jd1923

I believe if we were ever to mooch-dock with family, I'd use the wet bath inside or better yet borrow the family shower in the house! 🤣 I use the outdoor shower boondocking when miles away from others, and yes we're always "in the dirt." I thought of an outdoor shower mat, not like the one Steve showed but something perforated. But the issue with either kind is afterwards you have a big dirty shower mat to clean. Too much trouble. I wear water shoes when showering outside. They get a little dirty on the bottoms and I take them off as I'm stepping on to the camping carpet. When they dry out, just rub them together to remove the dried dirt and put them back in the truck. Also, where we generally camp the shower water is absorbed very quickly in the ground, rarely creating puddles or mud. 😎 I also use water shoes in public showers at campgrounds for health concerns.

2026 meaning you just bought it? Thinking of buying it? Is it true all 2026 4Runners have 2.4L 4-cylinder engines? Wow! We had an older 4Runner with the 3.4 v6. Sold it for a GX with leather and the 4.7 v8. We never even towed with it, but it needed more power just around town! If possible ditch the idea (or get the dealer to take it back) and get a 5.7L v8 Tundra, any half-ton American truck, or the midsize trucks with special towing packages. OTT claims the Elite is 3700 dry weight, 5K GVWR and 370 LB tongue weight. Doable yes, reasonable no. The stock 4Runner is made for suburban driving with some gear, occasional dirt roads. The little engine is certainly not made for towing and will wear quickly as well as the drivetrain and suspension parts. Another point I always make is the very, very short wheelbase. The WDH will help, but tail wagging the dog for sure!

Please take before and after movies, pre and post Alcan upgrade. 😎

We just spent 4 overnights between Flagstaff and the canyon. Not exactly the desert SW at 7600 feet but it was the week of July 20th with highs in the mid-to-high 80s, everyday up there (116F in Phoenix). Two of 4 nights we had monsoon rains and we had to cook indoors using a pressure cooker one night and Emeril oven another (microwave removed for the Emeril). We often use a portable induction cooktop but not this trip. We had the A/C on 24x7 in fear of overnight rains, when generally after dinner we would open windows. A couple nights the old Dometic 3-way fridge had the "Check" (LP) light come on, likely from the altitude, so we also ran the fridge on batteries for about 60 hours over the 4 days. With the Victron MP2 inverter/charger we can run the Chill Cube A/C, The Emeril Oven, the fridge, the TV and soundbar, etc. all at the same time without worry as to what we can or cannot run on electric. Coffee every morning with an 1100W electric kettle. With 900 Ah LiFePO4 batteries we have power to spare. I can see what you're saying, but of course with the old Penguin A/C you're not running A/C at all when unplugged. The P2 would bring 300 Ah down to ZERO in 2 hours. I thought we had all the power we needed to run A/C for 4 days straight, and we did but had not counted on running the fridge on electric too, which hour after hour takes quite a bit of Ah. The picture shows our remaining Ah on our 4th night at 7 PM. Epoch #2 was below 20% and it stopped showing up on the app (notice the pic shows 600 Ah total since it cannot see one battery). By morning SOC was 18% and when we got home late afternoon SOC was 43% with battery #2 again reading, recharged from the DC-DC charger. SOC of 43% might not sound too good, does it? But keep in mind 43% of 900 is 387 Ah. Instead of driving home, if we had driven to another campsite we'd be back in business for another couple days. I'd give up our 900 Ah right along with my right arm! 😎 But if you have no interest in upgrading your A/C and running it off-grid then 300 Ah is good enough. Those who go from 300 to 600 Ah can get down to 50% SOC and be at 300. If you have small Ah capacity, you always need it full. Having greater capacity allows you to run at lower SOC%. We were able to run A/C for 100 hours straight, including when towing, with our setup! And if you're always running near 100% SOC, the DC-DC charger will get lonely with no work to do! 🤣

Nice shower! Being a man, and given our usual boondocking spots, I'm out there showering in underwear without a curtain. Chris showers inside but I'm outside whenever possible so I don't get the entire wet bath wet! When I do shower inside, I empty the room and then end up hosing the entire wet bath clean too! Most people do not realize dumping grey water is allowed in the National Forests wherever dispersed camping is allowed and when 200 ft from a water source (see USFS Dispersed Camping publication). I'm not certain, but I apply this rule to BLM lands as well. The high desert critters and bugs eat it up and by the next day you wouldn't even know it was there. Drain slowly so not to cause erosion, and an outdoor shower is a small amount of grey water let go slowly. 😎 USFS Dispersed Camping_stelprdb5196126.pdf

