John E Davies

John Davies Spokane WA

The granite is simply light weight fiberglass panels that velcro to the top of the standard white gelcoat counter tops. The weight difference is very minimal. John Davies Spokane WA

I thought I would post these pics to educate folks who don’t fully understand the suspension.... The shackles provide front to rear motion as the springs compress and extend (since their length changes). On a single axle setup there is one at the back, and it points down from its hanger (bracket). On a tandem setup there are two in the middle at the equalizer unit, and they point up. So on a single axle, if you install longer shackles it will lift the trailer frame up further away from the axle, increasing the clearance, but the opposite happens with the tandem, the clearance would actually be reduced. So it is really important to mention which model trailer you have when talking about this stuff. And this shows what a “spring over axle” conversion does.... The SOA mod provides around 5 “ of lift (using the original axles) and also a huge increase in frame clearance, so it is necessary to install rubber bump stops to protect the springs from damage from travelling too far. When you do the mod, if you instead buy new axles with a 2” or 4” offset upwards, you can decrease the lift without actually altering that wonderful gap at the tube. So you could end up with an Ollie that is lifted 1” or 3” over the stock height, with tall progressive bump stops. John Davies Spokane WA

Another set of threads to read concerns gps trackers, so you or the cops can find your “gone missing” Ollie. I don’t feel the need for one, however I just installed a hard wired iPad Mini 2 to use as a monitor to watch over the health and charge status of my new lithium batteries. It is the cellular model which has the built-in gps chip, so it always knows about where it is, and as long as the device is not powered down I can maybe perhaps locate it with Apple’s Find My app. Well, sort of, as long as it is close to a phone that it can connect to with Bluetooth. It is not real likely to be effective if it is locked in somebody’s remote barn (tho it always shows the last known position), but having that capability does make me feel a little better, which is what those external locks and hardware tricks provide: peace of mind. How much of that you require depends on where you store it and where you leave it unattended when camping. John Davies Spokane WA

If you get a front hitch that you plan to use just for trailer moving, have a custom one fabricated that is offset to the right by about 18”. That way you can see straight down the side of the Ollie when going straight or to the drivers left. Going right still would need a good camera or at least a human spotter. Here is a UK video showing this setup, obviously you would want the ball mount on the other side of the vehicle..... Watling Front Tow Bar Demonstration (UK) If you also wanted to use the receiver for a bike rack of cargo tray, you could have a second central opening installed. Depending on what TV you have, an “off the shelf” front hitch could be modified by adding the extra offset hole. I am unaware of any USA made units that come that way. Also, adding about 650 pounds of tongue weight to the front suspension of a light duty truck is going to be an issue, even for very short distances. A HD truck would be no problem. John Davies Spokane WA

Hull 26 had a spring over axle configuration, correct? I agree that it is a too tall, but if it also had a 2” drop axle (with spindles offset upwards) it would be perfect. That is what the LE2 needs IMHO..... then there would be tons of room for soft stops..... Do you have a good pic of the underside that you can share? Thanks, John Davies Spokane WA

Nancy, can you provide a link to your Etsy page? What fabrics do you offer? Estimated cost for a fitted 24" x 28" one with elastic, in a heavier and/ or padded easy care material? FYI you could post an ad in the Oliver Classifieds with this information, targeted at Ollie owners. The elastic is a great idea, to keep the cloth in place while towing.... it would need to be notched or otherwise adjusted to allow for the tight fit against the cabin wall. Thanks, John Davies Spokane WA

I actually was told this a couple of years back when I requested a digital owners manual for another RV brand, and when I told them I most assuredly would not release any of the info publicly, they cheerfully sent it to me, diagrams included. This was for an Earthcruiser.... which indeed have very high tech and unusual features intended for around the world travelers, like reverse osmosis grey water filtration and dc air conditioning. They sell a tiny handful of them annually and those cost half million bucks. Nothing in an Ollie is remotely out of the mainstream for a travel trailer. The lithium package is neat, but definitely a work in progress, and other makers already offer one. So......? Keep digging owners. It is time to contact the boss man. A true solution awaits. In your shoes that reply would really get me worked up! 😳 John Davies Spoksne WA

