KarenLukens
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Posts posted by KarenLukens
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I was going to do a “How To: REInstall Your Blinds Properly” thread. Maybe you could do that, take pics, otherwise it might start to look as if I am angry about my trailer….. I’m not, really, I love it, I am just increasingly frustrated that one or two sloppy/incompetent/ untrained/ hungover/ part time/ unsupervised/ rushed/ whatever technicians could have screwed up so many little and seemingly insignificant installations that care and common sense would have prevented. John Davies Spokane WA
Now that's funny there, John :)
We reversed all of ours the other day so the dark slides up from the bottom for privacy at night. Now we can slide them up at night and leave them open about 6" and see out just fine, but nobody can see what your wearing from the outside anymore. When we removed them, 2 of them had the screws stripped... as usual... and the screws came out with the blinds... then after putting them back on with only 4 hold downs until I fix them... one came down on the road from hell :) but they just land on the bed or on the couch and quickly go back up.
I had to realign the hold downs on one when we bought the trailer. Having them all mounted flush and horizontal is the key, and then having them not stripped out helps... It is one nasty road but it cuts off 20 minutes :)
The bigger the screw... Lol.
Reed
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Check your p3 settings... On ours we had to switch it from electric to electric over hydraulic to get it to work on the Oliver. It seemed strange because I had it set up perfectly for the Casita and figured that it would be plug and play... I had almost no brakes and as soon as we changed the settings type, everything worked fine and we haven't had a problem since. I do use the manual override quite often when braking on hills and have it set up so that my hand rests on it comfortably when needed. Try changing that setting before taking it in because that sounds all to familiar.
Reed
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Reed, Ah, yes. Woodruff Lane. It’s an excellent place to get some air over the RR tracks. Been there, done that. My favorite way to get to Chico. BTW, how do you insert an emoji in the text? Can’t figure it out.
Go to your Main Profile page, hit the edit gear under your pic/edit profile, scroll to the bottom to “Forum Signature”. You can click the question mark telling you to click the text tab but the tab is on the far right next to the Visual tab. Once in the text tab you can insert the pic
Here's a guide, I had pics in here somewhere for it but...
http://olivertraveltrailers.com/topic/map-in-signature-block/
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Tons of stuff, a drill, bits, 4" angle grinder, 100' extension cord, small shovel, a/c adapters, roll of rebar wire, grease, gloves, plastic gloves, Lysol wipes and...
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We had window covers come off yesterday also but Woodruff Lane has always been a great short cut to hwy 20, though bumpy. I actually scrapped the tongue yesterday also but we are home once again :) When I know that we are going to be going over bumpy, twisty roads, with the King bed we can just pull the comforter down over the foot and secure the right side cabinets. Since I adjusted and added magnets that actually work behind the drawers, we haven't had a problem.
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The cutting board is the largest that Walmart has, 15" x 20" but if you measure the drawer opening for a cover it can be larger. It looks like 3/8 uhmw. The one over the sink with the front lip she just picked up for $10 at Fred Meyer's on sale. She loves the small one and I use the large one as either an extra table over the drawer or for my laptop desk, hooked under the pantry when I'm editing or playing on it. It's just the right height when you have the King bed for another chair. Then we leave the Dinette as a sofa, which works great when we have guests because there's room for 2 more chairs in the isle if we're playing cards or staying in because of rain. To us, the dinette table needs an extension, so we use folding tables instead.
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We chose to have it set in normal also because it's just best for us. Then we have one sink cover cutting board for whatever and when cutting veggies you can just scrape everything into a bowl in the sink. Then we have this second cutting board that does everything else.
It's a kitchen table, splatter gaurd, and desk top.
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Welding helmets are OK as long as they are of a high enough grade (sorry, but I don’t remember exactly what that number is – 14?). As Sherry said, you can’t be careful enough given that the damage to the eyes does not hurt when it is happening and most of us only get two (note that some mothers have an extra set in the back). Bill
#10 is fine and usual for arc welding, that's what we used. Any less just doesn't cut quite enough out. 14 is a lot but would still work fine. We had one set at 13 and that was nice also when it was partial but a bit dark at full for me.
Any good quality adjustable welding helmet will work great.
