Galileo

You may well be getting older (glad it’s only you 😂 ) but it sounds like you’ve got a good amount of get-up-and-go left in you with that description of the work you did! On valves - We have the “Autovent” option for the gray water “fill” from the factory. Keeps the grey water out of the shower pan while moving. Oliver installs the switch in the closet with a spring-loaded open/close rocker switch. We remember to open/close it -most- of the time. I suppose even it will need seals replaced eventually. Then again, unless it’s a dramatic failure, I don’t think it’s as critical as the dump valves. Grey tank dump - that T handle moved quite easily. Short cable. Hopefully it will last us the ten years yours has. Maybe it will be the next owner’s problem. I have no plans to upgrade it to electric. Blank tank dump - I think that horse is dead. I’m dismounting. Tank Additives - We usually use an odor-control additive in the black tank. Only occasionally in the grey tank. I really miss the good old Thetford blue stuff. It was quite effective and actually made the black tank dumping smell kinda good. I think it was the same stuff they use(d?) in commercial ports-potties. Pretty sure it had formaldehyde, so mere mortals prolly can’t obtain it. My current favorites are Thetford Aqua Max “Summer Cypress Scent”. It smells nice. Downsides are I think they’re optimistic about one packet treating 40 gallons…. That, and it doesn’t dissolve completely. Leaves some grainy specsks behind. (I dissolved on in a clear container with plenty of warm water.) I’m also leery of the packets. I think they’re some kind of gelatin, and I’ve found they don’t dissolve completely either. That said, I probably won’t buy them again. The Camco TST liquid seems the safest bet to me. Nothing to clog up or be left behind. As for my least favorite, “Happy Camper” gets the nod. I can’t understand the raves on Amazon. The stuff doesn’t dissolve easily, and tends to harden like plaster! Looks like an invitation to gunked-up valves! That, and I find it has about zero odor control. I have half a bucket of it left that I’ll donate to a non-discerning RVer. As for valve lubricants and treatments, I’ve tried the Thetford valve lubricant to try to help my black tank valve - and it did nothing. Probably because it was the cable, not the valve. Anyway, I suppose you can get away with using no additives at all - but emptying the black tank (and even the grey tank) are gonna be a smelly adventure!

Though I can see the argument for both “camps”, I like to keep things as stock as possible. I guess I’ll pull off the existing seal and see if it’s still in decent shape. If so, I’ll find a premium automotive trim adhesive tape and reinstall it. If it’s falling apart, then I’ll get that replacement from Amazon. Or, if we like it without the seal - then job completed. (After the cleaning!)

Always good advice and best practice! One of my first jobs was programming binary load lifters, er, I mean installing body side molding at a car dealership. Cleaning was half the job. (Getting it on straight was the other - and more difficult task!) I made a bit of a science of it - using a heat gun or even a Rube Goldbergesque “oven” to warm the coiled self-adhesive molding to help straighten and soften it. I expect that a lot of cleaning will be required just to remove the old adhesive and stains that are sure to be there.

This looks to be the stuff that Oliver used originally on my LEII. I’d go with it again, but figure the adhesive (in my case) is what failed. So I might be better off finding an automotive trim adhesive strip to replace the failed adhesive on my existing strip. (Seems a lot of the Amazon reviewers are unimpressed with the adhesive…) https://a.co/d/50QJH86

Good practice obviously! I’ve cleaned ours out previously. (When I was up there replacing the bolts holding the Dometic A/C fan bolts that vibrated out…) Right now, there’s no accumulated debris at all. But yes, getting the logjam out from under the brackets can be a chore if you camp anywhere around trees that like to shed bits and pieces. It took quite a bit of shooting streams of water from either side of the bracket before it was all flushed away. I think next time I’ll do it with the trailer well OUT of level to get some help from gravity! With the trailer level, a certain about of water seems to want to collect even when there’s no debris present. Likely due to minor deviations from the initial straight/level installation of that gap filler.

Hmmm - I thought the Truma A/C didn’t use the condensate drains that the Donetic A/C uses… or, I could have confused that with somebody else’s retrofit.

