SIMPLE fix just became COMPLICATED...

[bamaboy473]

2006 Mandolay Valencia with 10,000 miles on her; we are second owners and have had it one month, two trips and 1700 miles. So far so good, or so we thought.

One week between first and second trip, so jacks stayed UP and slides stayed IN. Ours is an Equalizer system that uses one hydraulic pump for both jacks and slides.

Morning of our second trip and neither jacks nor slides would work. Keypad for jacks showed an, "all jacks are not up", message (along with the warning buzzer). Disconnect wiring harness to keypad and do the trip.

Get home and contact Equalizer. Seems that shorting the solenoid didn't produce any life into the pump motor, so it must be defective. Order motor.

Installed new motor and rear slide worked fine. Front slide hung up on the front, so a few times In and Out, trying to get the slide to open evenly. No luck, so I went inside to cool off. Came out 30 minutes later and...and no life at all on the new motor

Coach is like new, with no rust or corrosion anywhere (Missouri)


What could possibly cause the new replacement motor to work only a few minutes? Also, could the un-even slide extension be related, or a symptom of a different problem? All suggestions welcomed by this newbie

[tropical36]

bamaboy473 wrote:
2006 Mandolay Valencia with 10,000 miles on her; we are second owners and have had it one month, two trips and 1700 miles. So far so good, or so we thought.

One week between first and second trip, so jacks stayed UP and slides stayed IN. Ours is an Equalizer system that uses one hydraulic pump for both jacks and slides.

Morning of our second trip and neither jacks nor slides would work. Keypad for jacks showed an, "all jacks are not up", message (along with the warning buzzer). Disconnect wiring harness to keypad and do the trip.

Get home and contact Equalizer. Seems that shorting the solenoid didn't produce any life into the pump motor, so it must be defective. Order motor.

Installed new motor and rear slide worked fine. Front slide hung up on the front, so a few times In and Out, trying to get the slide to open evenly. No luck, so I went inside to cool off. Came out 30 minutes later and...and no life at all on the new motor

Coach is like new, with no rust or corrosion anywhere (Missouri)


What could possibly cause the new replacement motor to work only a few minutes? Also, could the un-even slide extension be related, or a symptom of a different problem? All suggestions welcomed by this newbie

Check for a tripped DC circuit breaker on or near the 12vdc board, but then it should have remained tripped from the last one. There might also be an auto reset type breaker and/or and internal thermo overload, but, they should've reset themselves, so just consider some of this, food for thought, while disconnecting it for a spell and then reconnecting it. Another approach would be to run a temporary lead out on the ground and to the pump motor from the coach batteries and see what that might do and I guess you've already tried that once. If you still have the old motor, try bench testing it or out of the coach, anyway and make sure of a good ground return.

[mccsix]

Have you called equalizer?

[gemert]

You've mentioned jumping 12 volts to the motor with no results. Have you checked the ground connection to the motor? Could be the motor case is the connection to the chassis or more probably a wire.

[garry1p]

The reason everyone says to check battery voltage is low voltage causes an increase in current through the motor and that is what burns up the motor.

You may have a bad connection somewhere between the battery, solenoid and motor allowing a voltage drop "at" the motor. If there is a way to check the voltage drop at the motor that could tell you something.

Just a wild guess is the control board is trying to do two or more things at the same time overloading the system and the pump is bogging down making the motor work harder. On the other hand that should cause a fuse to blow!

[bamaboy473]

Roger that, I understand. In this case the house batteries are as fully charged as if they were alternator-supplied...so let's assume that low voltage is a red herring.

What signal could cause the motor to die, if that signal had to have come from the keypad, or downstream...but upstream from the motor circuit?

[buchanan]

Y-Guy wrote:
Just for giggles try running the engine and see if that helps. Shore power doesn't necessarily mean your engine battery is at full strength. We were told when we bought our Winnie to always run the engine when extending slides/jacks.

your jacks and slides run off the house batterys not the chassis batterys.The reason the guy most likely told u to run the engine is because lots of times people are dry camping etc and are not plugged in.you run the motor so the alternater helps the batterys which helps the jacks and slides go down and out easier

[bamaboy473]

Y-Guy wrote:
Just for giggles try running the engine and see if that helps. Shore power doesn't necessarily mean your engine battery is at full strength. We were told when we bought our Winnie to always run the engine when extending slides/jacks.

OK, Boss, we dis-connected shore power and started the Cummins. Nice to see that volts are the same whether SP or engine (13.7V)

Nothing from any switches...so let's backtrack to what began this problem. Maybe looking at bad pump motor is missing the WHY of the original (and second) motors going bad.