Hummers in Prescott.MOV

Welcome back, Dan! Too bad the fires kept you away from getting to Grand Junction! Wow, labor cost more than the springs themselves! I did the axles too which makes it a different process. Doing one spring at a time should be easy enough. PLEASE don't let anybody here tell you not to use your rear jacks to lift the Oliver! Then use one jack stand on the axle end where you are working. Have the Oliver hitched to your tow vehicle on as level a spot as you have. I know Art @MAX Burner did his, springs only, first but I could not find his post. Best wishes, JD

On second look, the length is certainly different! Epoch 300 Ah L13.77" W7.59" H9.76" and 57 LBS Vatrer 300 Ah L15.12" W7.64" H9.76" and 55 LBS Given the length of the Vatrer and the 14" wide battery tray in our Olivers... Only ONE (1) Vatrer 300 Ah battery will fit in the battery tray, NOT two! This can limit upgrade potential, but you can just barely fit three (3) of these in the battery bay with the tray removed, like I did mine. 900 Ah heated with Bluetooth for $1,800 is an amazing deal GIVEN these prove to be of good quality with long life. I spent $2,817 total for 900 Ah Epoch but list price today is $3,747 plus tax (1,249 each). Epoch used to give 10-15% OFF, these days it's more often 5%. One 300 Ah battery is one thing, and sure beats 200+ LBS of old AGM batteries! Though I'd love to see an Oliver owner mount 3 Vatrer batteries, 900 Ah for only $1,800! Watch this item. When they get popular like Epoch, they won't be $400 OFF anymore!

Looks like an Epoch clone from the outside, same casing and handles. But it's what's inside that matters and we won't know until Will Prowse cuts one open for review! 🤣 https://www.vatrerpower.com/products/vatrer-12v-300ah-bluetooth-lifepo4-lithium-battery-with-self-heating-200a-bms-supports-low-temp-charging-4-f-5000-cycles-2560w-power

The 3K model is enough, especially with your efficient Turbro inverter A/C (or your new Chill). I hope you bought one of the open box/used MP2s at half price! With the 4K model out, look for deals on the 3K models coming soon! I just looked again at the picture of your beautiful hull #45! Remove that king antenna and mount solar panels sideways. I'll bet today you can get near 800W up there! Install two drive motors so you can pitch the panels up on both left or righthand sides! Would be so cool. Consider my brain picked (just for now)! 😎

Not that we need this much power, but a new Victron Energy MultiPlus-II 12/4k/160-50 120V just came out for $1,105 (no tax or shipping cost with this vendor). It's at a good price, having paid $997 for the 3K model July of 2024. Also, very good customer service with InvertersRUs. They serviced a warranty replacement for me on a small Victron MPPT SC. All I had to do was to email the pic of the Victron Connect app screen. They shipped a new one out immediately with return label. It provides 4KVA (3.4 KW) inverted power and can charge up to 160A. It's 2" longer, the same width and 3/4" taller, plus 7 LBS heavier than the 3K model that several of us have installed, so it will just fit in the streetside basement. With a whole lot of LiFePO4 Ahs, you could use this kind of power, if you're still running an ol' school single-speed compressor A/C and don't want to worry about what else you power up! No Soft/Easy Start needed with this bad-boy and you won't ever get stuck with a Multiplus failing for low voltage cutout. With required input as low as 9.5V your batteries may cutout before the MP2 ever will! Wow, checking my thread above on page 1, it was two years ago to the day, when I finished my installation. We are rarely plugged in and never turn it off, so our MP2 has run 24x7 for a full 2 years now, always providing service without issue. 😎 https://invertersrus.com/product/ve-multiplus-ii-12-4k/

Yeah, I just looked up your Coleman model and it's the lowest profile I've seen at only 8.25". The Chill Cube is 6.25" taller (we park outdoors). I would take @CRM's lead on this. He has done more A/C research than any of us and looks like he may be in the market again with the "new Furrion low profile with heat pump."

I have an ongoing experiment... For 3 years now, we've had a drip rail on the curbside and not on the streetside, the perfect A-B experiment! Keeping the roof clean? Yes of course, but everyday the breeze coming over our ridge will deposit more red dust on the Oliver! Pictures to follow will start streetside front and end curbside rear. Only the last picture has no pin-striping where the drip rail has been installed. I'm going to install them on the length of the streetside to copy the curbside and a section in the rear below the OLIVER taillight.

