Community Forums

Roving Itali · 08-09-2011, 05:45 PM

I have a rear bedroom slide with a Power Gear slide mechanism that continually shears the pin to the drive gear. I have taken to the RV repair twice and it will last about two ins and outs. I find the rolled pin in the bottom of the compartment. First I have made sure there is no interferance in its travel, It seems to shear on the closure. I have very carefully monitored the closure to insure we are not raming it up against the stops. It will still be not working at the next out. I think the 3/16 rolled pin being used in not hard. The pieces are mutilated and cut in half.
I have written to Power Gear, but I have not received an answer. Do an other owners have experience with this?? What is the proper Pin to use??

Roving Itali

JFC · 08-09-2011, 07:13 PM

What coach do you have? I've had the same type of problem with one of the large front slides on my 2007 Scepter. Coach was seven months old when slide wouldn't retract. Monaco sent shop an "upgraded" motor. Several months later slide sheared rear drive gear axle. Had to have mobile mechanic to get slide in. Returned coach to Monaco, Oregon. They replaced the gear, slide control board, adjusted and said all was well. Shortly after that, slide started sheared bolt connecting drive shaft to rear gear. Took coach back to the dealer who replaced the bolts and checked the slide. Coach continued to shear bolts, returned to dealer again who kept coach for a few weeks to exercise the slide and try to find the cause. They replaced the motor again, reworked the ends of the drive shaft since shearing bolts had rounded the hole in the shaft, generally cleaned and adjusted the slide. Repair held for two years, then sheared the rear gear axle again. Mobile mechanic to get slide in and on to another RV repair shop. They contacted the new Monaco. They replaced the bolts with hardened bolds with long shoulders so no bolt threads were in the drive shaft. Also reworked the drive shaft again since shearing bolts rounded the holes in the shaft. Repair lasted one outing, sheared front bolt. Contacted new Monaco service again and they suggested that the coach needed "mini pin switches" installed to shut off motor when the slide was retracted. When I said it sheared axle in the out position, they said it needed the mini pin switches in both directions. Coach is in the shop now, and shop is in contact with new Monaco. I'm not sure what they've decided. I've been fighting this for four years, so if you find a cause or solution, I hope you'll share.

**CLIFFTALL** · 08-10-2011, 05:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roving Itali

I have a rear bedroom slide with a Power Gear slide mechanism that continually shears the pin to the drive gear. I have taken to the RV repair twice and it will last about two ins and outs. I find the rolled pin in the bottom of the compartment. First I have made sure there is no interferance in its travel, It seems to shear on the closure. I have very carefully monitored the closure to insure we are not raming it up against the stops. It will still be not working at the next out. I think the 3/16 rolled pin being used in not hard. The pieces are mutilated and cut in half.
I have written to Power Gear, but I have not received an answer. Do an other owners have experience with this?? What is the proper Pin to use??

Roving Itali

You say you've written to Power Gear. I know they are very responsive to emails. Try info@powergearus.com .

groverman · 08-10-2011, 04:55 PM

I have sheared about 10 bolts in the Power Gear front road side slide of my 40' PDQ. Also have sheared a gear drive shaft. What a pain. Poorly designed slide out system. Next, I am installing Grade 8 bolts and am cutting a small piece of the large drive shaft to slide over the smaller drived shaft where bolted. Am anxious to continue to see posts regarding a possible fix. Grover Ligon

Vivnme · 09-25-2011, 01:34 PM

We have a 42 PDQ Monaco Camelot 2006. We had problems with the large slide (bolts shearing off) for over three years. At the time Monaco even extended our warranty because of the problem. They changed the motor 4 different time, changed bolts and many other attempts to fix it. Had to have tow truck driver come twice and manually pushed in the slide.

We had a mobile tech come to our RV for another problem and mentioned this. He noticed the bolts were just slightly loose probably from all the times they sheared off. Anyway he had to drill minimally to enlarge the bolt hole one size and for the last two years we have not had any problems. He didn't have the heavy duty bolts to put in so we went to the store and bought plenty of extras.

Not once has it ever sheared off after this fix. I hope this can help because I was ready to turn our coach in for a lemon.

If you need more information about size of bolts of photos please let me know and I will do that for you.

radams · 09-25-2011, 04:45 PM

Interesting! Shear pins are there to prevent damage to other, generally more expensive, components. If the pins sheared then clearly the motors were putting out plenty of torque so I don't understand the logic of replacing them. Unless they replaced them with motors that had thermal overload switches. Then the temp would shut them off before the pins broke. Or, maybe motors with built in torque switches to shut off motors before the pins break. That still wouldn't help move the slide though. Secondly, putting higher grades of pins or bolts, or larger sizes, carries the danger of damaging something else. I suppose it's possible that undersized pins or the wrong grade fastener was originally spec'd but I bet it has more to do with slide or slide mechanism. Just thinking out loud here but I'd be thinking about excessive weight, misalignment, crushed rollers, galling, or poor engineering to begin with.

