jd1923

Tony, I clean most grimy auto parts with Go-Jo hand soap (not the pumice kind). It cleans grease and oil off the mechanics hands and does well with cleaning most parts safely without abrasives or solvents. I worked it in with very fine steel wool, that's it. I detailed this and a complete and thorough maintenance of the Stabilizer Jacks on page two of this old Forum post.

First thing I noticed is the jack feet on your Oliver are much different from our Hull #113. Ours are round and flat vs. oblong and dished. I rebuilt our front jack to properly service and grease it. The first photo shows the jack stand with shaft brushed clean to metal and the foot was cleaned, but NOT painted (jack stand in mid air when pictured). I'm generally against paint, especially for the bottom where pressure will just make the paint peel. But our Oliver has mostly been in warm dry climates. The second picture is one I took when we had a steep uphill dump station. Pictured here to show the Andersen Hitches Trailer Jack Blocks. We use one of these always for the rear levelers (the two shown) and the stackable 1" blocks for the front. I don't believe the feet on our jacks will ever need anything but soap and water to clean. I would replaced the feet on yours with the round kind pictured and get a set of these Andersen products! https://www.amazon.com/ANDERSEN-Accessories-Stabilizers-Jackstand-Quickjack/dp/B0754NWJGR/?th=1

Tested and corrected this today. I had 12V+ at the Dometic Fridge DC plug which proves the wiring was installed as planned. Searched the User Manual re DC wiring and it had nothing technical to add. In no illustration did it show which side was +/-. All it stated is do NOT cut off the fused cigarette lighter plug (first thing I did)! The DC positive and ground tested good today, so what's up? My next thought was that maybe I had the DC polarity crossed. I made the wrong assumption that in the bonded power cable the positive should be the 'ribbed' side of the cable. True in AC wiring, check any lamp you have on your desk or in the house, the AC hot is ribbed in a bonded lamp cable, the neutral being smooth. Not true here where Dometic wired it the other way around! I had purchased a HD hardwire kit from Amazon for a later permanent installation and after looking at the kit, wires are clearly colored in Red and Black. I had the wires crossed! A few cuts and splices and all was good. Now running our Dometic CFX5 on 12VDC. Turns out you can have both AC and DC cables plugged in and it will prefer the AC connection and revert to DC when AC is disconnected. That's what I was hoping for, so not to change cable connections at the rear of the fridge. Before I connect the fridge to 12VDC, I measured our dual AGM tow vehicle batteries at 12.53V. When I turned on the Dometic, the display stated battery input voltage at 12.5V without having .01V precision. The reading looked to be accurate and it's nice not to have to measure this often manually. I will check voltage on the display and manually later tonight and in the morning 12 hours later to measure the decrease in battery SOC over time. The Dometic system also has shut-off protection when the batteries read less than 12V. Later plans are to add a dedicated battery, connection to the onboard DC-DC charger (already working today), a 100W Renogy flexible solar panel and Victron 15A MPPT SC... It should soon be GREAT! Love grabbing cold water while working on the truck and Oliver. A good mod for use in while traveling and camping! 🤣

Just searched for "truck wash" and got lucky. We had no idea! I imagine these are only available in good size cities in warehousing areas along Interstates.

Our home finished in 1980 has the original A/C with natural gas furnace, an all-in-one meaning the evaporator is also outside in one housing. As far as maintenance, I open up the panels every few years, remove nests, dead squirrels and such, hose the condenser coils clean and that's about that. Five years ago the condenser fan went out and I replaced it. That's it in 20 years ownership of our Prescott home. It has lasted 45 years! But the required 6 lbs of system freon was down to 2 from micro leaks on the coil (was repaired with a fix-a-flat kind of sealant). The service tech was amazed at the condition, so rebuilding the system to newer (legal) freon was possible. A $2300 retrofit including all new valves and seals vs. $16,000 for a new system, I was relieved! It's on our southern exposure where the siding and window mouldings take great abuse, needing frequent painting, from the relentless Arizona sun. Our summer Monsoons and winter storms also come from that direction! Now you can see why our Oliver, also out in the elements, doesn't have that CGI shine! 🤣

True that!