The detector uses a little bit of power, about 0.05 amps, even when everything else is turned off. Normally that isn't a worry, unless you want to keep the batteries connected long term and you are not plugged into shore power. A little drain over many months can flatten a battery bank. Plus it is nice to be able to silence a nuisance alarm or a failed unit by switching it off rather than locating and pulling its fuse (which is at the 12 volt DC bus under the rear street side bed). Here is mine, the location WILL vary because I moved mine to the back a foot, but the wire comes off the manual reset circuit breaker. I added the labels. The Oliver wire does have a factory installed label "1 amp" but it doesn't identify the purpose of the wire! Remove the fuse or disconnect the batteries! Remove the unit (4 screws) and cut the wires. Make a little bracket from 6061 T6 2" x 2" x 1/8" aluminum angle, and secure it to the compartment wall with 3M VHB (Very High Bond) tape. Epoxy would also work fine. The switch is a simple, non-LED On/Off SPST switch that matches the other Ollie switches. It requires a 0.800" hole, which can be made with a step drill AKA Uni-Bit. https://www.harborfreight.com/3-piece-titanium-nitride-coated-high-speed-steel-step-drills-91616.html Any type of switch will work because it is not normally visible. It is similar to this illuminated model: I used the existing Red for positive and Black for ground detector wires. The factory harness has a Blue positive and Yellow ground. Unplug the switch. Splice the new harness into the old one, working outside the compartment (under the table). I was able to discard two feet of extra wires. Install the detector body into its hole. Feed the switch wires through the round hole and mount the switch (it presses in with two retaining clips). Note that it has a little plastic "key" under the lip, that needs a matching notch in the hole, or else just file off the key entirely. Cover the wires with plastic split loom and secure them with cable ties so that they don't flop around. The switch could be located anywhere, but this spot makes it quite simple. A location on the outside of the compartment would work, but it would be possible to turn it off by mistake, which could be dangerous or fatal. Put it somewhere out of the normal traffic flow, and not in a storage compartment where loose gear could bump it! You still need to check the unit for proper operation before each trip and then weekly. Finally, adding a switch violates the RV build codes! Do this mod only if you fully understand its benefits and its potential risks. Because of my extensive mods, I added a BIG information placard under that access cover, it includes information on the Propane Detector switch. Something similar to the last paragraph might be prudent. John Davies Spokane WA