I see most of the posts here are by owners with older units. Hopefully our newer seal isn’t ready to crumble to dust or fall apart when try to deal with it. Our 2022 LEII has a “Girard” awning that has a filler strip between the awning housing and the shell of the camper. It appears to be adhered to the shell. Dunno if it’s also glued to the awning housing. For the most part, it still looks to be in good shape. Except - right over the refrigerator vents. Here it leaks and makes the lovely brown streaks down the side of the camper body. I thoroughly cleaned the roof last season, and though it did have a fair amount of crud up there - and was difficult to flush out because of the brackets - it did come pretty clean. We do have the luxury of keeping our Oliver stored indoors while we’re not using it. Anyway, the plan is to remove the strip - at least partially - clean off the shell and strip - and re-attach it to the shell. The questions are - what adhesive to use that will be fairly tough - but not damage the gelcoat, and …. I forgot. Though if I’ll have to remove the awning is up for grabs. We really don’t use the awning that much for various reasons, so perhaps removing the strip as others have done is still the best idea. I suppose that would eliminate the need for cleaning out collected crud.

Thanks all for the comments and (horror?) stories! Talking to the owner I spoke to a few weeks ago - hull 200-something - he mentioned a few changes that Oliver made that may have been experiments or one-offs or who knows what. One he mentioned was electric disc brakes (anybody else have them?) and sealed wheel bearings that I -thought- only came in a few years before our 2022 model. From what I understand, the location of the black tank valve was also moved “upstream” some years ago. Having worked for a company that employed leading (bleeding?) edge technology, I’ve learned that substitutions happen on the production floor. I would imagine that supply chain issues would require substitutions as well. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised that a picture of one owner’s unit might look totally different from what another owner sees. One would expect that hull (serial) number would list every deviation from standard, but seeing as “standard” is likely a moving target, that’s a lot to ask. As for splices and “Scotchlocks” - yeah - those are definitely not professional grade. In a pinch, I use the butt splices with the heat shrink sleeves. Being a tech school child of the ‘70’s, I prefer soldered splices with heat shrink. Only limitation there is time and how tight of a space you have to work in.

Dunno what it means that Oliver Service recommends replacing with electric if lubing is a lasting fix. One would think if all that long cable needs is a bit of lube to function smoothly for a good long time, they would have lived it at the factory. Regardless, the behaviour of mine (pull out - very hard, push in - very easy) tells me that there’s more to this issue than lack of lubrication on the cable or valve gate itself. Again - have worked with similar cable before and not been satisfied with temporary fixes. Anyway, I still have the original valve, cable, and pull handle in place, so I can play around with trying to lube the cable and use it if my electric fails. (Though the electric valve already has a manual T handle.)

JD, I haven’t even looked at the grey valve or where it’s located, so you’re a leg up on me on that subject. From your pic, it sure looks shoehorned in there! I don’t relish the thought of having to replace it. Why doesn’t OTT replace the black tank valve with another cable-operated one vs an electric one? My wild guess would be that they know that the one with the l-o-n-g cable is prone to failure and that an electric one would be the better option. (That they should have at least offered as an option up front!) Yours lasted ten years - mine was showing signs of total failure after only two years - in spite of babying it and using valve lubricants and making sure never to let crud dry in it. Long push-pull cables are asking for trouble - especially when throwing a couple of 90 degree bends into them. Yes, several folks said “Lube the cable!” - but that’s considerably easier said than -effectively- done. Unlike brake, throttle, and clutch cables on motorcycles, there’s no tool that you can clamp around one end of the cable and force appropriate lube through the cable under pressure. (I’ve used those on bikes - and even they are only marginally effective.) Without taking the whole cable out of the sheath and manually greasing it up, you’re just throwing oil at the ends of the cable -hoping- it will work its way to the area that needs it. I had a similar issue with the transmission cable on our sailboat. It “pushed” smooth as silk, but the “pull” bound up and locked up solid. My theory is that when pulling around those two 90 degree bends, the cable cuts into the sheath and digs into the worn area - likely cutting through the low-friction surface inside the sheath. No lube is gonna fix that for long and you’re going to have a problem eventually. Easing the radii on both ends of the black tank dump valve vocable helped a bit - but the problem was soon coming back and no further easing of the bends was possible. Hence, electric valve. I ran into another Ollie owner with a very low hull number a few weeks ago. He shared that he added another manual valve inside the rear bumper, so that if he had a valve leak or failure, he didn’t get a urine bath when popping the cap off. I don’t think I’d do that as in a pinch you can just drop the nose of the trailer fully and gravity will do the job for you. Anyway, with the considerable shorter cable run, the grey tank dump valve is fine and hopefully will stay that way for as long as yours has.

