jd1923

We're good with just our basket up front since we only store a fire ring up there, don't carry a generator. There are others here who have given this much thought and those who have installed front boxes. One thing that stands out to me re your idea and drawings is the LP doghouse cover. On our older hull there is just enough room to replace the cover getting it by the jack head. It seems to come off easier than it goes back on. You have likely not removed that cover too many times yet. I would take it on and off a couple times and give some thought to required clearance. Have fun on your 2-month trip! 😎

Sorry Orca, those would be my axles! I got really lucky. Tim and Lew got Dexter to replace them on a 2-week rush order, refund my $200 shipping charge which was very reasonable to start with, and keep the first set of axles too! They shipped the second set right, strapped to a pallet 9 ft long! I'd like sell the second set of axles, but I only know of one hull besides ours that has D35 SC=50" axles. That owner wasn't either interested or trusting of half price axles. The first set, although damaged in shipping really only need one brake baking plate and new bearing caps to be whole again. I could fix them up like new in a few hours, but instead I have replacement parts for life! 😎 (Pictures of damage and replacement sets. Notice the difference in the skids!)

Be careful, John! I'm not walking on the roof for nothing! I installed a new A/C (twice), removed the Dish and other items, did fiberglass repair and all necessary cleaning without being on top. Though I do realize you're fulltime in your Oliver and don't carry scaffolding with you! 🤣 If we didn't have the awning, rooftop maintenance would be easier. On the awning side, I can't quite reach over it to top center. On the streetside, without an awning, standing on our scaffolding I can reach some past top center. Another good reason to DELETE the awning! 😎

It appears we see eye-to-eye on several things! I never created a FB account and once FB became another Fake News outlet, Chris deleted all her content and pics, closed her account. Sorry Oliver Owners on FB, but this is the real OTT Forum! 🤣 We also recently agreed on the need, or lack thereof, for an articulating hitch. And I think the tow vehicles for hulls #113 and #1394 are the only two that carry an extra 35-gal FWT and we both never leave home without two full FWTs! 😎 Chris and I were born and raised in Chicagoland, so "Escape to Wisconsin" was something we did often, all the way up to 1999 when we left the city. Out first trip together was to visit Lake Oshkosh in '92! I say this because we're not likely to tow our Oliver back to your neck of the woods. But when it's time for you to get out of winter weather and travel SW, we would love to meet you! 😂 Best wishes, JD

Here's another picture of Granite Mountain Wilderness Area from Thumb Butte Road, where Adam camped last week. You can hike for years just around town and never do all the trails. Also, 100s of OHV and bike trails. Local hiking and nature orgs created a 54 mile trail that circles Prescott! 😎 https://www.yavapai-trails.org/prescott-circle-trail/

Thanks Mike! Yavapai Campground at the Granite Mountain Wilderness Area is a nice spot to visit Prescott. No hairy roads like driving up Thumb Butte Rd last week. It's paved all the way in. There are 21 FS campsites, and only $9/night with the old-fart pass! Sorry @John Dorrer, I'm being the Prescott "Resident Chamber of Commerce" person again! 🤣 Though where is everybody else? There should be a Where's Ollie post, or two, every day of the year! We're in site 16, which is one of two FF sites. It was easy for us to grab this spot, since the park reopened on April 1 and we got there at 9AM (just 20 min from home). Nice to camp for the week and only use a 1/4 tank of diesel with these prices today! Second pic is a view of Granite Mountain from the entry road. Adam and I hiked to the top 10 years ago and I hope to do it one more time before it get's too late for me! 😂

Our original PD ATS went out last year, a burnt wire or two. I decided to bypass the ATS. One cable now goes from the side 30A receptacle to the PI EMS and then to our Victron MP2 inverter and finally to the 120VAC breaker panel. We never use the 30A inlet up front, since we never use a generator. So no need for an ATS! We’ve had 3 RVs and the PD 5100 had failed in all three. If you must have an ATS, it’s time to upgrade to a better product!

Exactly, me too and same down here!

