jd1923

I wrote previously our "fresh tank appears empty" which was not a good choice of words. Our FWT and some others were installed incorrectly by OTT, yes just some older hulls. We ONLY get 18 gallons of water (measured MANY times now when refilling) when the water pump starts drawing air. I never use the tank gauges which are inaccurate even when the Oliver is perfectly level. We know after 3 days the 18 gallons will need refilling. We know when we have emptied the fresh a second time the gray will need emptying the black needs it every other time we empty the gray. Just our water usage. I gave up on tank sensors years ago, hoping these external sensors would be better, but not. I recently opened a service ticket on this. Mike Sharpe replied, "I am looking into if we have the parts and even the tools to be able to do this as we have not done this modification in the last three years." He never replied whether he did "have the parts" or would still do a repair not done in over3 years. When I asked could you confirm availability of the parts ship me the parts, this was his answer The ticket was later closed, and I received no real answer other than this: "If you are able to find someone local to you to do it the spin weld tool they have may be a different size than what we use and then they would have to use the parts that they keep in stock for the job." have no idea if I towed our trailer all the way to OTT that they would fix this issue anymore. Our Olivier went back to OTT in 2018 and 2020 for service and you'd think they would have fixed this already! I'm going to have to live with it. At least we have a 35-gal FWT in the TV. How in the world would a FWT be installed with the suction line only halfway down such a flat tank? It should be designed to touch the bottom.

So first, are you sure you have enough water in the freshwater tank? Our fresh tank appears empty when half full due to an OTT installation defect on some older hulls. When it starts to pull air from the freshwater it will gurgle first and then run continuously. We refill frmo the boondocking port and we're good for another 18 gallons. This certainly could be the cause, but a water leak from ANYWHERE will show up dripping in one or more weep holes. Our kitchen faucet had a leak coming from the extension hose built-in to the faucet. It was not even hand tight. See picture for what a leak looks like. The center water spot is fridge condensate. The two on the ends were coming through the weep holes via the kitchen faucet connection.

Yes, every click is the drive gear (pictured) slipping pass the large round gear that moves the post. The long spiral thread design makes it the weaker gear taking the damage. You can see the wear marks on the outer portion of the gear. Once it slips when just in use, then it's damaged to the point of replacing the motor since it is the motor drive shaft. I never get ours near the ends. We travel with the rear jack bases at the height of the wheel centers and the front is always down a good 4". It makes for less time and work going up and down!

Finished the last task of this project, the fiberglass repair. This product worked well. It's slightly whiter than our yellowing hull. I also patched inside the hull where I had removed the original rear curbside TV mount. The color difference inside is hard to notice if any. I'm not the finish polisher guy, 320 grit sandpaper is the lightest I have. This is fine due to the location (see picture above prior to fill). I'll get it detailed further whenever I get to refinishing the hull.

Try it with and without and you will soon know what you prefer. I skip the Anderson around town, campsite to nearby campsite, but always use it on the highway. There are so many threads here where owners' of 250/2500 trucks voice opinions, many do not use it. My manual says yes for 5000 LBS or 500 LB hitch weight. It's night and day to me when towing over bouncy roads.

The OTT video shows some basic steps, but it misses the mark in properly servicing the jack. It merely demonstrates a visual inspection and if that's all you're going to do, I'd say just leave them alone. Given your hull is only 2 years old, if they sound good when running it should be fine to wait. They are nicely greased and sealed by the manufacturer to last awhile. The rear jacks are housed within the hull, and these will last even longer between service. Look at page 2 of the How-to Service thread linked above, where I worked a full jack service. It is better to do the job right every 3-5 years than to just visually inspect annually. Adding some grease on top of the gear does absolutely nothing. The body and moving parts of the jack must be cleaned of ALL old grease. You want a bath of new grease, with no air bubbles, under the main drive gear. I did that job on our front jack of our 8-year-old hull. The original OTT brown grease was still present, so you could tell this service had not been done in all these years. I don't plan to open it up again before 2028. I have not worked the rear jacks yet since these get little use, no real lifting strain, as compared to the front jack. They sound good as-is, on my list for next year. The only way to damage these quality VP3000 jacks is to allow the motor to run past the end stops. When the lift hits the stop and the motor continues to run, the spiral motor gear must slip on the large wheel gear causing damage to the spiral gear attached to the motor. When I had our apart and clean, I could see some evidence of this but not bad enough to change out the motor. There was no evidence of gear wear from lack of service. It did not sound well before the service and to my ear it sounds good now when lifting and lowering.

