[Motor31]

I've been having hydraulic problems for several months now. Actually that's not quite true, it's been since I got the rig for various problems related to them.

The latest batch of problems started last Spring. One slide wouldn't retract. There were no RV service operations that could see me about it for over 2 weeks. When I talked to Lippert one of the folks there talked me through cleaning out the valves related to the slides. I did that and the slides have worked fine since.

Then the landing gear failed to lift the trailer past a certain point. We had to change spots in order to level the front. The next day when I went to look at the issue the landing gear worked fine raising and lowering normally. Thinking that it had to be an air bubble that worked it's way through, all I could do was make sure the fluid level was up.

When we left that park we got about 20 miles away and stopped at a traffic signal. A sign guy (beggar) waved his arms and pointed to the trailer. I pulled over a block later and both legs were way down, one an inch off of the ground. I raised them up, then had to re close the slides. By the time I got back outside the legs were lowering again. I finally cobbled together a leg retention device to hold them up. I have since made a more robust version of it rather than drill the legs for a pin.

After finding and downloading the diagrams / manual from the Lippert site I was going to try and do a bleeding of the system but wanted to ask a couple questions about the design. Contacting Lippert only got me a short phone conversation with a very curt and uninformative individual who would only say take it to a dealer. He refused to either discuss the situation or answer any questions.

There isn't a "suction" on the system according to the diagrams and manual. Both lift and retraction are controlled by pressure flow. Extension by flowing from one hose to the piston / ram and retraction by flow from another hose to the other side of the piston / ram. A valve has to release the pressure from the opposite side of flow. At this time it's obvious that there is a good seal on the rams otherwise the front would start to sag after extension.

I'm going to try and talk to Lippert again then if I can't get any info talk to some techs in Lafayette in about a week. Hopefully I can get some more specific info about bleeding the rams and getting rid of the trapped air. We're on our 4th pump at this time and I'm sure that in swapping them out there has been a fair amount of air added to the lines that has never been fully bled out by the techs who did the work. The last replacement was the pressure modification.