Community Forums

Dugan · 09-27-2017, 08:06 PM

The gear box on our Series 41 Kwikee step failed again. Second time in 9 months. Any suggestions would be appreciated on what could be causing the failure. Current gear box was installed by RV technician as a complete unit with new motor.
Thanks for the help.

trx430ex · 09-27-2017, 08:35 PM

Were the gears in the exploded gearbox, Plastic, or mettle?

Would suggest stepping back one generation of same unit, and get that gearbox. Sounds like a vender supplier issue.

Or it could have been installed, not quiet right, that's a blind call.

Can you give me an image of the whole underside of the unit,failed.

oldSarge98 · 09-28-2017, 12:32 PM

Uh, oh. We just had our motor and gearbox combo replaced. They work like new, hope that continues.

Ours started failing the day we drove our coach home from the dealer. They would extend or retract only half way then stop and buzz loudly. If you manually assisted them at that point they would continue and lock in place after another five seconds of loud buzzing. Then, over this last weekend they wouldn't extend when we got to our destination but would later return to the previously outlined operation. Now the repair is done and at least for a time we'll be fine, maybe.

Dugan · 09-28-2017, 11:01 PM

The gears are metal. Received a new gear box today but the linkage was wrong. Hopefully the new unit arriving tomorrow will have the correct linkage and we will back to having working steps.

flywithcoop · 09-30-2017, 10:12 AM

Common failure on these units is stripped gears. If you take the gearbox apart you will see only one side of the large gear is used. You can rotate the gear 180 degrees by removing a pin. Reinstall the pin and Its like new again.

Coarsegold · 09-30-2017, 11:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flywithcoop

Common failure on these units is stripped gears. If you take the gearbox apart you will see only one side of the large gear is used. You can rotate the gear 180 degrees by removing a pin. Reinstall the pin and Its like new again.

Good idea!

oldSarge98 · 09-30-2017, 09:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flywithcoop

Common failure on these units is stripped gears. If you take the gearbox apart you will see only one side of the large gear is used. You can rotate the gear 180 degrees by removing a pin. Reinstall the pin and Its like new again.

Nice. I got to retain the motor and gearbox that was replaced. I'm going to see if that was the problem. If it is, we'll see who I can help.

BobandDi · 10-05-2017, 04:51 PM

I wanted to add my two cents about my experience with the Kwikee motor. I was having the same problems that everyone else seems to get. My step would and wouldn't work. When it wouldn't work I tapped it a couple of times and sometimes it would work. I would wiggle the wires and nothing. Sometimes the next day it would work a couple of times and then stop. What I did notice is that it was super hot to the touch when having problems. I was home with my coach and know a bit about electronics so I decided to pull the motor off and apart. There are 3 or 4 screws to unscrew to pull the cover off. I then pulled the armature out from the housing which let the spring loaded graphite brushes fall out. I wished I had taken pictures to post but I didn't.

This is what I found. Over a period of time the graphite brushes were coating the armature with a ton of graphite. Trying to work the step with a hot motor many times only made the graphite coat the armature even worse. I basically had a dead short with this coating. Every other slot should be a negative and a positive. I spent about a half hour cleaning all the graphite off each slot of the armature with a rag and alcohol until it was shining copper color everywhere again. The hardest part was putting the spring loaded brushes back the way they were. This motor has only steel gears. I put it all back together and it has never worked this good and is still working. I hope this helps someone. It's not hard to do. If it's not a stripped plastic gear it could very well be the problem I had.

Dugan · 10-06-2017, 09:39 PM

Thanks for insight into the motor. I ended up replacing the gearbox and motor. I will take the old motor a part and see if that was the issue. From what I could tell when I took the unit a part the gears did not appear to be stripped.

BEC · 11-11-2017, 07:42 PM

I replaced the motor on the 2005 allegro I owned and same deal on my current 2012 tga. Two things I have learned. Don't step on the steps until completely down and you can't dry grease them enough. Very sensitive to pressure which is how they know when to stop.

trx430ex · 11-11-2017, 08:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flywithcoop

Common failure on these units is stripped gears. If you take the gearbox apart you will see only one side of the large gear is used. You can rotate the gear 180 degrees by removing a pin. Reinstall the pin and Its like new again.

You sly fox.

Older issue on the 2004 steps =2 , is that work fine and fast, but when they raise they stop about 2 inches from finish. If you use a finger to help on the way up, they do go to full lock.

On LA we are looking at, they went down fast "half way", then pause,,,, then go down to final position. Up goes to full lock at speed.

The 2004 steps were fast down and up, bout a second, The LA steps are wider more mass, full deployment maybe a second and a 1/2.

Puzzling.