Repairing our Atwood Leveleg Leveler

Before arriving in Arizona we had an issue with one of our levelers on our RV. When we were in Texas we noticed the issue first at a park in Beaumont when the leveler wouldn’t come back up. As readers of this blog may remember I used a machine jack to raise the RV and simply removed the broken Leveleg so we could continue on our planned route.

When we arrived in College Station Texas I disassembled the gear box. After removing the gear box and opening it I didn’t find any sign of damage anywhere. So I regreased all the gears, reassembled it and reset the control board. Next I tested it manually and it worked automatically after that.

We travelled further west before it again gave us trouble upon our arrival here in Mesa AZ. This time the leveler wouldn’t go down. Once again I took off the offending Leveleg to attempt to figure out what might be the issue.

Like before I removed the gear box and after opening it I still couldn’t find any sign of damage. I regreased all the gears and reassembled it one more time to try testing it manually.(You can use a drill with a socket to turn the nut at the end of the motor to manually raise or lower the Leveleg).

While it takes hundreds of revolutions with the drill to move the leg even slightly it was obvious that it was not going to budge up or down. Once again I took the entire leg apart and to get to the lower half of the leg which houses the mechanical screw that moves the RV up or down.  No matter what I tried the screw would not turn it was entirely seized up.

The problem with this is that they no longer make these levelegs or any of the parts needed to repair them. Well desperate times call for desperate measures, so, thinking the leg may have become dry and rusted together I filled the lower half of the leg with oil and let is sit for a week.

I emptied the leg of oil and the screw still wouldn’t turn. So I thought I should cut the leg in half and see what the problem was and then have it welded back together. Before doing so I drove over to consult with a welder who adamantly suggested that this was a bad idea and would not work.

Now my only options were either to replace our whole leveler system or somehow get my broken jack to work. Giving it one more try I simply beat on the lower half of the leg until suddenly it “unseized” the leg. Then I unscrewed the entire leg (which was very dry) and loaded it with packing grease along the entire length of the screw.

I put it all back together and happily we have a working Leveleg system. For how long… who knows. We’ll just have to cross our fingers each and every time we put the levelegs down or up for the foreseeable future.