Cort

Thanks! I think somehow a few of the wrong bolts got sent. Here the Ubolts - probably not a big deal but taking them on off multiple times as I tried to get everything aligned was work.

Always service your vehicles, including oil changes, at the manufacturer's dealerships during the warranty period. Use of aftermarket parts/service items can be claimed to be substandard which can VOID your warranty. - Thanks!

Oh yes, many exclamations 🙂 Nice idea keep them connected - that would have stopped things. Right -0 I was working on a dirt road - which softened up considerably after a big rain - causing jack stands to sink and droop. Another thing to take into account ...

Thanks! The van is very good at hauling heavy loads but its not as capable at towing. At 10,000 lbs I imagine I could max it out when trying to pull a heavy trailer out of the sand. I never conceived of that until this incident. A heavy duty truck would have had a stronger suspension and more towing capacity (but less storage space :).

It's been wild! I'm learning a lot though. Hopefully, better karma in my future! 🙂 (Now I'm dealing with marine batteries that are dying at the 2 year mark. Time to start the lithium replacement :))

A week or so after the leaf springs and water pipe on the Oliver were fixed the engine seized on the van as I was trying to turn the trailer around and it got stuck in a meadow near Mammoth Lakes, Ca. I was using traction mats to slowly pull it forward when the 6.6L engine seized. I had it towed to the highway ($1200) and then used my premium AAA roadside service to get it towed 2 1/2 hours to Reno, Nevada. I got the premium roadside service just for this instance (The mechanics in Mammoth and Bishop were booked up for months). Triple AAA will not pay for towing from a dirt road - hence the $1200 charge from Rauh towing. I got to know him pretty good - a good guy). Despite the fact that I had personally kept track of oil changes, that I had just gotten the transmission fluid changed, and a GM dealer had checked out the oil and other fluid levels 2 weeks before, that the check engine light never came on (showing that the oil was running low), the fact that I did not have a receipt showing that the oil had been changed by a shop, meant the dealer assumed that I had neglected to change the oil, and refused to honor the warranty. The service guy's tone markedly changed when he learned that the engine had seized. I contacted a shop about breaking down the engine to show that that was not the case, but the owner recommended against it because even if the breakdown showed that a rod or bearing had broken and no evidence that low oil was the cause, the dealer or GM would likely still refuse to honor the warranty. GM, it seems, will do anything to avoid paying to replace an engine. Big Oil Leak I went to GEICO to see if they would help with the rental car and they led me to their mechanical breakdown department. I didn't realize it, but I had a mechanical breakdown on my insurance policy. (GEICO does this for newer cars). It took a while with the dealer essentially ignoring their requests but they got an engine specialist over there to inspect the outside of the engine. I almost fell off my chair when he believed that an oil filter failure caused the seizure. One question immediately was whether I broke the engine by trying to pull the trailer through deep sand. The answer to that was surely no. Dragging anything through sand dramatically increases the strain on the vehicles suspension and its engine. In this case, the van's suspension - which is only rated to tow 10,000 lbs - held, while the engine - which is rated to tow at maximum over 18,000 lbs failed. The strain must have done something but I believe that it either revealed a problem with the engine that was already there or I just got unlucky. I've been stuck many times and I know not to bury a stuck vehicle further by revving the engine. As soon as the van got stuck, I turned off the engine. The wheels were never buried much. I still question the diagnosis. The engine had always had a rough idle (it chugged like a little diesel), and from the beginning, I thought a rod or a bearing had broken. I assume, though, that the inspector did not find evidence of oil leaking from the upper half of the engine. I was able to inspect the oil filter later and did not see anything amiss. GEICO told me that sometimes the connection between an oil filter and the engine can fail - causing oil to spew out. They also said it's rare for a large amount of oil to blow out like that. The filter had not contacted the ground or been damaged during the pull. It's still and will always be something of a mystery to me. At that I thought the jig was up - I was going to pay for the whole thing when GEICO referred me to another department. They concluded that the oil filter failure was "an act of God"? or something like that - an unforseeable accident - and said they would pay for the engine replacement. (I really almost fell off my chair at that point), They also ended up paying for the tow and about half the rental car charges over the 2+ months the van was in the shop (which were massive). When it came to the engine they disagreed with GM about the need to change the radiator and the fuel pump. They also paid for $150/hour (instead of the dealer $200/hour). Plus the dealer added on another $1000 or so because the engine was seized so badly that they had to take the bottom off. They also took 15% off the engine because it had been used for 2 years. GM actually got the engine pretty quickly and did the job pretty quickly as well. It was the runup to all that which took so much time. In the end, it was about a $16K job, and I ended up paying about $6K. Lessons learned Plot out turnarounds better. I could have continued to back the trailer up a small hill and gotten out of there fine but I looked at the meadow - and it looked like short run to the road - and I went for it. I didn't realize the sand in the meadow was so deep. Even though it was clear that the pull should not have damaged the engine it did do something. Note that pulling anything through sand or mud is going to dramatically increase the strain on the suspension and engine. If your vehicle is already near its towing limit be careful. Probably better to have someone else pull the trailer out. Keep oil receipts (or document oil changes another way (photo's). I think I will have the oil changed in shops until the warranty runs out. Premium roadside service is a good thing. Don't rely on vehicle warranties - Check out your insurance company. GEICO turned out to be a good company. I think of insurance companies in general as trying to wiggle out of everything. In this case, GEICO was the opposite - they came through when I was sure they wouldn't. I'll stay with them. If you have a winch use it to pull the trailer out instead of using the tow vehicle. I am putting on the XO trailer jack so that I can do that. Note that it was hitch that pulled down the rear of the van and caused the rear differential and hitch to get stuck. If I had attached the XO jack to the trailer (I had it but hadn't attached it). I probably could have easily pulled the trailer out.

