jd1923

So, I bit the bullet on a Dometic unit. Thinking through our needs of quality, size and efficiencies and other factors, I decided on a 45L single-zone unit, since most quality built dual-zone units are too big for us at 75L. I didn't want wheels and pull handles and light plastics, as it will be mounted in one position and I will create a 24x7 12VDC connection for it (an installation post will be coming). I figured it would normally be set to fridge temps. The bottom of the entire deep section could be for drinking water and we'll get a half-height basket for produce or bulky fridge items to sit on top. But say we ran into a farm deal on the road and purchase a bulk of frozen meats. We could lower it to freezing temps and go back to just having less cold water in the Oliver fridge. It will be a learning curve. We got the Dometic CFX2 45L model. The 28x18" footprint will nicely fit rear of our 8' truck bed next to our Napoleon dual-burner grill, for a tailgate party! 🤣 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DF7Z3MBQ?ref=fed_asin_title&th=1 Another deciding factor was saving $160 on Amazon Used - Like New condition, defined as "Looks and functions as if it were new. Minor packaging damage observed during inspection." I've purchased 40+ Amazon Used items and have only had to return 3-4 items (<10%) when instead of used, they came prior-purchaser abused! $719 a good price vs. the $880 list! Thanks to @Tideline77 and @Tom and Doreen for your feedback!

Yep, the 4.10 rear is not exactly environmentally friendly... It will plow up a hill though!🤣

That’s awesome! I like the integrated stairs. Looks too big to fit under a standard garage door though, but would be great for those with a BIG Ollie Barn! Me too! @Ronbrink also mention keeping the MetalTech together as a rolling unit. I keep one 6-ft-tall section always assembled as shown in my picture above. The way I setup this one it fits tightly around the Oliver doghouse and I could reach everything in front of the solar panels. In my garage, I can park the nose of a smaller vehicle inside of it, so it takes up little extra room. I purchased a second setup which can add to make a 12 ft height. At that height, mount guard rails squared at the top and add outriggers for the security of a wider stance. I will do this when I finally take the plunge to replace our A/C! I also purchased the $40 shelf Ron showed. Haven't needed a fan up there but it holds tools nicely too! We now have 3 viable options for a variety of needs!

Yeah, go figure! Yours is a beast!

Thank you @Patriot, a very helpful post and now two great options!

If only there was more time in the day and my old bones and muscles could work the 10-hour days I was long used to! I’ll save my time and strength for when in August I install D52 axles and Alcan springs. Some of us contract repair work and mods, and I job out body and detail work. I don’t have the attention span for it, I’d likely make it worse! 🤣

Fits perfectly in your hanger! Jus to bring attention to another option for those reading... I purchased two sets of this scaffolding, thanks to @Ronbrink when last year The Depot had them online at a "Special Buy" price! 🤣 It would not fit in David's "Hanger" but I like how I can roll it out of our garage and use it where needed. Each side is height adjustable, so I can also use it around the house for exterior work and painting too! It will take less room (as pictured) where the ladders will stick out further, left and right. But let me get one thing straight! I've used this as pictured to remove the Winegard dish, replace the bathroom exhaust fan and repair all the top-front fiberglass. Soon, I will use it to replace the A/C on top of our hull. But, no way in the world am I getting up there to wash and wax, to make our hull pretty! 🤣

The Owner's Manual for our 2001 Dodge Ram says the same (also 500 LBS tongue weight) and it's supposed to be a 2500!

Caulk only if/when the original caulk has failed. If so, remove the majority of the old caulk before applying a new bead. Caulk on old caulk, you’re not helping yourself.

Day 36 on our trip, lunch at Mary’s Cafe Flagstaff, a must stop off I-40! We’ll be home in 2 hours. Raise the flag, first thing! Holiday dinner includes a tri-tip of Colorado beef! Sorry, if I’m not talking Mods it’s about the food! Today signals the first day of the 250th year of our great Nation! Celebrate the year. Best wishes to all and your families!

