jd1923

Just came off a 10-day trip to Colorado. Thank goodness our issue started on the last night. The green LED showing 12V+ to the water pump went off by itself and the water pump stopped working. Checked the fuse in the panel and it was good. The issue was intermittent. Throwing the switch under the pantry an hour later, the green light appeared again so Chris quickly washed the dinner dishes! 🤣 Later that night we got nothing again, but just in time for morning bathroom use it worked, yay! (We had planned to wash and flush manually refilling gallon water jugs. We always have extra water in the fresh water tank in the truck bed.) So we're home a couple days so it's time to fix this. I remembered Geoff's explanation above, found it and studied it again. Actually the schematic he drew in his 4-way switch post really got me to fully understand the 3-way switch (study his picture without the the 4-way switch added, travelers connecting left to right). I had remembered his key phrase "No ground wires are involved in these switches." So my first thought is I need a ground for testing. Can't check voltage with a multimeter without a ground. So I cut a 12 ft length of wire, stripped one end and connected it to the ground bus under the dinette seat. I crimped a butt connector on the other end for the negative pin on the multimeter. With this test wire I have a ground source anywhere I need inside the cabin. While I was at it, I quickly tested all the fuses in the panel. I decided to leave this test wire connected for future testing when needed (pic1 notice the yellow/red-striped wire now coiled up under the rear dinette). Later I tucked it underneath in the empty corner below. I found 13.2V at both 3-way switches. Then I used my trusty spade jumper to first check for continuity between the travelers which tested positive (pic2). Then I used the same jumper to connect the Common wire to a Traveler wire (not pictured, think the common/purple wire jumped to either traveler). This pulls that 3-way switch out of the equation. The jumper creates a closed circuit, an ON condition for this side of the 3-way switch. As soon as I did so the water pump was back to working. This shows the issue is in the 3-way switch in the bathroom, or its connections, as suggested by this thread. Notice, I'm connected to the 3 spade terminals on the left (pic3). The bathroom switch has 6 spade connections but you only need 3 in line. I moved the wires to connect on the other 3 on the left. The RH spade terminals had gotten a little crusty in 10 years of use and notice the top-right spade is bent, in fact the female connector on that traveler was very lose. The switch works fine now. The connections were lose but now the left side connections are snug. I added some electrical tape to hold all 3 wires as a unit and then duct tape to hold the wires down. This simple addition will take the weight of the wires and vibration while towing off the switch (pic4). This should keep the connections tight longer. Going forward, look at the bathroom switch first. Not fun when something happens while camping. Thank you @David and Gail, you learned this a year ago and I had somewhere to look for help! 😎

Welcome! Soon we need to find Ollie in an Ollie! 😎

We were asked in another thread or maybe pages back on this one, "What would we do differently?" (re Alcan) My answer is what Bob ended up doing. Instead of buying new EZ Flex separately I would have bought the full installation set including the Dexter shackles and wet bolts, and purchase only leaf springs and U-bolts from Alcan. (Bob answered this in another way.) The 1/2" nut on the 9/16" bolt creates the shoulder. Bob mentioned 40 ft-lbs that held and allowed for greasing. The 40 ft-lbs is torqued against the shoulder, creating a standard spacing for the leaf springs. There is no real force on the 1/2" nuts, they just hold the spacing constant. Oh yes the, 1/4" steel plate hangers on the frame do get pulled in, actually bend some from the torque of the 9/16" bolt. Try 80 ft-lbs on these bolts without the leaf installed between and you will clearly see them bend (but not a good idea to try). The shoulder bolts are the better design and perhaps after another 20K miles on the Oliver, I may purchase a new set. For now, instead of 80 ft-lbs on the end bolts, I went with 64. And instead of 65 on the inner wet bolts on the EZ Flex, I went with 52 ft-lbs. If you divide my numbers by Alcan's, you'll see I'm torquing to 80% of the Alcan recommendation (NOT the U-bolts, keep them at 90). I found the EZ Flex will still appear to hang when lifted but will not when weight loaded. Watch each axle both sides going slowly over some speed bumps in you neighborhood. If all is good, you should see the tires travel smoothly up and down. When I grease there's always one bolt on each side that must be loosened to accept grease, just one bolt but not all. Perhaps my 80% take is helping. I am reporting what I have done on our Oliver based on my feelings. Proceed with caution, make your own decisions in doing your work. I am NOT making recommendations for anybody else. With this warning, I accept no legal liabilities. I also use the stabilizer jacks to lift our hull. The manufacturer OTT does not recommend this practice.

