Got a Hilo today, newbie needs help

Hi all. Great forum. Glad to be here. Just pulled up today with a 2003 Hilo tow lite. I have a few questions;

1-where do you put the battery? Does it fit somewhere near pump?
2-we have an ac unit on roof but won't turn on. Tried with 110 power from house.
3-tried to raise with battery and jumpers. Nothing. May have been a bit unlevel but... Can I use 110 power to raise?

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Welcome to the forum!

!. You should have a 12 volt deep cycle battery up front behind the lift pump. If not, get a group 24 deep cycle battery, that is what works best. Get the highest capacity battery you can get. There should be a hold down thing in compartment, if not you will have to get one.

2.The A/C unit has a cord that pulls out of a covered spot in the bathroom and plugs into a special receptacle nearby, like on the back side of a cabinet. Look around it is there. Also, you must have a 30 amp, 120 volt receptacle to plug the trailer into before trying the A/C or you could burn out the motor.

3. You must have an installed and fully charged battery in order to run the lift motor.

Look here for an owners manual:http://www.hilotrailerforum.com/f49/owners-manual-2004-hi-lo-78/ It is for a 2004, but it will work for you.

Also, here is video instruction for Hi-Lo, it is from a DVD that is furnished with new Hi-Lo trailers. It will tell allot:http://www.hilotrailerforum.com/f49/hilo-video-owners-manuals-youtube-1233/

There are some do's and do nots so be sure to go through all the directions.

If you go to the reference library there are manuals for the appliances.

And, don't be afraid to ask questions. There is lots of help here on the forum.

Good Luck with the Towlite.

Hope you got a good price on a non functioning unit, you can not raise the the top on 110 power, The built in 12 volt charger which runs on 110 power, only supplies enough 12 volt DC power to keep the battery charged and run the lights and 12 volt water pump. The lift motor runs on 12 volt power only it draws from 80 to 100 amps and it requires a good deep cycle battery, just as RichR stated.
If you jumped it with the cheap jumper wires, they will not supply enough power to raise the top.

Rich,

Thank you so much for the prompt and informational reply. My husband started doing a dance when I told him about the bathroom receptacle for the ac. He was wondering what it was for.

We are so excited. Thanks.

I will post pics later. My 3 yo woke this am and wants to get in and play!

Have great day.

Pop,

Thanks for the reply we are going to try again today. I know it will go up. We manually got it up yesterday. It is a great unit. Great condition for 2003. This is our first ever camper. We have been tent camping for years. I think I will still bring a tent and my aerobed

If you got it up manually, you know there's nothing wrong with the lift mechanism itself. That means (unless I don't understand something) the hydraulic system, cables, pulleys and so on are fine.

This leaves the motor and the battery as possible problem areas. My HiLo's wiring diagram, very hard to read by the way, does not show any fuse or circuit breaker between the battery and the motor solenoid, so if the solenoid pulls in and the battery has power, the motor should spin. Now, there's a fuse on the master switch, and if that's blown, there's nothing to pull the solenoid in.

Solenoids can go bad. If you can apply 12V to the solenoid inputs (small diameter wires), you should hear it "click" if it doesn't, that's probably your problem. If it does, then if the trailer battery is charged and connected, the motor is probably bad. Finally, of course, if the trailer battery is weak, nothing will work.

- Jack

just a thought,

do you have toggle switch inside the door in the right position, top will only go up in one position, brown switch has three positions, on mine top position allows top to rise when white switch is pressed,

On both the HiLo's we have had the brown switch has to be in the down position. You have to try both ways. For your year I believe it should be switched down (bottom pressed down). Center position is all off.

Just posted pics of our trailer

Look at our album.

Can you tell we are excited?

Thanks for your replies. We are charging batteries now to test our issues later tonight.

You can use an auto battery for testing but get a deep cycle for the trailer and auto battery will fail in a short time due to the constant draining and recharging,

Davidsalem said:

Rich,

Thank you so much for the prompt and informational reply. My husband started doing a dance when I told him about the bathroom receptacle for the ac. He was wondering what it was for.

We are so excited. Thanks.

I will post pics later. My 3 yo woke this am and wants to get in and play!

Have great day.

Click to expand...

I'm glad you found it. Make sure you have the cord unplugged and stowed before lowering the top. You don't want to get it stuck between the top and bottom.

Looks to be in great shape! Nice buy!

- Jack

I am still new to the Hi-lo myself. When we brought ours home the pump would not work I jumped the motor straight off the battery and didn't use the switch, I could hear the silenoid (I know it's spelled wrong) firing so I tapped th pump a few time with the crank handle and up it went. I think it had just set to long.

That's a nice looking outfit, take good care of it, they don't make them anymore.

When you get the chance, inspect the roof and all the seams around the edges for cracked caulking, the end caps for possible cracking at the corners. There is plenty of discussion on the forum about how to take care of it. If you can keep on top of those things you will prevent problems on down the road.

Now get out there and go camping!