I thought it was worth a followup on this one. We finished the rest of the trip to TX without using slide or jacks in order to avoid being stranded somewhere unable to get the slide back in. After we arrived I called RVA and spoke with Dennis Kay, the owner. He's a nice guy who knew the entire history of his jacks on Beaver MH's. Dennis said that Beaver had been using jacks made by Power Gear but had some kind of falling out so they wanted a new supplier. The caveat was that the new pump unit had to fit into the spatial footprint of the old one. That meant that RVA had to use a jack designed for 22,000 lb MH's even though the Patriot Thunder weighs 10,000 lb more. After hearing that, IMHO it's a credit to RVA that the system lasted 14 years!
I let Dennis listen on the phone while I ran the pump and he agreed that it sounded as if a bearing has failed. You can buy a replacement motor/pump assembly from him for ~$750 and reuse your existing manifold/reservoir. Not only is that less costly by quite a bit, it ensures that the manifold/valve configuration is correct for your MH.
Since he happened to have a couple of these units on the shelf I now have mine and will get it installed over the next month or two. Since we were able to extend the slide and put the jacks down, we're not going anywhere so we don't need the new pump for a while. It's not going to be a fun job since the working clearances are small and you'll be working on your back with the system above you. That's why I'm not going to do it myself!
