Jacks Raising Slowly

[ricklord2001]

When I raise my jacks it seems like there's always one that will take forever to come up.(they are spring retracted). I lower it back down and spray with silicone spray and retract again and it comes right up.
Trouble is it doesn't last long I'll have to do it again after lowering them again. It's not always the same jack and kind off a pain to spray every time.
I'm not really knowledgeable on which spray to use and thought maybe someone could suggest a better spray/grease etc. That might last longer and become part of my regular maintenance schedule. Thanks

[dougrainer]

down home wrote:
We had slow to retract jacks several time. Most notable was a Rally, in La. Very fine dust got blown onto the jacks as well as everything else. The awning sounded like a train wrck retracting. The jacks were slow and made a horrible noise retracting. Sprayed and wiped them off with silicone.
Turns out there are grease fitting on the jacks. where we store it greases them regularily,now.
Confusing thing is someone posted a link where HWH said to nt use silicone but wd40 and wipe dry and no lube. No mention of greas or grease fittings.
The silicone is not good for the chrome rams apparently and gathers dirt or something.
I've yet to call HWH.
Ours are without the springs though.

HWH jacks have no grease fittings. Powergear Jacks do. If you have Powergear Jacks and they are Hydraulic (Powergear makes both Hyd and electric) you DO have springs. They are INTERNAL springs and not visible. Doug

[supercub]

I talked to a tech at HWH a couple years ago, and he suggested using WD40. When I questioned him about WD40 retaining dust and Silicone spray doesn't...........he said, then definitely us Silicone spray..he wasn't aware of that.

[down_home]

We had slow to retract jacks several time. Most notable was a Rally, in La. Very fine dust got blown onto the jacks as well as everything else. The awning sounded like a train wrck retracting. The jacks were slow and made a horrible noise retracting. Sprayed and wiped them off with silicone.
Turns out there are grease fitting on the jacks. where we store it greases them regularily,now.
Confusing thing is someone posted a link where HWH said to nt use silicone but wd40 and wipe dry and no lube. No mention of greas or grease fittings.
The silicone is not good for the chrome rams apparently and gathers dirt or something.
I've yet to call HWH.
Ours are without the springs though.

[dougrainer]

rgatijnet1 wrote:
Weak springs can also cause slow retraction of the jack.

The test for this is when the jack is retracting slowly, if you can push the jack up with your hand easily, then replace the springs. IF NOT, then the springs are not the problem. Doug

[wa8yxm]

With Power gear, and I suspect others, SOMETIMES there is a Zerk, a shot or two of lithium based grease and it's good for several months.

Others.. No zerk.

[rgatijnet1]

Weak springs can also cause slow retraction of the jack.

[J-Rooster]

Same thing happened to me went on for years! I had a bent HWH jack and it didn't look bent to me. New jack was installed no more problems!

[dougrainer]

okgc wrote:
HWH recommends WD40 on their jacks

For cleaning the silver piston, NOT to lube.
HWH jacks NEVER need external spray or lubing. They are IMMERSED in ATF when retracted. As the OP found out, you can spray a lubricant to temporarily fix a sticking internal jack seal, but it is a pain to always have to do that. THE ONLY CORRECT FIX FOR A HWH JACK THAT TAKES FOREVER TO RETRACT OR STICKS IS TO REPLACE THE CYLINDER. The Internal upper seal is bad and causing the piston to bind. It will get worse and eventually, even a pry board will not get it up all the way. Until HWH realized that the upper internal seals would go bad and bind, they WERE telling people to use spray lubricants and WD 40. Once their engineers realized the problem(years ago), HWH stopped telling people to lube as they replace the offending jacks under warranty. Doug

[bobcatcharlie]

Since my HWH system has ATF in it, I wipe them every so often with ATF on paper towel and then wipe with dry paper towel. Works great for me. Yes, HWH does recommend WD40 but to also wipe them down after.

[okgc]

HWH recommends WD40 on their jacks

[tommy_g]

hershey wrote:
I have one rear jack that is very slow to retract. Silicone does indeed make it work as well as the others. Mine has a grease zerk at the very bottom of the cylinder that I pump a small amount of lithium grease into now and then and that seems to help for the longest time.

This exactly describes mine(Power Gear no doubt). It is strange that the slow one is the one with the grease zerk. I would not put anything other than silicon on the piston rod. Slick and dry will not attract dust as bad as slick and greasy.

[hershey]

I have one rear jack that is very slow to retract. Silicone does indeed make it work as well as the others. Mine has a grease zerk at the very bottom of the cylinder that I pump a small amount of lithium grease into now and then and that seems to help for the longest time.

[cochise49]

Had this happen for over two years. When the jack took over an hour I searched for a solution. Turned out, all I had to do was spray the extended jack with a silicon lube and wipe dry. Jack immediately retracted, albeit still somewhat slow. System was 9 years old so maybe new springs were in order but, I am really bad about maintenance that requires crawling under the rig. Bought a new rig with different leveling system. Whole new set of issues.