jd1923

Great thread here! This post is key, from senior IRV2 member TeJay: "The cheap RV regulators don't regulate the pressure they just restrict the flow. That will in effect reduce the chance of over pressurizing your system if a CG has high water pressure. You do have a reduction of pressure but also a reduction of flow. With a true regulator you don't lose the flow or volume." Thank you, Bill & Martha! Yes, remove the cheap restrictors and purchase a quality pressure regulator. @Lisa Rae just came to this conclusion as she wrote above. I will also delete the installed restrictors. Lisa, you may consider removing the (winterizing/boondocking) brass water valves that restrict the flow to 1/4". I replaced them with motorized valves, or you could use manual valves that are 1/2" or at least 3/8" ID which is the true ID of 1/2" PEX connectors. Now I see why they only promise the 40-50 PSI range, since they restrict flow and not pressure. This is also the reason why my upgraded water pump provides better flow and pressure pulling from the Fresh Tank, vs when we connect the City Water inlet at the campsite. We still have the bathroom faucet issue, i.e. less flow than the kitchen faucet. There must be something inherent to the plumbing of our 2016 hulls, since many newer model owners do not have this complaint. I don't believe it's mineral buildup, since that would be everywhere, and I measured without the faucet heads installed. You can't "kink" PEX, but more length and multiple restricting connectors could do it. Also in ours, the plumbing in the vanity makes way more noise than our quiet new water pump. After we finish our travel this season, I will open the bathroom vanity and follow the water lines (and the furnace ducting) from the pump at the curbside bed to the wet bath!

I've seen the schematic showing check valve only before. Yours is that way and easier to reach in your 2018 model. Mine is exactly like @Lisa Rae's and we both have 2016 hulls. Two devices on each line, backflow check-valve AND pressure regulator at the REAR of the basement instead. I found out the 40-50 PSI regulator is a RV standard of old. See this item that Amazon calls "Overall Pick" with 21K reviews: Amazon.com: Camco Camper/RV Water Pressure Regulator | Protects RV Kitchen Small Appliances, Plumbing & Hoses | Reduces RV Water Pressure to Safe and Consistent 40-50 PSI | Drinking Water Safe (40055) : Automotive One of my many summer projects will be to remove the internal 40-50 PSI regulators, clean and replace the backflow/check-valves and get an external adjustable pressure regulator like you showed. Wow, this one is very expensive at $280, but again I don't want the $11 40-50 PSI unit, or one of the dozens of China-made adjustable units on Amazon for $30 +/-. Is yours made in the U.S.A.?

Me too, isn't that why we login each day? Thank you GJ, this made my day! @Mike and Carol reinforced my thought that my 450AH of LA might be good enough for many camping styles. And we have a near new battery bank the prior owner purchased in 2021. @MAX Burner also reinforced the idea, stating 300 AH works for them (although Art has a KILLER DC-to-DC installation). I'm going to keep reading, learning and likely will put off an LI upgrade for a couple of years. Just ask @SeaDawg, as she has been babying her AGMs for years. At the same time, would love to have 600AH of Epoch LI batteries ready for your next trip. All in time...

Thank you @Lisa Rae and @Townesw! So, when I get a chance to crawl into the rear basement... I will clean the water backflow preventers (aka check valves, a required component to achieve plumbing system pressure, allowing the water pump to cut-off/stop) on both lines and REMOVE the pressure regulators on BOTH lines, and instead use an external pressure regulator. Or perhaps, I could find an alternative to integrate an adjustable pressure regulator internal to the Oliver which of course would be preferred. Love the fact that in the pic, we see pressure regulated to just under 60 PSI, not 40 PSI, anywhere near the OEM regulator. 60 PSI is a good number, 40 PSI is NOT! We run 60 PSI in our 45-year-old home with copper plumbing, sweat solder joints. A modern PEX plumbing system can function up to 100 PSI. Thank about this.

I'm an old map guy too, but you cannot ever buy the thousands of USGS maps, in quadrangle detail available. I have hiking maps, trail maps marked with dispersed camping detail, and more. Not talking about driving down an Interstate or US highway. Check out this map we downloaded for your first ever Oliver camp last July. Do note, the roads with the '. . .' alongside the roads. These stand for roads that allow dispersed camping. There is NOT a printed map in the world that shows this detail except for some NFS maps. The blue dot was our camp and the next pic explains itself!

