jd1923

Get out of the dark ages guys (more info in my post above). Bubble levelers, ha! 🤣 Then I used the wrong product term 'Rapid' as we also use the 4" levelers. I use two Andersen 8" round blocks under the rear stabilizers and a stack of 1" blocks for the main hitch jack, sometimes very few and other times many are needed. And no need for a tire change jack on an Oliver!

Tire pressure is independent. Something jammed your wheel temporarily, reasons unknown or TBD. Keep an eye out…

Not quite as cool as our updated version! 😎

We turned the fridge on DC one full week ago, the old absorption fridge running on DC 24x7 since. Courtesy Lights on 24x7 too. Coffee water heated daily with 1100W electric kettle. TV and soundbar on morning and night. Cooked on the induction plate, fired the Emeril Air Fryer and ran the new Chill Cube A/C three times just to play with it! It’s been winter hazy, smoke at the Q with fires in the distance and all the dirt RV’rs stir up, not much solar, say +6A on average. We just got back home. If we were camping longer, I could have setup the Renogy 400W suitcase. Still running the fridge since by Monday we’re “on the Road Again!” Might be time to plug in! Though we still have 128 Ah available! 🤣 Looking at the app, it’s so cool LiFePO4 batteries can be down to 14% SOC and still have 12.9V potential! I can tell the fridge isn’t cooling at this moment, since we are charging net +7.3A. My new 3rd battery is again lower than the others, but not the major delta as before. It’s nice not being in a hurry to switch to LP or plug in! 😎

It was a great week at the Q. Thought I'd share some pictures! 😂 First couple of nights everyone was over by that odd looking trailer with all the lights (actually VERY comfortable inside), where Art @MAX Burner generally has his famous Blackstone cooking away! Wednesday night was dinner at our camp where Chris cooked an Italian feast. Pasta and meat sauce, salad and cheesy garlic bread were a big hit! 😎 In attendance were Steve & Tali, Art, Lance and Gary, Rhonda and Ruth (towing some nice older hulls). Don't forget the pups; Rocky, Oscar, Hessie and our Charley. We all made new friends when just a few hours prior Steve & Nancy arrived from northern Indiana towing Hull # 166! Barely a mention of their furnace not working and @ScubaRx was off to their rescue, removing the sail switch on their Atwood furnace which needed cleaning and alignment, soon it fired right up! Later their younger dog Buddy made a stir with the old dogs! And we kept some up past their bedtimes! 🤣

Zoom in on second pic, you may recognize some friends!

Sorry this happened to you Mike! Maybe you could source a local tech if you don’t want to get into this yourself. At least you’re home for a while. Wish I had looked further into this last month when I added a 3rd battery! I can be so dumb, took this pic at that time. The bolt and nut where fine but question is, did the mount sag, should the bolt be tightened higher up in the slot? The main bolt, coming down from the bay was tight which I removed and replaced with a 1/2” eye bolt to hold battery straps and cable lock. It felt firm as I yanked on the battery straps several times. All our rivets look good after we towed 3 hours down the mountain yesterday with the new setup, battery straps were still tight. Two years ago we had 4 LA batteries filling the 30 LB tray. We must be 100 LBS lighter now, no tray and 3 li batteries! Heading back home for the weekend and I’ll have to pull the streetside bed and see if that mount should be raised. Bummer is to do it right I should remove the batteries AGAIN, to get the weight off the shelf to be able to see any movement. I’ll add a second bolt too, seen in other installations. There should always be two bolts and OTT should learn to have a QC specialist check WIP after EVERY installation on the factory floor! 😎

75F and hotter in the afternoon AZ sunny skies. Best to you, John.

At the Q! 😎

That would be a pain, to go from 600 Ah to 300 (only using one) for 6 months (took me 18 months to get to 50 cycle). We'll have to let Geoff at Epoch know the middle battery trick! This morning all three batteries are 81-81-83, now very level after 23 hours, averaging 82% SOC. The fridge was on DC the whole time, some lights, the inverter, etc. The app shows 734 Ah available, net -166A were consumed. When the fridge was cooling down it was pulling 17A but on a day and night basis average hourly use was -7.0 Ah. When this app screenshot was taken total amps to the batteries shows +1.5A. Positive amps from the rooftop solar, sunny morning but tight solar angle 9AM in the winter, and minus a small load (fridge cold and presently cycled off). Most would plug in before boondocking a few nights, but while our solar will net-zero our fridge on DC while towing, the Orion XS 50A DC-DC Charger should supply +40 Ah and have us up to 95% SOC after the 3-hour drive, Prescott to Quartzsite! 😎

"Alcan" Springs, somehow when reading this earlier today, I kind-a though this might come up... And, I remembered that Craig @Galway Girl wrote about this same issue and making the repair. From his post above, "My repair has held since 2022" (TG) which is two years prior to when our friend Lance installed Alcan Springs on his Oliver, the first. Keep an eye on your battery door and I will do the same. The question is, what causes the failure? Is the battery base secure?

