Powergear leveling jack controller location 2004 HR Scepter

[ok-rver]

Left Rear Jack not coming all the way up.

The coach has 4 jacks. Both front jacks with external springs supplied by one solenoid common flow between them, rear jacks with internal spring with a solenoid each side. All hydraulic. Very basic keypad, Front down, right rear down, left rear down, both rear down, retract all jacks buttons on keypad. Does not have auto leveling function. Left rear comes up to about 3" down from fully retracted. Tried using 2x6 to pry up with about 500 lbs of force at jack foot and it did not move. over 4 days it has come up to about an 1" down. Rod of jack looks good, no visible scratches and does not look bent when down. Picture of the controller from what appears to be the manual for my unit shows four 3 amp fuses for the four solenoids. As the solenoid is energized and extends the jack, they are all good. Tried hitting jacks up button and running out to lever up jack. It did not work.

Powergear wants pictures of the keypad, controller, and jack. I can NOT find the controller. Hydraulic unit is in engine compartment. The way I think this works, "Jacks UP" light goes off when fluid level lifts float switch in reservoir. If fluid quantity is correct, the jacks should be fully up when the float tells the controller they are up.  Actual fluid level is at the level they say to fill the reservoir now with jack still down a couple of inches when I checked yesterday. I can not tell if the jacks up solenoid is open when deenergized or closed. 

Any way, looked a bit under dash but there is a board that limits what you can see up under the dash. No  controller in the engine compartment. Wires from hydraulic unit appear to run forward along the driver side of the engine. Found nothing inside rear of MH. Powergear slide controller in one of the basement compartments. No other Powergear controller in the compartments that I have found. Will get MH back from shop tomorrow to look some more. Has anyone seen the jack controller when digging around on their chassis?

May use jumper to energize jacks up solenoid to drain to tank or left down solenoid to see if it oil flows back. Other option is to unscrew hydraulic line from solenoid and see if the jack comes up but that may be a mess. Either of those might tell me the jack is good.

[Bandit411]

Have you tried loosening the line that goes to the jack. If not put a drain pan under the connector and loosen the line. It may have an air bubble trapped. 

[cbr046]

On occasion I have to do the run-around-the-coach trick to manually get the last few inches on LR jack.  One thing I found is that I have to power the jack down slightly, hit the retract button, then run to the back with the lever already in place to push the jack up the last few inches.  Quickness is key.  If I just push the retract button alone then force it up the jack won't move. 

- bob

[RNMCBR]

Mike,

One other thing to consider is that the piston may be unscrewing from the rod causing it to hit the end of the cylinder before the rod is fully retracted. This happened to me. Fortunately I was able to catch it before it came completely off and ruined the jack. 

The piston is supposed to be retained with Loctite but I couldn’t see any evidence of it in mine. Power gear claimed they had never seen this, but I doubt that due to the nature of the assembly.

I posted a white paper on IRV2 on this about 3 years ago. (Search under “RMCB” postings) The good thing is that the jack is completely rebuildable and parts are readily available either a Powergear rebuild kit, or you can match the old seals and wear ring up at a hydraulic supply. They are common sizes. My white paper lists the part numbers and I think they were about $17 total for one jack. 

 Powergear also has instructions posted on their web site and the job is not all that difficult. 

Hopefully this is not your problem but if it is, it’s fixable.

Roy

[ok-rver]

All the above were great suggestions. Still have not found controller which is still on the list as there are fuses on the board. Thinking thru cbr046's suggestion, I siphoned off about a cup of hydraulic fluid from the reservoir. Down to a little below the fill level in manual as jack is still extended. Turned on system, extended jack with 2x6 board ready to pry up and by the time I got there it was completely retracted. Did it 3 more times and always pulled up. I am guessing there may be some timing in when the float switch gets to full and the solenoids closing. Maybe fixed. Will double check next time on the road.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

[johncvandoren@gmail.com]

On 8/26/2021 at 8:39 PM, ok-rver said:

Left Rear Jack not coming all the way up.

The coach has 4 jacks. Both front jacks with external springs supplied by one solenoid common flow between them, rear jacks with internal spring with a solenoid each side. All hydraulic. Very basic keypad, Front down, right rear down, left rear down, both rear down, retract all jacks buttons on keypad. Does not have auto leveling function. Left rear comes up to about 3" down from fully retracted. Tried using 2x6 to pry up with about 500 lbs of force at jack foot and it did not move. over 4 days it has come up to about an 1" down. Rod of jack looks good, no visible scratches and does not look bent when down. Picture of the controller from what appears to be the manual for my unit shows four 3 amp fuses for the four solenoids. As the solenoid is energized and extends the jack, they are all good. Tried hitting jacks up button and running out to lever up jack. It did not work.

Powergear wants pictures of the keypad, controller, and jack. I can NOT find the controller. Hydraulic unit is in engine compartment. The way I think this works, "Jacks UP" light goes off when fluid level lifts float switch in reservoir. If fluid quantity is correct, the jacks should be fully up when the float tells the controller they are up.  Actual fluid level is at the level they say to fill the reservoir now with jack still down a couple of inches when I checked yesterday. I can not tell if the jacks up solenoid is open when deenergized or closed. 

