jd1923

Hull #113 now being 8 years old has needed a lot of upgrades and M&R our first year of ownership. A point of contention as always been the manual stairs, the back-breaking effort it takes to pull them down, metal on metal, and more so to put them up. I had greased the moving parts, and it did not seem to help much. Pressure washing it last time, an edge of the slip-resistant tape came off. Prior owner had wrapped the steps with some kind of rubber cushion and that dirtied the steps where it laid. They looked awful. It was time for proper restoration! I disassembled all components of the stairs so they could be cleaned and reconditioned in my shop. If you do this, make sure you have everything you need out of the Oliver as it is very difficult to get inside afterwards! First, I used a heat gun to loosen the glue on the tape and scraped it off. The glue residue was intense. I used 3M General Purpose Adhesive Cleaner, and it barely budged it. The rest I sanded off using a cordless Dewalt orbital sander and near a dozen sanding discs. There are better sanding tools, but this is what I had. After more and more detail sanding the aluminum started to look pretty good. The key detail work to getting the stairs to operate easier was to file the groove the axle slides within (see pic 2). I used a small hand file and spent an hour working it in the direction of the movement. Most of the machining marks were 90 degrees the wrong direction. I only sanded this groove on the base as I did not want to detail that whole frame, just the steps. I used this product for the stair surfaces: Amazon.com: 3M Safety-Walk Slip Resistant Tape, 4 in x 15 ft, Anti Slip Tape, Adhere Without Wrinkling, Curling, Tearing, Shrinking or Lifting, Self-Adhesive Backing For Quick & Easy Application (610B-R4X180) : Industrial & Scientific After sanding and placement of the anti-slip tape, I applied an automotive ceramic coating to all the sanded aluminum to slow oxidation. Got to this point today. Friday I will have time to remount. The frame is held on with 4 standard carriage bolts and nylon locknuts. The two stairs are connected to each other with a short, geared press-fit specialty bolt with a Torx-55 head, that are not easy to remove. Pictures were taken before applying the ceramic coating. It should look great when mounted. Boy, I hate sanding and polishing work! 🤣

Did hull #45 come with 5200 LB axles, or did you upgrade? Either way it should not be an issue for you. I was thinking @Wayfinder has 3500 LB axles and wanted to upgrade but could not for some reason, TBD or not. I have the lighter axles with EZ-Flex added and want to know what the deal with upgrading is to 5200s. Good thing for now mine are in excellent condition. OTT service by all accounts is wonderful for those who can afford the time, the travel and cost of getting there. Way too much for me on all accounts. Getting true specs and technical data from OTT is like pulling teeth. It would be great to learn something specific here.

Got to upgrade the A/V system…

Y’all are amazing! A few weeks into this and your Oliver is already heads up over some of ours, where in my case we’ve been working hard for over a year. Maybe that’s due to your 6 years of careful thinking and planning. G-bless!

After years, we stained our deck again. Chris went to Depot with a printout of the stain I wanted. She came home with something the Orange-Aproned HD associate substituted, some acrylic cr@p. Took another trip to the Depot to get “oil-penetrating” stain. There are soooo many hyped bad products marketed today. I have a saying, “if they spend $$$to create a commercial to sell their product, buy something else!”

No, too much insulation in some of these mods will produce too much heat retention and bearings or seals will fail over time.

I purchased this LED fan last year, was going to install it… Hate to get on a ladder, on a tall incline, gravel drive, uneven ground. The OEM fan still works fine. Working on other upgrades as this items sits in waiting. One day…

Bit the bullet today and I will soon be 600AH into LiFePO4! 🤣 These were $1,100 ea since I first heard of Epoch. They just dropped the price $100 and are running a 4th of July sale, 10% off another $100, and free shipping, NO sales tax, life is good!

Got to know the details on these axles fitting. Hull 110, OTT says does not fit. Mine is hull 113 so likely the same as yours. @MAX Burner is hull 226 and I believe Art had OTT install new axles before the annual rally.