The lack of light in the pantry has always bugged me. I suppose if you’re a weekend warrior and only have a can of beans, burger buns, and a bag of marshmallows in the pantry it’s fine as it is. Since we pretty much live in our Oliver for three months at a shot - and we like interesting food - then finding anything in a fairly well-stocked pantry with no light - is a challenge. Initially, I was using a little “Nebo” LED light that you can get from most hardware stores. It has a motion-sensing feature that is an improvement. I’m still using one of these in the Norcold fridge. One night, I saw the light in the pantry was coming on without the door being opened. Not sure why, but I think the passive infrared sensor was picking up movement -through- the pantry door or wall. Still dunno why. At any rate, I found another solution that’s been working well and isn’t subject to being triggered by things moving in the pantry as you drive or other false movement. Amagle 4 Pack Door Open Automatic... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NVCJLF5?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share These are inexpensive enough to not fret over if they don’t work or if one quits on you. The only real challenge - after trying to figure out the best location(s) - is to line up the magnet with the sensor on the light. Due to the design of the door - and without wanting to design and make custom spacers - you need to mount the magnet close enough to shut the light off when the door is closed. I used a dry erase marker and Post-It flags to help me do this. Below are a couple of pictures that (hopefully) give you a hint where to mount the magnets once you choose where you want the lights. I placed two in my pantry, but I may go to three or even four. You’ll need to mount the lights as close to the edge as f the pantry opening as possible. Magnets need to be set back away from the edge if the door to clear the frame opening. Reviews on Amazon state that the foam tape supplied is too weak. They’re correct. I replaced mine with 3M “Command” foam mounting tape as I like the option of not leaving goopy adhesive behind if I change my mind. Finally - since you can’t tell if the light(s) are shutting off when the door is closed, I used my iPhone video camera to monitor it - and verified they DO turn off when I shut the door. (You could also do that with your home fridge if you’ve always been curious if that light turns off!) (I’d show more pics - but my pantry’s a bit of a mess at the moment…)

Yes, I thought about replacing both. The guy I spoke to at Oliver Service said “there’s not enough room to replace the grey tank valve”. Whether that’s true or not I haven’t verified. Based on the size of the electric black tank valve compared to the cable operated one - I’m skeptical. The electric one doesn’t seem to be much - if any - larger. At least not in overall length. Then again, it might be chunkier/bulkier close to the pipe where the motor/gearbox are. Anyway, I’m not looking to replace things just for the sake of it. I felt the electric valve for the black tank is better than fussing with and nursing the cable as it was getting worse and worse. So long as the grey tank valve behaves, I’ll keep it simple. If and when you take a look at it JD - let us know if it looks like the electric valve will fit or not. V

I concur with JD on the Valterra being all or nothing. The description of the product mentions limit switches so you don’t have to worry about holding a momentary switch until it’s fully open or closed (like the Autovent in the closet). There’s no “center off” position on the included DPDT rocker switch, so if you’re not opening, you’re closing or vice-versa. Turns out the included wiring harness is only about 7 feet long, so too short to install the switch in the position of the original handle. I don’t see another good place to mount it that makes any sense. That means I get to make up a new harness as I don’t like to put splices in the middle of a cable run - especially where that might end up someplace inaccessible. I’m also going to upgrade from 18-3 cable to 16-3. Mainly because that’s all I could find at Home Depot - and because heavier wire on longer runs is just good practice. Anyway, until I do the rest of the surgery, I’m have to duck under the forward dinette seat to actuate the valve. Already had one mishap and one near miss where I either forgot to close the valve. (Yeah, messy) or, opened the valve before I had connected the stinky slinky. The saving grace with that is IF you realize it before you take the cap off inside the rear bumper, you can lower the nose of the trailer and take the cap off without getting a shower….

