Powrtouch Evolution problems

We’ve had to lubricate the slots for alignment pins on ours a couple of times in five years. Here’s how.

Pull of or tap off the grey plastic covers for the MM. There are rubber plugs on the outside, which fool you into thinking that it’s screwed on, but they are cosmetic only. You’ll see why when the cover is off. The two horizontal slots which are greased, with alignment pegs running in them, are very visible and accessible on the outside. There are two identical slots on the rear face, which can be seen after you’ve wriggled under the van. Instructions tell you to use grease on the slots, but  good squirt of WD40 will work better if the mechanism is sticking.

There’s a deep recess at the rear end, protected by a plastic cap. That’s where your emergency T bar fits. Once lubricated, you can manually wind the mechanism in and out, to distribute the lubricant better. Alternatively, you can use a drill fitted with an extension bar and a small socket, to wind the mechanism back and forth.

An engineer told me that the next most likely culprit is the control box. He tests for this by swapping over the heavy duty cables which fed the two movers. A replacement control box will cost you around £350 if not under warranty.

It’s certainly worth lubricating the mechanism regularly, and probably engaging and disengaging it regularly, to keep things moving. The irritation being that the covers aren't screwed in place and they are hard to remove without some persuasion from a hammer.

thank you, having just fitted a new evo I found this most informative, although i havent checked carefully, i think the grey cover you are now referring to is now held in place with a big pozi drive screw, or it appears to be, which could be a good upgrade to the product. 

when out of warranty this may help people £75-95 handset and electronic box

motor mover repairs 

I am not going to knock Powrtouch, had a recent issue and they sorted very quickly and efficiently for me. 

You have to face the fact that movers have a hard life, blasted by grit and water as the air rushes under the van. I totally agree with a previous point that the corrosion resistance on the actuation bar and cross beam are not good enough but a blast with stonechip on the leading edges keeps the rust away.

Just found the fault on our powrtpouch manual version  that had been itermittently not working and then failed. The Truma isolating switch after the fuse holder had a bad connection on the outlet side (similar to main battery post problems). I had 13V on the post coming in and out but only 2.98V on the electronic box supply after this. Removing the cable off the Truma post I had to clean the nuts each side of the cable connector as well as connector itself. I also found that the back nut on the post had not secured the post tightly onto the inside of the switch which also may have caused a problem.

Also due to poor installation positioning of the electronic control box i could not gain access at first to the terminal positions for testing and i had to resite it! The fuse holder was also in my opinion fitted wrong as the securing clip on the cover was very close to the caravan outer wall making it impossible to get to.