Traveling our longest trip ever, 5 weeks now, some 4600 miles Arizona to Minnesota and back. Chris and I have learned a lot. And for me, I've spent hundreds of hours in M&R and Mods on our wonderful Oliver and finally we're enjoying the fruits of my labor. 😂 Shopping and dinning in Telluride a couple of days ago, we stopped at a shop that carries, "Life is Good" products, a sentiment to which we truly believe! I'm not much for souvenirs or T-shirts that advertise where I've been, though I had to buy this shirt. It states nicely in two lines surrounding the image of a compass, perfect for all of us who wander, and It goes like this: "We do not see things as they are... We see things as we are." So I turned 70, far more careful today than I use to be 10 years. Left our AZ home one morning at 4:45 AM to return to Texas, sitting on the pass looking down on Van Horn TX, I thought WTF, let's go! After 1100 miles, by 1-2 AM I was home in Lakeway TX. This recent trip, my longest drive was 5 hours, average 3 hours. I know y'all understand! @STEVEnBETTY, I have no idea your ages, your life experiences, where you live, you training, where you've traveled in the last 8 years with your Oliver. I'd love to know, and I'm not picking on you alone. I believe and I'm sure you agree, all of this matters. You wrote, "I’m disappointed in hearing members on this forum, disparage people’s attempts to do something different." I agree, and very often are suspect to your criticism! I've been told that if I do not regularly re-apply caulk to my Oliver, that it will damage it and destroy its value. Sorry, I will never add caulk on this hull, uglied by OTT in its original manufacture and again gunk-on-gunk after two return trips to Hohenwald. But caulk is more important in humid and rainy locations. Point in life, current needs, home and travel locations, part or full-time OLiver use, makes all the differences. You know how many times I've heard that annual bearing and jack maintenance is mandatory? Sorry to those who believe such, but when I pack bearings or grease the jacks correctly (not an Oliver University video) it will certainly last 3-4 years. I can tell by ear when the jacks need maintenance! Those who do not work their own maintenance cannot know, must trust Manufacturer's Recommendations and be at the mercy of hired mechanics. Normal to ask questions, but then it's one suggestion after another. This creates more worry which creates more, I just purchased new D52 axles and Alcan springs, parts only, will do the work myself this summer. I did not need to, as our leaf springs are clean, rust-free, nicely arced, no issues. My primary want was in having 12" brakes for safe mountain towing. and make everything new, restored. I can afford the parts and do the work now, replacing a 10-year-old suspension with hopes of carefree use for another 10. Not for fear of a spring breaking, as for that I have a spare pair under the toolbox and all the tools I'd need to make the roadside repair. there are 26 pages of leaf springs recommendations listed on one post alone! Most Oliver owners cannot do this work at home, let alone if stuck on the road, so such concern is understandable. We all have different comfort levels. Love technology and my Oliver has more mods than most, yet not of the @ScubaRx fame! 🤣 Tesla has made EVs mainstream and EVs are amazing technology. We have a wonderful forum where we all voice opinion. So in my opinion, if I had to tow with an EV just on this recent trip, I would need to stop 2x more often and 10 times longer to recharge vs. refueling and would not have been able to boondock in many of the remote spots we visited or the same trip would have taken 1-2 weeks longer. OMG, boondocking means no electrical hookup and charging! 🤣 I'm going to stop now, but Steve, or is it Betty? I've gotten a kick out of this post! We can all read here and learn something, or at times we think to ourselves as we read and say to ourselves, "what, no way, that's nuts! I'm not doing that."

No, not the same thing The compressor slows down as the fan slows down, doesn't turn on and off. Coils not frozen with frost, air blowing strong over it! However, we have no empirical evidence, since only 1 Oliver install of the Pioneer model, not much data presented. We need to learn more, but not Like Dometic, Houghton, Truma, Atmos, nor any other standard non-inverter tech model.

Yes, pic of Chris & Charley and #113 and the mountain view. Arrive on a weekday after the 4th and Tom, formerly of Prescott is a great host. $28 or $14 on a National Pass.

For a change, I’m loss for words! Given your post, I have far less Oliver towing experience than you. User manual of our old Dodge, given a 2500 Cummins, states to use a WDH when towing over 5000 LBS (?), even though GVWR is 8800 lbs. It does level the rig, less porpoising from the light Oliver tongue weight, stays nicely level. I install the latest technology and use it to the max, yet down the highway I’m just an ol’ fart conservative! 🤣 Good to hear from you @STEVEnBETTY!9

Not gonna touch this one! 🤣

Recognize Wilson Mountain of Coors fame? I remember when we left Chicago, Spring Break 1972 to Tucson, sat by the pool and drank Coors all day long for a week, back when it was not sold in the states East. Life is Good! All the marketing BS aside, we’ve been to Golden Colorado where there is a murky pond behind the beer plant! 🤣 Sunshine Mountain and Wilson is TDF! Wish we could stay another week! We will again soon, only 8 hours from home, who woulda thunk!

TY Robert, they use a divider between the zones which can be in place or removed between zones. This did make me worry that it would not fully insulate the dual zones, with your comment it makes sense now. So, this one is a strikeout. The Dometic brand, always something relabeled worries me and the only one I see is 75L. I need 60L max, a 30x18” footprint max which is more than enough! My other criteria is cost. Can’t pay $2K +/- OTD for Luna. Need to be $1K OTD. Thanks again!