Upon inspection, the wiring was correct. I decided to work on this today. I didn't want to travel and camp in this odd state. It took me 30 min (given it's locked down, all the straps, etc.) with only a 13mm ratcheting swivel wrench. OMG, it could have taken a good extra hour at the Q with all the helpers and advisors! 🤣 (remember the car club days, parking lot discussion to the wee hours...) @mountainoliver had texted me an idea yesterday, to swap the batteries, making the new battery the middle one in the wiring scheme, not directly connected to the main B+ or B- cables. As previously wired, I had the new battery positioned last, attached to the main ground. Ken was right, the capable engineer that he is! 😂 At least it's been working as it should today. Lesson Learned is when adding a new 3rd battery, wire it in the middle position. Who knew? We never read this in all the online advice we get. I disconnected shore power this morning, before doing the work. It's been off all day with on average -17 Ah use (our fridge on DC is -12A compressor on, plus other stuff). After 7 hours, we should be down to 87%, but at 5PM tonight ALL 3 batteries are at 94%, meaning the rooftop solar added 9 Ah on average today (which is all rooftop solar does on average, and it was another sunny day in AZ to boot)! The numbers add up. LOVE it! 😎 My upgrade may now be working as designed. I'll report after a day or two at the Q!

Reviewing this picture taken during installation, I'm pretty sure the new one is the outer one. Hard to see all the wiring though. But it really shouldn't matter! Two shorty 4/0 cables have negligible resistance. I'll soon see if I wired it incorrectly.

Bill, we were writing at the same time! Your "last in line" comment may be correct, TBD soon. I'm not wanting to add buses but will check the wiring (to be as pictured above) and wire the new baby in the middle, so not to be first or last in line. Thanks

Thanks, Bill. I went and checked the individual cell batteries last night after reading your post. All 12 cells (4 cells x 3 batteries) were 3.2V (12.8 / 4). As far as the three being 12.8, as long as they are connected the voltage is across the set. You have to separate batteries to read individual voltages. Not sure why the BMS would report even voltage across all cells while showing one battery at 20% SOC and the others at 60%+. The new battery got down to 15% by 10PM last night, with our fridge still getting down to temp. I plugged into shore power and we have all three batteries back to 100% SOC this morning. Our Oliver friend Ken contacted me and asked if I had the wiring straight. I sure believe so but I'll check. He also suggested wiring the new battery in the middle (see pic, not directly connected to B+ or B- cables). Sounds like a good idea. Heading to Q tomorrow, so when we get there I'll pull the batteries out with all the Oliver experts and observers in tow at Dome Rock! 🤣 The new battery should be low again and I'll read with a multimeter when the cables are disconnected.

Lol, this should be easy for our friend @Chris Scarff! He could add a field in the app to enter a website URL. Anyway, Chris and I, others have done this for years... Enter: "site:www.domain_name.com followed by search words" and you're good to go!

For sure! Just know your actual trailer weight first, add 10%, and check your manufacturer's tire pressure/load table! 😎

I'm running into something funky, wondering if anybody has seen this before. I believe I did the correct configuration settings for the Victron Inverter/Charger and apps for Victron and Epoch, showing the upgrade from 600 to 900 Ah. It seems like the new battery is being picked on. Could that be by design, since it has less charge cycles recorded? When we run something via the inverter it often takes charge from the new battery and none from the others! It got down to 30% SOC when the other two were high 60s. Then I connected to shore power and got all three to 100%. Now a week later unplugged, it's down to 20% SOC (see pic). We just started the fridge on DC since we're leaving soon to Quartzsite. It's drawing -17A and right now it's pulling an even amount from each battery, but often does not. You can tell the new battery which has 4 charge cycles in history and the other near 1 1/2 year old batteries have 52 and 58 cycles. When I had the two original Epoch 300s they always stayed with 2-6 % points from each other. I'll charge them back to 100% before we leave, but I'm leaving it unplugged just to see how low the new battery will go before the BMS prefers the two with greater charge/voltage. I may have to call Epoch and/or Victron next week to check on my settings. Any ideas?

