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jd1923

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Everything posted by jd1923

  1. John, you and others reading might be interested in this. Your question got me looking at the old maintenance records. Our Hull 113 made its way back to OTT twice, April 2018 and May 2021. In 2018 it received the EZ FLEX upgrade, new Atwood furnace and another page shows "Replaced gas line to furnace and performed yellow jacket gas and function test." The LP line is wrapped in an automotive plastic wire loom. Our Oliver received major upgrades for 2018 (pic below). I imagine the welds broke in the year after OTT serviced the trailer May 2021, because certainly they would have seen it. The breaks looked 1-2 years old and it must have come from the rigid tires at 80 PSI. The 2018 receipt also shows new Monroe shocks, the ones on the trailer are yellow, looking like Bilstein from a glance, but perhaps Monroe also used yellow paint. I will know when I service them and will remove the shocks to bench test, replace if worn. I imagine prices would be 2x today! (Tried 3 times to get this photo right-side up.)
  2. BTW, after looking again under the trailer, the vertical LP line runs to the HWH and furnace, not the kitchen. We did inspect this and the grommet had shifted up after the repair. BTW, in our older OTT, all, yes ALL of our grommets need replacing. We put a little dum-dum on the LP line to the furnace. All three grommets in our battery bay are bad, subject of a later thread. Thanks
  3. Thanks again, John, SeaDawg and Geromino John and you're welcome Boudicca908. It's the reason I posted this. We did a 3-day trip, just to check things out, but I'll be working a whole lot of maintenance next few months. We travel mainly Jan-Apr and it will be in excellent shape by then! In fact, we just had a monsoon, temps dropped 20 degrees and I pulled my TV in the garage for new headlights and a suspension/brakes check. Next job will be on the Oliver, pull the wheels, pressure-wash all the old grease away and whatever I can hit on the underbelly. Then remove all the Dexter parts I can for cleaning, pack bearings with new hi-temp grease, open the brakes, full M&R on everything! And I will certainly review the appropriate JD posts, yes. The other thing I did today was to yank all the interior blinds off, OMG how dirty behind, and OTT installed new ones just 2 years ago. I brought them indoors and Chris will detail them and clean the inside of the Oliver windows, with the AC running of course, as I'm working other maintenance. Yes John, I do have the Dexter EZ Flex, so I guess by your account it must have been upgraded. We are fortunate that two prior owners, brought this Hull in to OTT a total of 3 times. One spent $4K just 2 years ago, including the new blinds. I already have them down to 60, and I'm thinking 48 PSI. I like that number. I agree that the load tables state 45 PSI is enough. I wonder, how many miles are on this trailer? All at 80 PSI, ugh.
  4. Yep, they were 80 and I believe all former owners ran this trailer at 80 PSI. Do you think that alone could cause alum welds to fail? This does make good sense! And let's say the habit was to leave home or campsite, black and gray empty, fresh and HWH full, making the right-rear heavier and that's where the welds failed!
  5. Most RVs come with 2 lead acid batteries, less AH per battery and no solar. You should be fine, as long as you do not plan on consecutive days of boondocking.
  6. The first thing welder said was, "That wouldn't be an LP line, would it?" I said, "Yeah, the tanks are off and I released the gas in the line." and he proceeded without worry. There is a little kink in the line, as you can see front of the T, but it holds pressure, so I left it as-is. Yes John, good observation. The vertical line is right there, going up to the kitchen (edit: Furnace and HWH) which could have been damaged. We camped 3 days, just after fixing this and if there was an interior leak, I certainly would have smelled it. I would think it would be difficult to eyeball/follow that line along its entire length. No sag, no fiberglass damage visible. CRM and rideandfly, thanks for your comments. I'll bet there will be a couple hundred OTT owners getting under their frames this week!
