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Electric bed lift noise & failure


dunefreak
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Over the past few trips, the motor on my rear bunk beds has been making noise. It's been clicking when I raise or lower them. Last trip it finally failed. Turns out the gear set is all metal except one little nylon gear that the motor drives. So dumb! You have to buy a complete motor assembly to fix it too. Well I found a guy on GD who had this happen to him so he decided to engineer a metal replacement gear. So if this happens to anyone else, this is the fix.

This is the motor.

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Yep, the whole track has to come off. It's bolted on from the rear.

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The gear set

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Failed gear

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The replacement

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It's a good chance it's the same one, but I believe this gear fits more than one model.

My trailer is a Forest River Sandpiper with a Quick-Draw Power Safe EZ Lift system made by Lippert. If it's a HappiJac, they were bought out by Lippert and there's a good chance this gear will fit that unit as well. You can Google Lippert ez bed electric lift and you'll find this guy's posts on multiple forums including the one on GD.

Check his ebay link out.It has more info...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/281637406039?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

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  • 2 weeks later...

a cpl trips ago to Amargossa, my buddy's bed went out....was all the way down but only one side would go back up. It seemed like it was missing a few teeth as the broken side would try to raise. We finally got it up, but then next trip out it wouldn't come down. I need to show him this post.

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  • 2 months later...

Hey dunefreak, when you tore that apart, did you have to take the bed assembly out of the trailer to remove the upright tracks? I don't see any other way of removing that motor housing they way you did in your pics. Let me know how you did it. Thanks.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hey @Caladinho , sorry for the delay. I left the beds bolted to the tracks but I had to release the tension from the lower bed in order to have slack in the chains. I did this by setting my dinette table under the lower bed so it was raised up some from the stops. It ended up being a super pain in the butt to get everything timed properly so taking the beds off might have saved me some time.

The motor assembly comes off from the inside of the upper track which is bolted from the top. The side tracks stay bolted to the walls.

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  • 1 year later...

Hello Dunefreak,

 

Great info on this bed motor! Mine froze in the complete upright tight position. took me 2 hrs to remove beds from tracks just to get to the motor. I did disengage the motor but it wouldn't re engage. I turned the peg and would tap it numerous times but nothing. At least the motor now turns over but it makes a clicking noise so I suspect my plastic gear is toast. my question is....how did you remove the top horizontal motor bracket with out unbolting the side rails? I did undo the carriage bolts that hold the top horizontal motor bracket to the vertical wall tracks but it feels like its all tied to the chain drive. Do I just need to exert more force? any help would be great here.

 

Thanks

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On 1/13/2018 at 5:15 PM, skunkded hunter said:

Hello Dunefreak,

 

Great info on this bed motor! Mine froze in the complete upright tight position. took me 2 hrs to remove beds from tracks just to get to the motor. I did disengage the motor but it wouldn't re engage. I turned the peg and would tap it numerous times but nothing. At least the motor now turns over but it makes a clicking noise so I suspect my plastic gear is toast. my question is....how did you remove the top horizontal motor bracket with out unbolting the side rails? I did undo the carriage bolts that hold the top horizontal motor bracket to the vertical wall tracks but it feels like its all tied to the chain drive. Do I just need to exert more force? any help would be great here.

 

Thanks

 

If I remember right, I removed the shaft that connects the motor to the other side first.

Next, unbolt the nuts on top that attach to those little carriage bolts (which you already did). 

Then, with beds removed (or the weight of them supported), I was able to pull up on the top bracket enough to pull the chains off the sprocket that is connected to the motor. 

Whatever you do, don't let the chain fall down in the side track though. You'll have to pull it off the wall to fish it back up.

 

I remember this was a pain in the ass going back together because the chains sort of had to be timed correctly and evenly. 

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ok good info. So yes...I took my beds completely off ( I used pins to lock bed arms then at same height), square shaft that drives opposite wall is disconnected, carriage bolts are off. so with this done I have a tiny bit of play on the top horizontal motor bar. Question...I notice that under the wall mounts verticals are a bolt and nut. Does this nut adjust the chain tension? If so would it be ok to lesson the tension to help get the chain off the gear?

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yes, I completely forgot about that step! It's probably the most important one too. haha I removed the nut completely in order to get enough slack to remove the chain. I used a small pocket magnet to fish it back through when it was time to reassemble. 

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  • 2 years later...

Great info. I went to raise my bed and it bound up as the bar the drives the other side bound up. Now my motor has power and makes noise but does  ot move the chains. I manually raised it but had to keep a wrench on it or it would fall right back down. Unbolted bed, figured out the 6 bolts and nuts on top of drive bar. Got them off but it will not budge. I will try to take tension off chain. Would it be easier to unbolt the 2 vertical chain tracks and take off all as 1 unit? I'm hoping it's just a stripped gear as it appears they no longer make the motors for this. Also seems the brake bar that you loosen and push forward to manual lift appears to do nothing and move nothing.  Confusing how it works

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  • 1 year later...
  • 4 months later...
On 1/19/2022 at 10:00 AM, the keitels said:

2007 wp30 bed and dinette hangers missing. where can they be found?

 

I'm not sure why that is posted on this topic, but I have no idea. Try starting a separate thread asking for help. 

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  • 2 years later...

I have one of these gears that I purchased at $129 for my Lippert Happijac bed lift (2013 Attitude 34’) that ended up not being needed once disassembled. My issue ended up being the horizontal chains across the top that attach to the gears for the vertical lift rails. The horizontal chains were SO loose from the factory, which do not have any adjustment on them, allowing them to skip on the gear causing the bed to get out of wack on each corner. I made a set of chain tensioners and adjusted the vertical chains to ensure the issue was resolved.

When I find some time I will do a thread on my issue vs the gear failure issue. Once apart I realized my gear from the factory was already an aluminum gear. (See pic of far right gear in GB)

With that said, I no longer need the gear I purchased and will sell it for $75 to the first buyer. My recommendation, if you are having an issue is to pull the motor and gearbox first as to ensure it fits your model as there seemed to be a slight differences in this gear and mine without removing mine from the shaft. (Same size and # of teeth but mine looks to not have the keyway running completely through the gear. May still have worked but did not want to disassemble my good gearbox any further than needed.

Lots more pics available that I will try and put together in another thread and come back here to update with a shortcut. Tozlakes

 

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