2018 3901 Level Up System

[vette454]

Folks, I bought this beautiful 3901 last fall and spent months trying to figure out how to get it to level reliably. On level ground, it worked great but if it was at all uneven, it would never work... I finally spent a day laying on my back with my wife activating the system, then I saw it... When the Level-Up system went to roll the vehicle, the opposite front and aft jack would lower (roll right, front right and left rear extended, and vice versa). I was able to demonstrate this to the tech and they could correct it, but not before bending every jack foot on the coach. Those get fixed Saturday... I have much more to say, but I'm still delighted with the coach.

[Chateau_Nomad]

Originally Posted by vette454

Folks, I bought this beautiful 3901 last fall and spent months trying to figure out how to get it to level reliably. On level ground, it worked great but if it was at all uneven, it would never work... I finally spent a day laying on my back with my wife activating the system, then I saw it... When the Level-Up system went to roll the vehicle, the opposite front and aft jack would lower (roll right, front right and left rear extended, and vice versa). I was able to demonstrate this to the tech and they could correct it, but not before bending every jack foot on the coach. Those get fixed Saturday... I have much more to say, but I'm still delighted with the coach.

First... emergency brake applied. My Bigfoot system deploys the front jacks first, then the rear. The emergency brake locks the rear wheels until the front is stabilized. Then the rear jacks could literally lift the rear wheels, because all four corners are stabilized... solid.

My system is manual hydraulic leveling. It has a "start" mode that does what I described... but then I take over from there moving each jack up/down as needed.

How could your MH roll if the parking/emergency brake was set?? If you drop the front jacks first... ??

[vette454]

OK,

Since the words weren't clear, I thought pictures might help. First, it has nothing to do with brakes... Period. All vehicles move in 3 axis relative to their coordinate system: Pitch, Roll & Yaw. When you go up a hill, the vehicle rotates in pitch axis. When you turn left/right, the vehicle rotates in yaw axis. When you cut a corner and drive over a curb, your vehicle rotates in the roll axis. In reality your vehicle is always rotating around these axis, but for simplicity, go with it.

In the case I was describing, the level up system doesn't allow you to operate each jack independently. You level the vehicle by rotating it about the pitch axis (nose up/down), then the roll axis (side up/down). It does this by lowering both rear jacks first to then both fwd jacks, and adjusts pitch. It is then SUPPOSED to raise/lower the left fwd & aft jacks to roll right, and vice versa. Unfortunately, my front jacks were wired backward left to right, so when I tried to roll the vehicle the left/right jack on the rear would come down, but the opposite jack on the fwd would come down.

Subsequently every time I tried to level it, I was racking the frame and loading all 35K lbs onto two jacks instead of 4. This would literally drive them into deep (18") into any parking surface softer than concrete and bent the feet.

I shared this with the forum, in case someone else has an issue like mine.