  7. I just thought I would make others aware of an issue I found, go figure just the week after we bought our older Oliver EII. I can't remember a time, when purchasing a used car or truck that I had not laid on the ground inspecting the bottom side, left, right and front to back! For some reason, when we first viewed our OTT listed locally for sale, I did not look underneath. I think I was enamored by the beauty of and cleanliness of it, along with I felt we were just looking, and I wasn't thinking I would spend this kind of money on a TT. Later we closed the deal over the phone. Paid for it 2 days later and the prior owner brought it to our home. I was down low installing 6" hose extensions on all the hose inlets, and I thought it was a good time to inspect underneath and could NOT believe what I found! Pictures to follow. I found 2 broken welds, curbside the first two right behind the wheels. OMG, my heart sunk! I called the prior owner. He thought I did it by overdoing the stabilizer jacks (not). He said he recently greased the Dexter components and he could swear the damaged was not there before (again, not). You could tell by the aluminum corrosion that these had broken some time ago. I'm not asking for help here, as I found a guy in town who runs a welding shop and does contract welding for many metal artists in town. He repaired this, charging an hour $75. Most of the hour was setting up for aluminum welding and creating a heat shield. I believe he used MIG. I gave him a Ben Franklin and it was done prior to our maiden voyage a few weeks back. I had no idea the aluminum welds would break at the contact point. The OTT welds must have been defective when the frame was built (edit: OTT likely welded this fine, later replies show this to be 80 PSI tire pressure). I called OTT service to ask about this and other questions, and the rep really had little to comment. My reason for writing this thread, is to let others know and to suggest that if you haven't looked under recently, it is a good idea to inspect your frame soon and regularly. Thanks for reading.
  8. We have SiriusXM in two vehicles (not our new tow vehicle) and we occasionally play music via their app on our phones. It was a challenge to get SiriusXM to charge us for 1 vs. 2 receivers monthly. We argued that we generally drive only one vehicle at a time. How much would they want for a 3rd receiver in our TV or OTT?! Chris synced her phone via Bluetooth to the wall mounted Furrion audio system, so we can play SiriusXM. However, unless we install a SiriusXM antenna/receiver in our Oliver, we could seldomly use SiriusXM when camping. Many of our campsites out here have little to no cell service. No way a SiriusXM antenna/receiver can be integrated to the archaic Furrion systems. Dish Network has many music stations too, and we can get that anywhere. We often play a jazz or country station while playing our favorite Rummikub! Any of you ordering a new OTT? Let them know you want a white wall-mounted receiver (if you can find one, or at least silver) with higher quality speakers in the corners with white covers. Look back at the first picture I posted. What are the only other black objects in the photo? I may upgrade the audio system a few years down the road. The speakers could be upgraded, for sure, though something like this might add a simple cosmetic touch (not sure of correct size): Amazon.com: uxcell 2pcs 6.5" Mounting Hole Diagonal Distance Speaker Grill Mesh Decorative Circle Woofer Guard Protector Cover Accessories White : Electronics I understand there is a way to turn off speakers in the current system. I'll have to figure that out, because the one by the dinette, just over your head, needs to be off when sitting there. Mike and SeaDawg, delete those old dusty TVs, clean up your space visually and save about 20 lbs. in the rear of your Ollies! And btw, thanks for taking interest in my installation thread, even though TV A/V is not your thing!
  9. So, I have the TV up, connected to Wi-Fi to stream Amazon, YouTube, Newsmax or any other streaming service, paid services or free apps. Bluetooth is linked to the soundbar, and all is good. Next step is a couple of inputs we desire, our old Blu-ray player and a new Dish Wally receiver: Amazon.com: Dish Wally HD Receiver : Electronics We liked that our older used OTT already had the Winegard Satellite dish built in. If you were to add one, you may be interested in a full system: Amazon.com: Winegard Factory Refurbished Dish Playmaker with Receiver : Electronics The double clamshell design of the OTT makes it seriously difficult to run coax cables from a dish mount up front to the attic in the rear, professional installer or not (coax could be run through the upper cabinets). These Sat dishes only need a coax cable connection, as they feed power directly from the coax to operate the dish rotation and angle (that's cool). The Winegard default targets DirecTV satellites. Nobody RVing wants this service, but they have market share, and require a 2-year minimum contract (we had DirecTV with TiVo in our homes from 1999 through 2014, never again with this greedy company, saying “we don’t carry your plan anymore”, charging more year after year). Dish Network is expensive enough, $120/mo for 200+ channels (with nothing to watch), but you can pay for one month when traveling and if you do not pay again, the service stops automatically. We did enjoy watching Wimbledon