Cable Operated Kitchen Slide Problem

Over the past month I have had a slight noise when extending or retracting the kitchen slide. It happened every 3-4" of movement either in or out. It finally got to the point the slide wouldn't move without help. It also had a machine gun sound when it stopped that I attributed to the overload clutch in the gearbox. Over the weekend at the Inaugural West texas Chapter Heartland Rally (it looked like a Big Country and Landmark rally actually) I had several fellow RV'ers help and we figured out it had to be one of the pulleys binding up. Not much we could do there so we quit and had fun. First off a big thanks to all who helped with my slide problem. We didn't get it fixed but we tried.

This morning I started working the phone. I contacted Heartland first and they were going to warranty the problem even though it was out of warranty (3 weeks). A big thanks to them for volunteering to help (that Heartland support is not exaggerated). I also contacted BAL who built the slide mechanism. I talked to Tim Bell. I described the problem and he asked a few questions and said I had a broken gearbox, broken tooth on a gear to be exact. He explained the sound we were hearing was not an overload clutch but when the open spot on the gear came around and couldn't catch the next tooth. It makes perfect sense now that I know it doesn't have an overload clutch. And the best part, he is sending me a new gearbox, gratis. Since that is something I can replace there won't be any down time (Yeah).

Kudos to:
Heartland for extending my warranty a bit if needed
BAL for diagnosing the problem and providing the parts to repair it, free

Both are great companies IMHO.

Good for you. Good thing BAL is sending you the parts because Heartland just may not have followed through with their statement that whey would cover it. I had an ongoing problem with a slide seal. It had been replaced once under warranty and it failed again a month after the warranty was out. I called Heartland and was told they would cover it but when the dealer contacted Heartland, they denied the warranty.

Good to hear you have a solution on the way!


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Hey Cliff - it was GREAT meeting you at the rally. Pleased to see you're getting satisfaction from Heartland and Norco/BAL.

Semi-related, we had a Heartlander leaving the rally on Sunday after you and they could not get one of their living room slides in. They have a front living room so they have 2 small opposing slides that use the Schwintek slide system (electric motors and geared tracks).

Well - one side of one of his slides was not operating. Between texting a production manager at Heartland on a Sunday and watching a Youtube video, we figured out how to remove the motor retention screw, then disengage the one motor so we could manually push that end of the slide in while the motor operated the other side. The motor looks real simple to swap out, if that ends up being his issue. He's still in warranty too - so that's good.