Perhaps we can bump into you along the way! We're thinking 9/22 start to about 10/15. We loved the areas south of Grand Junction (after my Alcan visit), from Ridgway CO down, Sunshine Campground near Telluride, then south along the Delores River ending in Delores CO. Endless boondocking opportunities along the way. During our recent trip we only had a few days in the area, so we want to go back and camp along that route for 3+ weeks! 😂

Thank you for this notification! We were thinking of going to the North Rim this Sept-Oct. Looks like our alternative of SW Colorado will be it. Wonder what will the National Parks Service do about rebuilding the lodge? (We would boondock in the area anyway.)

Use two 7/16" or 11mm open-ended wrenches. Or do what we do. Scrap the old idea of cable, "400 stations and nothing to watch!" 🤣 And who knows what any particular "RV Park" will supply, or if the feed at their post has interference or even works. Stream TV via cellular router or Starlink Mini when cell signals are weak! I removed the cable port on the rear of our Oliver and replaced it with a more useful suitcase solar input!

I get it and it's a compromise. I guess somebody could steal our new fridge, though its quite a lift to get it out of there. My suitcase solar is padlocked to the toolbox and since we love our new Napoleon Grill it is chained and locked. We have two mounted toolboxes for all the important small stuff. If we had a cap, I could not access a front-mounted toolbox. There are some caps with side reach-in openings, but one rear door is a pain. It's more of a carefree philosophy we like to have when camping. Chris and I say often we need to loose the old feelings, those from our Chicago city backgrounds, , crime-ridden environments where you worry and lock down everything. Most of our stuff can get dirty and wet. When it rains we put our lawn chairs in the Oliver when towing or at night in the front passenger floor of the truck, so they stay dry for use. If we lived east, the criteria would be different. We've camped 110 nights and have had more dirt road dust than rain. I only remember about a half dozen rainy days in our travels. Also, even when towing in the rain, the truck bed stays dryer than you'd think! I will need something appropriate to cover the new fridge from sun and rain, TBD!

I want it in the truck bed arms reach from the passenger door vs. behind me in the truck. The fridge produces a hum and quite a bit of heat that we wouldn't want interior to the truck cab. Our A/C is stressed enough on sunny Arizona days. I'm not ever again going to have a truck with a cap, making it near impossible to get to half the stuff in the bed! Did that for years when we had two Labs and was so relieved to remove the cap from the bed. Love our open long bed, so convenient and easy! I'm giving some thought to some kind of cover, mainly to keep the sun off of it and to protect it from rain. The manual states, "The cooling device shall not be exposed to rain" and nothing else. I need some kind of partial cover, still allowing the lower rear of the unit to be open to the air flow it requires. There will be some risk in the truck bed location I've chosen. Good thing is rain is the rare case where we live and usually travel.

The EMS is between your Shore Power Outlet and your 120VAC power panel that holds the half dozen breakers for your A/C, Microwave, 110V outlets, etc. It has nothing to do with the trailer wiring, harness connected to the tow vehicle. The EMS (Electrical Management System) protects against shore power that is wired incorrectly, does not have ground or is at a voltage outside of the proper range. One can be added by cutting the interior shore power cable in two and wiring the device in between. See the attached picture. The device on the left is the ATS (Automatic Transfer Switch) which switches between inputs of shore power from the bodyside outlet or the secondary front outlet used to connect a generator in the front basket. The device on the right is the PI EMS that I installed. Some here believe in this redundancy. I believe it's like paying two insurance companies when only one of them will pay the claim. And if the one at the pole reads with good numbers, there's no need to check the one in the Attic. Having one EMS is sufficient. If you do not have one, and do not want to install one, the pole EMS is fine. But I would move the EMS display in a usable location before adding another at the pole, that's just me. I do not want any devices out at the pole like EMS or water filters, etc. I like mine integrated internal to the Oliver which makes for quick and easy camp setup and tear down. The expensive EMS device at the pole have been known to disappear or get lost! 🤣

Didn't have time to figure out the wiring today. Later on that... Kept it plugged in on AC to test cooling water. After 90 min, the CFX5 set to 35F thought it had gotten to that temp, but was far from it, and it shut down the compressor when reading 35F on its display. At the same time the Ruuvi sensor read 61F which was more accurate given the water bottles still felt warm to the touch. The thermostat likely will only read correctly when foods inside come to temp steady state. I removed the full gallon and kept 15 water bottles inside and nothing else. I set the thermostat to 20F. All day long the CFX5 display read 21-23F and the compressor was running every time I looked. In an 8-hour day it cooled down 15 water bottles from 82F to 36F, per the Ruuvi. Not bad cooling since cooling 2 gallons of water bottles is not an easy task starting at 82F. Wish the thermostat was better, but we'll see with foods inside vs. just water bottles. We often buy cold shrink-wrapped or frozen meats at a butcher shop. twill be great have this extra space which can be turned down to freezer temps when needed.

