Jack Alarm Issue

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LTWinnebago

LTWinnebago

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 8, 2018
Posts
75
Took delivery of our new Winnebago Sunstar in Feb 2018, on leaving the dealer, 15 miles down the road the Jack Alarms went off, scared the bejesus out of me, pulled over, jacks all up.  Called the dealer, made an appointment to check, they said they ran them up and down 6 or 7 times and had no problems. I marked the fluid levels on the reservoir for both UP and DOWN conditions with a sharpie to be sure I wasn't loosing fluid.

When I got back to the resort, I ran them up and down 4 more times (as recommended to remove air bubbles in the lines, that may be the problem), leaving the resort to our next waypoint, alarms went off every time I hit a bump, it got crazy.  Stopped the first few times, jacks all up, fluid levels at previous marks.  Alarm would just go on and stop after 20 seconds or so.

At our next stop, I found a dealer, set up an appointment, they checked the jack operations, test drove, simple determination that the fluid level was about an inch low! They topped up the fluid, ran the jacks, test drove and turned the coach back to me.  Everything was covered under our Winnebago warranty.  Driving back to our park, we hit hundreds of road bumps, no alarms, perfect. 

Amazing that fluid levels were missed by the purchasing dealer after we reported a problem.  Wonder why we get skeptical over their abilities. 
 
My fluid has been a little low but the jack alarm wasn't that sensitive. One of the first "improvements" I did to our Horizon was to turn the baffle on the alarm sounder almost closed - we can still hear the alarm but it's tolerable.
 
I find the "jack down" alarm interesting.  We had that issue last fall on our way home.  I pulled over in a truck stop area and researched the issue, after seeing that all jacks were, indeed, up.  It wasa low jack oil reservoir.  Interesting that the "jack down" alarm is actually a low oil level alarm.
I had a quart of jack oil with me and issue was remedied then.  Found there was a leaking seal on one of the jacks causing the low oil.  That's being fixed now.
 
The HWH jacks on our previous motorhome occasionally did the same thing, and it turned out that I was causing the problem (Sort of.) After retracting the jacks, I was turning the jack's power off as soon as the jack alarm stopped sounding. Then, after driving for awhile, the jack alarm would often go off. It ended up being that the jacks weren't fully retracted, even though the alarm was off. As we bounced down the road, the jacks would vibrate down just a little and set the alarm off.

Someone told me to let the jack system shut itself off after retracting them, and after doing so, I never had the problem again. If you're turning yours off early like I was, you might try letting the system shut itself off.

Kev
 
We have the LCI jacks, and when it is cold I truly have the right front jack drifting down an inch or so causing it to alarm.  I have to exercise the jacks several times to make it stop.  I suspect the solenoid seals are leaking internally or the jack 0-rings and once I heat it up they seal again.  There is a test I have to do this spring to see if it is a solenoid or jack.
 
Kevin Means said:
Someone told me to let the jack system shut itself off after retracting them, and after doing so, I never had the problem again. If you're turning yours off early like I was, you might try letting the system shut itself off.
Click to expand...

At this point I know the fluid was the issue, I will watch after I retract and see if I wait long enough for it to shut off by itself. (not sure what I do  :-[ )  How long should that take?  So, if you wait for a self shut-off, you don't have to touch anything on the pad to turn it off, right?  Thanks for the info.
 
Went under the rig, cleaned all the dirt and grim from the plates, wiped the shafts with an LCI approved silicone.  The front left had a small bit of fluid mixed in with the dirt, not a lot, but the others were basically dry dirt and stuff.  Maybe a leak, not sure what's normal as this my first rig with power jacks.
 
LTWinnebago said:
At this point I know the fluid was the issue, I will watch after I retract and see if I wait long enough for it to shut off by itself. (not sure what I do  :-[ )  How long should that take?  So, if you wait for a self shut-off, you don't have to touch anything on the pad to turn it off, right?  Thanks for the info.
Click to expand...
After retracting my jacks, the lights on my HWH panel go out after a few minutes, but I've never actually timed how long it took. On our last two motorhomes, once I pushed the Store button and the jack alarm stopped sounding, no further action was necessary.

FWIW, HWH considers their jacks to be operating within spec if they are fully retracted within 50 minutes. (Yes... 50 minutes!) I learned that after contacting HWH when one of my jacks started taking about 10 minutes to retract. I don't know anyone who would wait nearly an hour for their jacks to retract. I certainly don't have the patience, so before rebuilding them, I tried a few things to speed up the process. In the end, it was good ol' WD-40 on the shafts that fixed the problem.

Kev

Well, after typing all that, I noticed that you have Lippert jacks. I have no idea how their control panels are designed to operate. Hopefully someone here will be familiar with the idiosyncracies of LCI jacks.
 
Kevin Means said:
..FWIW, HWH considers their jacks to be operating within spec if they are fully retracted within 50 minutes. (Yes... 50 minutes!) I learned that after contacting HWH when one of my jacks started taking about 10 minutes to retract. I don't know anyone who would wait nearly an hour for their jacks to retract. ...
Click to expand...
50 minutes - yup, that's a bunch of baloney. Winnebago published acceptable HWH jack retraction times in an old service tips article - if jacks take that long to retract, something is wrong. Retraction time (at least for the HWH system) is very dependent on the temperature of the jack fluid since the jack springs and cylinder have to push all of that fluid back into the tank. But even in freezing weather it doesn't take more than 10 or 15 minutes.

I also don't know anything about LCI jacks  :p
 
As I understand my LCIs, there is a pressure switch on the solenoid block next to the pump that generates the jack down signal.  No level switch or microswitches.
 
I was alarmed a bit the first time it happened to me. I realized that the alarm goes off if a jack is a tiny bit down. After the first time, I don't even slow down on the highway. I just push on the power button for the jacks, hit "store" and keep driving. In a minute or less the light goes off. It's happened to me maybe 3x and the fluid is just fine. No problem I can't live with.
 
Mine won't let me hit retract while rolling - it wants the park brake set and neutral, then it will let me retract.  It alarms until I fix it.
 
Twice my HWH alarm has remained on along with the bright red light after retraction of the jacks. A visual inspection  has showed the jacks to be retracted. I would dearly love to find out how to eliminate the alarm all together. Trust me, if a big red light on the console comes on while driving, I will see it! I don't need no stinking alarm....anyone every disabled the alarm?
 
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