Manual slide retraction difficulty

[TerryM]

It appears I have blown a hydraulic hose or fitting over the radiator on my 2006 34FDDS. The rear slide jammed at an angle, but with help I got it freed and think I can get it in to travel to the repair shop. My problem is getting the living room slide back in. I can't use the hydraulic system as fluid poors out over the radiator when I try. So I'm trying the manual procedure in the HWH manual.

It seems straight foward: bring up the jacks...okay, then release the valve release nuts on the solenoid valves....not easy to reach, but done. The slide seems loose, and has moved itself in a couple of inches. Then I hook up the manual crank (you have to remove the handle and hold it back in place after each 1/2 crank)and begin the process. Only the slide won't budge and the strap gets gets so tight it pings when you bump it, and the crank won't turn any further. The HWH directions say it should crank with just one hand. Obviously, something hasn't released. Am I missing something? How did it work for those of you who have had the hydraulic issues as discussed previously in this forum as the "wardrobe slide malfunction" topic? I have an appointment Monday morning so I thought I'd get these slides in this weekend. Any help is appreciated.

By the way, WRV is aware, took my call right away and sounds like they are going to help me get through this as quickly as possible. I'm disappointed, though, as I live in Yakima and had the hydraulic lines moved off the radiator about 6-months ago and WRV said they looked fine. Of course, the very day I get to my winter camp in Apache Junction ..... bam!

[TerryM]

It appears I have blown a hydraulic hose or fitting over the radiator on my 2006 34FDDS. The rear slide jammed at an angle, but with help I got it freed and think I can get it in to travel to the repair shop. My problem is getting the living room slide back in. I can't use the hydraulic system as fluid poors out over the radiator when I try. So I'm trying the manual procedure in the HWH manual.

It seems straight foward: bring up the jacks...okay, then release the valve release nuts on the solenoid valves....not easy to reach, but done. The slide seems loose, and has moved itself in a couple of inches. Then I hook up the manual crank (you have to remove the handle and hold it back in place after each 1/2 crank)and begin the process. Only the slide won't budge and the strap gets gets so tight it pings when you bump it, and the crank won't turn any further. The HWH directions say it should crank with just one hand. Obviously, something hasn't released. Am I missing something? How did it work for those of you who have had the hydraulic issues as discussed previously in this forum as the "wardrobe slide malfunction" topic? I have an appointment Monday morning so I thought I'd get these slides in this weekend. Any help is appreciated.

By the way, WRV is aware, took my call right away and sounds like they are going to help me get through this as quickly as possible. I'm disappointed, though, as I live in Yakima and had the hydraulic lines moved off the radiator about 6-months ago and WRV said they looked fine. Of course, the very day I get to my winter camp in Apache Junction ..... bam!

[Ted III]

Terry M, is there a possibility you could close off the broken hose by wrapping some tape around the hose and taking a pipe clamp or a set of vise grips and wrapping it around the tape to keep from puncturing it to shut the leak down. Another alternative might be to find a piece of threaded pipe and force it in the end of the broken hose and clamp it with a hose clamp and put an end cap on the other end of the pipe nipple. Using the hydraulics is a lot easier than trying to push or crank that slide in. Possibly this might help

[TerryM]

Well, I never did get the living room slide to manually retract. It just plain wouldn't budge. Neither HWH nor WRV had any ideas to help free up the slide to retract. Finally, in desperation, I tried to use the hyraulics to "extend" the slide and it started to move...so I immediately went to "retract" and it came in. I lost over a quart of fluid out the leak, but it came in. Of course, this caused the wardrobe slide to wedge itself even more. I ended up driving to the repair shop with the wardrobe slide part way out.

By the way, HWH was adament that the valve release nuts (the 1/4-inch headed nuts on the slide solenoids) EXACTLY be turned between 4 and 4.5 turns.

It turns out my problem was a fitting that blew off the end of one of the wardrobe slide hydraulic lines. The shop said they had seen that before with ohter HWH equipment. All the lines had been moved up off the radiator with the heat shields over the fittings, and looked great from what we could tell. A new fitting (it took a pretty major piece of equipment to put on a 3,000 psi fitting) and a lot of degreaser, plus about 2 quarts of new fluid, and I was on my way. It took 2.5 hours.

So, my advice is that anytime you need to get your slides in manually, or limp them in with a major leak..... that you should keep them moving once you get them moving. Even if you end up with a big mess to clean up.

My thanks to Dave at WRV who checked back on me at least two times to make sure I was getting help.

Also, the tech who worked on my problem suggested that we not hold the extension/retraction switches active once the room is extended or retracted as the pressure on the fittings is very high.

