2002 Patriot Thunder - Suspension and Leveling System Problems

[Edward Buker]

Joel, Frank,

Thanks for clearing up the T is rubber, I'll pick one up and keep it on board. Joel, if you have the rubber T, then you have manual air valves which is the standard over the road leveling system used by Magnum and Roadmaster. With the fast acting air valves and the outboard air bags, it is an excellent system, that is simple by design. I do not think we are missing much not having the Active Air system.

Later Ed

[Robert Green]

Released the upper hoses on the jacks effectively raising them out of the way.

Ride height valve installed.  Working perfectly. 

Took my 10" stick and measured all the air bags.  They are sitting dead on. 

Ramco is rebuilding my mirrors. 

A new tailpipe will be here by Friday (mine was missing when I purchased the rig) and I'll have that on the same day. 

If all goes forward I can road test by the weekend. 

If the road test goes well, I'll get to a Cat mechanic and have him check the motor out and perform servicing. 

If the mechanic tells us good news, I can make some calls to Big Foot, Nandy, or Lester and see who is qualified to determine if the leveling system can be put in order - then take a short hop North to Lakeland or Kissemee, Florida. 

Thanks for the advice everyone. 

[LaMonte Monnell]

Bob, sounds like you are progressing well.

I made a list on a full sheet of notebook paper for all my after summer trip repairs and been knocking that out each day.

It will never end but it gets a little easier with each repair. I actually rewired my electric side element  and installed new version of the relay for my aquahot yesterday.

My military schematic training kicked in to get it wired correctly.

[Roland DuBree]

Looks like all has been said about how it works, boards etc.  But one other thing that might be a problem if a jack or jacks are leaking. The are normally considered not repairable. Beaver has never been able to even tell me who made them. Beaver Coach Sales in OR wanted my old jack and $999.95 for a replacement repaired jack.  I found a repair shop in KY. They are Customcylindersintinc.com, 800-779-5544 at 1220 Enterprise Dr. Winchester. KY 40391 Talk to Grover Taylor.  They have my jack now, have been told the rebuilding is to be between $300.00 to $400.00 with a 5 to 7 day turn around.  I'm waiting to hear about getting mine back as they received it on Tuesday. Hopefully all goes well!  I did get from Beaver an SMC Level System Operating Instructions Manual and pictures of Jacks. If you need send an email to me and I'll send you them as attachements. I'm at wpwsl@aol.com. Roland DuBree

[LaMonte Monnell]

BCS wanted $1000 and a bad jack to rebuild......Wow!

[Joel Ashley]

I was frustrated 20+ years ago after I had a stripped worm drive on a 1985 electric A&E jack, and they weren't supporting the product anymore with parts.  I found a local, creative, and intelligent young machinest with top-end equipment.  He made new parts for it using better metallurgical principles than A&E did.  A couple hundred dollars, and the right alloys, and worth it.  You just have to find the right guy.

Joel

[LaMonte Monnell]

I guess BCS is rebuilding the SMC jacks that have internal leaks now. They called wanting to buy the ones I took off my coach, but my price discouraged them I guess.

But I have sold one already and two more in the near future(these three are the good jacks).

[Frank Towle]

The photo I supplied IS of a rubber 'cross'.  Two of them are used at each control valve in most applications.

The horizontal hole (just above the last 'A' in the watermark) connects to either the fixed 'L' shaped rod at the axle or the top of 'L' shaped vertical rod, cotter pin prevents sliding off but allows pivoting.  Now the vertical hole contains vertical adjusting rod at the bottom or arm from control valve at the top.  Clamp goes in the groove on either side (have seen some with two hose clamps) and adjusts vertical distance from axle to control rod and vertical-ness by sliding horizontally on the control valve adjusting arm.  Very simple way to provide basic mechanical linkage and keep it quiet.

Every vertical jiggle of the axle while traveling moves the control valve arm up and down.  It takes about half an inch of vertical movement to open the valve in either direction - otherwise it would always be filling and emptying the airbags - but those two little rubber pieces about 2" tall have to absorb a lot of shock action and DO fatigue with time and exposure to air.  Also the rods/arms may become miss-aligned - not at 90 degrees to each other - putting extra strain on the rubber bushing, twisting it apart.

Just sayin...

[Robert Green]

Roland
This is very interesting and good news concerning the ability to have the jacks rebuilt. Kentucky is not a big deal from Florida.  I'm going to check these guys out.

My control board is toast, but I know I can get another from Big Foot (my system is already manual). The communication to the pump had stopped, but I was able to correct that yesterday. One of the wires had come off the pump solenoid. BONUS - my living room slide went dead last week - but now works perfectly again!

Jerry posted source parts for the slide manifold (which I hope might have parts for the leveler manifold). I may need to swap some cylinders, but looks like I can rebuild that part if I can get what I need (cylinders + solenoids).

Hoses are easy, and I have a local source. 

So the ability to rebuild the jacks means I could have a leveling system again without spending $5,000 or more.

Just keeps getting better!