You're welcome, Ron. Ours was too and there are a few reasons... The pull cable is very short and it turns 90 degrees. It's in an awkward place to pull, whether standing outside the bathroom, sitting on the can or wherever, you can't get a straight pull! And a gunked up waste valve blade will make it worse. You can remove the waste valve, clean and lube the blade, lube the cable and it could help. You can't change the 90 degree cable run and the awkward location of the pull handle. We love the new electric one! Without the cable, push the button and I can hear it open or close in just a second! Check my thread linked above if interested.

Can you make regular phone calls or using an app? The calls are likely dropping when one satellite is moving out of range and the next one is taking over. Use any extension cord to use the outdoor outlet vs. an window open, or you could change the outlet cover.

I missed this comment, yeah you're good. The two of us two engineers checking each other's work! 😎 Along with all the communicating members of our great OTT Forum! Team collaboration is the essence of problem solving! 😂 You'll have the leaf tie plates out again, so you can drill them on your workbench or vise. You're right, a Dremel doesn't work very well with heavy stock. You may have trouble finding a 19/32" or 5/8" bit. What I would do is get the plates in a vise, drill them through with the 9/16" bit and see how they may fit. Then in the correct direction push-n-pull the drill left-n-right while drilling to oval out the holes enough to smoothy fit your new U-bolts. The U-bolts come with HD washers so you'll be good. Get everything to fit well on the workbench before climbing under that trailer again! It keeps getting harder to kneel down and climb up off the driveway or garage floor. I will not lower myself with kneepads or a cushion and a steel milk crate to push myself back up on my feet! 🤣

I pride myself on being the engineer/mathematician! Obviously not this time! 🤣 You're right it's only a 1/16" diff which may be negligible. Drill to 9/16" and you may have to use a Dremel or something on the outside arc if it doesn't quite fit. I didn't need to do anything, except I steel-brushed and painted them, LOL! I had 9/16" U-bolts installed on D35 axles installed 10 years ago by OTT. I replaced them with new U-bolts of the same size. Did OTT really cheap out on this part?!? They upgraded from D35 to D52 axles while they downgraded from 9/16" to 1/2" U-bolts. This doesn't make sense at all! Dan, make sure you didn't miss the meaning of this statement.

Hello Ron, with the 2015 hull #99, very nice! 😎 There's not a plumbing diagram that would help. My understanding is if the waste valve is closed the pop-up shower floor valve really doesn't matter. If you want to replace it anyway, maybe somebody here knows the make and part number or inquire with OTT. You know, if you close the "back flow" valve when the Oliver nose is down, there would be grey water in the plumbing that would then come out when towing. Make sure your front jack is lifted when you're closing. We use the LevelMatePRO and always have our front up 1/2" or more when camped. We close the bathroom valve before releasing the jacks to tow. During travel, I use the kitchen sink to wash my hands to leave that valve alone. If you open the valve with the nose down with Grey Tank on the full side, water can back up to the plumbing under the shower that you may see later. Given all this, if it's still leaking on the shower floor, your waste valve could be jammed up, not closing fully. With the tanks empty, remove the valve and give it a good cleaning and lube. Under the front dinette seat, it's the 2" line at the top of the picture. The 4" is the black water drain and you might want to service that at the same time. The main Grey waste valve is under streetside bed, jammed against the floor where the two lower screws are VERY difficult to remove. I serviced ours last year since the pull handles were getting very hard to pull. This thread may be of interest. Best wishes, JD https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/topic/10711-waste-valves-restoration-and-upgrade/

