jd1923

That would be an easily accessible location. Another idea, a less conspicuous spot, might be around the corner on the wall near the TP holder.

You may need one of these. I’ve found many steel parts in spots I couldn’t even see! https://a.co/d/0dLcMRie

One post was re our hull. I got very lucky finding a local independent, referred by my auto body guy, who is quite meticulous himself. My price was considerably lower, but it's not just about price. Having good responsible local resources is best when available. Now I have a local go-to guy, making it easy whenever our Ollie needs a sprucing up! But we're rather far from the great state of Maine! Though I believe @ripple963 has the right idea in asking. Keep looking! Finding a local company was on my mind for two years as she got more and more pasty white! If not in Maine, maybe you'll find a great company in nearby New Hampshire! 😎 That great state of Tennessee is too far for most of us!

So, I had this on my to-do list since Mike started this thread... What a difference in two hulls of the same era. Maybe the junction box on hull #135 took some water at some point. You can certainly see corrosion in Mike's pictures. Or maybe Mike got the bad installer on this one, right after the guy messed up something else on hull #113! Inside our junction box it's just perfect, clean as can be, everything tight! I didn't touch a thing, just replaced the cover, and for me this is not an annual inspection item.

Geoff, thank you for addressing the speakers too. It's nice OTT is installing white-clad speakers in newer hulls. It's odd that advertised 6.5-in speakers are closer to 5.25". Maybe the outer dia of the grille is 6.5". On ours the circle for mounting screws is 5.4" dia and ours came with Jensen speakers. They're quite heavy and solid and to my ear still in good working condition after 10 years. Only OTT has the uncanny ability to drill holes and then drill more holes! I could insert a half dozen pics showing drill-happy installs!🤣 Shame we must do extra work to account for lazy work. You fabricated a very nice trim plate to cover it up! 😎 WARNING! If you have an older hull like ours, the IRV62 may not work for you! The cut-out on ours is 9 1/4" wide and 6" tall. The picture on the IRV62 Amazon listing shows the face is 8 1/4" x 4 3/8". Given this the IRV62 would fall right into the massive opening cut in our hull. No wonder ours is so ugly, it's BLACK and 11" x 7" HUGE! (picture shown w/o outer bezel) Yesterday I was working in the Oliver, fixing a couple of drawers, replacing the Blum undermount drawer slide on one and new orange latching ends on another. Because of your post, I thought to fire up the Furrion, listen to a local FM station while working. Yes, I needed the flashlight on my phone and it took me 5 minutes to figure out the interface! When we travel, Chris is usually the one to operate the Furrion stereo. She will pair it to her phone, or sometimes at dinner she will play a travel CD she burned for our trip. Kudos to her for learning to operate this crazy box. Your IRV62 looks much better and you can just look at the front panel picture to see the simple buttons make sense, are intuitive. If they only made one in white or gray! When searching online for wall mount RV radios, you'll find nothing but BLACK! I did find a Jensen model that would fit the larger opening cut into our hull. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082VXFC7W/ In our 3-zone system, Zone A are the front speakers, Zone B for the rears and Zone C is not wired to anything. Yep, for the 4-speaker Oliver configuration two zones is all you need. It would be nice if Zone C was wired to two exterior speakers. But, the Oliver really needs a special zone! One that when eating dinner the speaker over my head is not powered on! Just bad placement. I would rather they had mounted both left and right front speakers above the closet. And sound from the rear speakers pointing down is lost in the bedding. Speakers left and right of the attic door would certainly produce better sound. The radio outer bezel popped off easily with a plastic pull tool. Then 4 screws and the entire radio pulls out. I also removed a speaker grill. Maybe paint would lighten up the look some. Though I'm cautious when it comes to paint. It goes on easy but you're stuck when not satisfied with the result! Much ado about nothing here, at least for me and for now, as I will likely leave well enough alone. 😒 I learned a bit though. Thanks again Geoff, and enjoy your new IVR62!

