drsmooth
drsmooth HalfDork
4/6/20 2:08 a.m.

I am looking for some suggestions, or answers if you have them. I have a 2006 Rockwood Forest river pop up trailer with an electric Goshen lift system. The hoist cable broke when it was about halfway up, it fell quickly.

I replaced the cable which I made myself, since a factory replacement may be long in the future.

Upon replacing it, it would only go up an inch or two but down for a seemingly endless period.

After some research, I found out there are High and low limit switches which keep you from running the winch too far and destroying the hoist mechanism. So this part of the problem is fixed but I am including it for diagnostic purposes.

To remedy this, i trimmed the cable to the minimum length and reset the winch limit switches to reflect the new cable. All seemed good.

I went to raise it and it was finally going up, until 10" from the top where it stopped as if one of the limit switches was hit. Except none of them were.  Both limit switches were not being pressed, each corner of the trailer was within 1/2 inch of each other as far as height raised, and when i pushed up on each corner, each moved freely.  It will go up and down more or less evenly on all corners, it just won't raise all the way.

Any help/suggestions/or things to look for?

 

Grtechguy
Grtechguy MegaDork
4/6/20 5:44 a.m.

1.  is the trailer level?

 

Check the cable for any binding,  lube the uprights.

Is the motor slowing down as it reaches the top?

drsmooth
drsmooth HalfDork
4/6/20 5:32 p.m.

In reply to Grtechguy :

Trailer is level, i will check for binding and lube everything. I cant remember if the motor slowed or not but will check and report back.

drsmooth
drsmooth HalfDork
4/6/20 6:56 p.m.

I haven't lubed anything so far, but I tried raising it. The motor stops suddenly rather than slowly but, will immediately lower which likely rules out the breaker tripping. When lowering though i did hear all sorts of squeaking that I have never noticed before perhaps your lube suggestion is the solution. I will Lube it tomorrow and see if that works.

Grtechguy
Grtechguy MegaDork
4/7/20 9:53 a.m.

I would also recheck all the electrical connections on the limit switches.    Loose connections can do all sorts of weirdness

rustyvw
rustyvw GRM+ Memberand Dork
4/7/20 7:12 p.m.

I don't know anything about electric lifts, but you might try popupportal.com  They have helped me answer quite a few questions about my camper.

drsmooth
drsmooth HalfDork
7/8/20 11:47 a.m.

Just a followup I greased everything took the entire cable and spring system apart to look for damage. Finding none, I looked on popupportal.com as suggested above. It took some digging but I found what I believe to be the problem. My hoist motor is the old style worm gear driven motor made by Carefree. That motor is prone to slowly fail. The proper repair is to replace the entire winch unit with their upgraded unit. Or some replace it with a manual winch. I will probably do that. 

Grtechguy
Grtechguy MegaDork
7/9/20 12:00 p.m.

In reply to drsmooth :

I replaced my electric lift with a HF / TSC $100 winch.     Works way better.

drsmooth
drsmooth HalfDork
7/9/20 12:44 p.m.
Grtechguy said:

In reply to drsmooth :

I replaced my electric lift with a HF / TSC $100 winch.     Works way better.

I just replaced it last night with a hand winch and I agree! It only took about half an hour I figured it would be a much bigger job. Wish I had done it before.

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