Raspy

The stock suspension has an equalizer to balance the load between the front and rear tire on each side by allowing the springs to change angle instead of flexing. This allows the system to "step over" bumps without flexing the springs much or jarring the trailer. It's good trick on tandem axles and it works well on uneven surfaces. Then there are the shackle pins that deliver the load to the shackles and from the shackles to the frame. The shackle pins and the equalizer pins are all working bearings that are constantly under load and completely exposed to the elements. Dexter supplies this system in different configurations. What Oliver uses is the dry nylon, non serviceable bearings. Just nylon bushings. These wear out before very long and allow metal to metal contact of the pins to the spring eyes and iron equalizer. Then the wear begins to elongate the shackle pin holes. After a while the whole system has lots of play in it and it gets weaker and weaker. All of this takes a while, but I had a set on a utility trailer wear to an alarming degree and I began to look at other utility trailers, the same system as on our Ollies, to see how they were doing. I've seen some that have worn to the point of being dangerous. Dexter also has a system called E Z Flex. It has heavy duty shackles, greasable bronze bushings and a different equalizer than our stock setup. I've looked closely at it and it is nice, but in my estimation, isn't doing much or anything in this application to improve the ride. It works where trailers are very heavily loaded with much stiffer and more massive springs. In that situation it will compress a rubber donut to take some of the initial shock of a sharp bump. In our trailers, the load is relatively constant and the springs are set up to be fairly soft. Plus the overall load is not too much at only about 4,500- 5,000 lbs max without including the unsprung tongue weight. I decided to get the kit for mine to upgrade the bushings and shackles. So I went to a friend in the trailer business I've dealt with for many years. He was very hesitant to order me the kit and said some of them have had the rubber fail. But, he said, we can get you the heavy duty kit instead. Dexter also supplies the Heavy Duty Kit, part number K71-449-00. This has a heavy duty equalizer (with bronze bushings and zerk fittings installed for greasing) instead of the rubber cushioned equalizer. It has bronze bushings, new pins (drilled with zerk fittings installed for greasing) and heavy duty shackles. This is the best option of the three as far as I'm concerned. It is what Oliver should order their axles with from Dexter to minimize the additional cost. There is no doubt this setup will hold up better than the dry plastic bushings. The kit sells for about $100. less than the EZ Flex too.

Problems of this sort are inevitable in manufacturing. If a business has a good idea, or a good product, implementation becomes the issue. Profit depends on production, but production must meet quality standards. Quality standards slow production, but eliminate future problems such as reputation and warrantee issues. Behind the scene, they must improve the workmanship and the procedures. Find ways to standardize. Predict human use and emotional response to their design. The car industry is a good example to look at. To Oliver's credit, they seem to be genuinely interested and responsive to their customers. They absolutely stand behind their trailers. Without that, they would fail in short order. Managers are driven by pressure from above to get things done, but take the hit when problems arrive. Good managers understand the production staff and the hands on work. They can balance the pressure to meet unrealistic schedules with the realities of quality work. Poor managers just try to whip the troops and get product out the door. If anything, I see there are few engineers involved here. Mechanical stresses, electrical loads and practical human use patterns are, maybe, just dealt with by "what do we do with this?", on the production floor. The trailers are slowly evolving as driven by cost and a gradual understanding increase in seeing what is being ordered. Without getting too critical, remember, I like mine and I'm glad to have it, I can see room for improvement in some areas. The electrical system is one, which would ease production issues, ease changes in orders, ease service and be more reliable. I have to do some upgrades, where I can, on mine. They seem to have upgraded their wheels now and I'm glad. (I already did mine). There are a couple of potential issues with the older style, so I'm glad Oliver implemented an upgrade. I also consider the heavy duty greasable suspension upgrade to be important, (not the E Z Flex) it should be standard equipment in my opinion. Even though it would add a few dollars to the production cost, it would save rebuilding the system later and make the trailers tow better longer. Remember, these are advertised as "Legacy" trailers. I don't see any of the issues they are having caused by a "cost before quality" attitude. If anything they go out of their way to build the best they know how to. Then they improve as they need to, and they guarantee their work. I don't want to pile on and beat them up in any way. And again, I really like mine. The water tanks are designed and installed in such a way that they will always have some character. Very low profile and long. But they also give excellent ground clearance and freeze protection. The underside of an Oliver is better than any other trailer I have seen. No hanging down pipes. Great design. Looking forward to the water tank resolution.

