Stuck Leveling Jack 2004 Vectra 40’

[Naturegnut]

Thanks for the addition to this site. I just purchased an 04 Vectra 40’ pusher. It has the HWH hydraullic leveling system.

I have a left front jack stuck in the down position and it won’t release and dock.

I installed 2 new solenoids and that helped somewhat with a slide issue but the left front jack is down and won’t return.

This is an issue because the Rv park we are in says it must be repaired by morning or get towed because the site is booked on an incoming client.

So here’s my question. Can someone tell me how to manually force the return? I have the release on the solenoid open and have cracked the hoses to let some pressure off with no luck.

I hope one of you is skilled at this and can help.
Signed,
Stuck in Las Vegas

[Jim_HiTek]

I have a '02 Journey with HWH jacks and they sometimes in the past would stick extended. Pressed the release, then ran outside and forced a stick of wood under the jack so it moved up a bit, then levered it up slowly. From then on I always sprayed the cylinder before attempting to retract the jacks. Finally I bought newer, stronger replacement springs (shown as a substitute part number by HWH) and now only have a slight problem when it's cold.

The only manual forcing I know of is to use a lever to lever the jacks up. Getting it to move that first 1" though sometimes required a shovel that I could jimmy under the foot pad. Don't need to any more though.

PS I never needed to crack a hose connection (link to my ad free jack article) to relieve pressure, more trouble then it's worth if you get air into the system. The single retract solenoid always did the job but if it wouldn't I was always ready to whack it with a rubber mallet. Never needed to though.

[Ray,IN]

I know this is too late to help now, but HWH solenoids have a tee handle on them that manually opens the hydraulic valve for that jack. As you open the Tee handle it gets harder to turn, back it out about 5 or 6 complete turns, then pry up the jack.
The usual cause of a sticking jack is oil N dirt on the wiper seal arund the jack shaft. Spray it liberally with WD40, use a small dull screwdriver to scrape away the oil N dirt crud.. Wipe everything off then use a rag and ATF to lubricate the jack-shaft, again wipe off. This procedure should help with jack retraction.
As Jim said, new retract springs help too, the new style has tapered ends.

[tim myers]

Didn't see this mentioned, but HWH has a retract timing chart that shows the acceptable retract time based on the temperature of the jacks. https://www.hwhcorp.com/ml44725.pdf


From this paper jacks can take 14 to 26 minutes to retract between 0 and 30 F based on the size of the jacks. After seeing this paper I started using a stopwatch to time my jack retraction to see if I really had an issue.