Yeah, I must admit our Glacier NP trip was in June and during the Montana Centennial celebration, two good reasons to bring crowds of visitors. But it was 40 years ago! And it was our first experience visiting a western NP. Our Forum friend who just visited Glacier went at a much better time of year, when the kids are "back to school." 😎 Thinking of a Montana-Idaho trip next spring. We will want to see Grand Teton NP and Yellowstone on the way. If it's too crowded, we'll make it quick and then find great campsites to the north. Beautiful places that nobody has ever heard of! 🤣

I replaced the entire Oliver suspension: https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/topic/11055-full-suspension-replacement-alcan-spring-and-dexter-d52-axles/ The original D35 axles and the new D52 axles both were 3" dia. Also the OEM D35 axles had 9/16" U-bolts and wet bolts. So, no leaf plate modification was necessary. To be certain, I just measured. The old U-bolts measured .55" at the threads and .52" at the top of the U. If they were 1/2" bolts these numbers would be closer to .49". Here's what I mean. Given your leaf plates have 1/2" holes with a 3" spacing between the holes, when you drill out the 1/2" holes to be 9/16" the spacing between will then be 2 7/8". You have to create a 9/16" hole keeping the 3" spacing between. A simple hand drill cannot do this. Also CAUTION! In your picture, I see light between the leaf stack and your U-bolts. When you replace these with the 9/16" bolts, make sure the U-bolts are positioned straight up at 90 degrees and they must be touching the leaf springs when torqued.

Just realized this statement! That's a good idea which should protect the batteries. Please post a link if you believe you found a quality product. We haven't made the trip, so no real experience. I remember reading something on our Forum regarding pets. Our Springer "Charley" is 12 years old and his health records are not exactly up-to-date! Perhaps something to look into if you travel with pets..

Hey Dan, wow 1/2" U-bolts, really? I don't remember modifying the leaf plates! If this is true, you cannot merely drill 9/16" over the 1/2" hole because the space between the holes needs to be equal to the axle diameter. You'd have to have a decent drill press, clamp the plate down and drill the new holes off-center to the original holes. You could drill 5/8" holes instead, but that would be sloppy and I don't know about you but I have a couple 9/16" bits on hand but not 5/8" which would be an expensive bit to purchase these days. When I'm out at my shed this afternoon, I'm going to see what was on our hull OEM. I kept all the old parts to sell the suspension used if possible (figure there's got to be some guy in the neighborhood building a homemade ATV trailer). Cheap Dexter 1750 leafs and 3500 LB axles are not enough to carry the Oliver, but would be great for an ATV trailer (upgraded with Timken bearings)! 🤣 Here's the spec sheet Alcan gave me when I purchased my package in person. 90 ft-lbs for the 9/16" U-bolts, 80 for the end wet bolts and 65 for the shackle wet bolts.

Yeah, so far so good for us, but we also have the Dewalt leaf blower and it can empty a 5 Ah battery in 4-5 minutes big amps/blowing hard! Starlink requires a small load over a long period of time, so it should be easier on batteries. 😎 The 6 Ah Dewalts I bought 5 years ago were HD! The case could survive a shoulder height drop to a concrete floor, np but not anymore. Shop as wisely as you can. Hate to say it but the aftermarket batteries are half-decent at half price today.

I’m on the Cummins forum, several Toyo forums for our Lexus vehicles, was in the Bigfoot Forum before OTT, the “Steve Saunders” Goldwing forum for many years (40 years with my classic 1984 GL1200 Standard), a forum for everything I’m working on or have worked on for years! (90% on the OTT Forum the last 3 years)! All the bragging guys write, “did it in 2 hours!” My answer is “BS!” If it went so quickly, you didn’t do it right!