I've got all the parts and am ready to move my TV too. Great mod and not too hard. John, you can find it under modifications. Here it is: http://olivertraveltrailers.com/topic/tv-relocation/ The kit is a "Mount-it!" TV Ceiling mount Model number MI-4211/CM211

Another problem that may fall into the "quality control" category is an apparent lack of caring on the production floor in the mechanical area. The problem with the incorrect drawer screws that were stripped out during installation and the stainless steel bumper bolt that was cross treaded and powered all the way on with a power tool. These show a lack of skill and a lack of caring. The water tank problems may be something similar, since all units have the same design, but a few don't work well. Oliver has a reputation problem with the interior, with customer pictures posted of chaos inside. Drawers and contents strewn. Cabinets open. It's amazing how much damage a low level employee can do. Poor employees can be very damaging to a company's reputation. That and a lack of proper oversight may be the real problem here. People cancelling orders may be overkill, but when someone spends this much for something, and they believe it to be the best there is, and then poor workmanship shows up, it's easy to feel taken advantage of. Oliver should probably stop production for a few days, review the recent problems and why they happened. Take a look at all production methods, and make it clear that they expect good workmanship and common sense from the workers. Review the tools used and how they are used. Then it becomes the managers problem to properly oversee production and attitude or aptitude. Quality is far more important than quantity. How many sales have been lost because they used the wrong length of wood screw in the drawer slides or stripped some out? Who should have known better or cared more? Oliver is in the throws of growing. This process is difficult and requires a lot of working capital. They are having to meet a big demand and refine their design. Solving mechanical issues, quality control and a myriad of design issues related to electrical, mechanical and owner operation. They are still small, but trying to get bigger and some of the things they do are still what they did in the beginning. Many things look like they just decided to wing it or leave it up to someone that really didn't know what to do. I applaud them for being creative and doing the most impressive glass work I've ever seen, but the behind the scenes work has to he right too. Some of the comments I've read by new buyers and prospective buyers reveal an intolerant and impatient attitude that can only be fixed by eliminating the complaints. Of course, some of the complaints are totally valid and should never have happened, but others are minor and still scared some new buyers. Also, some of us don't mind working on things and tinkering, but many can not do this and don't want to. Many folks become indignant if they can detect something is different than they expected. I deal with this attitude too in my business. The best thing to do is do your best, own the mistakes, and have a good working relationship with your customers. Word of mouth can make you or break you. I'm thrilled with mine. Elite 2 hull number 92. But it is by no means perfect and I can't expect it to be. But it is very, very nice and worthy of staying in the family for generations. That is, with my patience and some tinkering.

Not having a before and after comparison makes the evaluation less valuable. Mine tows very well too. I'm really impressed. That means the springs are well matched for the relatively stable load they are carrying. Plus, they have shocks and radial tires to dampen and smooth shock loads. The company I deal with a lot told me the rubber is known to fail or has failed on previous EZ Flex kits and they recommended not to use it. But before that, I watched the video. The mass of the spring ends, or at least the stiffness of the springs, (mass and stiffness, more or less, equal the same pounding load) was not sufficient to flex the rubber bushing enough to make any real difference. This setup is designed to take the edge off the impacts, but with relatively soft RV springs, the value becomes less. Stiffer springs, like on utility trailers designed for very heavy loads, would benefit more. The simple equalizer on a tandem axle setup does more than anything for stability and smooth operation over uneven surfaces. It's not perfect, but it's simple, reliable and affective. Sometimes, a really cool idea is not really as valuable as we might want it to be. I chose to not spend the extra after being warned and also to not have to keep an eye on them or treat them to prevent deterioration. But it is a nice idea and might help a little with our rudimentary suspension design. I tend to be either running at speed on very smooth highways, or idling along on rough desert roads where there are no sudden impacts, but a lot of suspension travel over rocks and washouts. My main concern was with the dry plastic bushings that I know fail. They gradually get looser and looser and the pins start running metal to metal against the spring eye. I want to maintain the marvelous stability and tracking character of my Ollie and I don't want to plan on replacing the pins and springs as they wear with the bushings gone and the pins riding dry in the spring eye. First it becomes loose, then it becomes dangerous. Now, I can grease it. It has bronze bushings with heavy duty shackles and equalizers. It is funny how I never got around to fixing my utility trailers, but my Ollie gets the royal treatment early on.

