LCI slides and jacks malfunctioning

[ravenper]

We are on our second trip this year. Everything worked great the first time out. This trip the front jacks went too high when I pressed the right and left buttons at same time which always raises front to hitch height. This time it went to high and the screen beeped and read error abort message. I was not able to get into manual mode to lower front jacks. Each time the pump would run like it was trying to raise the front again. I called Lippart but it was good Friday and they were closed. Then I called Butch down in Knoxville, RV's for Less. His guy told me I could pull the panel out and disconnect power supply and wait a bit which i did. After that I was able to lower front and hoop up. Then I also retracted rear jacks and continued on to the Outer Banks. When we arrived at the Ocean Waves Campground I began to set up and turned on the jack system to lower the front jacks. They started going down but stopped before hitting the ground. I plugged in shore power to see if that made a difference and I was able to extend to disconnect truck. Then I tried auto level and it managed to extend the jacks and stablize the unit. But it was high in front. We came inside and put the slides out without a problem. I checked the batteries and one was fairly low on water so I filled all cells. I figured overnight charge might help. This morning I was going to cycle the slides in order to remove air and started with dinette slide and it started coming in but slowed and stopped halfway. So I tried to extend out again and it did return out except for a small space near bottom at door side. Didn't seem to have the normal thrust and power. So I removed the batteries to go have them checked. They checked out OK but are three+ yrs old so I bought new ones. Put them in and tried the same slide and it barely moved in so I extended it out again. I did try to auto level and it went through motions and beeped successful. It was still high in front so I lowered front jacks to where bathroom door stays where you place it. I did the zero set calibration when the jacks where high the first time so I think the auto level just returns to that level. Im going to wait to see if charging the new batteries might be the trick. Wondering if anybody has ever had these kind of issues? Appreciate any suggestions, THANKS, Paul

[ravenper]

Update to problem: The fluid level did help to pressurize the system enough to where we were able to bring in slides and raise jacks. Once it seemed to work we continued on our trip. Decided to travel to Iowa and made numerous stops setting up and closing up. Eventually, I started hearing a wierd sound when I would press the auto level button. After hearing sound nothing happened. I kept pressing until it went into the leveling of unit. I realized that I still had a problem. We went through Indiana and I made an appt. to have it checked at Lippart. We continued on to Des Moines Iowa and I was abel to set up and depart for my appt. back in Indiana. Set up at camp the night before appt. and everything went well. Next morning as I tried to load onto truck to take to Lippert, the front jacks would not move to raise to truck level. No matter what I did they would not budge. So I called Lippert and Kelly told me a tech would call to guide me through the mechanical process to raise jacks. I decided to jump the batteries from a spare battery and I was abel to raise jacks at that point and got unit to Lippert. They took me right in and through troubeshooting replaced the starter relay and said that was the issue. The contacts had welded together from lack of proper voltage from the batteries. I took it to another technician to check out the rigs electrical and everything checked out but one of the cells might be bad under load. One thing I want to share with everyone is that I have been to Lippert three times for an issue and each time the people there have solved the problem and been very helpful and at no cost to me. Now everything is working well and I will keep an eye on batteries and fluid level. Thanks to Lippert, Bob and Rick for their expertise on the leveling system!

[greende]

Glad everything worked out. I do not have hydraulic slides at this time but I'll keep this in mind for future reference.

[ravenper]

Thanks guys for your suggestions. Appreciate your help. I called Lippert on Monday and the lady told me that the fluid level had to be around half full in the tank when slides and jacks are extended. So I checked and it did look lower than half full. So I bought some Transmission fluid and added a little over half the Qt. I was ready to manually override the valves and use the drill to turn the pump to bring in the slides. But with the added fluid the first slide started moving slowly and then kept coming in and closed. As the fluid built up pressure it worked. So I was able to bring the other slides in too. Then I decided to cycle them again and opened them and closed them. So I guess the fluid being slightly low was the issue. Besides the weather being really nasty in the Outer Banks this wasn't much fun either. Now we have moved twice since and all is working well.

[TakingThe5th]

Hope I read your post correctly-generally you should not work your slides until you are level. Depending on how out of level you are, that could be a contributing factor to sluggish slide performance.

[todouble]

does sound like your controller needs to be zeroed out at level and you have a weak battery. keep us posted