Not all Oliver TTs use the same axle. Our older hull was fitted with a 50" bracket length and most others have 50.5" (note the 50.00 marking on my labels). Since the axles on our Oliver were unique, Alcan took a picture of my original axle label for the custom order, copied all the specs except went from D35 to D52 for 5200 LB axles. They only make Nev-R Adjust and Nev-R Lube axles now, so the rest is the same. So, the part numbers for our hull will NOT be what you need. Likely if a Forum member that upgraded recently with 50.50" axles posted a picture of their label, it would be what you need. But to be certain, take a picture of your axle label and then call Dexter Customer Service. They are not bad to talk to and they will give you a proper part number for your D52 upgraded axles. I'd want to be certain spending $2K plus shipping! HF stands for Hub Face, the measurement between hub faces. SC or Spring Center is the distance between leaf spring centers. These numbers must remain the same for the new D52 axles. Our before & after axle labels to follow:

I agree 100%. I posted about our trip to Harquahala Mountain and a forum member wrote they wouldn’t tow through those washes. I also have the 2 5/16” Bulldog and Alcan Springs, so good enough for us. If one was to travel in rough terrain to truly need an articulating hitch, they would likely need to change axle orientation from underslung to overslung for greater ground clearance!

OK, so I'm not reading all that AI cr@p in the preceding post. We can all do our own AI searches to read the same regurgitated content! 🤣 That being said, I truly commend your effort, as it is a whole lot of work, stretching and neck craning to work this extensive installation - bravo! For us, the furnace with extra vents in closet and bathroom is enough, but we don't live and have yet to even travel up your way. This makes very good sense based on your location and travels. We are planning a trip to ID-MT soon, but would travel during the shoulder seasons, not the dead of winter! 😎

When using the Andersen Ball and NOT using the boomerang, what Andersen calls the Anti-Sway Plate, PLEASE connect the hitch pin to the bottom of the ball, the pin that connects this plate. If not, the Andersen ball is only held down by a large circlip underneath. It's not likely the ball would come out, since it would have to break that clip and come up several inches, but having the bolt (hitch pin) below is a good measure of safety. Once connected, it can just be there without having to take it on and off.

Mostly softball questions, boilerplate answers delivered by an experienced politician! Installation torque! 🤣 How about all those lose bolts interior to the casing?

If you're buying a late model 2500 or 3500 truck, likely no need for the Andersen WDH. The Owner's Manual for our older Dodge 2500 states to use a WDH when tongue weight is > 500 LBS or trailer is > 5000 LBS. We certainly needed the Andersen when towing the Oliver with the OEM suspension. Without it the Oliver would porpoise up and down on a rolling highway, not comfortable. Once we upgraded to D52 axles and Alcan springs, we do not use the WDH, since the Oliver is now carrying its own weight. 😎 See what towing specs are and buy the right truck since you have this opportunity. In the year or so we had to use the Andersen, I likely cursed 100 4-letter words. What a pain! Thankfully, never again.

We went 5-leaf since Alcan designed it this way specifically for the Oliver. They installed a few 4-leaf springs only due to Oliver owner requests. I would guess over 95% of us have installed the standard 5-leaf system. I've had to go over a lot of speed bumps lately. My truck suspension, being so tight, bangs hard over speed bumps, but the Oliver suspension glides over them so nicely! Looking through the sideview mirror, you can see each tire articulate up and down without affecting the other axle, while the hull does not budge an inch! I should buy Alcan leaf springs for the rear of our tow vehicle! 😎 We always tow with a dog bowl half full of water. The water stays put, and never had a drawer open. We did have items jostled in the Attic and hanging clothes fall in the closet once in the first few miles. Once I worked the first required torquing of wet and U-bolts, we never had another issue.

🤣 Love it, quite resourceful! If I had the luxury of ordering a 2027 Oliver, I would order it without awnings on either side! 😎 It would be aerodynamic, a thing of beauty. If our entry-side awning was to fail, I would remove it and do MORE fiberglass repair. I would also NOT order any rooftop antennas, cameras, or other accessories like Zamp ports where OTT would drill into the fiberglass (see pic, not pretty installations). I would also delete most interior screens, like the tank level screen that is rarely accurate. We stopped looking at ours years ago. You'll soon know how many days the fresh tank will last and the waste tanks will fill. The link below is something you should consider, and if yours would be a Girard awning, I would search this forum for keyword Girard, as I have read many posts about Girard awnings closing in the lightest of winds, switch and battery failures or opening on their own! @Chrisharon it's very smart thinking a year ahead on your order, and my apologies for providing much more than you asked. Yes IMO, an awning-less Oliver would truly be a thing of beauty! 😎