I think most owners with the Dometic A/C would agree that’s it’s a tiny bit loud. (I suppose if you’re deaf it wouldn’t bother you at all - just your neighbors.) That, and I’ve read that at least two other owners have had issues with the bolts holding the fan motor backing out and causing significant problems. I had that issue myself. Luckily, I didn’t mind crawling on the roof to fix it myself. Others had to get professional help. The design and assembly shows a lack of care and proper engineering to an item that should be expected to regularly be exposed to a fair amount of vibration. As it’s built, this A/C should be -expected- to have problems. If I have to deal with the same problem again (before I replace it entirely) I’ll replace the substandard hardware with something more akin to what the factory SHOULD have used in the first place. Pretty sure I’m not the first one to have to replace the hinges on the Dometic fridge freezer door. Likely also why they’re a popular item on Amazon. Otherwise, I think it’s a great fridge - super freezer. Toilet seal leaked from day one. Wouldn’t keep water in the bowl. Tried the usual seal conditioners with no improvement. Replaced the seal with a new factory one. Worked for a few weeks, then same problem. Had a cheapo Thetford toilet in previous MHs - never had an issue with them. If your unit is 8 years older than ours - it’s highly likely that the components and workmanship were frankly - better. There’s really no such thing as “exactly the same equipment” build nearly a decade apart. Corners are cut, cheaper suppliers of parts and subassemblies are substituted, production processes are streamlined, workforces change, pandemics occur - and often - once-reliable items carrying the same model number are redesigned into something wholly different. (I believe there’s a phrase… oh yeah “they don’t make ‘em like they used to”.) Ask owners of White Mountain ice cream freezers. The ones made 20 or 30 years ago are bulletproof. The ones made 5 years ago will fail before you can make a second batch of butter pecan. We treat our equipment very gently - so it’s not as if we’re abusing our stuff into early failure. That said, I AM fairly demanding of stuff I pay a lot of money for. I EXPECT it to work properly and not fail quickly under normal operating conditions. OTOH - in those ‘less than three years’ - we’ve camped in 30 states and two provinces in Canada. We’ve crossed the continental divide four times. We use our Oliver for pretty much three months solid on each of the three vacations we’ve been on, and put 78,000 miles on our first tow vehicle during those three years. So it’s possible we’ve just use our trailer more than most folks. As for your lack of problems from any of your Dometic appliances - I’m happy for you! Really! It’s not like I -enjoy- having to diagnose, troubleshoot, or seek out other’s experiences to keep things working. I AM lucky to have a fair degree of mechanical aptitude, experience, and the tools to make most of my own repairs.

Too soon? 😋

For sure the Furrion-Vizio combo that came with our 2022 LEII leaves much to be desired. We’ve replaced the gosh-awful Vizio television with a Roku TV. Which - even though is the same 24” size, is -functionally- much more user friendly. Yes, I do find the speaker arrangement on the Furrion in the Oliver to be lacking. Three speaker outputs and only two are used? Speaker placement? Missed opportunities to effect a much better outcome. I may add a third set of identical speakers amidships and hook it to the appropriate speaker output to make for a better sound balance. Also considering wireless set of speakers to take outside. Anyway, the remote has been tempting me to hurl it against a wall for three seasons. (“What? You were trying to adjust the volume and you changed the input?!” or “You had to turn the lights on to make sure you had the remote upright and could find the right button?!”) Now, it’s tucked away - hopefully never to be used again. V

Perhaps some (later? Earlier?) trailers did come with a real remote, but ours didn’t. Just the credit-card-sized aggravating joke of a remote. Val

For those of you who have been less than impressed with the tiny, difficult to use remote that came with the Furrion DVD player - stereo that came with your Oliver - thankfully there is an upgrade available. Though a Furrion dealer I contacted said that there was no full sized remote available, I looked on Amazon (where else?) and found this: Universal FUTVRS1-BL Replaced... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094NHGK5B?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share for the money, it seemed worth a try - even though a vendor on Amazon I also contacted also said it “will only work with TVs”. Oddly enough, this remote arrived with two stickers that said just “Remote”. They were stuck clumsily on the front and back of the remote. Since they were obviously crudely stuck on, I peeled them off. Sure enough, it says “Furrion” under the stickers. Dunno why they bothered sticking them on. At any rate, the remote controls the power, volume, DVD player functions, AM/AM functions, input/output functions - and probably stuff I haven’t even figured out yet. I haven’t tried to actually tune the radio yet, but I suspect that will also work as well. If you’ve been as frustrated with the tiny remote as I have, then you’ll enjoy this upgrade!

