Power Gear Electric Jacks

[redbill1234]

Being a old shade tree mechanic, and electric company troubleshooter, I am wondering how important these motor brakes are. Power Gear had no problem with me driving 1500 miles with both left motor brakes completly off my unit. Looking at the unit I see a motor driving gears, how many in there I don't know, but I wonder if the motor would slip backwards after it has stopped. Even if it did how far, and would it be far enough to drop the jack even a tiny bit from were it stopped. Any ideas out there as to there absolute need or could a person get along with out one for a time? Has anyone ever tried their jacks with a brake missing? Does the controller stop any action without one? If so a person could leave it connected, but not attached to motor. Any thoughts?

[Clifftall]

Interesting. You can email power gear. info@powergearus.com. Let us know what they say. Thanks

[Clifftall]

Quote:

Originally Posted by redbill1234 Being a old shade tree mechanic, and electric company troubleshooter, I am wondering how important these motor brakes are. Power Gear had no problem with me driving 1500 miles with both left motor brakes completly off my unit. Looking at the unit I see a motor driving gears, how many in there I don't know, but I wonder if the motor would slip backwards after it has stopped. Even if it did how far, and would it be far enough to drop the jack even a tiny bit from were it stopped. Any ideas out there as to there absolute need or could a person get along with out one for a time? Has anyone ever tried their jacks with a brake missing? Does the controller stop any action without one? If so a person could leave it connected, but not attached to motor. Any thoughts?

I see you are new to the forum.
I also saw that you posted recently about some water in your brake boots. Here is a thread with a lot of information and specific remedies for this problem Power Gear jack problem .I f you need any help , post it there and we will jump in and try to assist.

[Elkhartjim]

I'm going to take a wild guess and say if the brakes were not needed, Power Gear would tell us to take them off and eliminate any problems the brakes may cause. I know from experience, if the brake is not set on the slide motor the slide will inch out.

It will be interesting to see what Power Gear says. Please let us know.

[Daytripper63]

The motor will turn without the motor brake on it, I turned mine by hand after removing the brake but it would take ALOT of vibration from driving for the jack to move even an inch.
Here is some info I posted on another forum that should be helpful to you.

Things to watch out for, If I remember correctly to reset the panel hold down all 4 buttons for 5 seconds and it should blink and then it should be reset BUT beware if you reset and then hit retract all jacks again when the jacks are already up you can break the sheer pins. After the reset try to manually lower the jack that is in fault, if it does not go down then go to that jack with a phillips screw driver, remove the rubber boot and you will see 2 levers, pinch them together, this releases the motor brake, if they do not want to pinch together ( and even if they do) look at the 4 phillips head screws that hold the brake assembly to the motor, remove them, the motor brake should now come off and only connected by 2 wires. On the top side of the motor brake you just removed there are 4 more phillips screws, remove them and carefully remove the cover and the brake plate and if you see water or rust in there clean it out and try to manually operate the pinch brake lever again that you removed with the first 4 screws and that should free up everything then with your hand turn the motor shaft that goes into the motor brake and make sure it rotates freely. I know this sounds complicated but I was surprised at how ridiculously simple the motor brake assembly really is. I bought 2 extra brake assemblies but after cleaning mine which had water / rust in it now it has been working fine. One thing that is a must do if you want these jacks to work flawlessly is silicone seal all the rubber boots where they meet the motor, I am sure the jack you are having a problem with is one of the rear jacks, that is because they are directly behind the inner rear wheel and the mud/splash guard ends before the jack so it gets all the road water thrown on it so most likely you will find some water in the rubber boot.
Good luck

[redbill1234]

I have cleaned up mine and they are now working okay. As you said the real bad one was a rear and was the only one to have a boot with the wires coming out a sort of nipple for the wire in the bottom. I emailed power gear about what would happen if they were not there, and they said they were engineered with them on and they did not know what would happen without them. You know engineers built the Titanic, and what it was supposed to be, so I still think that they may not be all that important. I can't see much slippage as all those gears in that housing would have to reverse themselves. But mine are okay for now, so I'll stick with them for now. Thanks for other info on reset, etc.

[Daytripper63]

Be sure to silicone seal the rubber boots.

[redbill1234]

Yes, I did thanks, hopefully this problem will be gone for ever, but who knows