This must mean your ducting is detached from the furnace somewhere, or you have a large hole in the ducting. It's a pain when traveling, but you'll need to get under the curbside bed again to fully diagnose and correct. Most of these furnaces have forced air coming out fore and aft of the furnace. Check there first and then follow the ducting forward. If you can't see it quickly, run the furnace while you have the basement open and you should feel a lot of hot air blowing somewhere! We'll be thinking of you, as you head north and it gets hotter and hotter in Arizona. Have a great trip! 😎

Yeah, you noticed in my picture that I stacked an 8" Anderson block plus five 1" blocks for 13" total height. You want the height in the blocks so the jack only extends a few inches. These Barker jacks will extend 18" but I only want about half the length showing.

Do you believe this to be a measure of correctness? I wish OTT always installed accessories correctly in our hull, but their installers made several mistakes. When I first read "button toward the front" I also thought of the power button. But they show a sketch pointing at the release trigger with the wording, "position toward front of coach." If someone posts a different orientation, regardless of it being "installed at the factory" it would still be wrong. I thought the same thing for about 50 ms when I had the new flat fan sitting on the curved Oliver roof. Then I realized, one good rainstorm while highway towing and the butyl would blow out of the large front gap and you'd have rainwater all in the bathroom. Butyl works best for sealing thin gaps. You could 3D-print gaskets with a tall front and rear, if you have that capability. I wrote gaskets plural since the fan must be concave on the outside and convex inside. The plastic frame will curve in place, tightening it little-by-little patiently. I took the day to work ours slowly. A hot sunny day helps to soften the plastic.

By Pony Express do you mean Amazon? Are you sure it is a Dometic brand part. I'm with you in wanting to hear the 'click' like the original part. If not Dometic brand, time for another Amazon return and get the part from eTrailer, Camping World or some legit RV store. https://www.etrailer.com/Accessories-and-Parts/Dometic/DOM93FR.html A lot of hose clamps these days have 7mm screw heads.

Yep, that's what I did, per the instructions. It makes sense the button is forward, so that it clasps the fan up front where it takes wind when towing. Once you get to installation, the curved shape of the Oliver hulls makes it difficult! All exhaust fans are designed to be flush on a flat roof and ceiling. Torque down the screws gently, little-by-little, taking your time so the plastic frame will curve. Too bad Oliver doesn't have a small flat area for this fan in the design of their hull molds.

Two things I don't want. The Oliver bathroom is the most comfortable bathroom we've had in an RV. One exception: I wish the sink/vanity top came out further so that I could actually get my face over the sink (on my mod list). Sitting on the can is truly roomy! Our first RV was a Fleetwood Discovery Class-A. I had to have my right leg out in the hallway to take care of business. OMG, on a WIDE 39-ft Class A! 🤣 Now that we're comfortable in a 7-ft wide trailer, without slides, I would never again want to tow an 8-ft box. That's what this new entry is, just an 8-ft BOX. Sorry, I've towed too many. They take wind and they're awkward in lane changes and on backroads. You feel every semi-truck passing and need towing mirrors on the TV. Bottom-line, one will not replace our Oliver! I tow the Oliver like I'm not towing! IMO, one thing OTT could-a/should-a done from the start was to make the hull only a few inches longer, to allow room for two 80x30" mattresses without the radiused rear corners! For me at 6'2" this would add significant comfort in a minor change. They guy that sold us our Oliver is 6'5" go figure!

Can't live without them along with the LevelMatePRO! I always smile and snicker when I see the 5th-wheel and camper guys with their manual jacks, large 1/2" impacts in hand. 🤣