[Lyle & Cath]

Terry,
We are also in Apache Junction with I think a blown "0" ring with hydraulic fluid squirting out when I touch the magic bed button. Where did you take your rig to get it fixed? Where in Apache Junction are you,
we are at Gold Canyon RV & Golf Resort.
Lyle & Cathy
Apex 1

[TerryM]

Lyle & Cathy,

I'm at Roadhaven Resort on Idaho Road. I took my coach to East Valley RV Specialist on Apache Trail near Crismon. Their number is 480-380-3801. You'll probably talk to Burt if you call....he used to own an Alpine. He really liked my coach. They did a great job for me.

[Audrey & John]

TerryM - you said you had this problem even though the "fix" for the problem (i.e. the shielded fittings and the lines moved up off radiator) had already been implemented on your coach?

Audrey

[TerryM]

Audrey,

Yes, I had the "fix" done at the factory about 6 months ago. I had a small hydraulic fluid leak that had dirtied the radiator ever since we bought the coach. WRV looked at the lines and didn't find the leak, but they did shield the fittings and raise the lines off the radiator. They told me the actual lines looked fine (no blisters, etc.) Unfortunately, the little leak became a big leak when one of the fittings blew right off the end of one of the lines to the wardrobe slide. At that point, my symptoms were the same as what you had (major leak and front of slide stuck out about 6 inches further than the back.) Luckily, my fix was much quicker and easier. I looked at the lines with the repair tech and we both agreed they looked fine, and he just put on a new fitting. Hopefully, this is the end of it.

[Audrey & John]

So your fittings failing perhaps started before you had the "fix" done at the factory?

We have inspected our lines since the last fix was done. About 2500 miles and 3 months later we took the radiator cover off and had a really good look. No apparent leaks and the lines, etc., looked fine. We did have to replace a screw (glad we checked).

I guess I'm still a little nervous.

Audrey

[TerryM]

Audrey,

I do believe we had a bad line from the get-go. It just took a while to finally let loose.

I know what you mean about being nervous. In August we took a month long trip along Highway 1 in Northern California. I can only imagine the difficulty we'd have had finding a repair shop then. I'm 1.5 years in with this coach now, and my actual hydraulic lines still look good, so I'm going to hope (and bet) that this issue is behind me. Happy travels. I think I'll head to DRR in January.

[Lyle & Cath]

Terry, are you still planning to come to DRR? We'd love to meet you. You mentioned Roadhaven, are you still there? We went to check it out today and am curious what your thoughts were about it. You can do a side email if you like.
Talk to you soon,
Lyle

Lyle & Cathy
Apex 1

[OldForester]

I was glad to read that I am not the only one with a blown hydraulic hose for the bedroom slide on an Alpine coach. For me it is getting very frustrating on our 2006 36MDDS. The first time it blew we were in Kingman, AZ on the way home from Nashville's Heritage Rally last October. It blew all the fluid out and left the bedroom slide open 6" at the rear. We drove it to Bakersfield, CA, and had it fixed under Western RV's direction at RV Peddler. They re-tightend a fitting that had come loose on the hose. After two more stops, in San Francisco and Meford, OR, on the way home to Seattle, the hose blew loose again and we lost our fluid. We camped again with no slides or jacks. Fortunately we have learned to put the jacks down first to see if it leaks before putting out the slides, because the jacks will come up with the springs while the slides are very difficult to retract.

When we got home, our very good dealer, Holiday Motorhomes, in Fife, WA, installed a complete set of new HWH bedroom hoses. They retracted and extended the slides about a dozen times with no issues.

We drove the coach to Palm Springs in early December with no problems at two stops along the way. When we got to Palm Springs we put the jacks down and extended the slides with no issues. The next day I noted hydraulic fluid below the radiator again. With the help of a local mechanic who is an authorized HWH technician, we removed the radiator cover and couldn't find the current leak, but found some residual fluid, and two fingertip-sized blisters on one of the new brand new hoses. As we operated the slide a few times the blisters got bigger, so the mechanic ordered a new hose from HWH and we decided not to try the slide again until we have a new hose. We are now awaiting that hose before we can retract the slide and move the coach.

We left the coach in Palm Springs and drove our Toad home to Seattle for Christmas and will have the hose installed when get back. With the extended power outage we had in Seattle when we got home, we would have really liked to have our coach with us as we had no power for 96 hours at our house.


Right now I don't have much of anything good to say about HWH hoses. This is the third fix; each time the slides and jacks become inoperable, the wait time by the time it gets authorized by the dealer, Western RV, and HWH and the hose gets order and gets installed is usually a two week + adventure. In addition there's the mess of hydraulic fluid all over the radiator and the floor of the campsite to clean up.

For basically a brand new coach (we picked it up in August of 2006) it has had a number of issues but the HWH hose issue is the one that grounds us and keeps the coach from moving, and that's the one that irritates us the most.

My question is: are there others with these HWH hose problems on new Alpine coaches, besides TerryM and us? And is there an alternate solution?

[OldForester]

One other correction to the post below: We sold our 2005 Tioga Class C in August and bought the 2006 Alpine 36MDDS; the signature wasn't correct, in case you were wondering after your read the post.

[OldForester]

This time the signature should be correct-