Wanted: Lippert levelling system advice

[BCRider]

Arrived yesterday late from a 5200 km 80 day round trip to California. The levelling system worked great the entire trip but I did notice that it was leaking a bit of fluid around the motor area. I cleaned it up and tightened everything down but it still seeped out some fluid a bit even when it wasn’t being used. What I mean by that is the jacks were down for 2 months and it wept a bit even though the motor wasn’t being used.

I unloaded, cleaned then winterized the motorhome today and started the engine to move it beside the house. The jacks were already in the up position when I started it up. Next thing I know the whole damn MH lifted up so all the wheels are 4 inches off the ground. I could not stop it.

I did not initiate or activate the system to lower the jacks. It did this on its own. I could not get the system to retract the jacks. I tried resetting the control panel then failing that I tried to retract them manually but nothing is working.

Oil is now coming out of the front of the motor at the nut that you use to manually retract the jacks. I’m afraid that the pump/motor system is toast but I need to get the wheels on the ground.

Any suggestions?

Thanks
Doug

[BCRider]

Solved - the motor was filled with fluid. The pump is also no longer working even using a drill directly on the pump.

I slowly and carefully bled fluid out of each line to drop the wheels to the ground. I then used a 2 x 4 to raise the jacks to the home position.

I’m going to order a new pump and motor and install in the spring.

[TitanMike]

Your post makes me wonder how problem ridden this system is. On a trip to NM this last October I encountered a couple with their jacks stuck in the down position and nothing would get the motor to start running.

Nobody assisting had a voltmeter so I went to my TT next door and got mine. Power good at battery and at motor terminals when buttons pushed, just no running motor. I gave it the old "Farm Fix" and rapped the end of the motor with the handle of a crescent wrench (all that was available). Motor started immediately. When the owner released the button and pressed it again, again no motor. Rap again and it started. Terminals were all tight and not hot (as loose terminals are prone to get). Apparently something inside motor itself (brushes, connection to them, circuit breaker, ????) needed to be "coaxed". This process was continued until the legs were fully retracted.

Since their 5-er was only a month old they headed off to a dealer about 150 miles away and no further repairs were attempted.

I'm sure in principle the system is great. Based on what I observed, and what I've read, it doesn't seem ready for prime time.

[BCRider]

What ticks me off the most is that the system had a recall on faulty o ring which will allow oil to migrate into the motor. This was obviously the case with my system.

As the original owner I never once was informed of this recall. Who is responsible for getting the word out? Why wasn’t I notified?

On my last trip during a torrential downpour our wipers jammed and refused to work. By the time I wrestled the MH over we could smell something burning. Turned out to be the wiper relay (245.00 just for the relay at Ford dealership). A recall had also been issued for this system to replace the factory installed 30 amp fuse with a 15 amp fuse or the relay will burn up before the fuse will blow. Again I only heard about the recall after the event and I was researching the relay on line.