I put this in the last post on my replacement leaf spring post but I wanted to emphasize it in a new post. While changing the last lug nut on the last tire, it stuck. Given Ray's warnings, I was already planning to replace the lug nuts and had them ready. I ordered a lug nut removal kit from Amazon and got the lug nut off. Those kits are cheap and effective. Given how soft the lugs on these trailers are, they're a good thing to have. I ordered this one but many are available. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0869BR8MG?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_2&th=1 (Since the extractor is terminally attached to the bad lug nut I need to get another one :))

I never finished this up. I'm sure I set a record by being there for six weeks. GIven that I'm also working full time I was only able to work on it intermittently. Still, it was a long pull. Along the way, the last lug nut on the last tire I needed to remove, stuck. Given Ray's warnings, I was already planning to replace the lug nuts and had them ready. I ordered a lug nut removal kit from Amazon and got the lug nut off. Those kits are cheap and effective and many are available. Given how soft the lugs that come with these trailers are, they're a good thing to have. I ordered this one https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0869BR8MG?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_2&th=1 (Since the extractor is terminally attached to the bad lug nut I need to get another one :)) Then I got all the way to the last leaf spring and couldn't get it quite to fit. It was very close but time after time I couldn't get the nub of the plate to fit into the hole in the axle. When I brought it to a repair shop the guy looked at the trailer and said he was surprised - he expected to see something that was really off but it looked fine - the wheels were running true. Still it needed to be done and they were able to get everything to fit. (They also fixed a water pipe that broke on the rough roads. (Stay away from roads on the very southern end of mountains down from Flagstaff). Some things I learned. I should not have counted on a video which apparently showed a generic trailer - not an Oliver - it was inaccurate - and cost me a lot of time and energy. I should have gone straight to experienced Oliver people on the forums for help. I should have worked on one whole side at a time instead of one leaf spring at a time. At one point I had the trailer totally lifted up on 4 jacks - and when I was putting a tire on the trailer fell off the rear right one. I would not lift the entire trailer again. 🙂 The Alcan leaf springs are monsters compared to the leaf springs that came with the trailer. They appear to be about twice as heavy. I'm very happy to have them. Not all was good with Alcan, though. Despite the fact that I tightened the four bolts holding that plate in unison one of the nuts on the new jammed. It really jammed. I could not get it off with an impact wrench! don't know what happened, but I was astonished that a brand-new bolt/nut could get stuck like that. . (The shop got it off). I believe the bolts that go through the plate are far longer than they need to be. They stick way down - and could get hit more easily - and they take more time and effort to get on and off. I emailed Alcan about this and they did not return my email. More concerning was the fact that some of the shackle bolts were too short. They were so short that only about half the nut would fit on it. The repair shop advised putting longer shackle bolts in and we did. Everything has worked fine since then, and as I said I'm very happy to have those beefy springs on 🙂 (I still plan to upgrade to heavier axles). (The next fun came when a week after this got done the engine on my 2 year old van seized. It took several months to get that worked out.) Thanks, in particular, to Steve for all his help and guidance, as well as to everyone else. 🙂

Good for Will for testing a new battery. I was getting a little down on him for posing that everyone should get rid of their BB's. I wonder if its an applicable test? Apparently BB should be able to handle this but when I looked this up on AI it said this is a very severe test of the batteries and they will heat up. Unless I have this wrong - under normal circumstances we would never draw nearly this much power from a battery (???)

My experience is similar to yours. I have two 100 AH Battleborn which I've bashed around on dirt roads for five years. Several times, something has gone wrong with the charging, and I emptied them out, and they've come right back. While I haven't measured what kind of charge they're still holding, my sense is that they're doing just fine. (They're in far better shape than my 2 year old Interstate lead acid batteries which are fading badly). I've always been able to count on them.

This is my question - which I posted on Will's Youtube channel - and didn't get a response. If these batteries are suddenly crap where are all the reports of fires? These are very popular batteries. I looked for reports of fires, and I could find very little. I'm hoping that Prowse's batteries are anomalies. Those terminals are beyond loose. (Are the loose terminals causing the problem or are they the result of it?) I have 2 BB's that have been bumped and jarred over 5 years of offroad use. The positive terminals are as tight as can be. I have another BB that is waiting to go in. I will definitely keep an eye on the terminals. These batteries have been recommended to me by just about everyone for years. I may not buy another one - I've been edging toward cheaper ones as prices have dropped - but I'm not to give up the ones I have because of Prowse's video. While I can't rebut what Prowse is finding, the idea that Battleborn doesn't know how to build a safe battery seems incongruous to me, given their long track record. I guess time will sort this out.

Thanks for the idea, Ray. I'm out of Mammoth and in a warmer locale. I will call Truma/Oliver about getting another handle.

Ha! I will get to the photo when the dog is not asleep on it (lol). I hoped that I did put it in the drawer, but alas I did not. I will get several of them! And yes, thank the gods (Battlestar Galactica reference) for the furnace.

Thanks. There is an ACE hardware and I will check that out. It looks like I'll take the tow or stay here. I have a dog with a fractured shoulderblade (got hit by a car last week). He immediately ran into the trailer it's the most comfortable place for him. I was planning to camp down in Bishop but tent camping is not the best thing for him right now.

We made it through a 15-degree night fine, a nd the storm doesnt' look so menacing - and I have a tow at a reasonable price if I take it. So things are looking up. 🙂