after we recently activated our new Dish receiver. You need to get up on the roof of your OTT, remove the cover of the Sat dish, and change the dip switches in the control panel, from the DirecTV to Dish Network configuration. My son Adam climbed up a ladder, with Phillips and dip switch drawing in hand, had it reconfigured in 10 minutes. I cleaned the cover in and out and he dusted the dish internals with a wet rag. There already were two coax cables in the attic. You need to figure out which is which, one from the Winegard and the second feed is from the coax port, street-side rear bumper for RV park cable connection (never going to use this one). I have a coax cable tester, but trial and error works fine since there are only two cables. Chris called Dish. We already had an account from our last RV. She gave them the new receiver ID and in a few minutes were watching TV. I needed a small rack to hold the two components. Most are designed to be wall mounted. I mounted a 1x1” piece of wood under the front so it would sit flat on its own. A little carpet tape underneath keeps in from sliding forward. The plastic bin on the right holds our backup cables, DVD and Blu-ray discs. I used just a little 3M VHB tape to mount the components to the rack, so they will not move. This TV monitor only has one micro-HDMI input, and they supply the micro to HDMI cable. All kinds of fancy HDMI splitters are available. Some require a power supply, but the simple ones draw power from the HDMI. Many have a remote control which is the last thing we need, another remote! I figure the default setting would be for Dish TV and if I was to play a DVD or Blu-ray, I would open the attic anyway to insert the disc and would toggle the switch to change input sources. I need to add a small square of 3M VHB tape, and the HDMI switch will site nicely on the wall above the AC outlet. I purchased this rack for $32 and $12 for the splitter: Amazon.com: HNVNER Floating AV Shelves,TV Wall Mount for Entertainment Center,DVD DVR Component Shelf for Cable Boxes, Games Consoles, TV Accessories (Double Layer) : Home & Kitchen Amazon.com: HDMI Switch 4k@60hz HDMI Splitter, GANA Aluminum Bidirectional HDMI Switcher 2 in 1 Out, Manual HDMI Hub Supports HD for Xbox PS5/4/3 Blu-Ray Player Fire Stick Roku (Support 1 Display at a Time) : Electronics
  10. Thanks SeaDawg, we had the same rule in our family. No TV on Sundays, when we drove to visit our cousins and Yiayia (that's Greek for Grandma), or they came to our home. For the first 20+ years of my life, it was every Sunday. Yep, no football, no-way, nor anything else on the TV! We lived in Europe during the 60's and had no TV, no radio really, and we played music on the phonograph and families talked (no cell phones, video games and social media, oh I long for the days). Moved back to the states in the 70s and there was TV! The great TV westerns, Gunsmoke (our favorite), Bonanza, and the great sitcoms of that era. The larger family get-togethers are not with us anymore. I love to wind down, after working a long hard day, get my mind off my responsibilities, watching TV choosing the most brain-dead show I can find, to stop processing and fall asleep. Or watch a great movie, when we can find something new! You really need to delete your TV. Simple rule for organizing a space, if you haven't use it in the last 2 years, throw it out, drop it off at Goodwill. If we meet you at an Oliver owners meet, give me 5 minutes and I'll delete it for you! Lol, best wishes, JD
  11. CRM, thanks for sharing your track system! You get that when the TV folds down, it's too far forward. There is only 76", top of bed to the back wall. My TV is 4" off the wall, so you have a full 6' viewing length to the hi-def screen, vs 4 ft distance to the low-rez 24" screen. I'm with you on using what you got, but the only TV I have lying around is a 47" TCL/Roku. It's large, thick, black and heavy! I wanted clean and white, like everything else in the Oliver. Could not pass up this screen at $328 Amazon used, at only 14 lbs. and 12mm thick. Thanks again.
  12. I installed a Furrion 13,500 BTU A/C unit in our Bigfoot Class-C three years back. It was a ducted system in a 30 ft Class-C and cooled it nicely. We don't camp in hot summer weather, but I run our RV A/C units during the summer when parked at home. I would guesstimate the large Class-C has twice the cubic ft of our little LEIIs. The original Dometic failed, condenser fan dislodged and stuck in the casing. Buy another Dometic? I hope y'all find a better alternative. My feeling is you need to be down at perhaps 11,000 BTU as was suggested above. The 13,500 BTU (or greater) A/C system will likely not cycle enough in most climates, which means less air movement and less humidity management. It is important to engineer an A/C system at the right BTU rating, not too much or too little. We're keeping our old clunker original Dometic, for now. It's parked outside with A/C running now, only part of the day, and we've been high 90s to 100. I have it set at 84 degrees, so the interior stays nice. Yes, it's noisy (LOL, I can hear it from the front door of my house, and my 100' hose doesn't quite reach the Oliver)! Keep in mind, we live in the dry Arizona high country. The A/C does not run at night at all, and it would have to perform better, perhaps require more BTUs, if for say you live in the SE United States, or camp in the Midwest during the summer months.