Tom, you are absolutely correct! 😎 Changing a tire or working any suspension maintenance like in this maintenance thread, only "the belt" is needed, no suspenders necessary! 🤣 I would wager the floor jack I purchased used 40 years ago is much more capable than what most of you use at home (see pic below). When friends come into my garage, a first comment usually is, "Wow, where did you get that?!" It was already decades old at the time, nicely rebuilt at a hydraulic service shop in Chicago. It's an 8-ton floor jack with a 6 ft reach, a pump handle that comes up to your chest with a release lever at that height. It also has a kick pump that's so cool, it gets you started or by itself can lift a lighter car with ease. 10 auto restoration projects, 40 brake jobs and more! This beast has always been appreciated. But I'm still using the Oliver lift jacks alone for everything Oliver. Tom mentioned the one exception which is axle replacement. Our Oliver hull was lifted by the stabilizer jacks. I used the floor jack to lift the axles and you can see a bottle jack that I needed once to get a stubborn leaf aligned to the shackle opening. Tools are a man's best friend, when the right tool is chosen for the task at hand. I have this bottle jack and a single jack stand in the TV toolbox, along with enough tools to do most emergency repairs to the TV on the road. Haven't needed them thank goodness, working a lot of preventive maintenance when home and being lucky! Like my belts to keep my jeans in place, never wore suspenders!"

Actually, the angle to which I took the photo just makes it look level. Not much level ground up here, including our driveway! The wet-bolts were very difficult to line up when mounting the leaf springs due to the sloped driveway. There is NO WAY I would have used other jacks and jack stands (even if it was level ground). But with our driveway sloping down back to front and right to left, with wind always coming over our ridge, the built-in jack stands are the only safe way to lift the hull. Trust these jacks, rated to 3,000 LBS each, bolted to the frame (given OTT did not forget to finish the weld as was found in our hull). These jacks and their mounts can be inspected in the basement. The ONLY reason OTT does not advise using the built-in jacks is liability indemnification (since there is no science behind their change in procedure through the years). If the Oliver Owner get's in an accident using aftermarket equipment, OTT cannot be liable. Q: What's best for you? A: Using the built-in jacks. Q: What's best for OTT? A: When customers create product damage or bodily harm it's not created by their product, or anything they installed. Use a 3rd-party jack stand on the "Jack Point" and your hull comes crashing down to the ground, causing damage to the hull? OTT can claim no liability, but operator error. On older hulls the “jack points” as shown are the jacks! The hulls and jacks haven't changed, just the legal position has changed. From the 2016 manual below (two screen-prints). It's the proper way to change a tire, or lift the wheels for any maintenance task! 😎

Agreed, and sorry. I meant when changing from rubber to steel stems. When you are included in a safety recall, that's different. Find another shop at a decent price.

The best jack, the quickest and safest jack, is our built-in Barker VIP 3000. 😎 When upgrading axles, I would not support the hull in any other way. I'm not using jacks on wheels or bottle jacks on a trailer that can move. I added a jack stand underneath before I got under it. If the jacks can do this, they can be used for any maintenance. I had it sitting like this for 4 days by the time I got the old parts out and new axles and leaf springs installed.

For sure! Best to install new valve stems with new tires! That way your not paying for mount & balance twice, just parts cost. I’d leave them alone for now but get the Colby stems Ken showed above in case of failure during travels. They are now in my toolbox and I have steel stems on truck and trailer. Hope I don’t need them, but any kind of stem can fail. It’s good insurance! 😎

On our OEM suspension, with the weak 1750 LB Dexter springs, the axles would droop, so such devices would not work. So, why carry one? Just use the Oliver stabilizer jacks to change tires and for other service! 😎

Yeah, we run our inverter 24x7x365 but it is nice when all the lighting is low-amp running on 12VDC. 😎

Same for us re the radio, though we stream TV, news and pickleball matches, movies shows often and have added Samsung TV and soundbar which has far superior sound. I would not replace the radio merely for slightly improved functionality but it would have to look much better. Exchanging one ugly black box for another is not for me. Took a quick look online and they all seem to be BLACK. I'd buy a white or light gray model. Also, I've been meaning to change out those black speaker grills with something lighter in color too. Please let me know is anybody finds a better looking product! Rob, with all the adventurous mods you've made 😎, you could remove your radio and create a small cabinet. Remove the speakers and cover with trim plates flush to the ceiling, being much less noticeable.

