Big Problem caused by Little Cabinet Door

[navyAZ1]

Thought I would share this with y'all, we have a 2008 Bighorn 3055RL and near the end of our big trip in June we were putting the slides out and the main slide slowed then stopped and looked all out of alignment and it still had about a foot or so to go to be fully extended. We heard some cracking noises so we brought the slide back in about half way and attempted to investigate as to the cause of this problem. The cabinet door to the right over the back window had come open and had gotten trapped in behind the front trim of the slide which then prevented the rear portion of the main slide from moving on out. Can't say just what caused this since we have these plastic "child proof" latches on these doors back there to prevent them from coming open all the way, but for some reason the "child proof" latch failed to hold and allowed this door to open. When the slideout was in we could not see this door to know that it was open. The BH is now at RV World of Georgia for repair. The door was not damaged but the hydraulic actuator that operates the slideout was bent with a good 1" curve in it since it tried to continue on out while the opposite end was stopped due to the door being trapped. Hard to believe that these light weight hinges held and that steel actuator rod bent. The repair is going to cost $1,200, so for those of you who have these cabinets above the back window don't rely on "child proof" latches to prevent a problem take other steps! My quick fix for this will be my reversing the door so that it is hinged on the left side, this then will ensure if for some strange reason this door comes open then when the slide moves to be extended out this should push the door shut. Going to also reverse the hinges on the left cabinet door also so this doesn't happen to the slideout on that side either. I noticed on the newer coaches with these cabinets over the back window Heartland is now hinging these cabinet doors on the top so they flip up rather than open to the side. Wonder if this problem we experienced could be the reason, perhaps they have gotten word of this happening a lot? I thought about handling this project myself but decided that if the slideout needed adjustment after the repair that I wouldn't have any idea as to how to accomplish this, so I'm leaving this one up to the pros. Hopes this gives someone fair warning to a potential problem and saves ya some bucks!

Ron

 

[danemayer]

Re: Big Problem caused by Little Cabiinet Door

Ron,

Sorry this happened to you, but thanks for sharing so that others might learn from what you've gone through.

 

[Westwind]

Re: Big Problem caused by Little Cabiinet Door

I guess that is why my 2012 Bighorn's doors on those cabinets over the recliners all open up, I wasn't so happy when the door hinges on the doors kept coming out of the wood and I had to glue them in but better that then what happened to you.

 

[TXBobcat]

Re: Big Problem caused by Little Cabiinet Door

We crushed a cabinet door in our living room and a large linen closet door in the bedroom. Now EVERY time I extend the slides or retract the slides I check ALL doors. Yesterday we hit a large dip in the highway and bottomed out the truck and I think, the trailer. When I went to extend the slides I checked the doors and the big door on the book shelf in the rear of the livingroom was open. Books were on the floor and the book shelf had broken and knocked the door open.

I always check the doors before extending the slides...

BC

 

[JohnDar]

Re: Big Problem caused by Little Cabiinet Door

My cabinet doors all seem to close positively and stay that way. The one time I did catch a door and break it was due to my own stupidity. At the storage yard, with the bedroom slide closed, I tried to reach something inside the cabinet next to the closet. Couldn't get at it, so I went on to another project. Then decided to open the slide to retrieve the object, forgetting that I had not closed the door. Knew immediately I had screwed up when I heard the crack and felt the rig shudder. No damage to slide and I was able to repair the door, good as new. Fortunately, I can see the rear upper cabinets from the control panel when opening the three rear slides.

 

[Ray LeTourneau]

Ron, Sorry about the crunched door. I think many of us have had very similar experiences. Maybe not to your extreme though. Lin & I learned quite a while ago about using bungee balls to keep the doors closed adjacent to the slides.

 

[cemill]

Same thing happened to me on our 3055. I used two wooden blocks and a hydraulic jack and bent the ram rod back nearly straight.
works just fine , straightened the hinges on the door. Lesson learned , check all cabinet doors and drawers before closing or opening the slides.
The slide itself wasn't damaged.

 

[navyAZ1]

Same thing happened to me on our 3055. I used two wooden blocks and a hydraulic jack and bent the ram rod back nearly straight.
works just fine , straightened the hinges on the door. Lesson learned , check all cabinet doors and drawers before closing or opening the slides.
The slide itself wasn't damaged.

Yeah, our slide doesn't appear to be damaged it seems to align fine when it's extended and when it's closed. I've cancelled the repair at the RV shop and will be bringing the BH home and I'm going to attempt to straighten the rod myself same as you did. Thanks for the idea, I had not even thought of doing that with the jack. That one door has come open many times but always the "child proof" latch held, only took one time to realize that ain't fool proof!

 

[navyAZ1]

Well, the attempt to straighten the actuator rod didn't work. I was able to straighten it some but the bend was near the end of the rod where it attaches to the slideout and it was too sharp of a bend to work it out completely. So, I now have a new actuator in hand and will start the R&R tomorrow (suppose to rain a lot here today). The folks at Lippert were really helpful in making sure I got the correct actuator, he even told me where to look on their web site to print out a PDF of installation instructions that include a guide for aligning the slideout if I need to. This will be a great money saver, I can't believe that the RV repair folks wanted to charge me 7 hours labor to complete this repair.

 

[katkens-DW]

NavyAZ1, Don't feel alone we have done this more then once on our 3055 now all the cabinets have bungees on them Last one I did was on the big slide the pantry door came open and I did not see it well that was it but Kenny was able to fix it looks like new thank goodness like I said bungees on everything now.

 

[Bob&Patty]

We had a few doors come open on our 07 Horn. Luckily, none got smashed. We use the ponytail rubber bands on all the doors and 2 months ago I replaced all the hinges with self closers. BUT, I still look before openning and closing the slides.

 

[navyAZ1]

Got-R-Done! With the assistance of my wonderful Wife Miss Ann we completed this repair in a little over 3 hours. This being done by us non-experienced RV repair folks, and the RV repair guys (professionals) wanted to charge us 7 hours labor for this repair. I know they just go by a "rate book" but they wanted to charge us 2 hours of that 7 for "test & check", yeah that took all of 15 minutes for us. I will tell y'all that if any of you take on this or any hydraulic repairs, be prepared for the horrible sounds you'll hear when cycling the system and it is purging the air out of the system. It sounded like moans and groans from a horror movie. But all's well everything works as it should now and the slide out did not need any re-alignment.

Ron

 

[Ray LeTourneau]

Re: Big Problem caused by Little Cabiinet Door

That's good to hear Ron. Thanks for the update.