Broken Drive Bracket on Hydraulic Slide-out Mechanism

[jbeletti]

After twelve years in seven 5th wheels, this is a first for me.

After a lunch stop today, the Off Door Side (ODS) slide room would not come in. We could hear the motor running but no IN and no additional OUT.

I first looked over the hydraulics / battery bay. All "looked" fine. I did tighten up some heavy red DC power line connections - just in case. No luck. 15 minutes into this, I finally looked under the slide and there it was - a broken drive bracket.

There are many different slide room drive systems. Unsure which mine is but it does have a head or end piece at the outer end of the gear rack, right behind the j-wrap. Welded onto this head piece is a 90 degree bracket with a hole in it. The threaded end of the hydraulic slide ram slides through the hole on the bracket and has nuts on either side of it. When the bracket breaks off, the ram moves under it's own power - in and out, but as it's no longer connected to the rest of the slide drive system, there is no slide room movement.

Here's the pictures:


I used a 12" Crescent wrench to turn the square Drive Bar to run the slide room in manually. It took a bit of strength and quite a number of turns, but I was pleased at how easy to do it really was. It stayed in fine for our last 90 miles of travel to the next campground.


Heartland Customer Service is contacting Lippert to see if they can get me sent out a replacement drive system head piece. I plan to change it out in my RV garage.

 

[brianlajoie]

I learn a lot from you... Would an option be to find a welder? Especially if you were in the middle of a trip? The weld would be stronger than the original bend (?) in the bracket. Or is the head piece held together by 4 bolts and easily swapped out.

 

[Bones]

I would think if you were in a pinch you could have it welded as a temporary fix then took the whole bracket off cut the old tab off and then weld on a new one. So am I to assume that the welded tabs will become an inspection point for you every so often?

 

[jbeletti]

If I was in the middle of a trip, I would seek out a welder to make a temp repair (I'm one day from home). Because this is a 90 degree piece of steel that broke at the bend, I'm unsure of the strength of a welded repair as I just don't know much about that stuff. Since the steel was stretched, would it be fatigued and would that weakness still exist under a welded repair??

I spoke to a guy I know in Parts that has worked on RVs before and he feels the head can be taken off/out with 4 bolts and not have to remove the j-wrap. So that's the route I will first attempt.

My plan is to hand crank the slide room about half way out, then use cribbing, a hydraulic jack and a 2x4 and slightly jack up the room to take the weight/pressure off the slide rack mechanism and support the room once I remove the head. That's the plan anyway.

I will be posting repair pics as well as the process.

 

[rxbristol]

Thanks for the post, Jim. Good stuff to learn.

 

[Nabo]

Thanks Jim for sharing. Now it's new stuff to double check for operation/safety

 

[wdk450]

Jim:
Thanks (as usual) for your sharing. Now we have a NEW hydraulic slide emergency retraction procedure - USE Adjustable (Crescent or pipe) wrench on the square synchronizing bar.

As to a welder, if it was me, and I had a little time, I would remove the whole end attachment part and see if a local welder could duplicate that part (maybe a little stronger). Most independent welders are pretty good metal fabricators.

 

[travelin2]

If I was in the middle of a trip, I would seek out a welder to make a temp repair (I'm one day from home). Because this is a 90 degree piece of steel that broke at the bend, I'm unsure of the strength of a welded repair as I just don't know much about that stuff. Since the steel was stretched, would it be fatigued and would that weakness still exist under a welded repair??


I will be posting repair pics as well as the process.

If done correctly, the weld will be stronger than the surrounding material...

 

[jbeletti]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Dan Mayer sent me this link to a forum thread of a new BH owner who had the same thing happen. In their case, their dealer welded it back together.

One of my neighbors suggested that I take the new piece I'm getting and have a corresponding bracket welded on the back side of the new one to strengthen it. Not a bad idea. I may have a welder neighbor do that AND, have him repair and reinforce the old one. I can carry that as a spare to use for myself or another RVer in need.