  13. Hey JD, thank you for these ideas. I will say, I have read so many of your upgrade posts, some amazing work! Thank you for sharing and I will study your work in the months and years to come, as we get to know our Oliver better. As far as warning labels, they're not of interest to me. The insurance industry and Federal Government have dummied down America, to make everything idiot-proof, with WARNINGS! I have already taken my heat gun to several labels (use a little Goo-B-Gone after), the one by the smoke detector, those by the cooktop, other labels outside are soon to go. The visual noise removed, all clean white fiberglass. Thanks for the sound quality app. I will show it to my son who is a sound engineer. Perhaps he can run the test. More to come soon on this post, as I have time not working. I will add a post re adding the Dish receiver, configuring the Weingard Satellite, and adding a rack in the attic for multiple A/V input sources. My final post will be to show how I made this TV monitor fold up to the attic ceiling, being out of the way of the rear view and emergency exit window. It's not a simple push mechanism, what OTT uses on their smaller 24" TV, but given the thin profile of this TV, you will hardly see it when folded, all parts white! Thanks for reading!
  14. I see sale pending on JD's classified. Congratulations, John! You're going to miss your little Mouse!
  15. A few pics of the TV install to follow. When I first installed it and connected to the Internet, the movie Fletch was streaming on the Samsung network! 1985 OMG! Then pic with TV off and soundbar installed. Next pic shows the slim profile and a final pic shows the Samsung network, and notice the HDMI input, currently no HDMI input powered up. The TV can swivel left and right and front and back. Pushing the TV back gives the best viewing angle when lying in bed.
  16. So, you do not need a 1 1/2" ID opening as in the grommet OTT put in the corner. I drilled a 3/4" opening for the 2 TV cables (power and HDMI). I seal this all openings simply with a round of white Styrofoam. For the large original opening I took a piece of Styrofoam, that you get in any electronics packaging, use a hole saw without the mandrel bit, and by hand, just cut a round piece of Styrofoam just a little larger than the opening to get a tight fit. Next step was the soundbar. I chose another Samsung product (Amazon link above), for compatibility, like wanting the TV remote to adjust the volume (it does way more than that!). Another requirement was the soundbar needed to connect by Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, since this TV Monitor does not have an audio output. Wow, this product synced both interfaces automatically, take your pick. My TV and soundbar are now connected to our Oliver Wi-Fi VPN defined by the Wi-fi Ranger. Like the TV, the soundbar does need AC power, and thankfully there is already AC power at the foot of the street-side bed. See my install pic of the AC outlet. I drilled another 3/4" hole there, since the soundbar has an inline power supply, the "brick" which I wanted inside the center nightstand (tied up behind the drawer) and not outside, tucked under the mattress! I mounted the soundbar about 4" off the back wall, since it has rear speakers too. The soundbar is mounted to the nightstand tabletop merely with Velcro tape. No way I'm using the wall mounted Furrion player, anymore to play CDs, since I can play CDs in the Blu-ray player with high quality audio output to the Samsung soundbar.
  17. Thanks again, SeaDawg! BTW, no that's not reflection of safety glasses. LOL, looks that way! That is a reflection that shows OTT did not get the back corner round, just an imperfection in the round and finish of the back corner. When I received the SAMSUNG 32" M80B 4K UHD HDR Smart-TV/Monitor, my first thought was, "this is a thing of beauty!" The picture is amazing, as the picture has a 3D look to it, with 4K UHD HDR resolution! The entire monitor measures 12mm thick (<1/2"), across the entire screen except for a 4x4" input panel in the rear that protrudes another 1/4" or so. Looking at the input panel, I was worried at first, since there is only one micro-HDMI input and a USB-C for computer use. NP, I could add an HDMI switch up above for additional inputs. I require 2 HDMI inputs, for the Blu-ray player and the Dish Satellite Wally receiver (more on this later). This is a smart-TV/Monitor, meaning it has no TV tuner, nor RF cable input. So, I cannot add an antenna for broadcast TV (one project off my list) and you cannot connect cable TV from an RV park. NBD, I think I tried that once, never again. A real TV would be 2-4" deep and black. The TV was supposed to come with a VESA mount adapter, to be connected to the ceiling mount. Well, this was Amazon used and it was missing. They got me one later, but I installed without it. I decided to mount the screen merely using 3M 4950 VHB Tape. This tape is STRONG! On our Class-C, I used it to tape the Solar panel mounts to the fiberglass roof, no screws used here, and this TV is only 14 lbs. I used my jigsaw with a medium steel blade, to cut a 4x4" opening in one end of the TV mount, to surround the input panel behind the TV. I covered the entire face of the mount with VHB tape (clean both sides with rubbing alcohol) and pushed it, massaged it onto the rear of the screen. There must be a good 20 square inches of tape contact, and this TV is not going anywhere. I don't have assembly pics, and it was difficult to get a decent picture after everything was mounted, but here it is -
  18. CRM, does your added fan have an integrated thermostat? This is a smart upgrade, given the Dometic fridge gets that hot. Is it always hot when running the fridge, or hotter when running on LP? Amazon item? Let us know if you have a part # or source. Thanks
  19. Thanks MAX Burner, i appreciate it, though I'm not near done yet in describing this installation! Please come back for more. And thank you SeaDawg, the Caframo fan is a great idea. The curb side is where my wife Chris sleeps, and she loves her fans. We had a hole in our Bigfoot, when I replaced and moved the thermostat with an AC upgrade. Chris found a pretty little butterfly artwork piece that we taped in place to cover that hole. I think for now I will just plug the holes with white Styrofoam. Pull out the plugs for the correct fix later. Next year, we will camp by Lake Mead and that would be the place to find a boat guy! If there is a way to mount a fan using the existing holes, or at least cover the holes, that would be awesome. Too bad it's near impossible to run power wires behind the interior walls, for anything not near a cabinet opening. There is power above and a huge grommet from the original TV install. A rechargeable battery-operated fan could work nicely.
