View Full Version : Western Uni-Mount wont go left
We've been out chiseling ice trying to clean off the 1" of snow we got the other day and it's been 34-36* all day today with a NASTY storm supposed to be coming so i wanted all the ice off and snow/ice ruts wiped clean so tonight/tomorrow we have smooth lots to push.
At the end of the last lot the plow on one of the trucks acted up, it goes up and down perfectly, swings right (towards passenger side) perfectly, BUT when you try to swing it left (towards driver side) it's super jerky/ratchety and it takes some time and some nursing to get it swung back to the straight position, much less all the way left. In the lot we took all the solenoid wires off the push lock terminals, brake cleaned everything and scrubbed them up real good thinking since it's still raining mositure was the problem, even pulled the truck to plow harnesses apart and cleaned/dried them out real good shot in some dielectric grease and put all the wires back to their spots....on the spade terminal i even crimped them a lil to make sure they had a good snug fit.
Plow still will not go left without taking forever and doing the herky jerk.
I called my local dealer on his cell, but being the holiday he just said get ahold of me next week, i dont know what it could be and we probably dont have parts if you need them. You (I) just need to take the pump off, check the filter, pull the valvebody out and make sure all the valves are working and not corroded up.
So if there's anything you boyz know of, please let me know so i can try to get it taken care of sooner than later. We're in a tight spot so we're just going to put the box end on the plow and use it straight blade until we can determine/figure out WTF is going on. I thought possible solenoid failure but plow shop said no way.
mongoose
12-24-2009, 03:22 PM
my 9' western unimount does the same thing from time to time, for some reason when I unplugged and replugged my 9 pin connection back crooked it worked, plug it in straight same thing you are talking about. Try messing with the nine pin plug, and also it seemed when the plow lights went out the plow worked in all directions, in short I am trying to say it is a bad connectin/ short in the 9 pin. If you have the time an ohmeter should tell you.
The thing that hurts here for me is that plug is upwards of $150 (if you can get just a plug) The shop by me sells only the whole harness which is over $300, I ended up going to canadian tire and buying a 7 pin trailer and a 4 pin trailer plug for $25 same thin only a couple hundred cheaper.
I am just a newbie but I just lived your adventure last Tues, let me know how it goes
paulsoccodato
12-24-2009, 03:54 PM
It could be a bad connection, a bad coil, or a bad valve.
To start, Check to see if the s2 and s3 coils are magnetized when trying to angle left. If they are, then your controller, wiring and coils are good. Next step would be to look at the valves themselves.
snowjoker
12-24-2009, 04:14 PM
You could pull the S2 and 3 coils out hose them out with brake cleaner, put one of the coils and make a jumper wire and just hit the coil with juice while its in your hand and see if the valve is actuating... I had my uni mount jam up one time in the angled right position, I put the plow up against a tree and pushed while i angled left and it cleaned out or unstuck whatever the problem was..
Took and recleaned, regreased, spread apart, crimped, etc...all connections again, pushed against rock solid ice piles while angleing left and it still did'nt do a thing to fix it. We dropped the truck off this a.m. and i called round 3pm and said they found a broken spring/deteriorated spring in the valve housing/body..whatever he called it, put a new one in and it worked a few times and then stopped working again, so he was in the middle of earing it back apart to see WTF was going on now.
Glad i dropped it off vs my dumbazz trying to mess with things and having the same problem wondering what i did maybe i was'nt supposed to do LOL!!
Hopefully have the truck back tomorrow, but i never heard anything the rest of the day today, so maybe they had to order a part or something..i dunno. I'll get the full scoop when i pick it up and post up what they found in case somebody else has issues too in the future and finds this via search.:cool:
paulsoccodato
12-28-2009, 03:20 PM
I had a problem a few years back with one of my uni-mounts. Same type of problem, plow would not angle either way or lift. After numerous attempts to fix it, testing everything, changing a few parts i finally found the problem.
