HW276 Roof won't fully close.

[Jchaney]

I have a 2008 Rockwood HW276 and the roof rear does not fully close now.

When purchased in March the roof would open and close with no issues. We have taken it out and camped for a weekend and the roof raised and closed with no issues and it has been raised and lowered several times prior to.

Last week I was preparing to go out for a trip for this past weekend and the roof raised with no issues. However, I did notice the rear of the roof would raise higher than the front. It was not raising level.

When closing the rear would not close the last 4-6 inches or so. The front comes all the way down. But the rear wont. I verified nothing on the bed, or anything impeding it from closing. The motor will wind down and eventually stop running with the front fully closed and the rear not.

There have been two instances briefly that a latch was still closed on one side when attempting to lift. Once on our first trip and the second last week when attempting to raise for a brief moment. The motor is so damn loud no one can hear you yell stop! What is the consequence of this? I have read that springs can become bent?

I believe it is a Goshen system, with a powerwinch motor. There is no adjustment for the rear pulley as it is as tight as it will go. It is my understanding that if I was to loosen that this effects the front.

With the loudness I may wire a long cable switch to be able to raise and lower from afar and still have my hearing intact.

[Mike91]

Originally Posted by Jchaney

I have a 2008 Rockwood HW276 and the roof rear does not fully close now.

When purchased in March the roof would open and close with no issues. We have taken it out and camped for a weekend and the roof raised and closed with no issues and it has been raised and lowered several times prior to.

Last week I was preparing to go out for a trip for this past weekend and the roof raised with no issues. However, I did notice the rear of the roof would raise higher than the front. It was not raising level.

When closing the rear would not close the last 4-6 inches or so. The front comes all the way down. But the rear wont. I verified nothing on the bed, or anything impeding it from closing. The motor will wind down and eventually stop running with the front fully closed and the rear not.

There have been two instances briefly that a latch was still closed on one side when attempting to lift. Once on our first trip and the second last week when attempting to raise for a brief moment. The motor is so damn loud no one can hear you yell stop! What is the consequence of this? I have read that springs can become bent?

I believe it is a Goshen system, with a powerwinch motor. There is no adjustment for the rear pulley as it is as tight as it will go. It is my understanding that if I was to loosen that this effects the front.

With the loudness I may wire a long cable switch to be able to raise and lower from afar and still have my hearing intact.

If you left the roof clamps on while trying to raise the roof, that's bad, very bad. You likely damaged the lift system tubes and stretched cables. You might want to inspect it and see how bad the damage is. I've seen posted pics of severe damage from leaving the clamps on where most of the lift system had to be replaced. To bad there isn't like a sheer pin or something to protect the lift system from accidents like that.

I hope it's not bad for you.

Good luck.

[Jchaney]

Even one clamp and only trying to raise for less than 5 seconds?

Do you have a link for the pics?

Lastly, will this effect the closing ability or just the lifting?

Thanks

[Mike91]

Originally Posted by Jchaney

Even one clamp and only trying to raise for less than 5 seconds?

Do you have a link for the pics?

Lastly, will this effect the closing ability or just the lifting?

Thanks

Yep, 5 seconds for all that torque to go somewhere, since it wasn't raising the roof. Hopefully it's not to bad but you already see the effects of it. Hopefully not to bad. Would had been less damaging if it were a hand crank instead of a power system, but they're all power systems now.

Maybe damage not bad enough you can fix things yourself without needing dealer and new parts. You'll just have to inspect it.

[jimmoore13]

Wow. So many options.

Have you checked your limit switches? The roof should come down evenly, but if you adjust the low limit switch, can you gain enough slack to lower it all the way?

When you raised with the latches closed, it's possible that you stretched and/or displaced some of the tubing at the junction in the center of the camper. Take a look. If things are not as they should be, one or more of the tubes may have moved away from where everything hooks up in the center...where one cable from the winch becomes 4 cables going in 4 directions. This happened to my system, and I caught it before the whole mess fell apart. I was able to realign everything and add steel reinforcement to pull things back together...better than new. You might be as lucky. If not, you may have one or two cable tubes that have broken loose from the center, and the repair may be replacement.

Remember that your winch has only one cable going back to that "manifold" that splits it 4 ways. Very likely, the winch may be crap and giving you trouble, but it has nothing to do with this issue. Investigate immediately and hope you get lucky and can fix it.

[Mike91]

Luckily it's a goshen system and not a Jayco camper with a Jayco lift system that requires all the interior cabinets be removed.

[Freedom2318G]

This should be a Goshen system so it's actually a fairly simple mechanism. See bottom for my TLDR

Is the lift cable taut when the roof is lowered? If it is, try using the manual override on the winch. I would use a power drill as it takes like 20 revolutions to go about an inch.

The way the Goshen system works is there is a single cable with 2 ferrules and a small plate that buts up against each one. One ferrule is at the end of the cable and one is somewhere in the middle. As the winch pulls the cable in, the ferrule and plate in the middle pushes again the lift springs to raise the front. The cable goes around that pully at the rear, hence making the end ferrule and plate push against the rear lift springs, lifting the back.

Now, if the front of your roof is suddenly raising and lowering 6 inches lower than your back, it is possible that middle ferrule has slipped down the lift cable. Afterall, the rear ferrule has nowhere to slip, since it's, well, at the end. If the middle one has slipped, or you suspect it has, do not raise the roof and step inside the pop-up. The ferrule is weakened and could slip further, causing the front to lower suddenly.

This may seem like an extreme troubleshooting step, but I suggest you order a new cable from Goshen and replace it. It's a few hour job and really not all that difficult. While you are at it, if you don't particularly like your power winch, have them send you a manual one. I did this and I love it. The power winch is loud and annoying and I feel I have way more control with the manual one. It only takes about a minute to raise the roof, and lowering is a breeze since it's gravity doing the work.

TLDR: Call Goshen, purchase a new lift cable, and replace yours. Also consider replacing your winch with a manual one, which Goshen will also sell you. I have a YouTube video saved that I can link to, if you wish, that goes over most of the steps for replacing the cable.

[flyerdp]

The question Freedom2318G asked about if the cable is loose or taught when all the way down is where I would start. If its still taught then your "lower limit" setting needs to be adjusted to allow it to travel further in the closing direction.

The rear pulley at the back center underside of the camper is the adjustment for front to back level of the roof only and not for any closing setting.

The roof system is 4 spring steel rods inside the center tube on the underside that travel via the curved metal tubes from the center to the 4 corners. The winch system is 1 long cable starting at the front through the tube, around the rear pulley and back to the front of the center tube. When the winch is winding the roof up the cable is pushing these 4 steel springs through the tube and up in to the lifter post pushing the roof up. When locked still the pressure has to go somewhere so the most common result in the first few seconds is the ends at the lifter posts start to bend because they are not in the tube, rather up in to the lifter a bit even while closed. The little bit of space in there gives way to more spring being shoved in the opening causing deformity.

As was suggested the bolts might get snapped at the center tube as well causing separation of the curved metal tube at the central tubing or the curved tubes might bend more.