You're going to fit in just fine here. Prior owner of our hull said he was selling it because he wanted more of a project, nothing to work on with the Oliver. 🤣 Since then (June 2023) all we've been doing are minor repairs and major mods! Though it camped fine when first purchased, it should camp much more comfortably this upcoming season. Only major upgrades still on my list is to replace the A/C with something efficient and quiet, likely the Atmos 4.4, and to upgrade the axles with 12" brakes and Alcan leaf springs as soon as our shows signs of needing repair. We purchased an older hull, first because it was listed on Craigslist in our hometown. Told my wife, "Let's go see it, but there's no way we're spending that kind of money on a travel trailer!" Had no idea what an Oliver was. Found out new ones cost twice as much, and we brought her home by the end of the week! I always buy used and enjoy restoration work. Same story re our tow vehicle. Hope you find a good used Oliver to enjoy as we have!

🤣 Systems, we don’t need no schtinken Systems! (that we cannot mod ourselves)

Do you mean while in storage? (or if using antifreeze, just to get some in the drain plumbing and valve) We want NO bugs camping in the FWT!

Personally, I'm not worried about the fuse issue. What is the simplest yet valid test to know the Fastway breakaway switch is working?

@DavePhelps thanks for asking the question and I hope your project is going well. And Geoff, you got me thinking of the possibility of a device or wiring failure that could occur either side of a breaker. I have the direction reversed on the breakers, as I first suggested (see they're upside down in the picture, yellow levers up) protecting charge voltage from two MPPT SCs. Looking at the bigger picture, I added a 75A fuse (far right in picture) safeguarding the batteries and wiring for everything external to the Victron MP2 inverter where they spec'd a 400A fuse to the batteries. The additional 75A fuse will protect our two 30A solar chargers and the 40A breaker that feeds all 12VDC devices/wiring. Another way to word this is if anything fails/shorts to ground in ANY Oliver 12VDC circuit, this fuse will blow, the last stop prior to the 4/0 wiring, the Victron MP2 and the Epoch batteries. I used this style fuse but instead of the designed holder, I made my own with 1/4 x 1" copper stock and a 5/16" SAE automotive bolt (torque lightly due to the glass fuse housing). Now that it has tested positive, I should buy a spare: Amazon.com: South Bend Components Fuse only Marine Rated Battery Fuse (MRBF), 58V DC Max, IP66, Ignition Protected (1-Pack) : Automotive

From your post it appears that maybe after many years you're considering a purchase? The answer to your question is in so many posts. Search 'model' or 'model year' or 'options' or... What really matters is what is available on the used marketplace. Older Olivers hulls to newer hulls, they are all Olivers and are all about 90% alike, except for options and owner modifications. There are no better years, but they likely got better each year. Look and compare based on availability, location, cost and your needs re options.

Assuming 2 batteries for 74A total, near 74 AH when running compressor continuously on a hot afternoon. Ty

Ron if I remember correctly, Mike @rideadeuce reported his Atmos running at 75 amps (the Dometic P2 runs at 150A, when hot outside, compressor running). I'm not sure if Mike's number was full current draw when the compressor is running or an average with some cycling. Nashville sure gets hot in the summer. I see highs in Houston consistently at 90F this week. What readings are you getting? It would be nice to know the high amp rate compressor running and hourly AH usage on a 90F Houston afternoon with A/C set at say 76F or whatever setting you feel is comfortable. If 75A is an average, of course that's 75AH hour. With a 260AH battery, this is near 30% SOC loss per hour. @Skipster reported 4% in one hour, so that must be on a cold 62F day running low-speed fan mainly.

Never seen a leaf break this way! What junk Dexter sells. We should not have to replace leaf springs, bearings, and other major parts of these trailer axles! It’s only a 7K lb occasional use travel trailer. I would hire the mobile repair guy. I would not be a customer of a service center that cannot schedule a date and get it back same or next day. They need 2 weeks, give me an appointment in 2 weeks. That’s BS.

Others will chime in who use RV antifreeze. I don't as I prefer to blow the lines dry enough with compressed air at 40 PSI. I have a thread on doing that (search for "antifreeze" if interested). If you use antifreeze, you certainly do not need it in the freshwater tank. You would really have to rinse it several times start of next season to get rid of it. A little water in the bottom of the tank will freeze, and with several cubic feet of air space above it for expansion, there's no physical problem. Water expansion when freezing only affects plumbing full of water between the turns and joints. When plumbing freezes with trace amounts of water within it will not damage the pipes and certainly not tanks. To answer your question directly: If adding antifreeze to the freshwater tank you would want to see a little pink liquid leak out of the drain, to be sure it made its way into the drain plumbing, and then close it.