U-bolts or wet bolts? The U-bolts MUST be 90 ft-lbs MIN, 100 would be good, but not more. IMHO, the Alcan torque numbers for wet bolts are more than high enough, I went about 10 ft-lbs less on these. The original wet bolts were shoulder bolts where regardless of torque, the shoulder allows play on the leafs so the suspension can move nicely up and down. Certainly do not over torque these or the leafs may bind on the bolts which could cause the tires to skip and bounce. Before I did our major suspension install, I had no idea! Our OEM suspension was barely hanging on! Like it was never torqued in so many years! 🤣

I spent a lot of time making sure the leafs were in line, square / plumb front to back, before mounting the wet bolts. Actually, I did this on my garage floor prior to mounting new axles, but you’re doing springs only. If you feel they’re not square, what I would do after you’re finished is get somewhere on a big flat level parking lot, loosen all U-bolts (somewhat) and the wet bolts with no torque at all, drive 100 ft or more steering wheel straight ahead! Then re-tighten the U-bolts first, then torque the wet bolts. Ya think the “Professional”installers would worry about this? I love Alcan and everybody I met who works there. But when you get this job done in 2-3 hours, you get what you got! 🤣 I spent 3-4 days fussing over our new axle and leaf spring installation. Was watching the tires over speed bumps the other day. This suspension is a moving work of art! Back home, time to torque again! 🤣

First thing I would do is call up the new owners of hull #359 and get her back! A quick search on RV trader shows 7 Olivers for sale from $46.5K to $74K. Buy at the low range if you are the DIY type to have money left over for your upgrades. This was my plan and with a whole lot of work hull #113 is more capable than most of them out there. If you’re not the DIY type or not wanting to do the work to upgrade, RV labor cost a lot, and “professional installations” are rarely what they’re cracked up to be! 😉 If so, then get one at the high range in EC with options you could live with. Or just dive in and buy new! Yes, they’re now $100K min plus new vehicle sales taxes. I've fought to avoid crowds most of my life, being raised in Chicagoland when my heart was always in the mountains. I don't wait in lines, period. You won't find me at a theme park, my last stadium concert was back in the 80s, gave up on airports, I could go on and on! Prescott is the Yavapai County AZ seat. It’s the size of New Jersey in area with only 250K people. Why did we move here? Think about that (though people are moving here in droves). There was recently a Where's Ollie post on Glacier. Yes, it’s truly a one-of-a-kind beautiful place! It's so unique that almost everybody wants to go there, like Yellowstone, the Tetons and Yosemite to name just one of the great NPs in CA. I went to Glacier in 1986, the 100th anniversary of the state of Montana. There were so many tour buses, Chinese tourists many and others, after a quick chase up a trail to try to catch up to a mountain goat, we left asap and tent-camped after hiking into the Bob Marshall Wilderness. There we didn’t observe another human all week. The NF and Lake Flathead were great! I lived East most of my life, besides IL 10 years in VA (both Tidewater and NoVa). Eastern Tennessee is beautiful but the entire east coast is so highly populated. It's certainly more difficult to boondock somewhere East vs. West. BLM land is only in western states and I believe there are about 8 National Forests in Arizona alone. Then we have Utah and SW CO within a days drive. Just finishing a 10 day trip to SW Colorado. Last night we arrived at a boondocking site off I-40 in Winona AZ, two hours from home. I found it using the Motor Vehicle Use Map (MVUM) for the Coconino NF and then I use OnX Offroad to navigate the FS roads. We are on a ranch road, so there’s ranch traffic which I mind less than tourist traffic. You can tell when at 5 PM 6-8 work trucks were heading out and this morning at 4:45 AM they all returned to work. I got back to sleep. Take a look at our campsite, not bad with views of the San Francisco Peaks! Last night I walked down the short dirt road next to us. There was a Casita pull by a Honda SUV. They are 200 yards behind us but we haven’t talked, each keeping to ourselves (behind where I took the second picture). After a few nights boondocking in another great spot north of Dolores CO, we tried some locations east of Mancos, west of Durango. We found too many modern homeless types. Those who camp in their vans, trucks or cars. It was Labor Day weekend making campsites busier. Not feeling good about camping there, we stayed at Target Tree a US FS campgrounds. Check in on Labor Day and the grounds were about 2/3 full. The next morning everybody left except us, the very nice host and one other. Yeah, a view of the Grand Tetons would be great, but don’t go in season unless you want the traffic and the lines. This place is not bad to have to ourselves. What a site the Casita guy has, far enough off the road. We’ll come back here again. There is a huge network of roads with literally 100s of boondocking sites. If you want this kind of experience don’t cheap out on batteries/inverter/solar and install a new efficient A/C (yay Chill Cube)! We just finished 10 days without hookups. Our 900 Ah batteries are now down to 30% SOC. We ran the A/C for 2 full days plus lunches on the road and a couple days just late afternoon. We ran the fridge and hot water heater on LP when camped. Our DC-DC charger is always attached when towing. By the time we get home, SOC should be up to 45%. Keep in mind that these numbers are % of 900 and if they are to get done to 25% our reserve would be equal to 4 large AGMs. Yeah, for us having an Oliver is worth it. It’s what you make it to be. We love ours!