When not using the Anderson WDH, make sure you are also not using the Anderson hitch at all, meaning specifically the ball on the cone. Without the WDH boomerang piece bolted through the bottom, the ball is merely held in place by a snap ring which could fail allowing the cone and ball to come up and off. With a standard ball it is common practice to grease it. Get a rubber cover for when detached before it soils your pant leg! Use any thick grease so it stays put. I use red wheel bearing grease since I have several tubes of it on hand.

Yes Tony, I like the term Oliver Trunk! And you have all the length you need in the connector cable to move the display anywhere in the Oliver! This is how I did mine. I used 3M VHB 4950 to tape the display to a 3" wide L-bracket that could be screwed down to the base. The small bracket in front is there to somewhat protect the display from getting hit by the shore power cord, hoses and other stuff during transit. You could also mount it on the top of the wall, left in the picture. But for me, I have an exhaust fan and control panel mounted up there to keep our inverter/charger cooled. I picked this location because after I remove the shore power cord, I can see it leaning down a little without craning my neck. I check all readings and possible error messages immediately after plugging in, hoping to see about 125V, at 60Hz and "E0" (no errors).

Wow, wax! until now, I could not imagine the panels being dirty enough to reduce power output 5x~! I only use water and a professional window cleaning brush on a 5 ft handle to clean ours, rinse-brush-rinse, no cleaning products used ever. This was the question on my mind. Good explanation, thanks Geoff.

I've made both AC and DC connections to the CFX5. I just tried to turn it on powered by 12VDC and nothing happened like it did not see the connection. Perhaps something is very wrong with my installation, bad ground, bad switch or fuse, will test soon. Wondering how they prioritize the AC over DC connection? Do they sense for voltage at the two inputs? Or is it something like when you physically plug in the AC cord it knows to use that connection. I hope not, but will soon find out! Later today, I will get behind the fridge, which is not easy as I have it installed. I have to climb into the truck bed and pull my solar suitcase back to get to the rear ports of the fridge. I will test for 12VDC at the fridge plug and then disconnect the AC cord to see if the DC will run the fridge given it tests positive. So I plugged it in today by household extension cord to power it up. She has a nice light hum! I have a full gallon and 15 water bottles inside to cool (total 3 gallons water). That's much more water than we would ever have but it is a good mass of water to test its cooling. Default temp setting is 39F and I set it down to 35F. The CFX5 readout started at 82F and the readout after 20 minutes read 39F on the panel, same on the Dometic Bluetooth app. My Ruuvi sensor inside, sitting on the wire cage not touching the walls, read 82F the whole time. Looks like the CFX5 is reading the wall temp somewhere and not the temp of the contents. Hope it doesn't cycle the compressor off too early. We'll see. We will have a Ruuvi sensor inside always, like the two sensors in our Dometic absorption fridge in the Oliver, fridge and freezer, that always show good readings, fridge in the 30s and freezer in the single digits.

Trying to see how these two statements jive? The data shows only a 2A charge. Why? On a sunny day I get at least 12A via the Blue Sky SC regularly from our our 320W rooftop solar panels. The 150-175W expectation seems correct to me. So your roof panels are connected to a Victron MPPT SC? (not hardware OTT installed) and you have Victron batteries or a Victron SmartShunt on the batteries?

When I bring up the VictronConnect app, the first menu shows the many Victron devices we have. Then I click on the SmartShunt, MPPT solar charger, Orion XS DC-DC charge, the inverter/charger, etc. Which Victron device is displaying the data above and showing it's "OFF?" Do you have one or more Victron devices? What kind(s) total?