I'm interested in the AXLES question that @CRM asked too! Hull 113 got new window shades a couple years ago. They fit nice and do not fall off as some have mentioned. I dislike how the shades stick out so far when sleeping or leaning at the dinette. How do we know if we have "new large windows" or not? Measurements?

I had a chat with Renewable Outdoors today. They are responsive. Turns out the Epoch 460AH is approx. 9.5", Epoch website numbers are correct, their User Manual is wrong. Two Epoch Essentials 460AH will NOT fit in the battery bay, but as Mike has shown here, two 460 with Victron Comms (more $$$) will fit. I'm starting to think re two Epoch 300AH which will fit in the tray and likely 600AH is enough for our needs. Their sale is still on today, but not much longer.

It’s enough! 275A x 12 VDV = 3,300W. So you can run your A/C plus your microwave, at the same time across this beautiful piece of copper! Limiting factors will never be the copper bus, but instead your inverter or the cabling to it. Go with the proven design that @katanapilot has illustrated. Nice install! This copper 1/8x1x6” busbar on your B- terminal is likely a superior conductor than what your LifePo4 battery manufacturer has designed internal to the battery terminal, for sure! That’s all that counts at the final ground to the battery.

Do your batteries charge on shore power? What brand solar charger? What does the SC panel read vs. the Victron app? Besides the SC ON/OFF switch, there should be a dedicated breaker. Did you check that?

It's hard to find a simple wire gauge chart. This one is not bad. 14 AWG can handle 10A on short runs <10 and 5A up to 20FT. I did buy the Beech Lane fan. It will get here before the weekend, so I hope to work this install then. The spec is 7.2W which translates to only 0.6A in 12 VDC. According to the chart, you could use as small as 18 AWG. Most DIY installers go with heavier than required when cost is less a concern. For me, I've had several spools of 14 AWG, one 12AWG, a spool of thermostat cable and some others from a commercial project back in the 90s. I've used this inventory on dozens of auto/home/RV installations ever since. Wonder what shelf life is on stranded copper? It still looks like new; copper is bright, insulation supple. What does copper cost today? Likely 5x what we spent 30 years ago.

I had one more step to finalize this mod. Love it when I can cross something off the to-do list! Don't we all. 🤣 I deleted the duct under the bed and installed a return duct filter, so the deleted air duct needed the finishing touch. What is important is that no return air comes through this opening. The other consideration is the added return duct will throttle the return air, pull it a little more slowly, creating a stronger air pull through the basement. This is key to the basic design and will certainly help to protect the entry water plumbing (City Water and Fresh Tank inlets) in the rear of the Oliver (objective #2). Bought this item on Amazon: Amazon.com : NVAAV 4 Inch Boat Round Inspection Deck Plate Hatch with Detachable Cover and Pre-drilled Holes, Water Tight for Kayak Marine Boat Yacht Outdoor Installations : Sports & Outdoors Not the best quality, basically a cheap aftermarket part. I would not use it as an external deck plate, as the rubber seal was no good, so I went without it. The duct is a 4" opening and the deck plate for the water heater shut-off is 5", so my first thought to use the same part would not work. It was a snug fit, so I filed the opening just a little. Replaced the screws included in the package with a size smaller that I had on hand. Looks good in the end. I enjoy the look of our water valve switches, the return duct and deck plates, all now complete!

This part always gets me too! The feeling of "FINALLY" getting to your stop, after a road trip with bad weather and white knuckles. And I'll drive 30 miles longer on a back road not to get nerved up from standstill traffic as well. Must be my city roots. Glad to see you're up and running. Enjoy the boondocking in the mountains while you can! 🙂

The City Water hose connection is to use sinks/toilet directly. Prior to Boondocking, at your last water source, you must connect the supply hose to the Fresh Tank connection to fill your fresh tank. The City Water connection will not do this. With a full Fresh Tank and the valves pictured above in the Normal position, your water pump should pull from the Fresh Tank for use. Perhaps you missed the fill step and if so you will have to drive for water.

