New 2021 Cyclone 4007 Lippert rear jacks pulsate and sound terrible

[PolyMenders]

Hello,

Brand new to Heartland but Rving for 4 years. We just picked up our Cyclone 4007 with Lippert hydraulic auto leveling system and right from the start had auto level issues. It wanted to dump our rig on the passenger side! Tires were 6" off the ground before I got it to stop. Took it to the dealers' paved and level yard, and it repeated the same problem twice for their guru, with a couple of successful auto levels in between. Then it auto leveled 3 times successfully and he said "you're good to go". His explanation was...the first area where I had it parked was too out of level. Even though it failed twice in his paved, level and pristine yard! One of those overly confidant people that in reality have just enough knowledge to get them by.

We get to our next destination, I'm still gun shy as the terrain is not remotely as level as their yard, so I decided to manually level. Unhooked from the truck and went inside to the control panel to lower the rear jacks and all they do is make a terrible "cycling/pulsing" noise. They seem to move at a fraction of normal pace and sound terrible. We've decided to remain on just the front landing gear. Before this experience I have moved the jacks manually when I got the system out of lockup mode when it wanted to dump our rig. They worked just fine.

Anyone have this experience before?

 

[danemayer]

Hi PolyMenders,

It all sounds pretty unusual. The first part where you described the failure to level side-to-side sounds a bit like the rear sensor is not secure and is moving around. Here's a photo of the rear sensor on a Bighorn.



The noise you're describing sounds like the kind of noise the pump makes when movement of the hydraulic fluid is blocked. When jacks (or hydraulic slides) are extended or retracted, there are 2 operations: an electrically operated valve is opened to allow fluid to move, and the pump is powered to move fluid. If the valve doesn't open, but the pump gets powered, the pump will make quite a bit of noise. If the valve opens just a little, that could account for slow movement coupled with noise from the pump.

Could there be a single explanation for both symptoms? Possibly the brain that operates the levelup system has a problem. An improperly seated connector possibly.

Look in your front compartment, up above for Lippert components and make sure connectors are fully seated.

 

[PolyMenders]

Good suggestions danemayor!
Everything... wires, connections, no fluid leaks... look fine. However, I verified today that the front landing jacks have the same problem when controlling them from the inside control panel. If I raise or lower the landing jacks using the exterior front control pad, they were perfectly. In addition, I've been noticing that our inside control panel has been booting noticeably slower, and today it popped up a message "...not responding" with options to "wait" or "ok" I think. I hit "wait" and it came to life seconds later. I believe I also had a couple of glitches extending the slides when we set up here the other day. Both stopped midway-ish, like I removed my finger from the button (but I hadn't). In retrospect, I wonder if that was the control panel as well.

 

[PolyMenders]

So it turns out, the factory grounded the leveling pump to the painted sheet metal wall in the compartment. Once I replaced it with a direct ground to the battery, the jacks function as they should. According to Lippert, wanting to dump the rig on its side in auto-level could also be caused by a bad ground, but I'm going to wait until we get to a campground with a concrete pad before I test it again.