Got this mounted today and a temporarily wired to the tow vehicle 12VDC system. I will work a more creative power solution, more like what Ron had done with extra battery and solar, later this summer. I'm letting it sit flat again overnight and will fire it up tomorrow, fill it up with 2-3 gallons of water bottles for testing. I want to measure voltage loss on the TV batteries per hour and speed of cooling. I should move one of our Ruuvi sensors inside to record fridge temps.

Certainly this is atypical! We need more info... What solar panels, roof mount or suitcase, what brand, how many watts? These are likely readings from the VictronConnect for your MPPT SC, do you have SmartShunt or battery readings? What is the batteries SOC? Near 100% SOC would cause a SC to limit charging? ...

Thanks Ron. I cannot find a similar picture in the CFX5 manual. Instead notice the wording I've highlighted in this picture from the manual. Perhaps it will work as I had wanted, but I will wire a DC switch and fuse and open the DC circuit before plugging into AC when needed. I have both cables inserted as it would be a pain in my installation to reach the plugs day-to-day. Eventually I want a robust DC-only installation.

Received the Dometic CFX5 45L fridge yesterday. Love it, fits like a glove exactly where I want it! Right know I have it propped up on 4x4s. It cannot sit flat on the floor of the truck bed. Wish it could, but the wheel well is in the way in one corner where if lifted 3 1/2" it will clear sitting at this height. Just under the toolbox lid, so it works! I may buy the Dometic insulated cover or rig something. It will be sooooo great to have cold water an arms length away while traveling, perfect location near the passenger door. No more going back in the Oliver after forgetting to grab water for the trip. No more water bottles in the Oliver fridge which will free up space and when shopping we can just put the cold goods here and not have to go into the Oliver and rearrange the fridge (again)! Swimming in my head is a complete installation that I do not have time for now, since a week from today we will be meeting up in the AZ high country with two other Olivers! I want it connected to our DC-DC charger wiring which I can intercept under the truck bed. I purchased a flexible solar panel which will be mounted on the toolbox and I have a decent 105Ah AGM lying around that can be installed inside the toolbox. More on that later! I have a question for @Ronbrink or anybody else that has owned the Dometic CFX. Can the AC and DC connections be wired simultaneously and will one circuit preempt the other? I want to have the DC wired and connected but wondering if I later connect an extension cord from the Oliver 110V outlet, will the AC supply take over and not draw from the DC batteries? Temp solution: run off the truck batteries and generator while towing, plug it in when at camp off house batteries and inverter. This model draws 8A on 12VDC. The other thing that I believe Ron did with his DC-DC charger installation is to install a relay that cuts off the DC-DC connection when the truck ignition is off. I'm going to need this feature when completing our full installation, so that the fridge will not draw from the truck starter batteries when parked. All the details of a robust installation is still a bit foggy! 🤣

Certainly no hijack, this is the named subject! Yes, that's a positive busbar. The 3 yellow 30A fuses provide power to your hitch jack and two stabilizer jacks. Hard to know where your hitch B+ aux wire may be. You can always use Mike's method, disconnect it up front, no more need to be looking. Now, my hijack... 🤣 Just LOVE seeing where OTT installed the display for your Progressive Industries EMS. At least you have one! Our hull came without one, so I installed the same model myself. It was good of OTT to make you lift the streetside bed to read the display (assuming the location of your picture). Now they put them up in the attic. Not quite as bad, but still crazy since it's a long hike up inside the Oliver after connecting shore power. You could fry a whole bunch of wire and accessories while you get up there to read possible error codes! Don't worry reading the display, the PI EMS will protect you! I installed our display inside the Oliver "trunk" right where we store our shore power cable. Plug into shore power and read the display immediately without going anywhere, simple as that! What would it be like to be inside the head of the average OTT installer through the years? Must be like some kind of bipolar disorder! Let's do it this way on this hull! Let's make it better (or worse) on the next hull! Changed my mind again, OMG! 🤣 It's almost too late now but perhaps OTT needs to hire someone with military training or real manufacturing engineering experience. Somebody needs to be in a position of power that truly understands the concept of continuous improvement or simply the meaning of the term SOP!

You're Beemer is certainly cool! But, I WANT that F-500, so cool and in great original condition!!!