Emergency Help: Hydraulic slides no workee and I'm stuck at closed campground

2011 Cyclone 3950 w/hydraulic room slides. Second time out no less and the slides took a dump. Opening up the last slide seemed funny and looking up under the belly cover there is a pool of hyd. fluid gathered there. Tank up front seems too empty to get anything done.

The campground I'm at closed for the season about 2 hrs ago and would like to see me gone. Any way to manually get these slides closed, or does anyone know what type of hyd. fluid I should dump in the tank? I've looked through all my lit and can't find a single word about the slide system.

I'm in Cleveland Ohio area right now and it's 11:30. None of the contact numbers for ANY manufacturer related to the issue are getting me anything but "Closed", or leave a voice msg. Called Lipperts after hours help line and left a msg. Nothing so far. Not surprised.

Best way to help out is email any info to .....tgreening who is at neo dot rr dot com. Thanks a bunch.

Tom, I have attched a PDF of a Lippert hydraulic system. Some of it may help you out.

Peace
Dave

The fluid is Ford ATF type 4 or 5. It will take about about 5 quarts to make them work. If you have a leak it is possible the fluid will just squirt out. The should be a fitting on the end of the motor which will allow you to put an electric drill up to the motor to manually work the slides. Cant remember which size adapter fits it but I know it has been talked about several times on the forum.

If you have a hydraulic fluid leak, it will have to be fixed before anything will work.

The electric drill trick is ONLY if the pump motor dies, it will do nothing if you have lost fluid pressure.

Time to break out the tools and maybe the rescue tape.

If it's just a loose fitting, you're in luck. If it's a hole in a hydraulic hose, don't be cheap with the tape. The hydraulics operate at high pressure and you may just get one shot at moving the slides. If you have selector valves for the slides, running one at a time might be the way to go if only one line has the leak (if you can find it).

FWIW, I sent this forum page to the OP via e-mail, as he requested in his first post.

Nothing more irritating than someone that cries help, and then disappears. About an hour after I posted this I got a call from Lipperts after hours guy. The info I really needed at the time was what type of fluid to dump in the tank. I went through ever piece of lit. I had in the unit and there was nothing at all about the slides, the landing gear, or the hyd system that runs them. I had an idea on the fluid from looking at it but the last thing I wanted was to run into warranty issues on the pump because my idea was wrong. As stated in the thread it's just standard ATF, Mercon or Dextron.

From what I gathered from the tech, if I had a burst hose I was pretty much SOL on a manual retract mode. This system appears to be a single circuit system for the slides. IOW, the hoses basically make a big loop from cylinder to cylinder and back to the pump. One switch controls all and they pretty much come out in sequence. I'm guess from lightest to heaviest to move.

In the case of a bad hose I had two choices. Tape it and hose clamp it and hope it held enough to get everything in, or try to pinch it off so the other slides might go in. This is probably more problematic than it first sounds.

What I ended up doing was dumping some fluid in the tank and hoping that I just had a leak rather than a burst hose. I got lucky and appear to have pretty much that. After the fill up everything slid right in like it should. The landing gear made me nervous at first since it didn't want to go but it appeared to have been nothing more than air in the system that had to work its way out.

After the initial walk through I never gave a second look at the hyd tank. As I mentioned, it was only our second time out and was only an over nighter. The first time out was only 3 nights. I'm guessing it's been leaking from the get-go and finally just ran out. If I pull down on the belly cover I can see quite a bit of hyd fluid pooled, along with an impressive but disheartening amount of garbage. I could see pieces of wire, pieces of hydraulic hoses, and I think one sewer pipe fitting rolling around under there. I know that's not the dealers fault, but that belly cover is going to have to come off anyway and I want that crap cleaned out if I have to run up and do it myself. I was hoping for better from Heartland but from what I can tell so far Q&A pretty much begins and ends with a visual when the unit is all done. I'm not in the business of manufacturing but I am in the business of refurbishing tools and equipment for some pretty large companies. I would be absolutely ashamed of my company if my people sent out such a mess. Crap happens, but from what I can tell this is the NORM in this industry, not the exception.

Oh, and the igniter on the stove went south as well. :/

So far....The float in the fuel tank was DOA. The recline handle on the "Euro Chair" was busted on delivery. Stove igniter failed second time out, and the hydraulic system leaks fairly bad. And I haven't even made the first payment yet. Bleh....

I know this is too late for you but we marked our hydraulic tank levels when all slides are in and when all slides are out. At least we have some idea if a leak starts.