Hydraulic Problems - Montana Owners Club

Fire Guy · 01-08-2021, 12:00 PM

2018 Montana 3661 RL
This all started a few weeks before Christmas. I put the slides in and the next day I noticed one slide on each side was out about 3 or 4 inches at the bottom. I closed them back up tight and everything was fine. So we took a trip the week of Christmas and pulled in the campground. When on our way to the sight went through a slight dip and heard something drag the ground. When i went to investigate the landing gear in the middle by the entry door was down about 2 or 3 inches above the ground. When i hit that dip and it drug the ground it bent the rod of that particular gear. Im going to have to replace it. After about an hours worth of work with a heavy ratcheting tow strap i was able to straighten the gear enough to get it to go up so we could go home. Has anybody ever had a similar problem or know what would cause that. Its like theres back pressure pushing back on the hydraulic pump. TIA for the help.

dieselguy · 01-08-2021, 12:22 PM

As far as slideouts ... a pretty common issue ends up being a piston seal inside any one of the cylinders fails and residual pressure in the system pushes out the lightest slide a few inches ... usually the bedroom slide. Residual pressure is always in the retract side of the system when you lay on the slide switch to make sure they are button up tight. Air in the system and a check ball leak in the pump are alternate possibilities. Cycling the slides fully in and out about 3-4 times will remove most all air (if any) in the slide system. All this assumes with all slides in and level up gear retracted ... oil in reservoir is about 1/2 - 1" below the top of the reservoir.

Fire Guy · 01-08-2021, 12:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dieselguy

As far as slideouts ... a pretty common issue ends up being a piston seal inside any one of the cylinders fails and residual pressure in the system pushes out the lightest slide a few inches ... usually the bedroom slide. Residual pressure is always in the retract side of the system when you lay on the slide switch to make sure they are button up tight. Air in the system and a check ball leak in the pump are alternate possibilities. Cycling the slides fully in and out about 3-4 times will remove most all air (if any) in the slide system. All this assumes with all slides in and level up gear retracted ... oil in reservoir is about 1/2 - 1" below the top of the reservoir.

TY Dieselguy. Would you know if the slides and landing gear run on the same pump. I thought maybe a seal but haven't seen any evidence of a hydraulic leak. After working on the bent one it will need a complete rebuild for sure if not an entire new replacement but could that gear be the source of the problem or a problem at the actual pump?

Daryles · 01-08-2021, 02:13 PM

There is only one hydraulic pump (battery compartment) but several control valves and check valves in the legs.
People have had success having them rebuilt rather than replace them. Far cheaper.
Download the MYLCI app from Google play store. It has all the manuals and troubleshooting procedures. You can go through the steps to check out the Hydraulic system to isolate the problem. Bad jack, bad check valve, etc.
There are also some manuals in the files section at the top of the webpage
https://www.montanaowners.com/forums...hp?do=cat&id=3

dieselguy · 01-08-2021, 02:45 PM

I'm assuming you have hydraulic slides. If you have little aluminum bars top and bottom of the sides of the slides with a squiggly channel in the middle, they are electric slides. All Montana's use the same pump and reservoir for the slides and level up. There are just different 12 volt DC solenoid valves making it work. My experience working on RVs with slide out drift is 90% of the time the piston seal is bad. Like said there are online procedures to check cylinders. Read them well and do exactly what they say or you will have oil all over you and everything else. If you're landing gear leg rod is bent, I'd guess it's going to be just a cheap to buy the whole cylinder. I've not had much luck with sourcing Lippert cylinder parts but one or two on the MOC has.

Fire Guy · 01-08-2021, 05:25 PM

Thank You for the information

Fire Guy · 01-08-2021, 05:33 PM

Yeah i have already priced the Lippert landing gear replacement and need to do the research to single out the source of the problem. Im gonna guess replacing the bent gear will be the easy part.
Thanks for the advice and info

RMcNeal · 01-09-2021, 05:13 AM

No help with your landing gear problem, but I was told by the tech that did our walkthrough to turn off the valves on both our hydraulic slides after retracting them when I hook up. He said that with the valves off, if there was some sort of leak in the system it should prevent the slides from opening while moving down the road. Unless, of course, the leak is in the slide hydraulic mechanism itself.
On our rig, there are 2 valves in the level up compartment for the DS and ODS (dining and kitchen) slides.

Fire Guy · 01-09-2021, 06:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RMcNeal

No help with your landing gear problem, but I was told by the tech that did our walkthrough to turn off the valves on both our hydraulic slides after retracting them when I hook up. He said that with the valves off, if there was some sort of leak in the system it should prevent the slides from opening while moving down the road. Unless, of course, the leak is in the slide hydraulic mechanism itself.
On our rig, there are 2 valves in the level up compartment for the DS and ODS (dining and kitchen) slides.

That is a good idea thank you. Mine has a total of 5 slides but only 4 are hydraulic. The bedroom is electric. I have 4 valves i can cut off at the panel.

dieselguy · 01-09-2021, 11:40 AM

Robert ... your walk-thru tech as with many of us has his own opinion ... going thru the motions of turning off the valves every time I hooked up to my truck would fall into the classification of a placebo in my case. Those valves only block oil flow out of the pump to the extend side of each cylinder ... they won't do a thing for a piston seal leak or any leak past that valve. So yes, closing a valve might eliminate the source of a leak ahead of it, but no, it won't eliminate a source behind it. None the less ... put value in who and what you're at ease with.

Fire Guy ... I forgot to ask ... have you had to top off your reservoir lately due to a low oil level? That would indicate an external leak.

twindman · 01-09-2021, 01:04 PM

I bought a new Mountaineer in 2014 (2013 model). I was lucky and we headed directly east to the Rally in goshen with stops along the way. After a day or 2 the slides started creeping out 2-3 inches after 200 miles or so. So I just put them back daily on the drive.
At Goshen I had set up an appt with Tiarra to have them checked and fixed. Got into Tiarra and after half a day they say - oh we can't check that because the pressure is 4000 psi and our gauges don't go that high!!! However, they did set up an appt with Lippert at 7 am and they were done by 12 or 12:30. It was slower because they had to drive to Indianapolis (?) to get new cylinders. They didn't even check them, I think. They told me the 2 biggest cylinders go bad and do this. On the way home they creeped to a lessor extent. At home dealer just ran them in and out 10 times to get air out and all was good.

dieselguy · 01-09-2021, 01:15 PM

Tiarra must have not wanted your business very bad. System pressure on most any I've worked on is 1800-2300 psi range. I wish I could find what the relief setting on Lippert pumps is.

Fire Guy · 01-09-2021, 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dieselguy

Robert ... your walk-thru tech as with many of us has his own opinion ... going thru the motions of turning off the valves every time I hooked up to my truck would fall into the classification of a placebo in my case. Those valves only block oil flow out of the pump to the extend side of each cylinder ... they won't do a thing for a piston seal leak or any leak past that valve. So yes, closing a valve might eliminate the source of a leak ahead of it, but no, it won't eliminate a source behind it. None the less ... put value in who and what you're at ease with.

Fire Guy ... I forgot to ask ... have you had to top off your reservoir lately due to a low oil level? That would indicate an external leak.

No diesel I have not had to add fluid to the reservoir. No evidence of a leak anywhere. Its parked on concrete and no fluid to be seen

fish123 · 01-09-2021, 08:37 PM

I always have trouble with levelers drifting down in cold weather. The valves do not close good when they are cold. Only had slides move once. Keep checking them in cold temps often

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