PUZZLER: Slides & jacks are dead
I'm having trouble with two systems in our fifth-wheel.
We have two slides in the living area (connected) and a bedroom slide. We also have Lippert leveling jacks. The functioning bedroom slide is a cable slide, and the living area slides are rack & pinion. I don't know whether they're hydraulic or not.
First some background and then the symptoms...
_______________________
Background:
We dry camped last weekend and I thought our batteries were going bad. We have 700w of solar panels that always do a great job, but we camped at the beach where it was drizzly and overcast most of the weekend and the solar wasn't much use.
When we left at the end of that weekend, the jacks were hard to retract. The motor bogged down and the battery voltage dropped. I didn't pay attention to the actual voltage on the panel beyond seeing that it had dropped a lot. I ran the gen and that helped, but not as much as I expected. I don't know if the gen was actually assisting, or if it was just the stopping and waiting that made the difference.
When we got home and put the fiver away in storage, I ran the gen while I unhooked and deployed the jacks & leveled. It was still labored.
I assumed that my batteries suddenly lost their will to live, so I replaced them with four more similar GC2 6V on Thursday. The batteries were five years old and kind of swollen, so I figured this would be the fix.
_______________________
Actual Problem:
After installing the new batteries, I hooked up the shore power to our 50A connection at home overnight and left it connected.
Mid-day I opened the slides to pack a few things before this weekend's trip (now cancelled). The slides were really hard to deploy and retract. The bedroom slide worked fine though.
Later in the afternoon when it was time to leave, I tried to run the slides out again, but the switch was dead.
It makes a "thunk" sound in the front compartment where the batteries and gen live. That's it. Just "thunk", but no movement.
I called my mobile tech and he told me to look for a reset switch, but I never found one. (He came out later and couldn't find one either).
Before he came out, I tried the jacks too just for kicks, and the jacks were dead too. Just a "thunk" in the same spot.
I checked all the breakers and fuses and everything is good. Ditto for the battery voltage, and I'm still plugged into shore power. I also disconnected the shore power just for kicks to see if that made any difference.
It feels like there's some kind of switch that is tripping when the motor thinks it's hot. Before bed, I tried to retract the jacks again because I can't keep the fiver in front of my house another night. The jacks retracted in the cooler evening, but the motor quit just as they were finishing retracting.
My tech thinks the problem is with the hydraulic pump, and he thinks it's shared between the jacks and the slides. I don't necessarily agree. Yes, the "thunk" is common and shared, but I don't believe that the slides share the same hydraulic system (if they're hydraulic). I've watched the fluid levels carefully when I deploy/retract the jacks, and the level stays the same whether the slides are in or out.
As it stands now, I have no jacks and no slides. I'm leaving for storage in a minute and I'll probably have to use my drill to run the jacks down so I can unhitch.
So as it stands now, the slides and jacks will sort of work intermittently, but more often they're just dead. I'll be happy if replacing the pump works, but I'm not convinced. And with so many delays in getting parts nowadays, I hate to do a lot of trial and error if we don't have to.
Any thoughts?
We have two slides in the living area (connected) and a bedroom slide. We also have Lippert leveling jacks. The functioning bedroom slide is a cable slide, and the living area slides are rack & pinion. I don't know whether they're hydraulic or not.
First some background and then the symptoms...
_______________________
Background:
We dry camped last weekend and I thought our batteries were going bad. We have 700w of solar panels that always do a great job, but we camped at the beach where it was drizzly and overcast most of the weekend and the solar wasn't much use.
When we left at the end of that weekend, the jacks were hard to retract. The motor bogged down and the battery voltage dropped. I didn't pay attention to the actual voltage on the panel beyond seeing that it had dropped a lot. I ran the gen and that helped, but not as much as I expected. I don't know if the gen was actually assisting, or if it was just the stopping and waiting that made the difference.
When we got home and put the fiver away in storage, I ran the gen while I unhooked and deployed the jacks & leveled. It was still labored.
I assumed that my batteries suddenly lost their will to live, so I replaced them with four more similar GC2 6V on Thursday. The batteries were five years old and kind of swollen, so I figured this would be the fix.
_______________________
Actual Problem:
After installing the new batteries, I hooked up the shore power to our 50A connection at home overnight and left it connected.
Mid-day I opened the slides to pack a few things before this weekend's trip (now cancelled). The slides were really hard to deploy and retract. The bedroom slide worked fine though.
Later in the afternoon when it was time to leave, I tried to run the slides out again, but the switch was dead.
It makes a "thunk" sound in the front compartment where the batteries and gen live. That's it. Just "thunk", but no movement.
I called my mobile tech and he told me to look for a reset switch, but I never found one. (He came out later and couldn't find one either).
Before he came out, I tried the jacks too just for kicks, and the jacks were dead too. Just a "thunk" in the same spot.
I checked all the breakers and fuses and everything is good. Ditto for the battery voltage, and I'm still plugged into shore power. I also disconnected the shore power just for kicks to see if that made any difference.
It feels like there's some kind of switch that is tripping when the motor thinks it's hot. Before bed, I tried to retract the jacks again because I can't keep the fiver in front of my house another night. The jacks retracted in the cooler evening, but the motor quit just as they were finishing retracting.
My tech thinks the problem is with the hydraulic pump, and he thinks it's shared between the jacks and the slides. I don't necessarily agree. Yes, the "thunk" is common and shared, but I don't believe that the slides share the same hydraulic system (if they're hydraulic). I've watched the fluid levels carefully when I deploy/retract the jacks, and the level stays the same whether the slides are in or out.
As it stands now, I have no jacks and no slides. I'm leaving for storage in a minute and I'll probably have to use my drill to run the jacks down so I can unhitch.
So as it stands now, the slides and jacks will sort of work intermittently, but more often they're just dead. I'll be happy if replacing the pump works, but I'm not convinced. And with so many delays in getting parts nowadays, I hate to do a lot of trial and error if we don't have to.
Any thoughts?
