Difference in levelers

I had two separate hydraulic lines (for my POWERGEAR jacks fail. One was due to chafing...and the other had a hole in it. (13 years old). Both times the other 3 jacks still worked. All 4 jacks deployed...but the one with the damaged line retracted within a hour or so. Still...all went well. A small puddle of oil dripped where the damage was.
I went to the same hydraulic shop both times and both times I had a new hose within 10 minits. I THINK....$7/foot. Didn't really matter tho...you needed a hose with fittings, they made it...pay for it. (one was 7 feet,the other 30 feet)

I have the power gear tripod system as well. One thing I learned after a jack failure is to carry a cap for the hydraulic line. That way if one jack fails you can cap it off and stil use the rest of the system.
jw

VinCee wrote:
I would think a 1" round piece of steel is pretty darn strong. Their purpose isn't to lift the rig off of the ground but to level the corners out and stop the side to side sway you experience in lighter weight rigs when walking about. I'm a bit surprised your Knight has only a single (no matter how big) ram in the front.

ALL Monaco products have a single center jack in the front. Their theory is to prevent frame twist I think.
It is a big sumbeetch

hikerdogs, i wanted to point that out also, but as an employee of hwh, i thought it would be better coming from someone else.
hwh now uses a process that uses nickel as a plating/bonding agent.
as i understand it, the process is different than plating. its a molecular bonding that is supposed to be better than plating. the rods of the cylinders are now covered with nickel, as well as the hydraulic solenoids.
i haven't found any rusting or flaking in any of my field contacts with customers.
we are trying to use less black paint, which because of the flaking, tends to contaminate the fluid during installation.

My last coach, was a 35ft 2005 Geoegie Boy Landau. It had the Big Foot Hydraulic levelers.

mtrumpet wrote:

VinCee wrote:
I think the reference was to stainless steel ram rods, not the whole unit. I have Lippert's hydraulic system on my coach and they had a real issue with hyd. lines being bubbled from corrosion inside the line prior to installation. IMHO Lippert products suck. So far knock on wood I've haven't had any problems. My 2000 Allegro had HWH. When it was about 8 yrs. old one seal started to leak on the left rear ram. At times it seemed like the springs for retraction were getting a bit weak but overall I prefer the HWH system from my Lippert. If you notice, a lot of the quality rigs out there like Tiffin use HWH.

Somehow, those hydraulic lines must've been exposed to some sort of extreme moisture to bubble as you described. That's certainly not good for hydraulic lines. In fact, moisture introduced into any part of the hydraulic system is trouble.

I haven't had any problem (knock-on-wood) with my HWH system.

Just to be clear, those rods are NOT Stainless Steel. They are solid steel chromed and polished rods. If they were Stainless Steel, nobody would be able to afford them.

They were made of stainless steel for many years however they may have changed in recent years. Here's a quote from a publication from HWH touting the use of stainless steel rods in the manufacture of their leveling jacks.

"Other manufacturers use plated hydraulic rods which can rust and pit, causing expensive damage to seals. Our stainless steel rods resist corrosion for many years of flawless operation."

VinCee wrote:
Thanks mtrumpt for clarification on the chrome ram rods vs. stainless. The Lippert hydraulic lines came that way prior to installation on the RV's. It is assumed that water got into them where ever they were stored, rusted out the inner linings leaving only the outer plastic or what ever material is used (not rubber on the junk they use)to hold the hyd. fluid from bursting. When I bought my rig Lippert would authorize only four of seven out bound from the pump lines to be replaced based on registration numbers on the hoses. After my initial trip out with my rig I noticed that all lines weren't replaced (dealer told me they were). Took it back to Buffalo RV and to Mark Stroll, one of three brother/owners, credit he had his service dept. call in a mobile repair company to switch out the remaining defective line with NYS DOT approved rubber hydraulic lines at the dealers cost. They didn't want to bother with Lippert either.

LCI Hyd lines are JUNK. It does not make any difference about storing or anything. They blow out(have a bubble also). LCI uses cheap lines. LCI jacks ALL have this problem whether Motorhome or Towables and whether Jacks or Slide Rooms. BRAND new RV's have this problem within a few months. Doug

VinCee wrote:
I would think a 1" round piece of steel is pretty darn strong. Their purpose isn't to lift the rig off of the ground but to level the corners out and stop the side to side sway you experience in lighter weight rigs when walking about. I'm a bit surprised your Knight has only a single (no matter how big) ram in the front.

Monaco determined they want to reduce the chance of STRESS on the front cap/windshield. So, before Powergear, they used RVA jacks. Both RVA and PG make a single front ram that will support the front of the rig and with a single ram, you cannot stress either front corner and pop or crack a windshield. HWH uses BI-AXIS leveling with 4 jacks---That means, 2 jacks ALWAYs extend on a side or corner to prevent stressing 1 corner from one jack extending by itself. ALL HWH have this feature EXCEPT the 4 lever Joystick models. Doug

Forgot to mention that the 4 leg PG systems---The 2 front jacks are connected with a "T". That means BOTH jacks receive the same fluid and auto equalize. PG's version of BI-AXIS on the front only.

I would think a 1" round piece of steel is pretty darn strong. Their purpose isn't to lift the rig off of the ground but to level the corners out and stop the side to side sway you experience in lighter weight rigs when walking about. I'm a bit surprised your Knight has only a single (no matter how big) ram in the front.

Both of my rigs have had Power gear hydraulic levelers. And I like em.

#1, a '99 pace arrow, had 4 point with external springs. It wore out the pump, I found a brand new replacement on ebay.

#2, the 08 knight, has a 3 point system with internal retract springs.

Both of these system are BEEFY. I read posts on here about people not wanting to lift their tires off the ground, than I look at rigs in campgrounds and see these tiny little pistons... nope, I wouldn't either.

The powergear pistons are BIG. The front single on the knight is four inches in diameter!. It would lift the space shuttle.

Those ones with the tiny 1" pistons and 2 little retract springs? them are the cheap ones and I wouldn't trust them to level a popup!