Slow speed on the cordless drill, holding straight, even constant pressure. Never had fancy drill bits in all my years, since every repair is a one-off (unless you run a woodshop). Go for it! ☺️

I'm hoping those of you with hull #s >1000 have better water pumps installed by OTT. There are 100s of RV water pump options today! Eight (8) years ago we got this OEM installed pump (pic 1) and with my recent upgrade I installed this instead (pic 2). Retail it's $80 vs $200 and at OEM cost it's likely $40 more which anybody paying $100K larger for a high-end TT should get. Penny-wise and pound-foolish, as they say.

GJ, Mike and many others, have better batteries than we! 450 AH of lead acid here. I read here that two 300AH Epoch batteries fit, which is totally amazing! By the time we upgrade, 2025, 2026, I'm hoping some manufacturer can stuff 800AH into the bay size holding four 6V golf cart batteries!

We were out on a short camp last week. My wife commented the diverter switch was difficult to push (I only took outdoor showers). When measuring flow rates, as I suggested above, you could remove the shower head and kitchen faucet head to measure, eliminating the restriction of the head itself. You can do the gal/sec measurement with and without the faucet head and that can be very telling. I always remove the restrictors in EVERY home or RV faucet. Thank you very much bs.gov for adding restrictors into every imaginable plumbing device. Restriction, after flow restriction adds up cumulatively, making a 3 GPM pump in our Olivers produce 1.5 GPM at their very best! I used to travel a bit for business, usually checking in on Sundays for 4 nights to teach a corporate training class. Standard toolset in my suitcase were pliers, a pick, etc. to get a good shower for 4 nights. As a decent citizen, I put the hotels' plumbing system back as was, prior to check-out. But what a pain!

All the details are here:

You can have the front of your TT 2-3 FT above the rear and if the drain valve is not seated on the floor, your Fresh Tank can stay half full! (See my post above.) I made a comment about leaving the drain open in another thread and was warned of the authorities not liking that. We do it on roads less traveled, or just drain in our driveway while unloading. Our driveway is steep enough. With everything right, why does draining the Fresh Tank take so long? Because the drain valve has a 1/4" ID opening. See my pic, when I had replaced all OEM valves with motorized ball valves. Those are 1/4" and 3/8" drill bits to illustrate ID size. Every PEX connector reduces the 1/2" pipe to 3/8" and all the valves installed in our 2016 hull had 1/4" ID. Our motorized drain valve now has a 12mm opening which allows the tank to drain in half the time! Love the motorized valves since they are less restrictive. Also love the convenience of pulling extra water from your TV when the onboard fresh empties after for us 3-4 overnights boondocking. We fill the Fresh tank again and still have another 10-15 gallons for a third fill if needed. We leave home with over 65 gallons fresh water. And when we get home, I drain what's left in two fresh tanks!

I want to lose the supplied Andersen WDH but have yet to do so. I find without it the backend of our TV is bouncy, don't notice sway either way. Our TV is an older Dodge Ram 2500 Cummins and the user manual states to use a WDH for trailers > 5000 LBS. Our TV is known as a 2nd Gen Ram Cummins, and it is LB and 2WD. We owned 3rd Gen for years, HD w 4WD and it was much more tow capable. The newer Rams with the 6.7 Cummins have even greater capacity I believe. This Ram has OEM "Helper Springs" that are two leaves that sit above the main leaf springs, designed to come into contact when greater rear load is applied. Problem is with the Oliver, weighing in at only 6000 LBS, it does not have enough weight to engage the helper springs. When hitching the Oliver the hitch height will drop 2". I wonder if a suspension shop could adjust the helper springs, to come into contact sooner. I tried the "Timbren Rear Suspension Enhancement System." They are like adding airbags to the rear, without the air being rubber cushions. I believe I wasted $300 on this kit. One spacer is to lose, and one is too tight. Too lose is like not having them. I have it on my list to call their tech support. Liked this idea and many on the Cummins Forum suggest them. I never want to get into true airbags again, what a pain.