Mike, I looked very carefully at the E Z Flex suspension setup. I couldn't see that it was doing anything useful in Dexter's video. Mainly because the rubber is designed to take up impact and smooth the suspension movement, but the springs are such low mass at their ends that they don't have the inertia to make that work or be needed. But since the EZ came with greasable bushings, I tried to order one. I have a long standing relationship with a trailer equipment supplier and he was very hesitant to get me one. "I'll get you one if you want, but I don't recommend it", was his answer. "Some of them have failed". So I went with the heavy duty suspension kit that gives you stronger equalizers, much stronger shackles, all new pins and bronze bushings. All greasable with zerk fittings. It's a nice kit and about a hundred dollars cheaper than the E Z Flex, if I remember correctly. I've had trailers with the nylon bushings before. They are not long lived and not serviceable. The new kit is very nice and can be installed at home in 2-4 hours with normal tools. I highly recommend it. John

Just be careful with your quality inspections to make sure you understand what you are looking at. Deciding that something is not the way you might do it, or not how it's done on an airplane, or at a factory you used to work at, etc, is not finding a problem. A problem is if it doesn't work, or there are clear signs of poor workmanship, as Reed has found with stripped screws and cross threaded bolts. Those are real problems, and maddening ones. I have found wiring issues with mine and even posted about them here. My exterior lights quit working and when I investigated, I found a rats nest of Scotchlok connectors crimped onto a single power wire that was unsecured and had failed. Very poor workmanship indeed, but it is not a shop floor shortcut so much as a poor design. I'm sure it wasn't some unskilled workers, but an Oliver design. My batteries are wired very poorly too, but I'm working on that. Regular #8 or #6 house wire that is likely to either pinch, or wear and short out, supplying all the power from four T105 batteries. We may tend to think that Oliver is doing everything to some higher standard, but there are areas where they are sort of winging it and some design demands are leading them into some quality issues. Fortunately, they seem to be responding to feedback and standing behind their trailers, but some of the stuff seems like it's just common sense and should never happen, like overhead doors that don't latch well enough to stay closed and the television interfering with the blinds and damaging them. Another thing I noticed right away was the suspension. Oliver uses the cheapest suspension design offered in the industry. It has simple plastic bushings that are not serviceable and known for failure. I've had these on other trailers and they are not designed for high mileage. In a "Legacy" design, I wish they would install greasable links with heavy duty parts instead of charging more if you want them as an option. I have already upgraded mine. The initial reaction when stepping into an Oliver is that "this is amazing", and it is in many ways, but it's still a travel trailer and it's still in the development stages. As far as the overall shape, fiberglass construction, frame, and towing manners; excellent. I'm very pleased with mine in so many ways. It's so good in some ways that I tend to think it's some kind of a magic thing that has no faults. Not quite. I'm still scratching my head as to why they went with a small spare tire and eliminated the ability to go with a tire that matched the others, that is until everyone noticed and began to worry about it, then they fixed it. Mine is an earlier one and I have to run without the fiberglass cover to mount a standard size spare. Then I look around and cannot believe humans can make a complicated fiberglass structure this beautifully smooth.

Reed, Simple and affective mod. Good job. BTW, I like that combo hammer, pliers, etc. tool in the picture. What is that?

You have latches that are a later design than mine. I have the rubber straps which are very hard to use.

My standard one works fine and it is not loud. Partly, probably, because they are ducted.

As a follow-up note on storage: It is so nice to have the trailer at home! Can't stress that enough! It means you can do maintenance or modifications as you wish and it means that getting ready to go is so nice and easy. I've been working on ours and doing projects, such as a new countertop, new faucet, adjusting the overhead doors, upgrading the propane, installing the heavy duty suspension bushings and shackles, replacing the wheels, installing a full sized spare and many more little things. It also means we can go out and have a movie night in the trailer, spur of the moment, in the garage. It's a silly thing, but lots of fun. It means we don't have to winterize and it never gets dirty. We can gradually get ready for a trip over several days if we want to, with the fridge on, wash it and get all hooked up and ready to go. I insist on leaving before first light when we go for a longer trip. It's so fun to get all hooked up and have the rig parked by the front door, ready to go. We get up, grab a coffee and wander out into the pre-dawn morning with the whole adventure before us. Then the pressure is gone and we just enjoy the adventure. That night, who knows, we may be sitting in a hot springs, looking out the window at a wind storm or building a fire while it snows. If you can work out a way to have it at home it's really worth it. It even can act as a guest house for visiting friends or family. Liye wants our Ollie just for us, but I also have a Fleetwood sticky that we use for overflow visitors on holidays.

