Community Forums

Joe Brunold · 01-25-2010, 01:24 PM

My Lifting Cylinder on the dinette slide is leaking and needs to be replaced. The repair shop and HWH are scratching their heads on how to get the old one out and install a new one. Does anyone have any experience with this?

Joe Brunold
2006 Alpine Apex
(4) slides

Dale777 · 01-25-2010, 01:30 PM

Joe Brunold,

If you are an Alpine Coach Association (ACA) member, then you can call or email Mark Harrah (a former technician at WRV) who is paid by ACA to answer technical questions about the Alpine Coach.

Mark Harrah
racer_s10ss@yahoo.com
509-901-2015

Joe Brunold · 01-25-2010, 01:33 PM

I already did. Thanks.

Wayne R · 01-25-2010, 04:00 PM

Joe are you talking about the front lift cylinder? I always wondered how the H to get at it. I just took a good look at mine and it appears you need to remove the right front wheel. After the wheel is of you will see a 1ft *3ft panel bolted to the top and back of the wheel well. After the pan is removed I believe you can get to the lift cylinder. The back one is a piece of cake from the cargo bay. Just remove the gray carpeted box. That is how I would get to the front cylinder on my 05 Quad slide. Hope this helps. Nice job WRV.

Joe Brunold · 01-25-2010, 07:09 PM

Thanks Wayne. I will pass this on tomorrow to the repair facility. Hope your right. As of late this afternoon, the repairman stated we would have to cut a hole in the floor and/or remove all the paneling. Not something I want him to do. I'll keep you posted.

Joe

Joe Brunold · 02-12-2010, 09:05 AM

My original problem is fixed. The the dinette lift cylinder was defective and needed to be replaced. HWH provided the replacement cylinder at no cost. THE PROBLEM: The way the cylinder was installed did not allow for any way for it to be replaced. Therefore, the repair shop had to cut a hole in the flooring in order to do the removal and replacement. It should also be noted that that cylinder is located directly above the pump and the leaking fluid settled in (2) holding type containers under the pump. Removal of all the fluid was a very time consuming problem.

Thanks for your inputs. Hope you never need to do the same; however, if you do-this may help. Ricks' RV in El Cajon did the toubleshooting and repairs. Great job.

Joe Brunold
2006 Alpine Apex

EngineerMike · 02-12-2010, 11:54 AM

Joe- any photos to share of he experience? Picture is worth a thousand words.

Joe Brunold · 02-12-2010, 08:54 PM

Unfortunately I do not have a photo. The space where the lift cylinder is is very small and I am not sure a worthwhile picture could be taken-anyway by me.

Joe

Basil Shannon · 02-14-2010, 05:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wayne R

Joe are you talking about the front lift cylinder? I always wondered how the H to get at it. I just took a good look at mine and it appears you need to remove the right front wheel. After the wheel is ofyou will see a 1ft *3ft panel bolted to the top and back of the wheel well. After the pan is removed I believe you can get to the lift cylinder. The back one is a piece of cake from the cargo bay. Just remove the gray carpeted box. That is how I would get to the front cylinder on my 05 Quad slide. Hope this helps. Nice job WRV.

I live in fear of any problems with my dinette slide.
1) There are no holes cut in the floor where one would insert bolts to manually lift the slide. I first ran into this when I was stuck in beautiful El Paso with a hydraulic pump failure and no way to get the slides in to move to a qualified repair facility. Thank God for a good tech from Las Cruces.

2) There is no 1 X 3 panel in my front wheel well that provides access to the front lift cylinder nor is there a gray carpeted box in the cargo bay. I guess the design changed between 05 & 06 or the guy who used to do this was laid off.

Observations from other 40' FDQS owners?

Wayne R · 02-14-2010, 05:52 PM

Hmm, I will take pictures tomorrow of my rear access and what I think is the front access. I know the rear can be removed from below because I took it a part and reversed the bracket to gain storage area overhead in the cargo bay.

Basil, did you get the (2) 3 foot Long bolts to manually raise the dinette slide? I had to ask for mine.

Basil Shannon · 02-14-2010, 06:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wayne R

Basil, did you get the (2) 3 foot Long bolts to manually raise the dinette slide? I had to ask for mine.

The 3' long threaded rods are used to pull in the slide once you have raised it using bolts inserted thru non-existent holes.

Wayne R · 02-14-2010, 07:52 PM

I don't know what to say, before I had a computer desk put in there was a 2 inch round white cover over the hole to install the bolt in to lift the slide on the front end. The rear still has an access hole. Not sure how well this would work . I never have tried to use the bolts. I believe there was a change in the design of this mechanism early on. When Louis Birch and I toured HWH we spent quite a bit of time talking to the engineer in the R&D shop and I vaguely remember some mention of a design change early on. At the time I thought, great I have 1 of only 10 that used the original design.

Joe Brunold · 02-15-2010, 07:09 AM

There is no 1 x 3 panel in my wheel well either. That is why we had to cut a hole thru the flooring.

Joe

Wayne R · 02-15-2010, 11:10 AM

The first picture is of the panel in the WW I think is the front access to the lift cylinder. The 2nd picture is of what I know is the access cover to the rear lift cylinder. Model year 2005.