I'm a bit like Bill, but certainly camp much more in the SW. With almost 3 years of ownership, 2 full years of travel, 17K miles and 150+ nights out, we've only used our entry awning 4 times. Mainly to check it out. I only remember one summer day in SD on the Missouri where it made a difference in temp camping on grass in high humidity. It felt like a 20 degree drop! We do not have a streetside awning. Though if we had dual power awnings, I would likely use them often. But we would not spend $,$$$ on them! 🤣 We live in the SW and still rarely use our entry awning. Though we do not summer camp and prefer to camp at elevation. The Oliver dual-hulls and dual-pain windows (are they still?) are very well insulated, so keeping sun off the body doesn't help much. You likely not sitting on that side. If you plan to summer camp often, that could make a difference. Also, some Oliver owners I know park at the same campsite for 1-2 months (I would have to shoot myself after a week!). We move every few days and erecting the manual awning is a bit of a pain. Dual power awnings? If money is easy for you, then why not! Trying to trim total cost, this should be the first to go IMO, The symmetry must look cool! 😎

Please let us know what you did to resolve your issue when it's corrected. Thanks. 😎

Back to the subject re the articulating hitch. Don't think we need one, even though I likely tow up and down more steep, angled and rutted dirt roads than many of you would dare! I feel safe with our upgraded 2 5/16" ball and Bulldog receiver. For those of you who want to learn more about hitches, check this out. Love this guy Tom Morton! He's the one who reviewed and installed both Turbro and Chill Cube A/C units in their RV. Quite a studied and capable young engineer. I searched for keyword 'hitch' on their website and got 6 hitch related articles. At bottom is one re the articulating hitch. 😎 https://www.mortonsonthemove.com/?s=hitch

We’ve never towed in freezing temps and don’t plan to! 🤣 We use the furnace when it freezes overnight when home and haven’t winterized since we’re often leaving again soon.

Oh yeah, all your search history is being traced! It knows what you searched for and is feeding you what you like! I stopped using Google years ago, use MS Edge only if a website error occurs with my browser of choice. We use DuckDuckGo which removes many tracers. They’re not that smart yet, but of course getting smarter. I used to always get tire ads for a couple months AFTER I made my tire purchase!

Hey John, did you wreck your paraglider one time? 🤣 My Mom, may she rest in piece, once when watching me do yardwork all day, then work on my old car 'til it got dark on a summer day, said to me, "You're going to hurt when you get older!" She was certainly right, but at 71 I'm still working with all my old body parts! 😎

@Sandman did you bleed the air out of the system? Toilet, both sinks and outdoor shower, hot and cold sides?

Our camping trip last week was canceled... 😒 We were headed to St. George for the PPA Red Rock Open (pickleball tournament) at the Black Desert Resort (amazing red rock views) in Ivins UT. We had earmarked boondocking spots along the way and a nice BLM area just 20 min north of the tournament. Then we were going to spend another week in SW Utah. The weather for the second time this WINTER had become unseasonably HOT, low 90s a couple days in Prescott and high 90s everyday in SW Utah. Our drive would have seen 100F temps at lower elevations! But the A/C charge on our tow vehicle had leaked/emptied with non-use since last season. I really wanted to try running our new Chill Cube A/C on battery, which should have been fine when camping, but towing in this heat without A/C would !be unbearable! I could have finished up the A/C work on the TV and left a day later, but then there is the price of diesel fuel, OMG! Why the market is so volatile and why a blockade at the Straights of Hormuz nearly doubles the cost of diesel in the SW US? Who knows, but trip canceled! Our son Adam had some time off and he wanted to camp and learn about the Oliver. She will be his one day! We have a LOT of camping nearby, needing very little fuel. And staying at high elevation, means A/C in the TV is less important. He spent a week on Thumb Butte road where there are designated dispersed numbered campsites. There is about a 10 mile radius around Prescott where you can only camp at designated dispersed sites. Further out you can camp anywhere in the FS and BLM lands. We got lucky towing up on a Friday just after noon to find site #8 open. It's at the top with the best view of Prescott below. 😎 BTW, up here are countless hiking trails and a grand mountain bike trail that runs 8 miles, dropping 1200 FT, running all the way down to the city below. Guys drive up with multiple trucks and bikes to run this trail. Thumb Butte is the iconic Prescott Mountain, the core of an extinct volcano! It's like a baby version of Wyoming's Devils Tower within Prescott City limits! City streets were laid out so that all streets pointing west have a view of Thumb Butte! This campsite is not for everybody! You must climb 1000 FT in 6 miles. The last mile is dirt, heavily rutted and very steep. I towed our Oliver up, parked it and returned with the TV so I could work on the A/C! Trans temp should be about 190F on this warm day, but given the climb <5 MPH, trans temp hit 230F by the time I parked! The views are worth it! Come visit Prescott on your next SW trip and I can point you to 100 amazing campsites with an hour of town! 😎

Great upgrade! I'd say yeah, sure, as long as you're wanting to power it. Any pics of your work? Products you used? Thanks for sharing.