Hi guys
Wonder if you can offer some advice?
Side step on drivers side (Uk car) started playing up a week ago, read up on here of possible causes, and then cleaned, oiled, and greased everything, checked and cleaned electrical connection.
It all worked great again, for a few days, but it acting up again now! Have tried sprayIng it all again, but works intermittently now.
Step deploys smoothly, but when it retracts, it goes so far, and then comes out again, if I apply a little pressure when it retracts, it will go all the way in, and stay there.
Are the motors weak on these, it sounds ok when working?
Don’t really know what to do now, but driving with one step out is not great, as you lose a lot of ground clearance.
Anyone know where, and how much for a new motor?

Steve

It sounds like it is a sensor there is a sensor that detects if there is an obstruction and if so it won't retract so not sure if a sensor or has the hinge been bent slightly

Hi Sandy
Where would the sensor be...internal of the motor?

Cheers

they are removable easily , not all the brackets but the steps.
might be safer.
might even help you see or clean what's wrong.

. Cheers, Greg
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2011 Vogue SE 4.4 with lots of toys in Stornaway

Afraid I dont know where the sensor is but to be honest if it retracts with a little help my guess is it is the mechanical side certainly I would make sure it can mechanically close without fouling Sorry not much help

The step will try to retract then immediately UN-retract if the control module senses that the motor current is too high - which is typical of when something’s jammed in the mechanism or the bearings require lube etc. If it was already retracted it may be the case that it wouldn't come out if the bearings were tight.

A few years ago I damaged the right side step by hitting a kerb and although it came out afterwards it wouldn’t retract anymore, just tried and gave up repeatably as yours is doing.

Took the mechanism off and found that the front most bracket was cracked. Impossible to weld it but fortunately at that time there was a glut of new steps and brackets available from specialists and on ebay so I got one of those. Think that LR must have decided to get rid of all their old stock.

Anyway, when you have a new bracket in the your hand it’s possible to use it to determine how good or bad the other ones are. Even when new, with just the bracket in your hands (i.e. not attached to the step) it’s quite stiff - an adult can open / close it with a hand on each side of the mechanism but a child wouldn’t be able to do so. In comparison, my undamaged rear right side bracket and both of the brackets on the left step (which was working fine) were all impossible to manually open/close and it was shocking how much leverage was required.

I tried dismantling the cracked bracket to better underhand the design and see why they were so tight. There is an unusual bearing arrangement in there. It’s a bush which has lots of little holes which are meant to hold grease but there is no grease nipple and thus no way to actually get any lubrication into it. There are also no seals on the ends of the shafts but since the shaft is such a tight fit in the bush (which explains why the new one also felt quite tight) I think they rely on the close fit to prevent any dirt etc. getting in. In my opinion it would be better to have a slightly greater clearance, grease nipple, and seals on the shaft ends. It was not possible to simply remove the shafts from the brackets to lubricate them and clean out / regrease the bearings because they had corroded into the aluminium housing.

Anyway, I was determined to free up the old 3 brackets to be comparable with the new one. Plus gas and lots of open/close open/close helped but didn't get it as free as the new one. I then heated one of them up a bit which made it free but once it cooled it was back to before I'd heated it.

It wouldn’t be possible to lubricate the brackets whilst they were still on the car for 2 reasons: firstly, whilst it was possible to free off some of the tightness in the 3 brackets by multiple open/closing whilst drowned in penetrating oil, this required the bearings & shafts to be vertical to allow the oil to run in. secondly, one of the brackets has the motor integrated and it needs removing from the bracket to allow the bracket to be manually operated.

I think the design is poor and when looking at l322 adverts these days there are few which have deplorable steps listed as a feature probably because most have seized.

good luck