Lippert Hydraulic Jack Removal

[lonewolf80]

I have a blown seal (I think!) on my Lippert hydraulic leveling jack. I found a local hydraulic shop that'll repair the jack. Are they difficult to remove? It appears that their are four bolts holding the jack to the RV and removal of two hydraulic lines. Shouldn't be any pressure in the lines because when the seal blew all the fluid blew out too. I'm not Joe mechanic but it doesn't appear that hard to remove then replace the blown jack.

[Jim]

Thanks for coming back to tell us how it went, Lonewolf.

If you weld, just make your rig a tripod with the remaining jacks. Heh. 🙂 😉

[lonewolf80]

Well besides getting dirty lying under my rig the jack really wasn't to difficult to take off. Six 3/4" nuts and bolts that I sprayed with penetrating oil first and let sit for several minutes. I used a 1/2" ratchet and socket with a two foot pipe for extra leverage. No problem at all. Three hydraulic lines came off easily with a 11/16" open end wrench. I used a hydraulic car jack under the RV jack to support it when taking out the bolts. I thought the jack would weight 50-60 lbs. but it was surprisingly light. That I found is what caused the fluid loss or "blow out". The jack body is made of extruded aluminum. The seals didn't blow but the jack body cracked along its entire length. There are three bolts that hold the caps on the top and bottom of the cylinder holding the hydraulic ram. Though these bolts do not run the length of the cylinder, the bolt holes so to speak do run the length of the cylinder and the cylinder blew out along its entire length! Hydraulic shop was amazed to see this but wasn't surprised it happened because of the wall thickness where the cylinder and bolt holes meet is thin. $429 plus ship and tax from Lippert Components, but, of course they are out of stock! Plugged the three hydraulic lines with screw in caps, they do leak a bit, and plan on having our final camping outing for three days this weekend minus the use of leveling jacks. If need be we'll level the rig like the tow behind crowd using boards under the wheels. The wonderful world of RV'ing.

[BigSkyBob]

I had to remove the 4 mounting bolts on my front jack when I installed my Watts link. The bolts had been there over 10 years and I broke them loose with a 30" breaker bar without issues. Good luck getting the 2 bottom nuts started, not much room to work with.

[MrWizard]

You need to plug the lines
You need to keep dirt and bugs out of there
And they will drip from the residual fluid

[Jim]

You might want to barrow or rent and air impact or electrical impact wrench. Or at least soak the bolts in P-B Blaster overnight.