Could E&P suspension Freeze? (1 Viewer)

haganap

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sounds a daft question I know but one worth asking.

Obviously when we are skiing we can hit some quite extreme nightly temps and it just got me thinking of the possibility of being stuck in the air without being able to get the self levelers down.

any thoughts/experience
 
Jul 29, 2013
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Never heard of hydraulic oil freezing but someone will prove me wrong I expect.
 

MikeD

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Never had self levellers but I suppose the oil could get a bit viscous with the cold and overcome any spring assistance to raise them (if not driven by oil pressure).

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funflair

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Shouldn't be a problem Paul, it might slow down a bit if the oil thickens but my money is you won't even notice, might freeze to the ground so just a bit of plastic or bit of board under the feet would stop that.

Martin
 

funflair

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Never had self levellers but I suppose the oil could get a bit viscous with the cold and overcome any spring assistance to raise them (if not driven by oil pressure).
They are pumped both ways, less power on the return I imagine though.

Martin
 

PeteH

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I had spring return (kick up) ones on the Winnebago, we saw 0deg F (-17C) at altitude several times and not a problem with using the levellers. So it is unlikely you will experience issues, something under the pads though gives 2 stages of separation.

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Nov 18, 2011
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no bud it wont freeze unless the oil becomes contaminated it will have a slight increes in viscosity but not any thing to worry abut
bill
 

Armytwowheels

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Paul, we have arrived at Montgenèvre and there are more vans with E&P type levellers than not. It is due to go down to -7c during the night, I will let you know if we see anyone having problems.

By the way the snow is amazing and loads of it.
 

Theonlysue

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Not long enough!
I was minus15 in germany last year. No problem with levellers.
But the lock on the grab handle froze so I couldn't push it back to drive off.lol

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DBK

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Paul, we have arrived at Montgenèvre and there are more vans with E&P type levelledrs than not. It is due to go down to -7c during the night, I will let you know if we see anyone having problems.

By the way the snow is amazing and loads of it.
No snow when we were there. :)

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To give you some idea auto trans oil freezes at -67F
Yakutz coldest place in Siberia avgs about -40F in winter
 

DBK

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sounds a daft question I know but one worth asking.

Obviously when we are skiing we can hit some quite extreme nightly temps and it just got me thinking of the possibility of being stuck in the air without being able to get the self levelers down.

any thoughts/experience
There are two answers.

Either don't worry about the problem and keep skiing until the snow melts.

Or work out if the fluid is hydroscopic or hydrophobic. If the latter no problem but if the former the instructions will recommend regular changes of the fluid. :)

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Jul 24, 2009
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Unless things have changed since i owned an hydraulic engineering company 10 years ago it won't freeze. I'm assuming E&P are using mineral oil of about 32cst. This info should be in the users manual. The biggest problem for fluids is high temp at around 150f and there is no way you will get anywhere near that in the short time that your jacks will be operating.
Just as an aside if they were using water based FLP (flame retardent) which they used to have in the mining industry it would be a different matter. Because of the danger of an underground fire the chocks etc used a 95/5 mixture, the 95 being water, the 5 being oil. The cutting machines used 60/40 because they needed more lubrication properties.
 

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