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Reed – those are the “old” three way valves. Don’t know exactly when they made the switch but, as far as I know, this is what was used through at least March, 2016. I’ve never had a problem with them. Bill
Are those valves that you use for water transfer into the tank, or do they just stay untouched? I didn't know that they used 3 way valves in the past, I don't remember seeing any on ours. Looks like a nice clean set up :)
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Wow! You guys are right on it this morning. Below are a few quick photos of this mod. Note that I did not take it apart to see just how far the pickup tube goes towards the bottom of the tank. But, Jason told me that now I would be able to use virtually 99% of the water that was in there, so, I assume that they put that tube right to the bottom. Also, since I only live about seven hours from Hohenwald and just got home yesterday afternoon, I did not have a chance to “test” it. Hope this help! Bill
What's the story on the new 3way valves?
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It takes just 45 minutes to make right :)
And probably 3 minutes now before the tank is installed during the build process on new trailers. Excellent news on the resolution of this easy to fix problem. Do you know if they are doing all of the spin welds on the new tanks, or did they get the tank factory to start putting them in for them before shipment?
We can now mark this major problem as Solved :)
I didn't realise that this is a new thread being that we've been out of touch for a week :)
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Thanks Steve :) I will try that when we get home, I don't have any spare wire with me... Yet :) The jack is grounded to the frame and there's supposed to be a pin washer under the front bolt to complete the ground as is but I haven't checked it yet, I just read the PDF about an hour ago, so when daylight comes around will check that first. Then in a couple days I will be home and then I'll run the ground wire to confirm that the jack bolt is the problem and hopefully, I can get it working with no voltage loss. It really looks like a bad ground but having no power into the switch is still a head scratcher for me right now...
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Now we are learning about the front jack. I had to use the manual crank handle to lower the jack the other day after having low voltage to the jack itself, I believe... I've now read the jack PDF and it doesn't talk about a voltage limiter, but obviously there is one built in somewhere. I had 12.2vdc on the battery but only 10.4 - 11.3 at the fuse, with no power at the toggle switch. So the complete power loss was between the fuse and the switch, with partial voltage loss between the fuse and the bus bar. The wire does pass through the motor housing and because we were located in an area with no cell service at Mount Rainier National Park, I didn't want to just pull the gear housing off of the jack with no knowledge of what was going on under those 4 bolts, so out came the jack handle. After lowering the jack, which reminded me of our Casita days, I plugged the trailer into the car via the 7 pin connector and once again power came back on at the jack between the fuse and the motor... The jack works once again... There's only 2 possibilities that I can see, either a broken wire inside the housing or a built in low voltage cut off that isn't mentioned in the owners manual PDF... The company recommends a 12 gauge wire to power the jack and with that much power loss between the battery and the jack, the wire that's there now has an issue somewhere.
Anyway, if you have a jack with no power at the switch, try plugging the trailer into the car first to see if power is restored before using the manual jack handle. It's about the same as hand cranking a Casita, so it's no big deal and it can be cranked fast but our supplied crank has no handle on it, just a pin to catch your hand on, so I'll be making that call to Jason again about getting the rest of the handle that is shown in the picture from the manufacturer because having that pin just going through a bare metal handle at the hand hold is really extremely idiotic... I did shoot a video on hand cranking and the jack head disassembly but it's still sitting in the camera for now to add to the greasing and jack maintenance video that is Now in the filming process :)
Reed
Yesterday, we made it to Mount Saint Helen. You can still see where the mountain blew it's top completely off behind us in the pic.
Then here's a pic at Mount Rainier from yesterday :)
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If you want to heat the bathroom better then remove the register and pull out the adjustment block. Then with the heater on, the door & window closed, turn on the vent fan, the fan then sucks the heat through the pipe and heats it up nice. Then you can turn off the vent once the heat is primed and it keeps on blowing warm air. I also sealed off the first vent next to or under the bed to help force the heat back better.
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After boondocking for the last week in Mt Rainier National Park, all I can say is, I'm Happy :) Its nice to have full access to every bit of water, a major fix thanks to John/ aka - Raspy :)
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But the question remains, what is the danger to the camper? Are there circuit boards that could be compromised? Other than just normal protect the owner from themselves stuff?
Any and every a/c device is compromised without it. Starting with the converter, then anything you have plugged in like the microwave, air conditioner, etc... But like T-Oliver showed above, you could simply adapt your cord down to use the 20amp outlet if they have one and still use your surge protector.