Yes, the D52 axles will have the same 6x5.5 hubs, but you should see 12" brakes and E-Z Lube bearings. See in your pic (ours is the same) where it shows 10" on the drums.

Have the same map, in our bin of travel maps. We bought ours when we first moved to Prescott, AZ in the year of 2005. I love paging through the printed maps of old! When traveling, RVing (or TTing) these days we use Avenza maps: Avenza Maps | The #1 Digital Map Store You can download all of the USGS maps for free and many others. The beauty of the online maps is you can see your location, at the little blue dot! Have it on my phone, whether we are traveling or even dirt-riding in the Arizona BLM and NF. I believe I made some odd comment, the first time I read one of your posts... You have an intriguing writing style! We look forward to your next addition. 😂

Thank you, Jason, for contributing here! This shows the class act of OTT! ☺️ I'm certain you understand that manufacturing defects are more often batch-based than a single incident. At the same time, we hope it is a "single incident" for those we title Oliver owners. I recently purchased an older used hull, so np here. First thing I did was to check. There are many Oliver owners that do not frequent our wonderful OTT Forum. I would imagine that OTT is sending a safety/recall notifications to every OTT customer in your owners database. Thank you Jason!

The 6-bolt wheel pattern on the Oliver is more readily available on the 5200 LB axles. Most 3500 LB axles generally come with a 5-bolt pattern.

I worked for Motorola, back in the day, and what you wrote is spot-on! Thank you. I trained 1000s of manufacturing associates, in advanced manufacturing technology (CIM), and Motorola would pay for the education of associates in continuing education, work the line and later get an engineering BS or technical certification. Motorola brought us much of the technology we use today and was the founder of Six Sigma quality! So many of the issues we see are the result of purchasing, agreed 100%. But engineering does not end with design, it is full life cycle, and finishes with Total Customer Satisfaction (Motorola TCS). As a design engineer, my project is not finished until I have 1000 customers providing feedback, and we work the next months, or year towards improvement! GB you @Lisa Rae!

And our toilet fills quickly NP, yet our sink/shower faucet is the issue. A filter on the toilet! 🤣 I hope it filters particles larger than the norm!

Or good Texas Vodka!🤩

Look under your curbside bed, and locate the drain. Pull the heater ducting out of the way and there is a simple valve. Make sure this is pushed down to touch the floor. The outlet can get pushed up, and if pushed up enough, it can be above the tank height. OTT should, may I say SHOULD strap this line to the floor, but they don't! And because they do not, the drain WILL move up. An easier way to fix, if you’re like me always crawling under trucks, trailers and the sort, is to climb under the rear passenger side tire, find the blue PEX drain and pull it down hard. Given the front of your TT is somewhat higher than the rear, you should be 98% empty.

Some of us here are adding true mods, yet many of us are making corrections for cheap parts and inadequate design, and asking why in an expensive TT. And I understand being proud of Oliver! Yes, it's a good overall design in travel trailers. Continuous improvement must be a component of company culture, and OTT has improved through the years. It starts by admitting past mistakes. @Geronimo John, you must admit, user feedback was not asking for 1.25 GPM flow at the bathroom. "Please keep the pressure low, so my wife cannot rinse her hair!" Or the seasoned engineer determining, "a 45 PSI regulator is required for the 55 PSI RV water pump system." There is a disconnect here. No physical reason can be cited. We could also reference the half-a-dozen recent threads on the furnace duct system. Reason the return is arm's length form the strongest duct. Reason the bath duct has very little air flow with no return (again with improvements through the years). Reason why the main water lines are running along and touching the back wall, the coldest area of the trailer? Reason for Dexter China bearings vs. Timken. Reason for multiple leaf spring failures? ... I need a reason, and it's not just that I'm an engineer, or that I should take your word for it because you are. You wrote, "We may not know the reason (for) it, but they know it from experience." Sorry, I can't swallow that one. Never have, and never will. Not accepting the status quo, asking "How can we do better" is the basics of good design engineering.

