Bones
Well-known member
OK all. I have used the camper this season and I think there was some damage from the drop and it knocked some things out. I am having what I think are some slide adjustment issues. I think the dealer ship adjusted the slide and completely F#@& it up somehow. How, I don't know but after doing some learning and watching; things are not right so I am just going to go at it and see if I can get it fixed. The only pain is that to adjust and check half of my slides go in or out before the slide I want to move moves. Ha. Ok here we go. Over the last few times I noticed the center of my large kitchen slide was sagging in the center when retracted. I don't know if this is normal but I don't seem to be able to find anything on the internet about this yet. Here is a pic.
I have not had luck with some pictures on rotation here. As you can see there is a gap between the wall and the seating booth.
When I retract the slide the top hits first and then still pulls in the bottom which raises the floor. I don't think this is right and when I looked outside I can see the top is jammed in and the bottom hangs out slightly. Here is what my slide rams and arms look like before I started to adjust them.
As I look at these rams they do not look right and then I noticed it appears that they have been screwed with because of the dis-colorization of the pates in reference to the slide bars. This tells me that they were messing with the slide. So I am going to attempt a fix. I measured the slide distances from the bottom of the slide to the top of the slide bars plate and they measured over 5 inches. This caused the slide to come in nose down and come dangerously close to the floor and ripping it apart.
One thing to note for others who question adjusting their slides is that once I backed off the bolts and started to move the adjustment bolts there was hardly any type of pressure on the slide bars so in my opinion once the slide is out and sitting in it's spot the bars just help keep things in place and become important when you extend and retract the slide. Correct me if I am mistaken.
I adjusted the bars up to about 4.5 inches on each side. When I retracted the slide it came in almost even so I think some adjustment is still necessary. I will adjust more and see if I can keep the slide from lifting up on the floor when retracted but be tight against the camper. Here are some pics in the closed position after I made adjustments.
These are towards the front of the camper
This is a picture of the rear.
The top of the slide is still really tight against the camper so I definitely need to adjust more to get the top off of the camper a bit. If you look at the rear of the slide you can see the compression of the gasket is really off now too when compared to the front. I think I just discovered that the slide is also crooked but not severe enough to show itself. So I did a bit more investigating. The slide gears and teeth all count out the same so they are good but it appears that the bolted section to the slide arms appear to vary greatly on their bolted lengths. when referenced to the I beam frame for squareness.
Here is a close up of the front. It measures from the frame 11 3/4 inches from the I beam to the end plate
If you look at the slide arm closely the gap between the bolted bracket and the end of the arm is 12/16 inches
Here is a picture of the rear section. It measures 12 9/16 inches from the I beam to the end plate
The gap between the bolted bracket and the end of the arm is 1 7/16 inches. Ouch!! So I am assuming that now I will have to unbolt that piece and push the corner of the slide in to get it to sit correctly and go out even and retract even. I counted teeth on the slide arms to make sure they were adjusted correctly and to ensure that neither one of them jumped teeth and they are out correctly. My slide arms are now almost even with the slide and don't appear to be bending downwards like they were initially.
I ran out of time for the day and time for me to keep the camper on the driveway before I anyone the neighbor, only one I annoy, so I left the slide retracted in this position and took it back to storage. When I get all of these adjustments made I will adjust the stroke of the hydraulic ram to get it to retract nicely so that it is not compressing the living daylights out of the seals and adjust so that the slide goes in and out evenly and level not dragging on the floor.
If anyone has any experience or suggestions please feel free to comment I welcome them. Hopefully this will help someone experiencing some slide issues and helps them with the process. This takes a lot of time to do as you don't want to just move everything all at once and jamb something up.
I have not had luck with some pictures on rotation here. As you can see there is a gap between the wall and the seating booth.
When I retract the slide the top hits first and then still pulls in the bottom which raises the floor. I don't think this is right and when I looked outside I can see the top is jammed in and the bottom hangs out slightly. Here is what my slide rams and arms look like before I started to adjust them.
As I look at these rams they do not look right and then I noticed it appears that they have been screwed with because of the dis-colorization of the pates in reference to the slide bars. This tells me that they were messing with the slide. So I am going to attempt a fix. I measured the slide distances from the bottom of the slide to the top of the slide bars plate and they measured over 5 inches. This caused the slide to come in nose down and come dangerously close to the floor and ripping it apart.
One thing to note for others who question adjusting their slides is that once I backed off the bolts and started to move the adjustment bolts there was hardly any type of pressure on the slide bars so in my opinion once the slide is out and sitting in it's spot the bars just help keep things in place and become important when you extend and retract the slide. Correct me if I am mistaken.
I adjusted the bars up to about 4.5 inches on each side. When I retracted the slide it came in almost even so I think some adjustment is still necessary. I will adjust more and see if I can keep the slide from lifting up on the floor when retracted but be tight against the camper. Here are some pics in the closed position after I made adjustments.
These are towards the front of the camper
This is a picture of the rear.
The top of the slide is still really tight against the camper so I definitely need to adjust more to get the top off of the camper a bit. If you look at the rear of the slide you can see the compression of the gasket is really off now too when compared to the front. I think I just discovered that the slide is also crooked but not severe enough to show itself. So I did a bit more investigating. The slide gears and teeth all count out the same so they are good but it appears that the bolted section to the slide arms appear to vary greatly on their bolted lengths. when referenced to the I beam frame for squareness.
Here is a close up of the front. It measures from the frame 11 3/4 inches from the I beam to the end plate
If you look at the slide arm closely the gap between the bolted bracket and the end of the arm is 12/16 inches
Here is a picture of the rear section. It measures 12 9/16 inches from the I beam to the end plate
The gap between the bolted bracket and the end of the arm is 1 7/16 inches. Ouch!! So I am assuming that now I will have to unbolt that piece and push the corner of the slide in to get it to sit correctly and go out even and retract even. I counted teeth on the slide arms to make sure they were adjusted correctly and to ensure that neither one of them jumped teeth and they are out correctly. My slide arms are now almost even with the slide and don't appear to be bending downwards like they were initially.
I ran out of time for the day and time for me to keep the camper on the driveway before I anyone the neighbor, only one I annoy, so I left the slide retracted in this position and took it back to storage. When I get all of these adjustments made I will adjust the stroke of the hydraulic ram to get it to retract nicely so that it is not compressing the living daylights out of the seals and adjust so that the slide goes in and out evenly and level not dragging on the floor.
If anyone has any experience or suggestions please feel free to comment I welcome them. Hopefully this will help someone experiencing some slide issues and helps them with the process. This takes a lot of time to do as you don't want to just move everything all at once and jamb something up.