Good luck with your travels. I'll be done at the end of the year and free too. That picture looks like our yard here in Nevada, where was it taken?

I store mine in the garage. We have a 10' high door and it clears by about 6''. Length is about 23 1/2, so it's about the same length as a full sized 4 door pickup. Standard garages are only 20' deep. So, you need an oversized garage with higher than usual doors, or a shop/barn.

Maybe that picture was taken in Australia!

I got my LE2 used, so I had no say in the matter, but knowing what I know now, I'd delete the AC on a new order. The noise, the bulky unit on the roof and the difficulty of running it on a practical size genny make it seem like a white elephant unless on shore power in Las Vegas or Phoenix in the summer. After looking at window units some, it looks like one could be built into the space below the forward dinette seat. Not hung on the outside, but built into a box. This would have partitions to manage airflow and a couple of vents to the outside. The grill would be cut into the fiberglass wall facing the hall, under the seat. It would be quieter, draw less power and keep the outside streamlined. A 12 volt fan could stir the inside air if needed. Problem in my case is the huge hole already in the ceiling. Fortunately, I don't think we will need it very often, so I'm not going to get serious about it right now.

When using the trailer in cold weather, there is no way around having higher humidity inside. This always leads to condensation against the colder exterior walls. Having some ventilation is very important. I haven't noticed water on the wall anywhere in Ollie, but I've dealt with it on my boats for years where there is dripping moisture. Breathing adds moisture. Cold surfaces condense that moisture. In Ollie, I try to leave the bath overhead vent open all the time. Ollie is so air tight that I like to leave one of the windows cracked too. After hours of being in there with my wife at night, I can tell it's getting harder to get oxygen if it's closed up tight.

Bill, I've gone ahead and installed all five new wheels on my trailer. Not that that was necessary, but I already had them and they have new tires on them. They are the star wheels I showed a picture of earlier. Rated for 3200 lbs each and no pressure limit given. Same 16 X 7 size with a very slight offset difference that works well. Same nuts and center caps. I think I like the look of the originals more, in spite of the fake rivets, but these are better wheels. Looking at the load chart for the Michelins you posted, and thanks for that, it seems that even at 40 PSI they are rated to carry 1650 lbs each. Times 4 would be 6600 lbs total. Way more than an LE2 weighs. 40 PSI seems low to me and I've got mine currently at 60 where they "look" about right. The spare is an interesting situation. As you know, the spare is a smaller size on the stock LE2 up to about hull number 200. Well, it's not just one size smaller, it's a 205/70/16 on the same size wheel and it's not E rated. Lower aspect and smaller size, with a standard load rating instead of E. So, I'm sure it's fine to get to the tire store, but not fine for a long trip out of the desert, for instance. Turns out, a full sized tire will mount up just fine on the rear mount and I now have one mounted there. The problem is that the fiberglass cover will not fit and cannot easily be made to fit. So, I have decided to run a soft cover on mine.

Good Morning. Happy Mothers Day! Just checking in a smidge early. Out here in the West it's only 8am. Beautiful Nevada morning with a fabulous sunrise. Quiet high desert with a view of the Pine Nut Mountains. Pinion Pines scattered around here at 5,000 ft. Last evening and for several weeks now, we've had frogs croaking! It's a fun sound and surprising to hear it here. Normally it's just the coyotes with their songs in the night. Today we'll probably take another Jeep trip up farther into the mountains where the streams are overflowing. We've been checking on them the last couple of days. It's also the season to see the blooming desert peach. This happens progressively later in the season at the higher and higher elevations. All is well.

There will always be buyers that want the biggest thing they can tow or afford. And that's fine. I just have to laugh now when I see a huge trailer going down the road, practically blocking out the sun. There is no way any of those large trailers could get in to my favorite places and the difficulty of towing them around would be very tiring. I keep forgetting mine is even back there. Not to mention most of them are very poorly built. All that effort and money for short term comfort. I certainly didn't compromise on size to get an Oliver. No way. It's plenty big enough and it has already been able to get into sites that larger units could not, with no compromise on comfort. I lived on a sailboat for many years and the trick was having everything I wanted, in an efficient manner, that let me get underway on short notice. If a boat or a trailer isn't easy to use, sooner or later, it won't get used. Size has already been an issue in places like the Grand Canyon, Bristlecone Pines, the eastern sierra area and, my all time favorite, Saline valley. In all of those places, it was getting out to see the sights and having friends over to sit outside that mattered. But inside an Ollie is a very nice place to spend time and we even have movie nights in ours, out in the garage. Oliver might be able to sell lots of bigger trailers to folks with different wants, and they are in business to make money. So, it will be fun to see what they do. Just like with boat manufacturers, you can look at different models from the same company and decide what suits you best. Cool. A larger Oliver would probably be more luxury oriented and have to compete head to head with AS as a luxury apartment. Less practical for camping and exponentially more expensive.