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Don't limit yourself to just these 2 brands. Do you need a 4 season trailer? If not, then the airstream and escape trailers are both good. Better would be the 4 season Oliver or a 25B25FB Bigfoot would hold you all comfortably and still be a good 4 season trailer. Personally, with 2 teenagers, if their going to be with you a lot then the Bigfoot would be the way to go because they would each have their own bed plus room for the dog, but if it's going to be the 2 of you 90% of the time then you can't beat the Oliver. We have the King bed that we leave up all the time and we also have roll out storage underneath that is easily accessible and takes up the entire walkway underneath. So there's no storage space wasted. Plus the wet bath in the Oliver is way bigger then the bathrooms in the other brands above. Wet baths win the race on size and comfort every time... We love ours and have had 2 grand kids sleep head to foot down one side of the bed, while we slept on the other with plenty of room. As long as they're good kids and get along, it works great. We use a queen size bed at home so half of the big Oliver King bed is empty anyway :)
Here's a Bigfoot floor plan.
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:) Looking Good :)
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Looking at glaciers from a distance and going inside are 2 different things. If you get the chance to take a guided tour on or inside a glacier, then do it. I was the guide many years ago for a few groups in to different glaciers around the Anchorage area. Being surrounded by the Blue ice is one of the most incredible feelings that you will ever experience.
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I had a campground manager say the same thing to me once, so I showed him and told him what the problem was. We opened the box, reversed the wires back to their correct position, so nobody could get shocked, and then he gave me the site for free. The problem with not using your surge protector at all times in an RV park is that they can have varying voltages going on depending on if their system isn't strong enough to hold up all of the different loads happening at the same time, while causing brown outs. Not getting enough voltage or not knowing that your trailer is safe is a huge issue. So the problem isn't really knowing that wires can be frying because they have a faulty system, to me the real problem is that when you take the surge protector out of the system, you are taking your trailers first line of protection out of the loop... And the real problems are going to be from problems at the park itself, not yours. The external units will burn themselves out to open the circuit if necessary to save your trailer from anything, you still need to buy a new surge protector but your trailer is safe.
Basically, you can plug in unprotected at any RV park and most will be safe, but if the person isn't willing to take care of the problem when it is brought to his attention, then you have an attendant that doesn't care one bit about your trailer. Lots of accidents happen at RV parks with faulty electricity, most of the time it's just going to fry some wires or circuit boards because of low voltage brown outs. Personally, I won't plug in or pay an RV park that doesn't take care of its problems, but honestly, the choice is yours because what could happen is total loss of the trailer, but that is unlikely. Every other trailer comes into the equation also when you run unprotected, if they plug in with a faulty adapter or bad wiring right next to you then your trailer can become the end result of their problem. As far as your concerned is if it was raining with an open ground and you stepped out into a puddle, you become the surge protector and if you have a pacemaker then will it take the surge? Not always...
Next time take him out and show him the difference between a properly wired plug in and the bad one. I simply rewired their circuit properly because the person that had worked on it the week before didn't realise that wires had been reversed at the main pannel.
Reed
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Hi Dave :) Welcome to the family :)
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Right now we have the owners manuals down there with some blankets but this space has serious potential because of the location. We have the King bed, so the access behind the heater is out... Or outside maybe :) When we get home I'm going to go head and convert the unused propane area to hold our extra step and some spare blocks, so it's going to need a tall but skinny door for the step and if it won't fit there then I'll leave it as is for now because the extra step fits fine in the Yakima box on top of the car. Then I'm thinking of putting in a 120vac outlet to the right of the battery box cover outside and run it directly to the open port on the inverter to be able to hook up power for our friends, who travel with us, to use who have Casitas or small trailers with no inverter. Another thing that I want is the light in the outside storage to shine all the way to the back wall because the way it is now just pointing straight down at the door is basically useless and it creates a blind spot behind it... There's lots of potential for more storage when needed.
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They moved it back behind the battery box, under the bed.
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It won't sell at that price, not for a used unit. That salesman is truly seeing dollar signs that flat out aren't there... I still say offer them $55k like I did on fgrv and they will take it.
Anyone Ever Towed With a Van?
in Towing an Oliver
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Another Mercedes :) Nice choice, the GL's are really hard to beat for comfortable driving. You're going to need this to make the brakes and lights work correctly -
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FZTWVE4/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=I3M1UBD7YV0VPN&colid=DVETVI1ZF5E8
Then if you bought the 4matic version, you're going to want to fully understand how to engage all 4 wheels for off-road. If it's an older model from 2012 or before then there's a simple button on the dash with a car and skid marks that you push. When the yellow light is on, on the dash, then you're ready to go off-road :)
Reed