I went with suggesting the diesel and exhaust brake, knowing full well Dan would chime in with the EV truck. 🤣 I imagine he’s right about power and downhill braking. Still not sure I’d want to be looking for charge stations while camping though. The main issue may come down to cost. You can’t buy an older EV and they are quite costly compared to the 1500 series gas truck.

If you already have several 5Ah Dewalt batteries, bring 2-3 with you. I had two 6s that were 3 years old. Burnt one leaving it attached to Starlink overnight. While sleeping it went to zero, no lights, wouldn’t recharge. Gave the other 6 to my son after I bought two 10 Ah which stay in the Oliver. Mounted one of my chargers in the Attic. The two 10s will last a full 24 hr cycle, each will run the Mini for about 8 hours. Figure the 5 Ah Dewalts to last 3-4 hours each. You’ll need something like this: https://a.co/d/0boBnuD4 I like the cost and simplicity of the 1 1/2” PVC but the umbrella stand is really too big. Wish I had a good place to store it but lately I stopped bringing it and one campsite this trip we were back to laying it on a milk crate 10 ft behind the Oliver. 90% of the time, I can use my truck mount, move the truck a few feet over to clear trees when needed. Love our complete setup of truck-based 5G Cell/Starlink/Wi-Fi! Pull the Mini and PVC section out of my truck toolbox and we’re ready in one minute, all devices already Wi-Fi connected to our “Home” network. 😎 I’m also big about using what you have. Perhaps you can adapt one of your tripods to work effectively. I do suggest eventually to get something truck mounted. The TV can often be moved some. When parking the Oliver, the level spot, sun/wind orientation, the direction of your view, are all more important than clear sky to the north.

Yeah Toni, likely not ALL. Of course seasonal sites will be closed off-season. If they allow campers to show up and pay the host or at a kiosk (we paid the host $36 cash for 3 nights), then I believe the 4-day rule applies. This rule allows for drive-up pay cash locations. If the campground ONLY allows for online reservations then all available dates should be available to book online. It seems we've run into not being able to reserve tonight or next day at many locations we've stayed.

Hello again Bob, and thanks! I merely purchased a 4 ft piece of 1 1/2" PVC (2" OD) and a coupler from Lowes. Sawed the PVC in two 2 ft sections and the coupler will join the two only in the truck installation (pic1). The lower 2 ft section is permanently mounted to our extra fresh water tank. This works in an open bed but the lower section could be bumper mounted or to the side of a truck cap or the Oliver front basket. For the "umbrella stand" option the set screws from the stand fit into the drill holes. There is also a 3rd drill hole up top (cannot be seen in pic) to hold the Starlink set screw. Half fill the umbrella stand with water and it's not going anywhere! Good sale price on this today at $27! https://www.lowes.com/pd/Patio-Premier-Patio-Premier-Square-Blow-Mold-Umbrella-Base-Black/1002629278 Starlink includes two mounts. Mike mentioned he would merely lay the Mini on a flat surface. He's using the simple base mount that has a kickstand to produce the correct angle. I started the same way but found often in the woods finding a flat spot to support the dish is difficult. Starlink includes a second mounting plate (pic2) which comes with the 2" mounting hole with set screw. Notice the two drill holes in the upper post. If I'm using the umbrella stand, these line up with those set screws. I love the 1 1/2" PVC mount and would not stray from this. If I was to buy a stand again, instead of the umbrella stand which is large to store, a folding tripod would be OK, if I could find one that would hold the 2" pipe. I wouldn't want to get into camera stands, 1/4-20 screw mounts with adapters. IMHO, a soft 1/4" screw should not be the only thing holding the dish, not in heavy weather. No skinny stands, no long poles, no suction cups, nothing fancy for me. Just open your compass phone app, mount the dish pointed north, check alignment on the Starlink app, just a one minute installation required with this setup! 😎 Sorry, acronym from eBay sales, means "New in Box."

