Community Forums

rlbow43 · 08-21-2017, 01:10 AM

We're on a 2-3 month trip and my wife discovered the dreaded "beaver chips" on the carpet from the living room slide (2002 Windsor, 38', 2 slides). They came from the back edge of the slide. Pic 1 is the damage to the underside of the slide.

When I went looking for the cause, I eventually found that one of the plastic wheels on the back slide mechanism had broken. I called Monaco (REV) and I bought replacement wheels for both the front and back slide mechanisms on the living room slide. At just under $5 each, seems like a cheap fix. They are to arrive tomorrow (Monday) at the campground we're staying at in Cortez, CO. Doesn't look like a difficult fix, except I can't figure out how to take the weight off the remaining wheel so I can pull the 1/2" bolt that holds them in place. I thought if I jacked up the back edge of the slide just a little that would work, but the arm that moves the slide in and out (has teeth on the bottom of it so the motor's drive cog can move it) does not move up at all.

Pic 2 is the mechanism with the wheels. You can see the cog wheel that drives the arm in and out, and a bit of the arm's teeth that the cog pushes on. The bolt going thru the frame to the left of the cog wheel is the bolt that holds the plastic wheels. There is supposed to be a wheel on both sides of the teeth on the slide arm. You can see the unbroken black plastic wheel on the near side of the frame. I don't know what these wheels do. They can't take a lot of weight. Farther back inside of the frame that the slide move through there are 2 metal wheels that take the weight of the slide as it moves in and out. The arm has enough pressure on the plastic wheel that the bolt does not want to come out easily. I'm reluctant to just take it out without at least easing the pressure on it. If I put my socket wrench on the bolt head and unscrew the bolt, it will back out of the frame (it acts like it is screwed into the frame) but it doesn't unscrew without making enough noise that I can tell it is under some pressure. I have taken the nut off and it was not on all that tight. I don't want to take the bolt out and then have the weight push the bolt down some so I can't put it back in.

I've considered jacking up the arm instead of the bottom of the slide since jacking up the slide did move the slide up but did not ease the weight off the wheel that's left on the bolt.

I'm wondering if someone out there has worked on this kind of slide mechanism and knows the best way to take that bolt out? Once out it should be easy to replace the wheels with the new ones.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I can include more pictures if needed.

As for the wood chips on the carpet, I might have figured out a little about what caused them. As the slide comes in, there is a piece of hard plastic at the front and back of the slide on the floor of the coach. As the slide moves in, the front edge moves up and slides over these plastic pieces. All the wood chips were on the floor in front of the plastic, and around the plastic. It appeared that the screws holding them down might be loose. When I checked, one of the screws on the front piece had broken off in the floor. The screws on the back piece were loose. I drilled new holes and put new screws in. We have run the slide in and then out once since we found the chips and no new wood chips. I'm hoping this cures the problem. Pic 3 is of that plastic piece. The "extra" screw in the one end of the plastic (right side of the pic) is the new screw. The screw on the other end seemed to tighten down without having to be replaced.

I haven't fixed the damage to the underside of the slide yet. Not sure what to use. On another post about damage to the bedroom slide bondo was used and then it was covered up with 16 ga sheet stainless steel. I don't think that would be something I could do on the front slide since way the slide moves is completely different. It looks like whatever I repair the damage with will have to be exposed to the elements when the slide is out and will have to take the abuse of sliding in and out over those plastic pieces.

Any suggestions on what to use to repair the damage are appreciated.

William Willard · 08-21-2017, 07:15 AM

Our slide is a little different but I have changed the gear & rollers --Move the slide out about half way -- Jack up the slide by placing the jack on the gear rail not on the slide bottom -- It won`t move much, but enough to remove the roller -- I carry a bottle jack & a piece of 1 1/2 steel pipe for this -- Bill Willard

rlbow43 · 08-21-2017, 08:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by William Willard

Our slide is a little different but I have changed the gear & rollers --Move the slide out about half way -- Jack up the slide by placing the jack on the gear rail not on the slide bottom -- It won`t move much, but enough to remove the roller -- I carry a bottle jack & a piece of 1 1/2 steel pipe for this -- Bill Willard

Thanks Bill. That seemed to be the only possibility left. It didn't look like it could move much, but a little should be enough. I was going to call REV this morning, but will try your method first.

jacwjames · 08-21-2017, 05:50 PM

There is someone on the Yahoo Monacoers group that fabricates SS runners for this. Don't have the contact info but maybe some one might chime in.

I've also heard of people buying SS door kicks from big box stores and using these.

rlbow43 · 08-21-2017, 09:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jacwjames

There is someone on the Yahoo Monacoers group that fabricates SS runners for this. Don't have the contact info but maybe some one might chime in.

I've also heard of people buying SS door kicks from big box stores and using these.

I'm in favor of putting a SS runner on the underside of the slide above the slide arms to protect that area. The problem I don't know how to solve is how do you place the SS on the part of the slide that you can't get to because it's always covered. When the slide is fully extended, you could cover that portion, but isn't there a small portion of the slide that is inaccessable? It seems like you'd have to take the slide out to put it on. Or is that not true? Or maybe you don"t have to worry about that.??

There was a post about putting SS runners on the bedroom slide when you could take the bed box off and get to the bottom of the slide. This is the living room slide and I have no idea how you could do the same thing to it.

kustom · 08-21-2017, 09:21 PM

watching thanks

rlbow43 · 08-22-2017, 12:59 AM

The promised wheels for the slide arrived while we were visiting Mesa Verde. Got back too late to deal with them so that will happen in the morning. It should not be a difficult fix if I follow Bill's instructions.