You could do that, or you might just pull it out and put a clothespin type clamp on the hose at the faucet to keep it from retracting. You might also put a bungee cord on it below to do away with the weight. That would also steer it away from other stuff it might tangle on and keep it from beating on things down there. The inside of the outer hull, with it's delicate insulation is right there below the faucet. Also, the microwave plug is directly below the faucet.

Randy, Sounds good. We'll be going to Death Valley and the Saline Valley Hot Springs later this summer. It's a lot of miles off the highway and takes about three hours from the last paved road to get there. It's famous for thundershowers wiping out the road. I've been there myself when I couldn't even find the road after a storm or had to drive way out into the desert to get around a new alluvial fan or washout. Fun place to visit. The burros and coyotes wander around through camp. In the quiet night, sitting in one of the pools, the bats will dip down and get a drink as they swoop silently by. It's an oasis with plenty of hot water and beautiful hand built pools. Mysterious in its intense silence. Just when you think it's totally peaceful, some fighter planes will come by practicing. They like to show off, away from the city. Put a wing down and circle the hot springs a hundred feet of the ground. You can wave at the pilots! We went there a couple of years ago and came in from the east with our toy hauler. We were very careful on the rough roads and took our time. But the trailer suffered anyway. I realized it wasn't worthy and sold it shortly after that trip as my search for an Ollie intensified. This year there has been so much snow in the Sierra mountains that we haven't been able to do very much. We did have a very nice trip to Yosemite, but 120 is closed from the east and one of the roads from the west was closed too, so it took along time to get there. Their internet had been down for ten days and intermittent flooding made the whole place unpredictable. Best time to go! The falls were spectacular! Reed and Karen Lukens were there too and we had a very nice time. Reed knows Yosemite very well and was sure we could get a spot. He was right. We'll be in Bandon Oregon in July with the Cassita group, but I don't expect any off roading. My best times are in the desert and we'll get there later in the year. Most people won't go to the desert in summer, but that's the monsoon season with powerful rain, and it's not crowded. Excellent.

Overland, Let us know if you order a new Raptor. That looks like a very nice truck and I guess they upgraded the tuning on the 3.5. I read some about the ten speed and it sounds very nice too. So many gears are not always needed, so it can skip gears under light throttle as needed. I was thinking you could add airbags to the rear leafs and then just pump them up when you tow. You mentioned you like the Raptor because of it's off road abilities. I'm finding that Ollies are surprisingly good off road. They are narrow enough, high enough with no hanging down plumbing and have the tandem axles. I've now dragged mine over some serious trails with no problems. It's been fun to carefully approach severe dips and rough areas, get out and see how it's doing and go on. Being narrow is also a huge advantage. We started up a narrow dirt road with no place to turn around in the Eastern Sierra. Went a for a couple miles easing our way along between trees and over big ruts. Then we went to Grant Lake off of June Lake Loop and took a short cut down a steep, almost Jeep trail. Cool. If my Ram will get there, the trailer will get there.

Yes, it's the BOSJON. We have other IKEA faucets in the house and they seem to be very well built. You might look under the sink before you install a pull out model. The pull-out models always have a weight attached to the extra long hose to retract it. There isn't much room under there and that weight will be flailing around as you drive hammering on other things or getting tangled. See what you think when you take a look.

The faucet needs a small modification to the PEX lines under the sink to really fit the best. The BOSJON listed for North America says it has the 1/2" connections but our had 3/8" compression. At the big box store you can easily get a 3/8" compression by 1/2" male adapter and put that in. The stock Ollie connectors are just hand tighten wing nuts. I went a step further just because I wanted to make it as good as I could. I found two valves that are 1/2" crimp PEX by 3/8" compression. I cut Ollie's lines a bit shorter and installed those valves on the hot and cold. Now it fits perfectly and I can isolate it if needed. The faucet also has stops inside that limit how far it swings. That prevents it from banging into the cabinet or the back wall, even though you get a full swing. It is way more convenient than the stock one I took out and Liye really likes it!

Yes, that's the stainless steel counter top I made a few weeks ago. There are pix of it in an earlier thread.