Remove the Zamp unit from over the stereo head - two input wires (from the roof), two output wires (to the battery) and the small temperature sense probe wires Cut off any excess length and then splice the two sets of cables together and secure them. This little cable tie is good for making I.D. labels. Drag the temp sense cable down into the lower compartment, you can sell it with the used Zamp controller. It has a value of about $35 new. Add extra aluminum tape if needed to seal and secure the wall insulation. The location I selected is a great spot for a big ventilation hole, an air intake for my Lithium Battery Box Powered Vent System , so I needed to add 1" thick HDPE spacers to let air pass through, using JB Weld epoxy, clamped overnight: I made a mounting plate from heavy sheet aluminum, drilling holes to allow air to get to the bottom of the control unit. I originally planned to use the Oliver installed self reseting circuit breaker, but decided that an inline fuse would be more reliable. The manual circuit breaker on the output wire is similar to the Oliver one installed across the gap on the DC bus. It allows you to disconnect the solar input by pressing the red button, and it is reset by closing the yellow arm back inwards:: This is the inline fuse, it is very nicely made and has heavy enough wire. It will handle up to a 40 amp fuse, I installed a 30 amp ATC one: Victron SmartSolar Charge Controller MPPT 150/35 brochur:e Victron Charge Controller 150:35.pdf This is pretty technical, it shows the Zamp roof panel charge curve, I added some data points showing where a lead acid and a lithium (LiFePO4) battery open cell voltage would appear. A lithium battery has a higher operating voltage, so a regular PWM controller is not as effective as a more sophisticated MPPT one that is able to alter both output voltage AND output current. A PWM unit is connected directly to the battery, and it simply switches on and off very rapidly to control the current. It is very crude, but inexpensive and reasonably effective under optimal conditions. I grabbed these descriptions from solar website, I cannot remember which. It and the following one offer some interesting comments: Temperature sensing charge control - the Battle Born batteries do not require (nor can they use) this function, it is built in to the batteries' onboard Battery Management Systems (BMS). However, by installing the optional battery temp probe that connects to my Victron BVM-712 Smart bus, the VictronConnect app will connect using its Bluetooth network with this compatible "smart" device. When I look at the app screen, the battery temperature is shown on both the Solar page and on the Batteries page. That temperature reading is very helpful in monitoring the health of the batteries. Settings: using the app you can alter a whole bunch of parameters. The important one is the charge absorption voltage. I set it to 14,.4 volts, a little lower than the Battle Born recommended 14.6 volts. I have read that a slightly lower voltage is healthier for those batteries, while not significantly affecting their actual capacity (percentage of charge). This is the same reason they recommend that they are not left continually "cooking" at 14.6 volts from shore power and a charger like my Progressive Dynamics one, it diminishes their life span. https://battlebornbatteries.com/programming-a-victron-smartsolar-charge-controller/ John Davies Spokane WA

It sounds as if somebody dropped the ball in Hohenwald, neither the 2020 nor the 2021 online Owner Manuals have any wiring diagrams (only a battery hookup one)..... but you can look at the 2019 images (starting on page 38) and that will give you a general idea. There are a few mistakes on the Oliver University pages, but mostly they are omissions of little things like a fuse box pamphlet. Electrical diagrams are critical, and needed by any owner or RV tech that is trying to troubleshoot or repair a problem. I personally would be quite upset if I had none, and especially so if I had to wait a couple of years to get them. Maybe it is time to get on the phone and raise a little hell? Figuratively speaking. John Davies Spokane WA

Any advice? I found this one, they do custom sizes and will provide fabric swatches. I currently use a small bedsheet folded into quarters. It is 100% functional but hardly pleasing to the eye. https://www.tableclothworld.com/aboutus.asp “Make your own”.... yes, that is an option, I prefer straight seams though. BTW this might be a good side business for an Ollie owner that likes to sew. Thanks John Davies Spokane WA

You can turn it off, and it will allow power to the trailer, but then you would lose all of its protection and perhaps the useful features (like the amperage gauge - not sure about this). Leave it on, use the grounding plug, be safe and happy. John Davies Spokane WA

In regards to axle(s) bumping the frame, it is not just a bother, it is potentially very damaging to lots of parts, inside and outside the hull, including the hub spindles and bearings. A “hard stop” is extremely stressful to bearing rollers. It is also one way that axles get bent, though gross overloading is probably the biggie. Any potholed forest or ranch road will force you to drive dead slow, because a 6” deep hole with only 1 inch of upward travel means the suspension will bottom out repeatedly UNLESS you crawl slowly. Which gets old really fast if the road is more than a couple of miles long. Those owners who never get west of the Mississippi probably will never notice the lack of travel because roads like that are very rare in the East. Where I travel, they are literally everywhere. John Davies Spokane WA

Some sort of progessive (variable force) bump stop would be a great upgrade, unfortunately there needs to be a whole lot more clearance to fit one that would be thick enough to be effective. Just adding a 1/4” pad of dense rubber won’t do it.... If you don’t want to do a spring over axle mod, then installing custom springs with a higher arch is a viable option.... https://www.murphysframeandaxle.com/custom-leaf-springs/ A 2 inch lift would be plenty and would allow enough room for a low progressive bump stop. Most major cities have a company that does custom work this, or you could order them. Then you could easily fit something like this. Lots more types to choose from .... https://www.energysuspensionparts.com/universal-bump-stops.asp John Davies Spokane WA