10Boomer · 08-22-2017, 06:14 AM

The post about beaver chips in the bedroom was my post. Its not the bedroom slide it's self but the bed platform that is supported by rollers on the bedroom floor.
I had issues last year with both my drivers side main slide and bedroom passenger side slide. The rollers started wearing grooves into bottom of slide plywood. Elite RV repair in Harrisburg, OR. Installed new SS plates over the grooved areas. Also the old plastic runners were removed because they were all cracked or broken.
I would call and talk to Mark to assist you in a temp. fix or a more permanent fix. They will tell you best way to jack up slide.

rlbow43 · 08-22-2017, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 10Boomer

The post about beaver chips in the bedroom was my post. Its not the bedroom slide it's self but the bed platform that is supported by rollers on the bedroom floor.
I had issues last year with both my drivers side main slide and bedroom passenger side slide. The rollers started wearing grooves into bottom of slide plywood. Elite RV repair in Harrisburg, OR. Installed new SS plates over the grooved areas. Also the old plastic runners were removed because they were all cracked or broken.
I would call and talk to Mark to assist you in a temp. fix or a more permanent fix. They will tell you best way to jack up slide.

Perry,

Thanks for the reply and info.

My bedroom slide has those plastic rollers under it. No chips there, but the adjustment on the rollers is way off. Not sure why exactly, but when I adjusted the front set of rollers to match the back, the slide wouldn't fit up against the side. Eventually lowered those rollers so I had a tight fit. Need to look at why the rollers have been adjusted that way. Monaco did not have those rollers in stock or know the part number. They were going to call Lippert and get the part number for me (no answer yet). I need to replace the rear rollers on that slide since the adjusting nut has all corners rounded off. Can't be adjusted anymore. But everything works, and has for as long as I've had the coach (2009). Think that slide won't bother me for the rest of this trip. Will work on it later.

It's the main slide I'm concerned about. That's where the chips are on mine. I'll give Elite a call and see what they can tell me about a road fix that could get me home without additional damage. Did Elite put SS plates on your main slide? I'm going to jack up the arm that is missing the plastic wheel and get new ones on it. I'll watch from the bay while my wife runs the slide in and out a time or two just to see how the mechanism and the plastic wheels work once the new wheels are in. Won't be able to see the slide moving since the main floor is there, but could be educational to see how the mechanism works if nothing else.

10Boomer · 08-22-2017, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rlbow43

Perry,

Thanks for the reply and info.

My bedroom slide has those plastic rollers under it. No chips there, but the adjustment on the rollers is way off. Not sure why exactly, but when I adjusted the front set of rollers to match the back, the slide wouldn't fit up against the side. Eventually lowered those rollers so I had a tight fit. Need to look at why the rollers have been adjusted that way. Monaco did not have those rollers in stock or know the part number. They were going to call Lippert and get the part number for me (no answer yet). I need to replace the rear rollers on that slide since the adjusting nut has all corners rounded off. Can't be adjusted anymore. But everything works, and has for as long as I've had the coach (2009). Think that slide won't bother me for the rest of this trip. Will work on it later.

It's the main slide I'm concerned about. That's where the chips are on mine. I'll give Elite a call and see what they can tell me about a road fix that could get me home without additional damage. Did Elite put SS plates on your main slide? I'm going to jack up the arm that is missing the plastic wheel and get new ones on it. I'll watch from the bay while my wife runs the slide in and out a time or two just to see how the mechanism and the plastic wheels work once the new wheels are in. Won't be able to see the slide moving since the main floor is there, but could be educational to see how the mechanism works if nothing else.

Yes Elite did install SS plates. This was before Chris came out with his plates which also address the bottom floor seams.

rlbow43 · 08-22-2017, 12:55 PM

Well, the new wheels are in. Worked just as Bill Willard said. Once the weight is off, the bolt comes out easily.

Before and After pictures

10Boomer · 08-22-2017, 02:30 PM

Great pictures for visual.

rlbow43 · 08-22-2017, 10:02 PM

I sent an email to Elite Repair in Harrisburg, OR describing my situation with the chip damage to the front living room slide. I thought I'd put their reply in this thread as advice from someone (Elite) that has experience with slide damage like mine. Here is their reply to me:

"After looking at the attached picture, my recommendation is after you complete your repair. Run that slide in, and leave it in until you can get to a facility that can repair it. Unfortunately as soon as that philon on the bottom of the slide floor begins to peel it will only get worse. We have seen some interesting situations with the slides on that vintage of Windsor. The coaches were very rarely sealed properly from the factory. Which can allow water infiltration over time. The Windsors in particular had areas that water collected that remained out of sight until a problem arose. Without seeing the unit in person, it is hard to say if the broken roller is the only issue, Or something else in the unit helped cause the failure. Which soft or rotten structure can lead too."

I'm not sure what we will do. We are about 2-3 weeks into a planned 2-3 month trip. I will probably watch it very close, and decide if we need to only use the bedroom slide until we could find someone that knows what they are doing as it relates to our situation. We're heading to Kansas & Oklahoma eventually. As many on irv2 are, I'm leary of letting just anyone work on our coach. As things progress, I'll report how things go. Wish me luck.

l1v3fr33ord1 · 08-23-2017, 06:17 AM

Chris Throgmartin (of Talin Manufacturing/Stone Vos) has found Monaco and HR coaches can have slide floor rot, due to their design. Here is a link to a Talin RV Web page with videos on both the problem and the product ("Guardian Plates") that Talin sells to mitigate it. The statement from Elite RV implies they have seen the rot problem, too.

Our little gasser has slide floor rot, and I'm in the middle of a Guardian Plate installation now.

Here's a link to a recent iRV2 thread on the topic of Guardian Plates.