We replaced the Dometic on the Bigfoot Class-C we had, after ours had a stuck fan. It threw a bearing and was dislodged on an angle. I unbolted the unit from inside and slid it an inch or so to be sure. Then asked my son Adam to help. I asked him to climb up on the roof and throw it down below. My single request was to hit the gravel drive ONLY. Placed on the curb in time for our city annual trash pickup. We hoisted the new unit up top using an extension ladder as a long ramp. Can't believe anybody would pay $600 for this model! Not likely up here (slow Craigslist in our area), though perhaps if we lived down in the valley. I will pull the SoftStart off the old unit to save $300, if it's still in good condition and will work on the Atmos. Been meaning to climb up there to take a look.

There are a few members here that had this experience and could chime in. From what I remember in the 22 pages before, these failures have not caused other real damage. Nothing you can do but to go get the work done. It's a short distance so pick the best route to go slowly, maybe skip the highway unless it is nicely paved, which is hard to find these days.

Good in a pinch but not enough volume for us. We have one of the old hulls where OTT messed up the FWT installation. The suction hose only reaches to the half-point level of the tank. We consistently get only 18 gallons from our FWT when the water pump starts gurgling! Oliver offers the repair and too bad visits by prior owners in 2018 and 2020 to Hohenwald and nobody thought to fix this! We may get there one day, but in the meantime... With our TSC 35-gal potable water tank we can refill the FWT twice, so we get about 54 gallons total after a fill. When TV and TT are hitched, I use the 25 FT hose and 10 FT hose we travel with to make the connection. Took a call to Norwesco to order the hoop mounts: Norwesco 35 gal. Horizontal Leg Tank at Tractor Supply Co. I custom fit a cover to keep the sun off the tank and water: Amazon.com : Dokon Heavy Duty Patio Ottoman Covers Waterproof Outdoor Ottoman Cover Anti-UV Patio Side Table Cover, Patio Furniture Covers with Air Vent, Rectangle (28"L x 22"W x 17"H) - Black : Patio, Lawn & Garden Boondocking with 54 gallons of fresh water, we can last over a week or until the black tank is full.

How far do you have to go? Drive easy and slow like a school zone over RR tracks!

These are designed for lifting the good wheel on a dual axle trailer to mount the spare on the other. I don't believe if you have a pair of these that one would fit between the two tires as needed to level one side, as the Oliver dual axles are spaced closely to each other. Amazon.com: ANDERSEN HITCHES | RV Accessories | Single Rapid Jack | 3620 : Automotive I've had an old aluminum version of this since the 90s. I used it to change a spare tire or two on the road since. Not sure why I've been carrying this, as the Oliver has power stabilizer jacks that can be used to mount the spare. I should just keep it on our flatbed trailer. Amazon.com: EZ-Jack Combination Jack and Wheel Chock for Dual Axllee Trailers - 20,000 Lb Cap. EZ-Jack EZJACK : Automotive

They are expensive! Got to admit, found an eBay seller with a one-off pair for $60 (looked hard and long)! A better set would be as strong yet maybe taller. The Andersons are 4” tall, and they just fit between the wheels. I can see the required height on the LevelMatePRO before using. If > 4” move and try again! Then drive up ‘til level and you shouldn’t drive past the top. However, I have done so when I have gone in reverse when should have gone forward, or vice versa. What a mess, just drive forward, right over the dang things and try again! I haven’t broken one yet (rated to 30K LBS). 🤣

I missed you Jason, glad to see you posting again! 🤣 I got the grumpy look too, but I put a big smile on and talk to everyone we see on the road. Sometimes Chris says, "Are you about done?" We love to take pics with all the different and often strange travelers we meet!

Yes, tires off the ground are anything but stable and yes, you need to get close to level first. I have a set of the yellow ramps you have, but not for the Oliver since they do not work well for dual axle. I only use them for when I need the rear wheels on the TV higher. I used the awkward orange squares to level before I decided to spend the $90 on the Andersons! Glad I did. Often Chris quickly places the two Anderson levelers on one side while I'm still parking the truck and when ready I pull up or back up in a quick minute to level. I got a pair of the Anderson 8" tall round platforms for the rear stabilizers and now only use our old orange squares for the front trailer jack. It's so much easier. Looks like the newer Anderson levelers have a ribbed bottom for better traction: Camper leveler - Andersen Hitches Trailer Jack Block - Andersen Hitches