The Keypad for the jacks. On starting the unit, the pad began beeping, and all four lights (for the four jacks) lit up. The Jacks UP light was blinking red, even with the Power button Off. So I gave Power to the keypad and hit Down and then UP. Nothing but the "jacks are still down" beeping. The Jacks Down pad then blinked both Red and Green continuously.

The motor died as I either tried to raise the jacks, or Extend a slide.

So....what in that system is powerful enough to kill the motors? The pump operated with the new motor to the extent that it extended the small slide in the BR, and extended/retracted the main slide three times...so pump isn't...er, doesn't seem to be binding.

[DSDP_Don]

You might be on the right path with the pressure equalization issue. If the switch is telling the system there is too much pressure, it could be shutting everything down. Call Equalizer and see if they can point you to the switch and a way to by pass it.

[kdk]

Is there a possibility the reservoir is low on fluid? This could cause the pump to run constantly burning it up? Just a thought.
kdk

[Y-Guy]

Just for giggles try running the engine and see if that helps. Shore power doesn't necessarily mean your engine battery is at full strength. We were told when we bought our Winnie to always run the engine when extending slides/jacks.

[Bill_S_1]

That system you have sounds very much like the HWH used on mine. You are right; there are check valves that prevent blowing seals, if you don't let up on the switch, when operating the slides, but I cannot see that having anyfhing to do with the motor running/not running, when power is directly applied to the motor

Re the slide hanging up in the front, are there 2 hydraulic rams for that slide? Is the hydraulic fluid in the reservoir up to the full line? (This has to be checked and topped if necessary, wiith jacks up and slides in). The system is self-bleeding, so there shouldn't be air in it. So it seems to be back to something binding the slide, and a bad pump, if it won't run, with 12v right at the motor.

Did you look around carefully to see if anything could have fallen into a place to jam the slide? Do you have a supplied winch to manually crank it in? Can you release the hydraulic valves on the reservoir, and with some help, push the slide?

Missed your thread on tht. I'll look for it. Btw, waay back when I joined, couldn't get captbill, so you know me as captwill there. 🙂

[bamaboy473]

eheading wrote:
One easy way to check out the voltage issue is just keep the engine on when working the slides. If you still have a problem, then it probably isn't a voltage issue.

Ed

Thanks, Ed. No, it isn't a low-voltage issue because I'm connected to shore power here at the house, so batteries are all topped off.

Given that Equalizer hydraulics are supposed to be self-adjusting for pressure, I'm beginning to wonder whether there's a pressure valve of some sort that's restricting flow to one of the cylinders?
Of course, that likely has nothing to do with the motor dying, or could it?

[bamaboy473]

Bill S. wrote:
Sorry about the problems you're having, almost right out of the gate. That always makes us second guess our decisions, but hang in there.

There are several issues that concern me. If the slide is hanging up in the front, I would look into that, and find out what is causing it. I'm not familiar with your rig's system, but there are usually glides of some sort, that the weight of the slide, slides on. Is one broken or missing? Is there something that has changed with alignment of the slide in the wall?
The glides are straight and true, and even sprizting them with silicone spray didn't change things. The slide has been extended and retracting about a dozen times in the past month, so nothing related to sitting awhile, either.

Have you checked for full voltage at the pump motor, while someone operates the controls? I haven't heard of a pump motor burning out, so 2 in a row for you, seems very odd. Could it be a control relay, or bad connection in the electrical system for the pump? Have you tried running the motor (either the old one or new), directly from a 12v battery? I would check these things first.

BTW, do you happen to be a member of a certain boating forum? We have a member there with a very similar screen name, who I think I remember saying recently bought an RV. Hope we can get thing figured out quick. Maybe a call to "Equalizer" customer support may help.

The glides are straight and true, and even sprizting them with silicone spray didn't change things. The slide has been extended and retracting about a dozen times in the past month, so nothing related to sitting awhile, either.

Yes to your voltage question. 13.57V at the solenoid, but jumping to the motor produces nothing. Good idea about using a spare battery.... the old motor did nothing when connected to a battery; no hum, no twisting, nada. There are two in-line fuses that both check good for continuity, and there isn't a bit of corrosion or rust in the compartment.

yes to the THT question. I've posted on that board as well, just to mine other diagnostic input.


What's perplexing is that:
a. this happened all of the sudden. No warning.
b. the jacks keypad was the tell-tale, because it began beeping the "jacks down" alarm when I started the unit.
c. replacing the motor allowed the slides to function and the Jacks light to go out, but then the front of the front slide hung up and wouldn't extend all the way.

Equalizer has been great from a CS standpoint, and has sent a number of trouble-shooting guides. I couldn't ask more from them; especially when the cause has to be something simple...that's I've overlooked so far.

Thanks for the input, guys. Keep it coming.

[eheading]

One easy way to check out the voltage issue is just keep the engine on when working the slides. If you still have a problem, then it probably isn't a voltage issue.

Ed