnetic guide rods but I have never tried one. Did this help? John Davies Spokane WA

OK, this assumes that you a actually check it periodically.... how often? .... which is a minor PITA since you have to remove both the cover and and the tire to do so. Does anybody have a TPMS sender on their spare? .... I purchased an extra sender, I may just leave it installed on the spare so I can monitor the pressure remotely, and if one of the others fails I can switch the bad one with the one in back.... I have used this on several other vehicles with mixed success: https://www.amazon.com/Accu-gage-Chek-Spare-Valve-Extender/dp/B0006O2S8M One developed a leak at a crimped connection and the tire went completely flat. And you still have to remember to actually check with a gauge. Comments? John Davies Spokane WA

Good find, I am sure a new cover plus oversized shipping would be pretty expensive. John Davies Spokane WA

A composting toilet handles solids just fine with zero water usage. Open the trap door and down they go.... It is important to remember to open it first. Just saying..... never mind. John Davies Spokane WA

Yep - mine has been gone for a while again. “Here today, gone tomorrow”, like a wayward teenager..... iOS on various devices. John Davies Spokane WA

http://olivertraveltrailers.com/topic/my-tow-camp-checklist/ John Davies Spokane WA

My daughter knows pretty much all about the systems, but she will be hosting a couple of her adult friends for two nights. I am a worrier by nature, so I wrote an Overnight Visitor Checklist to educate them on how everything works. It is two full sides of an 8.5 x 11 sheet, and I laminated it so I can leave it out on the table for them to HOPEFULLY read and understand. It's a Word doc, if you want to use it you should edit out the stuff that does not apply to your trailer, like the composting toilet, and add any extra info specific to your Ollie. Oliver-Legacy-Elite-II-VISITOR-CHECKLIST.docx I hope this is helpful. John Davies Spokane WA