I've owned my coach for about a year. So far, I've replaced one of the AC units, upgraded the refrigerator to a Samsung RF18 and replaced the control board in the Aquahot. For each of those, being able to read how others did it on IRV2 was very helpful. So, here's my chance to pay some of that back.
I've got a list of a dozen or so additional items that need to be upgraded/replaced/repaired. When I showed it to DW, she said I needed to do the bed first. We've got a residential queen (60x80) with the head end moving out first on the slide. I removed the mattress and opened the two lids that covered the box.
I discovered that the slide motor is fixed to the floor on the right side of the bed,
the track itself moves with the slide and there is a ledge that the slideout moves across.
The box on which the mattress lies is 14" above the floor but on the outer two feet of the slide, there is only 6" of clearance. The sketch shows what I had to work with.
When shopping for beds, I learned that the clearance between the various beds and the space available in the coach were too close for me to be certain that nothing would interfere. It was likely that something would have to move. On Craigslist, I found a queen sized adjustable bed for about a third the price of a new one. I figured I could use that and if cutting, welding and other destructive acts were needed, at least I wouldn't have to worry about losing a warranty.
The bed I bought is a Legget and Platt queen sized bed with 120v motors, a wired remote and massage for both the top and bottom sections of the bed. It looked like it would fit and was in good condition. The mattress on the bed consists of two 2" pieces of regular foam stacked on top of each other. The massage motors are mounted to a small sheet of plywood that is sandwiched between the two layers of foam. There is a cloth mattress cover that is stapled to the four pieces of plywood (head, body, upper legs and lower legs) that are attached to the metal frame that carries the lift motors. From the bottom up, it's a metal frame, plywood, foam mattress and cloth cover.
The next step was to remove the old mattress, remove the wood covers, hinges and support plywoood. Remove the storage box under the foot of the bed, remove the safe and finally remove the rest of the support structures leaving just the box, slide mechanism and wiring.
The new bed fits into the coach much easier than the Samsung refrigerator. I did have to remove the passenger seat and tie the door open, but the bed went around the corner with now problems.
I removed the casters from the bed frame before brining it into the coach, the bed frame without the casters is the same 6" that I have above the slide ledge. I set the bed frame on the box and started identifying things that had to move. First thing to move was the junction box for 120v that powered the outlets in the slide. The bar between the two front legs of the bed sat right on top of it. There was lots of slack in the electrical lines, so I was able to move the box closer to the wall. The electrical outlet for the bed was mounted beside the box and also fixed to the floor of the slide.
When I lifted the head of the bed, the lever for the lift interfered with the ledge, so I notched the wood there to add another 3/8" of clearance. But, rather than use angles to fasten the bed in place, I decided to 'pin' it in place which lifted it by another 1/2" The feet you see under the bed legs are a small piece of plywood with a 2"x5/16" carriage bolt through it. The bolt fits into the hole where the casters were. I lifted the bed, put the bolt into the caster hole dropped the bed back down into place and (much later) screwed the foot into place. You can see one of the foot supports next to the outet in the picture above.
At the foot of the bed, the cross bar needed to be about 1 1/2" above the slide bar to keep the bed level with the front. I repurposed the 2x4 that supported the lid and hinges and used it to support the legs at the rear. Two short pieces of 2x2 set on the metal box frame and screwed to the walls of the box keep it at the correct height.
With everything screwed into place, the bed doesn't move unless it is picked straight up.
Here it is with both ends lifted. It will lift higher than this, but I didn't see any need to do that.
The little box beside the bed is a step that DW requested. It's bolted to the slide box on the back side, the front side has casters so it moves in and out with the bed. As you can see by most of the pictures, I still need to do some housekeeping.
And since I'm posting pictures, here's one of the dog and coach on New Year's weekend.
This project turned out to be much easier than I feared. The bed fit just like the original, it's about the same height and I only broke one light lens during the install. I think a 12v bed with a wireless remote would be nicer, but $500 for the bed, about $100 for 3" of memory foam added to the mattress and a few bucks for electrical and screws, I like it.