Flush/replace slide-out fluid

[daveinaz]

I want to replace the fluid in my slide-outs. The Lippert TI-176 says:

1. Start with clean fluid in reservoir and jacks/rooms in retracted position. [I understand that part!] Remove the bottom (or rear) hose and plug it. Extend jack or room cylinder all the way, catching fluid to avoid mess.

[okay, first question: In the manual it shows the slide-out cylinder with the retract port on the rod end and the extend port on the cap end of the cylinder. I get that the idea is to detach the hose and let the old fluid come out of the cylinder into a catch basin instead of flowing through the hose back to the reservoir. But I am confused as to which way the fluid is flowing here. Is the fluid pushing into the cylinder from the extend port when you extend the slides? If that's the case, then I would need to detach the hose from the retract side? Or when extending the slides, would I detach the hose from the extend port and catch the fluid coming out of that end?]


2. Now, with jack/room extended, push fresh fluid through hose until you know it is clean. Connect to cylinder. Remove the top or front hose and plug it. Fully retract cylinder catching fluid. When fully retracted, push fresh fluid through hose until clean. Connect to cylinder and cycle to eliminate any residual air.


[Step two is the opposite of step 1. If I get step one done, I know to just do the opposite for step 2]

3. Use this process for each jack/room cylinder, one at a time, and this will get the majority of the old fluidvout of the system. No process will be 100% but this should get you to 95+.


Thanks!!

[daveinaz]

I just finished talking to Lippert. He said that the tank came filled with AW32 hydraulic fluid not ATF which is why the fluid in the tank was honey colored instead of reddish. He said that you aren't supposed to mix AW32 and ATF and that I should indeed flush the system if putting ATF in the tank. I asked him if that was the case, then why did the manual say to fill the reservoir with ATF? He said that most OEMs do fill the reservoir with ATF. So anyway, I guess Keystone put AW32 in the reservoir? And since I already put ATF in the tank, I need to flush the system. And in case anyone is interested, this is how I need to do it per Lippert:

1. Retract all the slide-outs and fill the reservoir with ATF.
2. Close all but one of the slide-outs on the IRC block.
3. Go to the first slide-out you're going to flush (I'm starting with the main slide-out) and remove and plug the hydraulic line from the rod end of the hydraulic cylinder.
4. Place a hose of the fitting where the hose was attached and run the hose to a catch basin/bucket.
5. Extend the slide and collect the fluid from the cylinder as it extends. Fluid will come out until the slide is almost fully extended.
6. Fill detached hose with fresh fluid and reattach.
7. Remove and plug hose from cap end of cylinder.
8. Attach hose to fitting and run hose to basin/bucket.
9. Retract slide and collect fluid into basin/bucket as it retracts.
10. Fill detached hose with fresh fluid and reattach.
11. Cycle slide-out a few times to purge air from system.

12. Repeat steps 3 - 11 for the remaining slide-outs, opening and closing the corresponding valves on the IRC accordingly.

I have attached the chat transcript from Lippert.