It took a couple days labor, but I take my time and enjoy the work! $50 in parts for both truck and trailer, you can't beat it. 😎

No more dirty Ollie!

Time to repeat for the other side! Common thinking and my first thought was that I could turn the template upside and trace the mirrored view for the other side. Good thing I thought to measure twice. I positioned the cardboard stencil made for the right side and found I had to drill the holes about 5/16" lower for the left side. Who knows why except that only OTT could do so! Was a simple fix to adjust the drill hole placement, and otherwise the pattern flipped over was identical. Pictures show the streetside and how the jack fits with Andersen blocks, and the view from the rear showing both mud flaps (bumper off for polishing). Boy, I used to hate cleaning the road tar, grease and grime from under there! No more, just pressure wash the mud flaps! 😎

I cut the base of each rear stabilizer jack to have one flat edge. This allows more room for the flap to arc rearward while towing and so the flap material is not always hitting the same point on the arced edge. I don't believe the strength of the part was reduced much and these parts are readily available. I already have one spare! Use a 10" steel cutting blade on a chop saw and this is quite a strong piece of metal. By the time it cut through it had melted a ring into the plastic plate below. Filed the edges smooth on my bench grinder and steel brush. I may hit the open edge with spray paint later. So, the right side is done and I'm very happy with it! 😎 Several views to follow...

Next step; cut stock for the Oliver flaps. The stock was 24x36" so I cut every flap sideways making them all 24" long to start. I cut the Oliver 13 1/2" wide to stick out 1" beyond the tires and I made the area under the mounting bracket a 13 1/2" square which made the mud flaps sit 4" off the ground. It's too difficult to work with the full length of stock when cutting a pattern to fit around the curved body of the Oliver. So I cut a piece of cardboard 13 1/2" wide like the flap and 10 1/2" tall, the measurement from bottom of bracket to the top. I drilled the 3 mounting holes into the cardboard for alignment. I used the little curvy tool (stocking stuffer from Chris a few years back), took a few measurements and started to cut away at the cardboard making the opening longer and wider. I wanted at least 1/4" clearance above the fender and 1/2" below, so not to touch and to allow for cleaning the fiberglass. Another cut to follow the pattern of the inside wall until the cardboard was perfect. Then traced it onto the poly stock and cut some with a razor-knife and the sideways tin snips worked very well. Used razor blades, a grater block and files to clean up the edges, and voila! 😎 Afterwards, I traced the finished mud flap onto graph paper so I can share my template with our Oliver friends who would like to copy the design!

I understand most of you have good mud flaps on your TV, but on your Oliver? @John E Davies installed some on his Mouse back in 2018! Craig @Galway Girl did a similar installation more recently and maybe there are others. In the designs I've seen, the mud flaps were mounted behind stabilizer jacks where there is a frame cross-member, an easy place to bolt a horizontal mount. I was not happy with this design as it does not protect the full underbody behind the wheel, nor does it protect the stabilizer jacks from taking mud. My goal was to install a mud flap between the rear tire and the jack, but there’s only about 3-4" or space! I realized that with a fitting 90 bracket I could use a frame bolt for support. I removed the 3” carriage bolt that holds the rear of the steel suspension subassembly to the main aluminum frame. I purchased #5 ½” bolts, 3 ½” long to be a ½” longer allowing for the 0.4” depth the the HD counter bracket. After an hour and a half searching Amazon, I found these which turned out to be perfect! I got the 6x10” brackets, where the 10” length ends just inside the width of the wheels. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B095NRB6N4/?th=1 I used the stabilizer jack to get the rear axle up on a jack stand (placed under the plate centered between the leaf spring U-bolts). Then I removed the wheel and the base of the jack stand to allow for ample work space. Each side of the brackets has 3 predrilled bolt holes. On the 10” length, they’re perfect to mount the flap. On the 6” length, I got lucky! The center hole is just in the right spot to mount to the frame bolt. I drilled the center hole wider to ½” and bolted it in place tight enough to hold the angle. Then I used a digital caliper to get the bracket perfectly level to the frame. I used a 5/16” drill bit, the size of the existing holes, to scare a center, then switched to a ¼” drill bit which is the correct size for a 5/16”-18 tap. Drill through both the steel sub-assembly and the aluminum frame. I used a little cutting oil to make the drilling and tapping go easier. Then added Grade-8 5/16” bolts which I had on hand with blue thread-locker. The ½” bolt has a Nyloc nut. Torqued them down by feel with ratcheting wrenches and this HD bracket ain't going nowhere!