Lift system for roof

[Dutchmen]

Tested my manual lift to raise the roof in case I ever lost power. When tested, it did not work with the manual crank. Seems tight or slips. Works fine with the electric lift. I have to revisit this when I take her out in 2 weeks. Not sure if anyone had similar experiences?


Dutchmen

[vinmaker]

The only difference I noticed was that it took a long time to raise it manually. I needed to buy a cheap 3/8" electric drill to carry just in case the winch did not work. The worm gear just lifts the roof too slow.

I am not sure why you could not get yours to work. Did you not see any movement of the cable when you manually turned it? Did you see any of the gears turn?

Vin.

[Dutchmen]

Thanks Vinmaker - I did not notice. I just stopped out of frustration.....But I am taking it out in 2 weeks. I will try it again & take notice. I may have to remove the housing cover, but no biggie. I just want to make sure it works if I ever needed to lift manually. (Which I never hope to)

[phillip252]

Checked mines last week, I use a cordless drill with a socket. Got it to work but it was slow. The hand crank was even slower.

[NSNewbie]

It moves really slow. Many revolutions to move the roof when you use the backup screw. Don't use a drill on it unless you know its moving freely as you can't feel if the screw is stuck. My husband put a torque gun on the manual screw and sheared it right off.
We actually just converted our electric winch to manual and it was so easy and saved $350 in parts and we did it ourselves. Had our 1st trip on the weekend and loved the manual winch. The electric was too noisy and seemed unreliable.


NS Newbie - 2nd Popup

[Dutchmen]

I also use a cordless drill with socket for my jacks. I will give it a shot in 2 weeks when we're out. I hear you NSNewbie.......tnx

[sctheis]

We picked up our Rockwood HW276 on a Wednesday afternoon and headed out to a state park a little over an hour away for our first camp. The electric lifter raised the roof about 80% up and died. I tried the manual lift and after cranking what seemed to be a lot of turns, we could see no detectable movement. We were panicking because there was a storm front due later that night and we were stuck with a camper that we couldn't get up or down it seemed. We put a call in for emergency assistance. It took them over an hour to crank it down.

Now, I remember the tech mentioning that it would be good to get an electric drill because of the gear ratio. But wow, it was an understatement.

Even with a drill, it is SLOW.

[rsdata]

We put a call in for emergency assistance. It took them over an hour to crank it down.

sctheis...

Inquiring minds want to know... did you get it up that night and were you able to get in that first camping trip?

[sctheis]

We ended up aborting the trip, While the Techs were able to get it up, we had them lower it and close it up, because we had no confidence at that point. We left the camper on the site, closed up and headed home to get some sleep (only an hour away luckily). We went back the next morning and hauled our camper to the dealer. They replaced the lifter.

We have had a very successful camping trip since. We also have a drill and adapter, just in case.

[phillip252]

I have a backup drill, and sockets.

[kraftengr]

Any word about what was wrong with the lifter? If your battery is low or the winch stops are improperly adjusted, you could have that problem.

[sctheis]

It wasn't limits because it went up around 90% them would not go up or down. The battery was fine because the dolly jack worked. Also, we hooked up to shore power and saw no change. The service department said it was the controller board for the lifter that burned out. They replaced the unit and everything is fine now.

[kraftengr]

OK- I was curious because we had a problem with our lift stopping at 90%, and even connecting to local power would not overcome the weak / dead battery while the tongue Jack worked fine. In our case, replacing the battery solved everything. Thanks for the reply!

[kinma13]

You can set the lift limits and the lowering limits of the winch.