Ha, did Brown Dog for lunch today! Detroit style pizza, nice crust, should have ordered double toppings, but tasty. Heading to Petrified NP tomorrow and home on The Fourth! Let us know when you’re getting to AZ John!

Reviving this thread since I'm in shopping mode. Steve provided this link and @Geronimo John copied a pick above the the 60L National Luna Model, which btw is not $1500 anymore, currently $1800 and SOLD OUT, as Steve wrote is often the case. It must be a great unit! Most of these are too big for what I'm thinking. 60L MAX, 48L Dual-Zone would be perfect for our needs, but when the capacity is smaller they become single zone units from what I've seen. We want to keep a dozen water bottles in the truck bed, some other refrigerated items and freezer space for meats. This 55L model is half the cost of the Luna brand with a very good 4.6 Amazon number with over 100 reviews. I have space for the 30x19" footprint in the TV, not much more. It has a removeable partition, wondering if that would become an issue? Likely not. Like the Bluetooth controls, so we can see temps while driving or in the Oliver. Anybody hear of ICECO or have one? If same price, I would opt for silver, but the black one, otherwise identical is now 15% off (might be for Prime Days), priced now at $815. With tax the Luna becomes almost 2.5x more money and we cannot do that. https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/646FA247-F0F2-4C6F-8D99-F440CC467332/ Let me know what you think. Thanks, JD

I prefer to call it “Cimate Change” and it’s whether you believe Mankind can affect it to any significance. Like the Ice Age and you must know the great dinosaurs were cold-blooded animals, so climate must have been significantly warmer than today for them to thrive, and later they didn’t. Dan believed I was against EVs, not true. Give me a Tesla S, WOW, but he was biased to GM only and the last time I wanted a GM was in the 60s or a few Cadillacs I’ve owned through the years. I wouldn’t buy an EV truck as a TV and I wouldn’t buy a Cyber Truck because they’re ugly and they’re not a pickup! Where’s the bed? EV trucks cannot Boondock, it’s as simple as that, without scheduling hours of time every other day for charging. He said “there’s electricity everywhere” and I replied, “that’s not Boondocking!” Last 5 days of our trip will be on one tank of diesel, two full FWTs, 600 Ah house batteries, solar and DC-DC charging, inverter running 110v outlets and appliances often. Simply no EV charge stations in our path! He stated 500 mile range. Several members replied lucky to get 200 towing. Most of us get 400-600 miles towing and under my truck and many models you can install an AUX tank to double those numbers, not possible in EV-land! Design experience is not Boondocking experience, period. Though I was told I do not understand and will learn one day. Dan stated his decision affirmative to buy the Sierra EV, absolutely this year. And MAYBE an Oliver next year, later. Last time Dan logged in was end of May.

Got back from dinner and the Host had changed the entrance sign to “FULL.” Got here at 12:30 and after we quickly setup camp, a neighbor stopped by and said, “You got the best site, #12. A trailer pulled out just before noon.” We’re sitting at 9,550 FT and not a bad view for our last two nights before heading back to AZ!

Camping at Sunshine CG, dinner at Floradora’s Telluride! They’re ready to celebrate America this week. Wish I had come here when still a skier!

Who said Iowa was flat? I always knew Iowa was rolling hills of farms and cornfields. I had no idea of how steep some roads could be! This is from a few weeks ago on our current trip. We rounded Omaha on I-680, crossed the Missouri north of Council Bluffs, the same town Bill had mentioned. Somehow Apple Maps showed me what look like an interesting country route to our destination at Arrowhead Park... I could NOT BELIEVE the roads, steep limestone dirt roads, sometimes a 10% grade which on dirt you better be careful. And we live in Arizona where steep is normal! Hard to see how steep in a picture, but you'll get the idea. Iowa was beautiful in the 2 campsites we stayed and the country roads in-between! (So was every state we traveled, every state in the union!)

It comes down to the surface area of the contact patch, pad on disc or shoe on drum. Disc brakes likely have some efficiencies but certainly not 10” discs over 12” drums. The main advantage of disc brakes is the cooling which is much greater since air cannot flow inside drums where the heat is created, and brake fade is caused by the materials over-heating. A simple way of looking at is, I (we) replaced axles rated at 7K to 10K. The brakes must also be capable of stopping the rated weight. Simple conclusion is it provides a 43% increase in braking power (10 / 7 =1.43).

Nope, you Army guys are tougher than me. Don’t like turbulence either!