More pics. That is a really narrow gorge. Bad timing, another couple of tenths of a second and they would have been on the normal shoulder, not over a deep slash. John Davies Spokane WA

RB, I am done, pretty much. I have been delaying posting some more threads because I do not want to look too eager 😬, plus it is very time consuming. If there is a particular subject you would like to see, let me know. I subdivided them - battery installation and straps, cable installation, Victron solar controller installation, etc. They are too complicated to do in one thread. John Davies Spokane WA

NCeagle, I think your design would work fine, though I would personally be really really reluctant to rely solely on a powered fan. I think it is important to have at least a little natural convective flow - warm air rises out the top, cooler air flows in down low. The space above the battery box is pretty much a dead end cave, while there may be a trickle of air going up between the hull walls, there is no place for escape for it up high, unless you drilled vents in the overhead cabinets. So you need those openings into the cabin where the pantry box joins the battery box. You don’t necessarily need forced air. John Davies Spokane WA

“Witnesses said the truck appeared to lose control before the crash, first swerving to hit the right shoulder barrier before sliding over the left-side guardrail. The truck then tipped over the bridge, with the camper blocking both lanes of the bridge.” https://www.foxnews.com/us/rescuers-pickup-deep-idaho-gorge I would like to hear the details about what happened before they jack knifed.... John Davies Spokane WA

One more comment, if you do bolt on an aluminum part to the Ollie steel subframe, use a good bedding/ barrier sealer. While it may not be 100% necessary, it could help a lot. John Davies Spokane WA

Where would aluminum 6061T6 fall on that chart? I think this could be a real problem if you tow in winter over salt or mag chloride treated roads. Oliver uses plenty of 304 stainless fasteners like self tapping screws all over the frame and I have never seen any issues. I also haven’t seen any degradation of the anodes. OTH I neither tow on wet roads (except when it is unavoidable) nor in winter. I think it would be a good topic for long term monitoring from those owners who use their rigs year round, for skiing especially. But IMHO those units will be suffering from far more extensive damage to the frame, running gear and exterior steel fittings than a little localized dissimilar metal corrosion. I have only seen underneath one such (admittedly neglected) Ollie, and frankly it was a disgusting mess. I don’t think the factory would offer a five year frame warranty if they felt it was not durable, but maybe they would consider prolonged caustic chemical exposure to be abuse... John Davies Spokane WA

Another reason to move your wires outside the axle tubes..... Common Reason for Shorting Trailer Brakes - Electric Trailer Brakes - Check Your Axle Wires John Davies Spokane WA

Updating an older thread - here is a great install video from etrailer.com. Install Timbren Axle-less Trailer Suspension The more I read and watch, the more I think that this would be a great low maintenance option for an Ollie, for lumpy forest and ranch roads. The thing that worries me most is that I haven’t read any reviews for tandem trailers. How does this system perform, are there any sway concerns, or tire overloading issues? A standard tandem spring setup equalizes the tire loads, this would not. I think this would be a great winter project, along with electric over hydraulic disk brakes, but I still am not ready to assume all the R&D risks. That is something for the Hohenwald team to do..... please! John Davies Spokane WA

That does seem low, it is worse than my LE2. I wonder if simply installing longer custom shackles would help the LE? (They would make it worse on an LE2.) I just do not understand why these are made with so little clearance there.... whacking an unseen pothole at speed will really wake you up inside the truck, it makes a horrible bang. John Davies Spokane WA

Jim, I installed a master battery shutoff switch, it is not factory issue. I thought about a simple plug in power supply like that one you provided a link for, but that particular one is crazy overpirced. It is worth about $10. Thanks, John Davies Spokane WA