I’m 100% with @Todd B on his post above. I have the name brand Andersen version and wouldn’t camp without them. After two years though the red ones sure are beat. This Amazon item has a 4.7 rating with 3K reviews which is huge! Camping in the mountains I wish they were taller than 4” but taller might not fit between the tires! The Apex has AT tires but is the diameter actually larger? I don’t think OTT would design a suspension that would not accept these levelers. You should ask them or know the tire brand and size and can find the dia in the tire specs.

Bummer just a few days before your trip, and sorry but most things Truma take long. Check into what Craig wrote. Then if you need further troubleshooting, re-open the bypass, remove any access plates/covers inside and out so you can see inside as much as possible. Start the water pump again and recreate the leak. Keep it running until you can eyeball what part or connection is actually leaking. Don’t worry, if water gets in the basement it will drain out of the weep holes along the hull bottom.

Hey Bob, there is much experience here. Mine is just one input for you... I purchased the extra router when Geoff posted this (impulse purchase because of the $40 sale): https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/topic/10918-the-new-starlink-mini-router-for-what-ails-you/ Turns out a year later, I've never used it (still have it NIB somewhere)! I just last week integrated our Mini to the Pepwave router which is pretty cool, but our installation is far beyond what you expressed you want. https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/topic/9933-pepwave-cellular-router-and-not-the-common-install/#findComment-126971 You really don't need anything but a simple way to mount the Mini. At first, I just sit it on an upside-down milk crate. I was using battery packs so not to string wire, but the Mini comes with a 120VAC power supply (inverter ON required) with produces 30VDC with a 50' cord. We're always 50 ft within view of the northern sky and I would not want the hardware sitting much further out of sight. The simple stand pictured, better than my old milk crate, is what we use when our truck cannot be parked in the right spot. I have a camping rule to minimize setup which in turn reduces all the work to setup and tear down and we move a lot (as you will going all the way to Alaska)! No poles and suction cups for me. As far as service, there is the monthly $10 cost for stand-by service which includes enough bandwidth to setup, download updates, configure and test the installation. You can also slowly load a web page or send an email, again very slowly but the connection is there. When you upgrade service (Starlink must be positioned and phone setup must first be connected to Starlink W-Fi when there's no cell service), they prorate the first month. Our billing date is the 4th of the month, so for example, if I start service on the 20th of the month, given my billing date I will be charged about half the plan cost. I can immediately change the next month plan to return to Stand-by $10/month, so I don't forget. On such a trip to Alaska, you may just need it ON for 2-3 months. This is good to know, but more so for us where we have the cellular antenna and router and T-Mobile 5G SIM card which costs $30/month on my business plan. If we're getting cell which is about 80% of the days we travel then I'm paying for Starlink only when necessary. But when you activate, you're charged on that date through your billing date.

And nothing like the diesel engine with exhaust brake! 😎 I use it always, even around town, towing or not. Somebody cuts in front of you and you're slowing down as soon as you let your foot off the gas. Drove recently Prescott to Phoenix to pickup Chris at the airport. It's a 4300 ft drop in elevation and I made it down the mountain without pressing the truck brake pedal once. Without it, I'd be on the brakes most of the way down. Towing the Oliver down I-17 does require braking a few times where the drop is 6-8%. For sure! Note a couple Forum members recently posted they prefer when the TV weighs more than the TT. It provides balance which boosts confidence when towing in less than ideal conditions. Our truck loaded and hitched (with tongue weight) is 8K LBS with 8,800 GVWR, and the Oliver loaded is 6,400 LBS. Never will the tail wag our dog. Given you're buying new, it's the right time to make it your last and best TV purchase. We're not getting any younger! 🤣