Epoch updated their site too, $100 less than before plus a 10% OFF code. 460AH for $1,169 after discount or 300AH for $899 (Victron Comms more). All authorized dealers should be offering this. Hope it doesn't end soon. Their prices keep getting better.

Awesome! BTW, the Epoch Essentials are all $100 less than recently and 10% off! This is closer to 20% off! OMG 🤣

Makes sense and thank you. After being in the microwave cabinet for our oven install, it seemed you could get around it as you did. Question: do you use the Beech Lane controller much? Wondering is after you get it where you want it, does it need to change. Hoping you don't need to mess with it much, and if so i may install it behind the lower vent opening. I'm thinking of running new 14 AWG automotive wire (I have spools) from the junction down below (mine has a junction that I do not see you your pic, I will show later) up to the switch in the light panel and then back down to the upper vent area for the fans. This way I still have the switch, all new wiring and the junction down below looks like 8 AWG, at least 10, and it showed 13.6V. I like the specs on the Beech Lane better than the Titan and there are so many to choose from. It looks big, but the height should just fit. I like the lower 1800 RPM and the 25 dB rating and IP65 rating. Thanks again!

We booked site 71, see you there! I started a new link on adding a cooling fan. Yours would be somewhat different, but worth doing. It would be painful to defrost often on extended trips.

@DunnYet, great pics and glad your mind is off the fridge and back to having fun! “Back to Texas” we love Texas! Going to the Texas Rally, Inks lake in October? Would be great to meet you there! Been 6 years for us, and over 10 years since Texas was our home. Enjoy your travels!

or any fridge! Not to worry now until you hit sea level and warmer temps. Enjoy the High Country while you’re there and don’t go to lower elevation, until goin’ home. We were 94 in Prescott today, 115 in Phoenix! I will link my new thread here, soon re a cooling fan for the fridge. That’s all you need, just enjoy the Rockies in the meantime. Stay High and stay cool! Yeah

Did some testing today. It's only 95 out, must be 115 down in Phoenix, yuk! Yes, as @rideandfly and @mossemi mentioned there is a simple thermal switch screwed into the top RHS of the condenser. It was difficult to get a reading before the switch on the bottom end, so I pulled both female spade connectors. Voltage readings were odd, most prevalent number was about 4.3V and it read as high as 5.5V and sometimes lower too, weird. No where near 12V and this is a 12V fan. I made a spade jump wire to connect the fan, bypassing the thermal switch. The fan would not run at all even giving it a quick push start. The switch from the light switch panel was working, going from 4.3V to zero and back with the switch. I used the ground from the junction below with the heavy gauge yellow and the light blue wire to the fan. It looked to be connected properly as @DavePhelps had suggested checking. Testing B+ and B- at the junction box read 13.6V which is the same number the Victron app shows for the house batteries. What the heck? What would produce 4V or 5V and not 12V? Is the wiring so old and worn it has become one big resistor? Hope not, which could cause a fire. So, the easy fix for $90 is to replace this fan with the Titan or Beech Lane dual fans that other owners have done. I would not be able to use the switched power since it is not delivering 12V. I could run new wire from the junction below. In AUTO mode do these turn on-n-off with temp? I would mount the control box behind one of the panels, not in the upper cabinet as one post showed unless it can be fished there w/o going through the microwave cabinet, as I just insulated that cabinet for an oven. Can the ON/OFF temp settings be adjusted on these? I would hate to bypass the switch. Maybe I can run +12V up to the switch panel and back down. Any ideas are appreciated as always! Thanks

Exactly, this is why I have not changed Zerks to 90s or turned the bolts inside out so the Zerks point to the inside (not crawling under either). I would rather jack up one side, use the air gun and quickly remove both wheels. Inspect each tire and remove any gravel. Check the brake action and tighten adjusters if needed. Check the wheel bearings and repack only if needed. Then without the weight of the wheels and tires, and a basic grease gun pointed straight on, all 8 Zerks take grease easily. Clean off all excess grease and replace caps on the fittings. When this final step is ignored, the fittings can get stuck and then use a thin punch to push ball end in Zerk, remove fitting to clean if really bad. Remount wheels and work the other side!