Yes, good idea to live with new accessories for a while, proper install when certain. 24V now we're talking! Most AC adapters convert to some lower DC voltage. All you need is a small DC-DC converter which runs off your 12VDC system, so no inverter or shore power needed. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01D082AX8/?th=1 @Snackchaser introduced us to this device to power a Starlink Mini, without using their adapter, instead running on house batteries. I have one installed in our truck for the Starlink. Adding one under the rear dinette would be simple to power those lights! 😎

Very nice! Is there anything comparable in 12V lighting? Love soft lighting, but the installation could be improved. I imagine this is just your first take. Cut the wire, drill 1/4” or smaller hole behind the light to a power source in the basement. Then no clumsy adapter or wires showing. Our Charley would say, what’s all this new stuff in my spot down here, Dad?! 🤣

With some HUGE Dometic A/C unit up top too! And it looks like OTT had to add a full length (glued-on) platform for that klunker A/C to sit on! What a shame (my rant to follow)... 🙃 I know many of you are always interested in what's new in Ollie-land! But would you trade your Oliver for a new one, if you could? Not me, as I'd have to make all the same corrections and upgrades all over again! It took me two years the first time, but knowing what I know now I could work a 6-month plan to rebuild our wonderful mods! 😎 The only way I would start over, would be if Oliver would sell a hull with no installed options for HALF the cost! No A/C installed, no fans, just the 14x14" openings with the appropriate wiring run. No roof accessories at all, no cable or charging ports down below. And on some future hull design, OTT could shape a round-flat area for the bathroom fan so these fans can sit flat vs. being forced to the curve of the hull by the torque of the installation screws! You'll see this when you replace the fan. No chargers, inverters or batteries, so I could choose Victron and Epoch over limited company brand name offerings. No switches, breakers, busses, and especially manual water valves under the beds! ALL electrical controls installed in one spot, under the rear dinette seat (as ours are today). Why not motorized ball valves for winterizing and boondocking settings? We use the boondocking configuration, adding water from TV tank to FWT about every other week we travel and I certainly would not lift the curbside mattress to do so! 🤣 And for that matter, keep your mattresses or seat cushions as we're going to upgrade them anyway, so why add cost for items that are more often than not replaced. No TV please! Many prefer not having one and we replaced ours with a Samsung 4K 32" Smart Monitor with speaker bar. The radio or Bluetooth speaker are unneccesary too. Don't we all already have a Bluetooth speaker? We have an extra one just for camping, sitting in the nightstand drawer. Windows are no longer flush to the hull. That could be an issue over time with the front edge always taking highway winds. NO silicone caulk please, and no caulk at all on windows and accessories that already have butyl or integrated seals! No nothing installed where any contract installer would need to drill holes into the hull. Please allow me to install these items with VHB tape or other means (including rooftop solar panels without mounting screws). I've sadly removed 40-50 drill-holes from our hull, adding fiberglass fill and I truly dislike this kind of unnecessary repair work. No entrance door hook, drilled into the door and hull. Just add Lippert friction hinges instead. Please install D52 axles on Alcan Springs, or I would have to do that again too! Except for the OEM rooftop solar panels and MaxxFan, every item I've mentioned in this post, everything attached, has been replaced in our hull with something better! After 1700 hulls manufactured, over 10 years later, does OTT truly know what us "Oliver Owners" like and dislike about their travel trailers? I've list enough items, but could keep doing so... These items are not on the company radar! My vision isn't for most of you who want the complete Oliver with your choice of options. But for me, what I've described would be utopia and it would be fun to do it all again on a clean hull! 😎

At your local Walmart for $10, I've been using Super Clean for years. Use it full strength on greasy parts. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Super-Clean-Tough-Task-Cleaner-Degreaser-1-Gallon-128-Fluid-Ounces/23752162/ But if you really want to clean greasy/grimy parts, you would not believe how a Go-Jo style mechanics hand soap cleans parts! Rub on patiently with a soft brush (toothbrush and/or larger brushes), then hose off and blow with compressed air! I've used this in many restoration projects. Can't beat the price on this item too and check how clean these parts came out! 😎 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Purple-Power-Heavy-Duty-Creme-Hand-Cleaner-14-oz/345407987/

I have revised the original post to add a full brake inspection (see step #8 above).