Landing gear and slides not working - a newby here

[marchill]

I'm in over my head! Help... Never had an RV before. Bought a 2013/4 Bighorn fully checked out by technicians. Love it. Drove it home and put it in storage. Very next day went to check it out. Landing gear went up... connected the hitch, I pulled it out of storage and parked. Did not put the landing gear down. Went inside to extend the slide-outs. (That was probably real dumb!) Slide-outs are not working and now five minutes later the landing gear not working. Push the buttons and nothing except the bedroom slide extends. During checkout the bedroom slide was associated with one of the two LR switches.

I have checked the breakers, fuses, and battery charge indicator says full. Other electrical stuff working like the generator starter, fridge, power cord windup motor...

Is there a reset switch somewhere. If not, do you think a relay has gone bad? I'll welcome any suggestions you may have.

Can someone recommend an honest repair place around The Woodlands, Tx. area (North of Houston).

marc

 

[jimtoo]

Hi marc,

Welcome to the Heartland Owners Forum and to the family. We have a great bunch of folks here with lots of information and all willing to share their knowledge when needed.

Look near your battery and you should see a row of small 12v breakers with a red rubber cover on the connector bolts. Check the end of these breakers for a really small reset button. If nothing there then check for 12v on all the breakers output side. I thought all the slide and landing gear breakers were auto reset. But that is a place to start.

Be sure and check out our Heartland Owners Club. Join us at a rally when you can and meet lots of the great folks here and make friends for a lifetime.

Enjoy the forum.

Jim M

 

[Doublegranch]

Marc: Welcome to the Heartland Forum...Congrats on your new Heartland RV!
The Heartland Owners Club has a great bunch of folks that can help you out and you just need to give a little more details are you under shore or battery power, etc.
I hope you will consider joining the Heartland Owners Club and attending a few Rally's....While I am familiar with the Woodland Hills area, I lived in Spring TX for a couple of years with my Airline gig...I have no resource to help you out with a dealer....

Best of luck with your RV and Hope to meet you down the road at a Heartland Rally....
Safe Travels.

 

[danemayer]

Hi marc,

Your bedroom slide probably operates on its own electric motor. The living room slides may be driven by a hydraulic pump, as are the front landing gear.

Check your front landing gear to see if they operate. If they do, the problem with the slides is probably with the switch or the wiring to the switch. Or if you can hear the hydraulic pump running but the slides don't move, it might be a problem with the hydraulic valve not opening - could be the switch, wiring to the switch, or the valve.

If you remove the screws holding the switch, you can examine the back of the switch to see if any wires have come off. I think there will be 6 wires. Don't disconnect any of them. But if there's a wire hanging loose, that could be the problem.

As for a service location, you might contact Ron Hoover RV. They have a number of locations in the Houston area. They often bring their techs to chapter rallies and perform minor service at the rallies at no charge.

 

[Bob&Patty]

Was the coach hooked to shore power at the dealer?? You might have a battery cut off switch that is turned off so you are not getting 12V to run the slides and landing gear. Could be that simple.

 

[marchill]

WOW! That was it... tiny button is an understatement. I couldn't see the button but felt along the sides of the connections. Bam, there it was. Went right in and all is well again.

I can't thank you good folks enough for your support. What a great community.

 

[Bob&Patty]

Sometimes low battery voltage will cause the breaker to trip. Low battery....high amp draw.

 

[KenJ]

Hi there,

Just came back from the maiden trip in my Sundance and had the same landing gear problem you had. Glad you solved yours. My solution was a little different though. There was a blown 30 amp inline fuse between the LG switch and the LG motor. Maybe this will help others not having the same wiring configuration that you have.

 

[danemayer]

Hi there,

Just came back from the maiden trip in my Sundance and had the same landing gear problem you had. Glad you solved yours. My solution was a little different though. There was a blown 30 amp inline fuse between the LG switch and the LG motor. Maybe this will help others not having the same wiring configuration that you have.

Hi KenJ,

Glad to hear you found the problem. One thing to be aware of is that retracting electric landing gear too far can blow the fuse. Many people have put a mark on the gear so they know when to let go of the button.

 

[mlpeloquin]

I have made it a point to check this breaker button every single time I set up and take off after plugging in and disconnecting. It is a real pain because it is so small.

 

[danemayer]

I have made it a point to check this breaker button every single time I set up and take off after plugging in and disconnecting. It is a real pain because it is so small.

If you're checking the reset button on the bottom of the 12V DC Circuit Breaker, that's not the breaker for the landing gear. The landing gear breaker is an auto-reset. If the manual reset breaker is repeatedly tripping, you have something going on that needs further investigation - probably at the Power Converter or at the battery.

 

[mlpeloquin]

I want to make sure my refrigerator is running while I am traveling. I know that the 50 amp breaker for the hydraulics is self resetting. A few have had this breaker trip prematurely while running the slides in.

 

[danemayer]

I want to make sure my refrigerator is running while I am traveling. I know that the 50 amp breaker for the hydraulics is self resetting. A few have had this breaker trip prematurely while running the slides in.

The residential refrigerator gets power through an inverter and transfer switch that are powered directly from the batteries. The manual reset breaker is not in the loop for running the refrigerator. The only way it would come into play is if it tripped and without realizing it, your batteries ran down over a few days because they weren't being recharged.

The block diagram (below) from the Residential Refrigerator Guide details the power flow.