Crank down the pressure on the WDH to bend the chassis on that EV! The single axle AS sure looks big in that picture. Tow capacity is one spec, but in this case, it is the length of the lever. Go over train tracks quickly, with this rig, and it's the EV that would bounce as the AS stays grounded!

It's unnecessary use an external regulator, given the 40 PSI inline regulators. There will be some who will warn against going to higher PSI. But honestly, design engineers can be so dumb at times! Why would OTT install a 45 PSI regulator on the City Water line, but install a 55 PSI water pump? Why does the Fresh Water inlet need one at all? Pressure cannot build up in that line, since the fresh tank is vented via an overflow. Just the reason why it takes long to fill the tank. Now I understand why we have better pressure using the internal water pump vs. the City Water line! Thank you for this. You could not possibly remove the dozens of PEX elbow and other connector fittings, but if I can remove 2-3 from hot and cold lines showing in the vanity, I certainly will, to open and soften the flow. Haven't looked in there yet. We just got back from Casa Grande AZ, where the afternoon temps were high 70s. I did a couple outdoor showers since the pressure was better (and to not get the bathroom wet)! We carry an extra 35 gallons potable water in a truck mounted stock tank. We like to boondock for a week with all the water with good pressure as possible!

Thank you @Lisa Rae. I've asked about this before and like you said, the threads to not come to conclusion. Can it just be the length of the plumbing, rear to front, that makes it slower, or is something truly restricting flow? I replaced the water valves with motorized true 1/2" valves and in the doing found out OTT had installed brass valves with measured 1/4" inner diameter. The elbows, used in 1/2" PEX are about 3/8" ID. Wonder how many of these elbows I will find under the sinks. I will remove some PEX and as many 90-degree elbows as I can under the sink and replace with full 1/2" ID soft water line. So great you removed and cleaned the rear brass backflow preventers and regulators. I asked before, why 2 parts when the OTT plumbing diagrams only show a backflow preventer? I feared one was a regulator. I can just read the stamping on the regulator in your picture. Looks like 40 PSI, or 40-50 PSI. This is likely too restrictive, even when clean. Really should be 55-60 PSI, for those of us who want more than a trickle. We can see from your video, that the bath is certainly slower. You should measure for a true before and after. @mossemi suggested a procedure. I timed "seconds to fill" an empty gallon water bottle at both sinks. Formula: 1 / # seconds x 60 = GPM Example: 1 / 48s x 60 = 1.25 GPM (it took 48 seconds to fill the gallon) Do this to get hard numbers and then you can compare before and after vinegar cleaning, or any plumbing change. The 1.25 GPM rate was what I measured at our bathroom faucet. The kitchen was a little faster at 40 secs, calculating 1.5 GPM. We upgraded our water pump, with a variable speed pump, and it increased flow in both locations about 10%, and not as much as I had hoped. The new pump is quieter, but the plumbing under our bathroom sink has gotten noisier, that banging plumbing sound. Next step for me is to remove the front of the vanity to see what is restricting the flow. I'll do the @Frank C vanity mod after we get done with spring travel: Bathroom Vanity Cubby Modification - Mechanical & Technical Tips - Oliver Owner Forums (olivertraveltrailers.com)

Now that we have realized this BD hitch is a 5000 LB Class-3 hitch with a 7000 LB Class-4 OEM-mounted label, it really has nothing to do with what was designed for an LE-I or any OTT model. As @ScubaRx has verified, all travel trailers manufactured by OTT since 2015 have specified the 7000 LB Bulldog. OTT did not install the wrong trailer part. They installed a DB hitch mislabeled by Bulldog. The question is, did OTT receive just one (1) of these defective (mis-labeled) hitches, or a few? They could be on any 2018 +/- OTT trailer. Also, what was the defective batch size? Besides OTT, what other trailer manufacturers could have received mislabeled units? OTT management should not only be monitoring this thread. They should pay for ALL of @rideadeuce's expenses and some and pay to have this defective unit shipped back to OTT as evidence. In the end, Bulldog should pay. OTT MUST make Bulldog aware of this immediately, to limit OTT liability. DB must trace this unit by manufacturing batch number and communicate a recall to all possible BD consumers.