Our previous motor homes were older (quite a bit older) and didn’t have electric or gas/electric water heaters - only gas. So we didn’t have the “quiet” option - just the F-14 on full afterburner blast of the gas flame. I’d love a gas/electric option. In fact, with the terrible, terrible arrangement with the water heater being so far from the galley and head points of use, I’m tempted to install one or more point-of-use electric water heaters and only using the Truma for times when no electricity is available. That would also save running so much water down the drain waiting for the heated water to arrive at the tap.

I thank you all for the suggestions to run the furnace. That said, running the furnace, using a dehumidifier, or cracking the windows doesn’t address the cause of the problem - cold air entering the trailer in fairly large amounts. If I can feel cold air blowing in through the heat registers - which I can - then there’s a significant opening admitting outside air. The trailer is hardly “closed up” if that is the case. Likewise, if cold air is blowing in, inside air is also leaking out - at a significant amount. Running the furnace is addressing the symptoms - but ignoring the cause. I suppose if most operators are content to put a band-aid on the problem rather than address the issue - that’s fine - for them. Running the furnace when there’s a large amount of cold air coming in is also pretty inefficient. Like having leaky old double hung windows and no weatherstripping in your home and “solving” the problem by installing a larger furnace. I do have and use a dehumidifier - I swear by them for my sailboat in NOLA - and they make sense in a lot of cases. Unfortunately, the cold wall in the trailer is a much better “dehumidifier” than mine. As it’s a large, cold surface, it grabs the moisture out of the air better than my dehumidifier. Using a dehumidifier in winter is about the worst time of the year to use it as cold air can hold a lot less moisture. Further reducing the humidity leads to static electricity, nosebleeds, and a generally uncomfortable atmosphere for the people in the trailer - or room in a home. (Probably why virtually every home furnace has a humidifier built in.) Again - this condensation is in ONE area - JUST above the area where the water valves, water heater, and furnace are. Were it a general humidity problem, there would be a lot more wet areas. Why isn’t the area over the outside access door to the “basement” as bad or worse? It certainly would be more logical for that area to be more prone to outside air infiltration. This tells me that there is a cold air infiltration problem that is localized. As the trailer shell has insulation in this area, it seems clear that it shouldn’t be as open to the outside air as it apparently is. I’ll certainly check the areas where the propane lines go through the hull to the water heater and furnace. I know there are “weep holes” to allow any trapped water between the shell and the liner layers to drain, but they shouldn’t be so large as to cause the significant draft that I’ve described. I’m also suspicious that the cutouts in the shell for the water heater and furnace to have unsealed areas or gaps that are allowing cold air infiltration problem. Additionally - IF there is one or more openings in the hull near the furnace or the water heater that are admitting and significant amount of outside air - then those holes need to be closed up! Two gas appliances that can generate Carbon Monoxide and air coming into the trailer in that area is a recipe for disaster. Running the furnace in that case is probably the riskiest thing one could do. Finally, the furnace ductwork is a whole different set of problems. The register under the bed (king bed floorplan) is the only one that gets decent airflow. The register under the galley cabinets is significantly weaker. The one in the head is a joke - barely enough air coming out to make a candle flicker. Until I can rework the ducts - running the furnace is pretty much ineffective anyway. It only directly heats the area under the bed. I DID see a post or two mentioning how terrible the “return” inlet location for the furnace is. It really wouldn’t be so bad IF the midship and head registers delivered any amount of heated air. So - I guess I’m just of the mindset of finding and solving the cause of the problem rather than compensating for air leaks.