The drivers side angle cylinder shattered the Backing plate for the packing, one of the bits of metal worked its way from the ram, up the hose, and into the manifold assembly on the power unit, plugging one of the passages. It was not an easy problem to diagnose. I ended up rebuilding the power unit.
I felt bad for the tech that was working on it. When i was talking with the owner of the shop he said, "yeeeeeah, I have Rick working on it, and he seems to be the guy that gets these funny problems that take a while to snoop through and figure out what's really going on. this is the 4th plow in a row he's worked on that is'nt a simple fix"
I felt bad because that's the story of my life LOL!!
I felt bad for the tech that was working on it. When i was talking with the owner of the shop he said, "yeeeeeah, I have Rick working on it, and he seems to be the guy that gets these funny problems that take a while to snoop through and figure out what's really going on. this is the 4th plow in a row he's worked on that is'nt a simple fix"
I felt bad because that's the story of my life LOL!!
To my dutch ears, that sounds like it's gonna be expensive,...... hope not for your sake.
To my dutch ears, that sounds like it's gonna be expensive,...... hope not for your sake.
If it gets fixed and the problem does'nt reoccur, I dont much care. Pretty much used to just doing what it takes to get it fixed, otherwise i spend more time and money trying to figure this crap out on my own vs doing actual work where i can make money and then some to pay for it and not get stressed out over it:)
T-Zab
12-28-2009, 06:12 PM
I had some herky jerky issues with my uni on the GMC. AT first I zip tied the piss out of the connectors and it worked for a couple storms. Finally splurged for a a new truck side connector, no problems since.
I gotta believe they actually did find a broken/deteriorated spring and possible other junk in the system. I bought the plow used and the first couple years was fighting water intrusion through various seal leaks and what not and every other storm had to flush the fluid so it did'nt freeze up, it was a back up truck so i did'nt much care about if it was all 100% correct. Last year i finally took it to a shop and said fix all the leaks and any worn parts, and last year and thus far this year have been problem free...until this. So i have to assume the srping they found has been going out for awhile....so i wonder what else it rusted up and clogged?
Find out tomorrow i guess.
Welp, my a..hole is much larger and bloody and my wallet is much lighter. Got a call today from the secretary saying the truck was done. I ask her what was the damages......$911.34:eek:
Excuse me?? Did i hear you right $911.34? Why was i never called and told what the problem was and what the costs were going to be before just ordering the $700+ solenoid cartridge valve block?
That is what really really pizzed me off the most, the "just go ahead and install expensive parts without telling the customer (me) what was going on. I dont do this with my construction biz when things pop up, i make sure we're on the same page at all times so there's no suprises like this; and the same goes with all the shops i pay to work on our trucks and equipment, they always call with a diagnoises and remedy/cost prior to ordering parts and installing them. I wanted the plow fixed, i knew there was a pre-existing problem that was probably going to cause something like this to happen, i'm not disputeing that....that shop just lost a customer due to piss poor business practice, there's PLENTY of other places to buy stuff from, and though i am a very loyal person with those i deal with, this just pizzed me off to no end...something i was'nt expecting at all.
Funniest part, buddy of mine has a bolt on pump from one of his old plows laying on the shelf i could've swapped out...which is what i would've done vs paying $911 to fix a plow i only paid $800 for 4 yrs ago since it's just sitting 99% of the time anyhow.
wyldman
12-29-2009, 03:14 PM
You should never have paid the bill if you didn't authorize it .............
Most states should have some sort of consumer law,that the shop must get you to authorize all repairs before proceding. They do have the right to charge basic diagnostic fees, but beyond that, they should have to get approval.
I'd have told them I never authorized anything, and to show me the estimate.........