Pusherpilot · 09-25-2011, 05:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by radams

Interesting! Shear pins are there to prevent damage to other, generally more expensive, components. If the pins sheared then clearly the motors were putting out plenty of torque so I don't understand the logic of replacing them. Unless they replaced them with motors that had thermal overload switches. Then the temp would shut them off before the pins broke. Or, maybe motors with built in torque switches to shut off motors before the pins break. That still wouldn't help move the slide though. Secondly, putting higher grades of pins or bolts, or larger sizes, carries the danger of damaging something else. I suppose it's possible that undersized pins or the wrong grade fastener was originally spec'd but I bet it has more to do with slide or slide mechanism. Just thinking out loud here but I'd be thinking about excessive weight, misalignment, crushed rollers, galling, or poor engineering to begin with.

True the shear pins are there to protect other components. Power gear doesn't sell component parts of their motor assys to my knowledge. We had the problem with our rear slide doing this too and a 3 day stay at the Monaco warranty shop in Indiana finally fixed it. The secret seems to be getting all the drag off the system possible. Todayh if it is uphill to retract the slides I go out and "help" to prevent furthur problems and use silicone spray on the seals to help. Havn't had a problem since.
Ron
04 HR Imperial

deSanford · 09-25-2011, 08:51 PM

Is this a problem with the newer coaches? If not what was the fix for them? Inquiring minds would like to know...........is this something I have to look forward to?

JFC · 09-25-2011, 10:28 PM

Still looking for a solution for ours. Currently using it as a three slide coach. E-miled power gear and they wanted the serial number of trhe motor and slide controller. E-mailed Monico for the location of the slide controller, and they replied, but I couldn't find it in the location they said. Finally after several e-mails, they said the hadn't used the power gear controller, they had a diode bridge behind the slide switches. Power gear says if they didn't use a power gear controller, they couldn't help trouble shoot the problem. I've had the coach back to Monaco factory early on, and they just repalced the sheared bolts and gears and said all was fine. Still looking.

deSanford · 09-26-2011, 09:50 AM

JFC I can't tell by your sig what year your coach is.

radams · 09-26-2011, 10:04 AM

I don't know guys, it seems to me that all the "fixes" mentioned here just addressed the symptoms of the problem, not the actual problem. The problem is that the force required to get the job done is more than what the components can handle. Bad design? Too heavy? Alignment? Rollers? What caused the force required to exceed the design, that is the question that needs answered.

JFC · 09-26-2011, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by radams

I don't know guys, it seems to me that all the "fixes" mentioned here just addressed the symptoms of the problem, not the actual problem. The problem is that the force required to get the job done is more than what the components can handle. Bad design? Too heavy? Alignment? Rollers? What caused the force required to exceed the design, that is the question that needs answered.

I agree that the fixes provided for mine so far have addressed symptoms. I think the point that power gear seemed to be looking at was when does the motor stop, thus looking at the match between the motor and the controller. Their input was that without the controller, the motor can draw 45 amps before it's internal controls shuts off, more than enough to shear bolts and axle gears. My slide does not use limit switches, the power gear unit relies on monitoring the power draw of the motor through the controller and shutting off the power when the draw indicates it's reached the slide limit. My unit appears to have a problem getting that information to the motor and shutting it down before it damages the components.

JFC · 09-26-2011, 10:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deSanford

JFC I can't tell by your sig what year your coach is.

2007

Vivnme · 09-26-2011, 10:53 AM

JFC, You sound like us. I read this to my husband and he thought it was the post I wrote. I think the only difference is that we went to Monaco factories in Oregon, Indiana, and Florida Our power gear motor was changed four times. The last time was to revert to the original motor (which is what we still have). I do not believe the motor is the issue.

Radams, your comment, "it seems to me that all the "fixes" mentioned here just addressed the symptoms of the problem, not the actual problem", is probably the most true. Monaco will not change the design on this type of system on current. I understand the new ones have been redesigned.

The torque of the motor is causing the hole where the bolt is to elongate. So when we changed the size of the bolt from 3/16 to 5/16, the bolt is now strong enough to accommodate the torque of the motor. Although we purchased the grade 8 bolts we have not had to replace them yet. (when we had the smaller 3/16th grade 8 bolt we changed them too many times to count)

We do have a lot of weight in that slide but the problem started before anything was ever placed in the slide except original equipment. The coach was new the adjusted the slide and changed a higher amp fuse.

It has been two years now and it works great. We still do hold our breath each time the slide goes in and out because of all the problems we had the first three years. We also have tried every other fix on this page that everyone else has tried.