Any way, looked a bit under dash but there is a board that limits what you can see up under the dash. No  controller in the engine compartment. Wires from hydraulic unit appear to run forward along the driver side of the engine. Found nothing inside rear of MH. Powergear slide controller in one of the basement compartments. No other Powergear controller in the compartments that I have found. Will get MH back from shop tomorrow to look some more. Has anyone seen the jack controller when digging around on their chassis?

May use jumper to energize jacks up solenoid to drain to tank or left down solenoid to see if it oil flows back. Other option is to unscrew hydraulic line from solenoid and see if the jack comes up but that may be a mess. Either of those might tell me the jack is good.

My 06 Monaco Knight with Power Gear (automatic) leveling has the “brain” controller on the ceiling of the second from front cubby on the curb side.  

[ok-rver]

Thanks, will check next time at coach

[ok-rver]

Jack stopped coming up all the way. Removed maybe 1/2 cup more of fluid. Now seems to be working.

I have looked all over coach for Powergear controller. Not in the compartments unless it has cover over it. Will check under dash and behind radio.

[johncvandoren@gmail.com]

You may find what U need in tech tips

[GoSkeeterPopGo]

On my 01' Holiday Rambler the controller is under the steering column on the interior firewall.  With regards to a read PowerGear jack not retracting all the way, my rears has internal springs and I am told the can break.  I uses a manual jack to put upward pressure on my jack, then hit retract in order to get it to retract all the way.  I actually made a steel lift that the jack foot deploys on that then allows me to roll a floor jack under it to get it pack in the up position.  A heck of allot cheaper than a new jack at $1200+.

 

[ok-rver]

Will pull shroud around steering column off in the next few days. I have siphoned and added back ATF to my reservoir a couple of times now.  1/4" ID clear tubing with 5 nuts screwed on the outside of one end to give it weight to hang down into the reservoir. used  for 3 different siphoned liquids. The current level is right at the intersection of the fill tube neck and the main reservoir cylinder. My jacks retract completely at this level. Just a little above and the jack does not retract fully. Just a little below and the "jacks extended" light does not go out. To answer my question about the logic of closing valves, Powergear has asked for a picture of the controller. I believe that once the float switch in the reservoir is lifted by ATF to full, a timer may start and then the solenoid valves are closed, no more retraction of jacks. Maybe the controller closes valves so they can not creep down. Hope to get a definitive answer from Powergear once they receive a picture of the controller. 

There has been an instance where it was reported that the spring hardware "unscrewed" and would not let the jack fully retract. If the jack is coming up ANY at all, the spring is probably not broken, single acting cylinder (extend) with no hydraulic retract. From GoSkeeter's method, not sure if the jack is coming up any. If by using an external jack and the leveling jack goes fully up, the spring is probably is the correct position as the spring wire is pretty big and would coil bind and stop upward movement.  

Powergear has a rebuild procedure for their jacks.  They do not list the spring as a replacement part but I thought there was another company that sold the springs. Will see if I can find the link.

Just my thoughts. I have been very wrong on some things in the past.

[ok-rver]

Matt, thanks for giving me a direction to look. It turns out my PowerGear controller is on the firewall, just to the left of the steering column mounted up high behind a mess of wires. was able to get picture with model number that I can send to PowerGear to discuss logic. also know were to look if issues that could be a blown fuse.

Last week, I read a post and really wish I could give the guy credit. He reminded "us" in his post that there are grease zerks on the bottom of the leveling jacks. He stopped having retract issues once he greased his jacks. The zerk is ported into a very small area below the rod seal and above a wiper seal at the end of the outer housing. Too much grease injected could flow past the rod seal and end up in the ATF hydraulic fluid and would not be good. Looking at the PowerGear repair manual, there is no seal on the piston, it only has a wear ring. Fluid comes all the way down to this rod seal.

With my jacks retracted, I squirted two pulls of the lever on a small grease gun into the zerk, rotated the base plate about 40 degrees each direction several times returning to the original orientation and then inject one more squirt with a few more rotations. I have now retracted my jacks about a dozen times and have had 100% full retraction of the jacks. Before, 80% plus I was having to lift one of the jacks to get it up.

This worked for me and I have only a week or so of use after injecting the grease. Something could fail the next time I use the jacks. The standard warning only do this if you think it is the right thing to do. My rear jacks have internal springs. I was very careful to get them back to the original orientation so that the internal spring did not unscrew from the end fittings.

Hope this helps

[ok-rver]

Going to siphon out the probably 15 year old ATF in my PowerGear reservoir and replace with new Dexron III. I found the following in the PowerGear install and maintenance manual while I was looking for how much ATF I needed. I have not been keeping up with their recommendation for greasing the jacks.

6. Jacks equipped with grease fittings at the bottom of the cylinder should be greased with a light weight lithium grease using a hand       pump style grease gun only. 2 or 3 pumps should be sufficient for 20-30 uses.

I missed this b4 when I read thru the preventative maintenance section. 12 years behind on changing the fluid.

[johncvandoren@gmail.com]

My Power Gear controller is on the ceiling of the curb-side second from front cargo bay.