[stanleyz]

Well darn, here I am again. Since my last report I have 1. Talked with Paul Cross who passed me off to a guy at lippert who Paul said was the best on the older units. He was very confident it was the seal and that the reason the seal kept passing the test was that when it would stay up it was holding so the test only works if we have to hold the stabilizer up. 2. Tried the Sea foam tranny flush which did not help. 3 Bit the bullet and removed the ram and took it to the local hydraulics shop for a rebuild. Got it yesterday and I now have about 750 bucks invested in the project.

I spent today trying to install the rebuilt ram and get it to work. Nope, wouldn't do it. So.... it may be my fault (more on that in a minute), it may be a faulty rebuild or the problem might not have ever been the ram. I sure don't know. The problem has now escalated to the stabilizers (both) staying down under pressure at all times. The only way I can get them up is to open the top hose and use a pry bar to force them up. An exercise that will force a lot of hydraulic fluid out of the stabilizer.

When I picked up the ram it was in the up position. So when I got started this AM the first thing I had to do was extend it so I could reach the ram bolt
with the foot shaft. I could not pull the ram shaft down by hand. I thought about taking it to the hydraulic shop and asking him to extend it for me but it's a 30 minute drive each way. I thought about connecting the hoses to the ram outside the housing and then extending the stabilizer with the switch but that sounded messy. So, I locked the ram in my vice, put a bolt through the hole in the ram shaft and used a small hydraulic jack to force the shaft to the down position. It was very dry and it occured to me that I might be harming the seal but by then I was pretty much committed.

I'm thinking that was probably an error and maybe ruined the new seal. I'll see what the hydraulic shop says about that.

I'm still open to suggestions.