Another Item for the regular maintenance checklist!!

Especially for those of us who have, or have added the hydraulic leveling system...periodically check the hydraulic connections on the system to make sure they are still tight....

Yesterday, while in camping world to have a replacement awning installed, they took the Bighorn on their Bobcat and moved it into a bay (that's a whole nuther story...tried to tell them it was too heavy for a Bobcat).

As they hit the landing gear switch on the front of the 5er hydraulic fluid starting pouring out of the front cargo bay and down the landing gear on the DS. As we were standing close by and saw all the commotion, we came over and saw the fluid going everywhere...DH thought we had blown the landing gear itself...we quickly unlocked the cargo bay, looked inside and discovered that the connection on the restrictor was so loose (this is where all the fluid was coming from), that it could be moved freely, by hand.

We quickly got a wrench, tightened it up and added fluid to replace what was lost, and everything seems to working fine...after we got where we were going, we checked every other connection to be safe, and found nothing else loose.

Can't believe we didn't have a problem prior to this, or that the hose didn't blow completely off...just a reminder...these things are a "rolling earthquake"...virtually everything needs to be checked and tightened periodically...MAN THIS LIST IS GETTING BIG!!

I mentioned it somewhere else that it would pay to check every hydraulic connection. I found 5 small leaks and one real leak - same one you just found.

Yeah...we found several small leaks when it was first installed. This leak however, surfaced after over a year of constant use...can only assume it worked it self loose over time, but we never saw any minor leakage in the area prior to yesterdays BIG leak...strange!!

Installed aftermarket, are ALL of the fittings on the Level-Up easily accessible, or do they bury them in the belly of the beast? Kind of curious where they normally mount the hydraulic system on a 3670 (no generator).

JohnDar said:

Installed aftermarket, are ALL of the fittings on the Level-Up easily accessible, or do they bury them in the belly of the beast? Kind of curious where they normally mount the hydraulic system on a 3670 (no generator).

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On our 3600RL they used the existing hydraulic pump and tank, and simply added the needed connections and solenoids for the remote control. The entire level-up and all the slides run off of one pump.

All connections are either in the hydraulic compartment at the pump, next to the landing gear in the front compartment, or at the other four leveling legs...all of the hoses in the belly and out of view are straight lines without connectors...I watched the entire installation. So yes, all the connections are accessible.

John - Seems as most of the newer installations the original pump is replaced with a new and larger capacity pump - if you need the front landing replaced. Not sure about the pump if you already have hydraulic landing.
My installation I guess is about a year newer then Ken's and is the same with accessibility.

The new system works so good I don't think twice anymore about hooking - unhooking or moving it around in the driveway.

porthole said:

John - Seems as most of the newer installations the original pump is replaced with a new and larger capacity pump - if you need the front landing replaced. Not sure about the pump if you already have hydraulic landing.
My installation I guess is about a year newer then Ken's and is the same with accessibility.

The new system works so good I don't think twice anymore about hooking - unhooking or moving it around in the driveway.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I was curious and thought maybe they installed a second pump system. If they just put in a stronger unit to replace the slide hydraulic pump and run it all off of that, then that would be cool. Don't want to loose any storage space.