No, as I said, have not been able to find anything applicable via the search function of the forum.

Though I haven’t taken it up with Oliver, I’ve found Truma to be quite unresponsive to requests for warranty service. Though I know the outer door on the water heater is prone to breaking. (By people who think you should swing it down rather than lift it off the bottom tabs.) Ours has never been mistreated - but still developed diagonal cracks at both rear corners. I emailed Truma asking to get a replacement door - even if I had to buy it. Response? None. Not even a “Go to your local dealer.” I admit to not knowing how long the warranty is on the unit, but with my luck, by the time I need it - it’s expired. As for recalls, should one affect my unit - and be worth taking advantage of - I’ve not modified the unit nor done anything that could even be detected as having touched it myself. (‘Course, if they looked here in this forum, they see my admission!) I suppose if push came to shove I could find an ambulance chaser, um, I mean product liability attorney, who would love to chat with Truma about sending people out on the road with a gas appliance that -could- set their trailer on fire… When Oliver sent out the replacement valve cores for the tires, they included a gift card for some minor amount that would likely NOT cover having that work done at a shop. Certainly not enough to refill the tires with nitrogen as they came from the factory. Again - I did it myself because it was less time, trouble and $$$ than it would have been to take it to a shop. Dealing as I have with service people, I tend to like to do it myself. It’s very rare to find a mechanic who cares as much about your car or trailer as you do. Warranty work typically pays poorly and the quality of the work is often commensurate with the mechanics compensation and resulting poor attitude and work ethic. I didn’t intend to wax so cynical, but I have horror stories that back up my claims. So I always think -very- carefully before I let anyone work on my stuff.

Hello all, Again - sorry if this has been discussed to death previously, but I find the “search” function to be pretty pitiful and have been unable to find anything near what I’m looking for. On to the question/problem: We haven’t been out camping much in cold weather until now - ironically - in Florida… go figure. Anyway - two issues that I’m fairly certain are related: When the furnace is off - there is often pretty cold (outside) air blowing in from the furnace outlets/registers and no, the heat and fan are off. There are no windows or vents open, so no air going out of the trailer. (So none should be coming IN.) I have a significant “breeze” coming in here…. The other issue is that the curb side rear inside side wall below the (closed) window is cold enough to cause significant condensation issues. Upon checking further, under the cushion (and condensation-mitigating mat) there was a LOT of condensation on the access cover over the water valves. Where is all this cold air entering from?! Something certainly seems to be wide open and allowing cold air infiltration. I would HOPE that there isn’t outside air coming into the interior of the trailer from the outside of the furnace - as this is right by the furnace exhaust. (CO anybody?) It’s more than a bit of a mystery since there are apparently two pretty big holes in the trailer - one admitting the cold air, and one exhausting inside air to make room for the cold air. Ironically, the panel over the “basement” and street side of the bed have zero condensation. That’s counterintuitive as the outside access door to basement (on the street side of the trailer) would be an obvious entry point for cold air. BTW - I don’t even turn the gas furnace on unless it’s deadly cold. We’ve been using a 1,500 watt electric heater while in campgrounds. (Why burn my propane when I can use the electricity I’m paying the campground for?!) Besides, it’s quieter and the heat distribution from the furnace is dismal anyway. (THAT - I found posts for!) I’ll bet there is a well-known answer to this question. I’m just disappointed that I couldn’t seem to find it…. V

Until the banging/thumping - out Truma has been fine too. The original water heater upgrade was largely due to a sales pitch. Though we don’t need “hot water as long as your propane lasts” the attraction to a “demand”/tankless water heater always gets a higher mark on my book. As for the tools or knowledge - if the choice is “no hot water until we can find and schedule a service stop” or fix it myself, I’ll always opt for the fix it myself option. I’m a former mechanic and an avid DIYer who has rehabbed a 150 y/o house. So unless I get into something REALLY intricate or with a lot of circuit boards, I’m on it. I can’t leave home without a cache of tools. Just the required wrenches to properly torque the lug nuts means “toolbox” to me. I even keep a hydraulic floor jack in the truck because the OEM jacks are a joke. V

I’ll look into it!