  20. Notice how far back the TV screen is in relation to the rear window. To make it solid, I bolted the mount through the attic ceiling and used long brackets I had in my shop to distribute the weight across the width of the attic ceiling.
  21. I received the mount, disassembled it and reversed the direction of all parts. I removed the latching mechanism, cut and ground the latch metal from the frame, so that in the reverse direction it would not damage the TV screen in the folded position. The install looked like this:
  22. I purchased a Samsung TV and soundbar. I wanted Samsung, South Korean made, running their Tizen OS, not the TCL/Roku TV I had years ago (is China watching?). Not the Sony TV I have in my living room, running Android, Google owned. And, it was the only white 32" TV monitor I could find! Samsung HD 32” TV monitor white (monitor means no TV tuner, no antenna input): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B89L2WNV?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details SAMSUNG HW-S61B 5.0ch All-in-One Wireless Soundbar w/Dolby Atmos, Alexa, Bluetooth: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09X61YYJB/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I like that Amazon sells used electronics and parts. Generally, when items are marked in like new or good condition, another customer opened it and returned it, perhaps damaged the packaging. If not working, just return it. The TV new was $500 plus tax, now it's listed at $400 new, I paid $328 with tax, in used like-new condition. The soundbar was $182 and the TV, soundbar and mount total came to $550.
  23. Given my goal is to mount a hi-rez 32" screen, my first thought is why does OTT only mount these small 24" screens? Then I realized the answer. When they are corner mounted, there is barely enough real estate to go much larger (it can be done, barely). The newer installs are center mounted. You would think there is ample room in the center of the interior living space. They want to the screen to fold up. I agree, there are times when camping when you want the TV screen out of the way to enjoy the view out the rear window. TV mounts that fold up, also fold back. They all work this way. The height of the 24" screen truly is all the room you have. When folded, you must have depth (under the attic) equal to the height of the TV monitor plus approx. 2" for the mechanics of the mount. In our Elite II, there is not enough ceiling space under the attic to fold back a larger screen. My next thought is that I need a TV ceiling mount that will fold forward. If this can be sourced, or if I can build one, the TV in the down position would be far back close the rear window. This would be great! Watching TV, lying in bed, it makes sense to have the TV at my feet, close to the rear window. I do not want it to fold down and closer to me, like by my knees. Closer, given a low-rez 24" screen OK (not!). Back near the rear window, the larger hi-rez screen would be perfect! Well, they do not design folding TV mounts this way! So, I'm thinking, can I buy a standard mount and turn it around? Turns out it worked fine. I bought this mount on Amazon, for $41 total and reversed everything and removed the funky latch mechanism. I will later design something for the folded position. I do not trust these latches anyway. I got to believe many of you get to your campsite to find your TV has bounced and is sitting in the down position. This is the mount I used. It is solid and fits my criteria of being low profile and white! VIVO Manual Flip Down TV Mount, Folding Ceiling Mount for Flat TV Monitors: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BDSPGZWY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
  24. New TV, ceiling mount and cabling all have to be thin profile and white in color.
  25. Being confident, the old has to go... Next day, I just pulled everything old! Request for those reading... How should I fill these holes? I'm an engineer/mechanic, not an artist or autobody/paint guy. I want to be able to later finish the fiberglass and polish the corner, without evidence of original installation (finish work TBD by a professional).
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