Last year and before, the free version was great. Click on a campsite, see reviews and they had a map link where it would launch Apple of Google maps for directions. It doesn't do that anymore, but states the $60/yr version does. Has anybody purchased their "RV PRO" version? Last year Campendium was our go-to app! For offline maps, get Avenza Maps! You can download any USGS (United States Geological Survey) maps for free and FS MVUM maps (Forest Service - Motor Vehicle Use Maps). I download them to my phone prior to travel online at home, or on Starlink when traveling. Even when there is no cell service you can still see the blue dot on the maps showing your location! 😎 We also purchased a sale-price subscription to onX Offroad which has public lands filters and shows where you can travel on dirt roads and disperse camp.

Wow, that's on BIG air handler/plenum! We love our Furrion Chill Cube. The air handler is built into the upper unit making it 3" taller on the outside but it's flush to the interior on the inside. It is also square shaped inside and out, so MUCH smaller the our old Penguin or your Coleman. I had to patch some screw holes on the interior because it was smaller. The Chill Cube does not require interior screws into the ceiling. Not sure if the Coleman used screws into the ceiling that if so may have to be patched. If you have a decent amount Ah in LiFePO4 batteries the Chill Cube can run A/C for hours, even days. I have linked my build thread below which shows the installation and interior pictures on page two. In the thread there is a mention of a model with heat pump if that is of interest to you. There are also mentions of a low-profile unit, but it is the tall non-ducted Chill Cube that is the efficiency beast! It's so quiet too. Half the sound on high and once it reaches set temp it will only whisper all night long! 😎 Watch the video on the Morton's web page: https://www.mortonsonthemove.com/furrion-chill-cube-variable-speed-18k-review/

Profile looks the same to me. Full width should measure just under 1". Yes yours, living in Nashville, sure got "Nasty" in just 2 years. Our Oliver started life in Florida and then moved SW. In my picture above the white rubber shown is 8 years old. Caution on installing the new rubber. The ones I removed were all about an inch too short. To compensate for shrinkage on the new ones, I cut them long cramming them into place. I over did it on one window. One piece after a couple of years, the top section had wrinkled and a bottom section had buckled in. I just noticed it last trip when monsoon rains caused a leak in that window alone. I recently ordered 5 ft more to redo that one window, thinking the AZ sun had hardened that piece in its current shape. Cut them long enough to fully fit pressing in firmly, but don't overdo it like I did. If it feels too long, you can always trim them a bit shorter, but of course you don't want to cut a piece too short. I used the hose cutter shown above. Didn't know about the back-order. My order is now two weeks old. They confirmed it by email, stating they would send a 2nd email when the order was processed and have not received that yet. I emailed them yesterday. No reply yet but hope to hear back from them next week.

Hey Taylor, contrary ideas are always good to read and understand! We all live and travel in much different climates, and yours and ours are quite the opposite. The high country of Arizona is the only place, in the 5 states we've lived, where temps changes more in a 24 hour day than from season to season. 68F at dawn today and 94F right now at 4PM. In January, it's often 18F early and 55F in the afternoon! We average 300 days of sun in Prescott and only 18" of rain all year, with a few days of snow Feb-Mar. You will of course get more rain in one month than we get all year. You also have tall trees, pine needles and sap droppings, etc. Only on rare occasion camping do we have tall trees above. We get a little red rock dust all over the Oliver almost every day of the year. You can barely see it, but it's certainly always there! When we used to go dirt riding often, when we hit puddles, better hose off the bikes when home. Otherwise the splashes of red dirt (sandstone iron-oxide) or white (limestone) will permanently stain if left on for too long. Summer afternoons, the roof of our Oliver is the hottest part. The other day, it was over 110F rooftop, 90F in the basement and I'm cooling the interior cabin to just under 80F. Every night the roof is the coolest part. We get dew/condensate on the roof nightly, frost when temps approach 32F and below. After sunrise, the condensate drips, carrying the red rock dust in lines all the way down the hull, in essence staining the fiberglass in its path. I can see you not wanting drip rails. Real rains like you get could be helping to keep your Oliver clean. I certainly would not think to add one, but the curbside one we have sure does the job! I'm going to see if that when the sun sets I can get a picture of the drip marks. They only come off with scrubbing. None on the curbside with the drip rail, but all down the streetside and rear. None on the front, perhaps due to its convex shape.

