Landing gear motor

After reading a post on supporting your landing gear motor, I found that mine is VERY, VERY loose. You can actually wiggle it around...This can't be right. Plus, I was also going to lube the gears...It's a sealed unit and I can't see how, as others have mention, lube it..Mine is a Venture OE system and I have always been suspect that the motor was straining/slow. I know others have added another motor but if that is/was necessary, why didn't Heartland solve this potential problem during manufacturing the trailer..I suspect $$$$...sad!

Larry

The cover on top of the gears will come off and you can pump grease there. I had to take mine off and noticed the gears jaming so I made a clamp to hold the gear on center so the pinnion will not climb on the gear. Its my 3rd trailer I have done this due to the gears wearing and jaming so becoming hard to raise. I test the torque required by using the hand crank, mine was realy hard and I was afraid to break the drive so I bought a spare one made of metal.

Here are picks of my work.

caissiel said:

The cover on top of the gears will come off and you can pump grease there. I had to take mine off and noticed the gears jaming so I made a clamp to hold the gear on center so the pinnion will not climb on the gear. Its my 3rd trailer I have done this due to the gears wearing and jaming so becoming hard to raise. I test the torque required by using the hand crank, mine was realy hard and I was afraid to break the drive so I bought a spare one made of metal.

Here are picks of my work.

Click to expand...

Thanks..just what I wanted to see..Great Pictures...Adds new meaning the "a picture is worth a 1,000 words".
I'm still a little confused...does this "clamp" prevent the motor/housing from moving..couldn't really tell from you pictures..

Larry

Larry, I supported my motor in a similar way to the picture you are referring to. The motor is supposed to "float" a bit but not excessively. The gear reduction unit has a plastic enclosure and you should make sure the screws that hold the two sides together are tight. The main reason I supported my motor was to prevent the bolt going through the cross shaft from contacting the motor as the shaft turned. My gearbox had started to "skip" when under stress so the first thing I tried was to tighten those screws and that seemed to solve the skipping problem.
At the rally in Goshen this year I decided to upgrade to the front hydraulic landing gear. Mainly for the speed but less worries were also a factor.

Thanks Ray..

No it prevents the centering plate from moving sideways. as shown on te pics below.
When the centering plate moves the gear moves sideways and it moves away from the pinion and the gears are no longer meshing properly and wear happens while pressure is applied to the landing gear.
I could hardly move the landing gear with the crank and now its much better. To much torque on the crank only creates excess pressure on the pinion and eventualy the drive will break.

My gear box also had one of the screws not fasten properly so I had to repair the threads on one hole in order to tighten the screw to keep the 2 plates together.

Again, thanks and I gotcha