We just happened to be working at a guys house i'm good freinds with who is well connected, and right away he told me i was a fool for taking anything to that shop since he would've had me take the truck to the guy who SELLS that shop the parts he uses to sell/repair plows..whom i have had do work on my dump truck in the past and he's very fair pricewise, and to be honest i forgot all about him, since like i said, i tend to be very loyal thinking long term it'll work out better for me if i'm in a pinch.
anyhow, the guy i was working at heard me beeotch, so he called the guy and asked what he thought about the situation, and oddly enough, he was the one who got a call to go down and help diagnoise the problem and found the solenoid valve body thing was hashed inside, and then sold the shop the new valve body/solenoids....so it ws through my freind that i got the FULL story vs the secretary just telling me $911.34...come get it.:mad:
It is what it is at this point, i will no longer recommend the shop, i will no longer deal with the shop since they got defensive, actually very offensive when i called them out on doing the work without calling me first and keeping me in the loop as to what it was going to actually cost/what they found. "Well, just so you know we knocked off 4hrs labor trouble shooting this to figure out what was wrong, and we burnt up 4 poppet valves before we figured out what it was and did'nt charge you for that. But if you want, i'll pull the F...ing thing off your truck and charge you for all the labor involved."
One way or another, it would've gotten fixed, now the brains are brand new...i should have no problems for years..i hope. I dont like the way it went down, and like i said, i paid it, it's fixed, they will never see my trucks down there for anything ever again since there's 2 more shops in town that have treated me no worse thatn this place and actually called me when they figured out what was wrong and asked how i wanted to proceed. I never expected them to diagnoise this for free, that's ridiculous since i own a business and know time is money, but i think they figured:
If we call and tell him what it will cost, he'll say NO since the truck is'nt real important in the big picture and we'll lose the sale.
If we just go ahead and fix it, we have him by the ballz and he has to pay.
welp, they were right, i paid. the truck works, but they'll never get a penny from me ever again, and i will have no qualms about sharing my story with other's locally if the subject/their name ever comes up.
paulsoccodato
12-29-2009, 03:30 PM
$700+ solenoid cartridge valve block?
I would be pretty upset at this situation also. Besides not authorizing the repair, I would want to know why they changed the whole Valve Manifold Block. There is no way all 3 cartrige valves and all 3 Solenoid coils, all the valving, and everything else was all bad. They took the easy way out by throwing the most complete and expensive piece at it.
Next time, make sure you ask for an estimate first, but they still should have called you before doing the work.
I would be pretty upset at this situation also. Besides not authorizing the repair, I would want to know why they changed the whole Valve Manifold Block. There is no way all 3 cartrige valves and all 3 Solenoid coils, all the valving, and everything else was all bad. They took the easy way out by throwing the most complete and expensive piece at it.
Next time, make sure you ask for an estimate first, but they still should have called you before doing the work.
They told me, as did the guy who talked to my freind and gave me the story since he helped trouble shoot it as a 3rd party, that the poppet valves were fine/solenoids were fine, but the chunks of springs that had fragged off had gone though the aluminum block that all the passages are milled in, and western does'nt just sell the block as a seperate item, they sell it as a complete bolt on deal. So he gave me the entire old assembly and said to hang onto it since the solenoids are all good, but the aluminum block that has the passages is shot.
So after hearing that from a 3rd unbiased party that helped figure out WTF went wrong, and then later this afternoon from the shop tech himself about western not selling just the valve body part, i have to believe them since obviously it would've been a cheaper fix.
It is what it is, obviously not happy how it went down being out of the loop and then handed an enormious bill, but whatcha gonna do. The plow works better than it has in years, so i just hope we get enough snow to make it recoup it's investment since obviously i'll have to put it into service at this point so it earns it's keep:mad:
wyldman
12-30-2009, 06:17 AM
That can happen. I've seen a few where parts have grenaded and damaged the block. Usuaully happens if they continue to run it with the broken parts inside.
They still should have called you for authorization.
Brent Offerman
12-30-2009, 06:42 AM
Wow !
I Dont know if i would have paid that bill. Might have been better off buying a hole new power pack and keeping the old one for spare parts. Where im at you can get a whole power unit for $1186.00, put it on youre self & be up and running with plenty future spare parts.
They should have called and given you some options not just assume, or p--- the customer off like that.
I wouldnt go there for service any more.
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