Yeah Rich, so it must have kept the drip lines off the fiberglass on both sides! I believe with 25" I should have about 6 ft leftover to place a drip edge on the rear just below the OLIVER sign. You had cautioned us as to how this product would not straighten out, creating wrinkles, which can be seen in your picture. This thread started with a $16 product, with the title "DO NOT use this product!" The one you tried is $40 and the Trim-Lok with 3M tape is $63. It's expensive, but now that I have it in hand, you can stretch this product at a radius opposite to how it's coiled up for packaging and it stretches nicely without wrinkling. Your warning and finally @ScottyGS's suggestion got me to the right product, thank you!

Dup post deleted.

Bob, I believe Mike was the first to switch to BLACK and he convinced me a couple years ago when I replaced ours. See what my white ones looked like! And on your hull, only 2 years old, they need replacing? The windows look black, the thin rubber on the stationery window is black and over time the black will still look new. Mold stains the white and you cannot see it on black. They may not supply white anymore due to this issue. Actually, the window frames look more balanced left to right with the black moldings (pic1). BTW, to be sure for your hull, remove one edge to see if the profile of the rubber looks identical (pic2).

I purchased this item and it appears to be the real deal: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CJRH19Y/ I'm not doing the windows but will run a full length strip up at the streetside roof line. Check the picture of the curbside awning of our Oliver. Prior owner likely installed this drip rail after removing the awning flashing. It appears to be the very same product (thanks Gregg)! For the 3 years we've owned our Oliver, we have water marks, drip lines top to bottom from dew/frost condensate or occasional rains. And it's only on the streetside, never curbside so this Trim-Lok drip rail has proven to work. It's like night and day. I will pressure-wash the Oliver and the curbside is clean and the streetside still has the water drip lines top to bottom unless you hand scrub with soap (something I'm not doing anymore). My plan is to copy this roofline drip rail at the same height on the streetside. I'll use blue painter's tape to mask the height for installation. Question for the group: I will get with my detailer, ceramic coating specialist, but now that we have a good shine on the Oliver, what do I need to do to carefully remove a line of the ceramic coating so that the 3M VHB tape will stick to the ceramic? 3M states to use rubbing alcohol for VHB tape prep, but an AI search returned that this will soften the ceramic coating and not remove it nor prep properly for VHB tape. I hate to be up there with acetone but that may be necessary. Thanks for any advice. JD

Not certain re 2024, but this is what I purchased for the rubber surround on the window half that opens, as pictured. https://www.pellandent.com/Half-Inch-Glass-Vinyl-Seal

Modern variable speed and inverter A/C units don't need the Easy Start and if your fan slipped alignment and jammed, unfortunately the Penguin has little to no used value. Perhaps you could sell the Easy Start. Yeah, I get it! We have campground reservations but everyday I wonder how 1700 miles one-way will "tucker us out! " Are we crazy? I may have to start a thread titled, "Calling all Rally Pickleball Players!" We would likely play pickleball or more often hike around the lake vs. attending vendor presentations. Chris and I are 4.0 rated seniors! But we play weekly with friends with less experience, so we "work on our soft game!" Hope to meet you and play someday. If not in Alabama, keep it in mind for the next time you travel SW! 😂

Robert, I see you're local to Alabama. Going to the Rally with pickleball gear? Ours are always in the TV. Last summer on our Minnesota trip we played in 6 states! I see there are two public court locations right at the lake! 😎 (Pickleheads app) We're sorry, but please don't bother. Remove the interior panel, loosen 4 bolts, cut wires and then all you need to do is get up rooftop and heave! 🤣

"Quite easy?" You're a good mechanic! It is easier to purchase and install the entire preassembled unit. https://itcshopnow.com/products/exterior-shower Our shower failed in the same way, the same plastic part shown above where the shower hose connects. It must be from pulling on the shower hose. Drilling and replacing the rivets is the easy part. Do it, don't worry. They are aluminum rivets so each head drilled off in 5 seconds. If you go this route, you can loosen and reconnect each plumbing fitting sitting on a crate outdoors vs. kneeling on the cabin floor and reaching inside the cramped basement. After the old shower assembly is removed, drill the rivets through. Then screw a sheet metal screw in and turn the rivet butt, push in, give it a tap if needed, and grab it from the backside. Connect the water lines by holding pliers on the copper ring of the PEX so it doesn't twist. Make these good hand tight or gentle with a pliers. Then when the entire assembly is still hanging exterior to the Oliver as pictured, turn on the water pump, blead the hot and cold lines and test for leaks. Then push in place and rivet the four corners. I had rivets in my shop that were 3/16" and about 3/4" long. OEM might be 7/32" or 6mm but mine held it nicely in place. UPS arrived with the part today and in an hour or so, job done and we have a brand new outdoor shower with leftover parts saved, like a new shower head replaced just last year. 😎