HWH emergency retract system

[Starsekr]

This applies to HWH manual retract systems such as the living room slide-out on a 2005 Winnie Adventurer.To keep this short I won’t talk about the total failure of the HWH pump system on my Winnie, just that it caught us with one small rear slide and the large living room slide out.Enter emergency retract.The small slide can be slowly pushed in by two husky guys when the slide valves are released, but won’t stay snug against the RV body because there are no travel locks; the system depends on the retract pressure as a lock.
The living room slide is retracted by 2 long acme threaded rods, and here’s the rub. Each rod is fitted into a square shaped plastic/fiberglass(?) acme nut and has a washer and roll pin such that it can’t be withdrawn from the nut.This nut is located in a box channel (with a welded end cap) which allows the nut to move back and forth as the slide is extended and retracted. If somebody (previous owner) happened to play with the manual retract mechanism and take a few turns on the rod while the slide was retracted, then extending the slide causes the nuts to become stripped. And oh, the rod passes through a welded bracket that won’t allow you to remove the assembly.
I was lucky enough to find a heavy truck service shop (Rod’s Service, Saco, Maine) and mobile mechanic (Thank you, Francis!) who was a good enough jack-leg that we got the slides in, the jacks up and the coach mobile.I have an appointment with HWH in Moscow, IA in about 10 days.
What we had to do was cut the acme rods off at the box channel and put acme nuts on the rods, lucky because these nuts are used on some types of Semi truck brake systems and Francis had two of them in his truck that fit. Standard nuts will strip if used on this rod. Even with the solenoids open there was too much back pressure to move the slide, so we broke the hydraulic lines at the equalizer and proceeded to crank the slide in by hand, catching the ATF fluid in two buckets.Use a tape measure every so often on each side to help keep the slide square to the RV and prevent binding.
What you can do:Check your emergency retract system.Put your slide in an inch or so, take out the thumb screws that are supposed to keep anyone from turning the retract system threaded rods, and then turn them clockwise by hand only. Look at the number of threads per inch on the rods and how far the slide is in. Mark the top of the rod head with a magic marker and then turn an appropriate number of turns to feel the plastic nut snug up to the welded cap on the box channel. Then give it an 1/8th of a strong turn, just to make sure it isn’t stripped. This isn’t a perfect check, but will give you some degree of confidence that the plastic nuts will be able to help pull your slide in if they have to.
And the most important part, turn those rods counter-clockwise just as far as they will go, to back those nuts off and keep it from being stripped like mine were (and put the thumbscrews back in, of course).
If you don’t get a pull-up on the rod, after you have turned them twice as many times as you think you should, then you may have stripped plastic acme nuts and a real problem if your hydraulic system dies on you with your slide extended.

[Petro]

Starsekr;

Thanks for the post. My slide is like yours and I will check mine. On a previous MH I had the motor fail while putting the jacks down before putting the slides out. I have wondered many time what would have happened if the motor failed while the slides were out. Needless to say now I carry a spare motor.

Don

[Starsekr]

Thanks Don, I'd appreciate a functional check of the test procedure I wrote above. I searched both the net and these forums for any mention of the plastic nuts or someone who had a like problem with the jackscrew type retract system. Nada. Maybe it's an outlier and I just got unlucky.
From an engineering point of view, I can see the need for a "weak link" to protect the mechanism, or a complete disconnect, but they should have made it field repairable and mentioned it in their literature.

Jim

[bamaboy473]

...from the owners' manual:


Manual Retraction Procedure:
In the event of electrical failure, the slideout(s) may be retracted manually by following the procedure below.

1. Locate the hydraulic pump in the front driver’s side compartment bay.

2. The individual cartridge valves are clustered together on the side of the pump manifold. They are labeled 1 thru 4. Refer to the “Hose Color Identification” to select the proper cartridge valve. Locate the screws on the appropriate cartridge valve(s).
Using a small flat blade screwdriver, turn the screw(s) clockwise until all the way in.
NOTE: The normal operating position of the screw(s) in the cartridge valve is the counter-clockwise “OUT” position. The only time the valves should be shifted manually is when attempting to operate the slideout(s) via manual override.

3. Locate the red knurled knob on the directional valve DV2. This valve will be on the opposite side of the manifold from the cluster of cartridge valves. Pull the red knob out and turn ¼ turn. The knob will remain in the “OUT” position.
NOTE: The normal operating position of the red knob on the directional valve(s) is the “IN” position. The only time the valve should be shifted manually is when attempting to operate the slideout(s) via manual override.

4. Remove the black plastic cap from the top of the motor. Use a small fat head screwdriver. Place the drill with the 7/16” (11mm) hex bit on the manual override shaft located at the top of the motor. Run drill in a clockwise direction at 2000 r.p.m. (minimum). The corresponding slideout(s) will retract.

[Starsekr]

Bamaboy, thank you for sharing. I don't believe your owners manual applies to the HWH system that id's installed on a 2005 Winnie Adventurer, as I specified in my original post.
Starsekr

[bamaboy473]

Originally Posted by Starsekr

Bamaboy, thank you for sharing. I don't believe your owners manual applies to the HWH system that id's installed on a 2005 Winnie Adventurer, as I specified in my original post.
Starsekr

Mea Culpa, Star. What I learned from your post is that it's probable that HWH and other system manufacturers make different variations of the same thing, even for similar model years.

Thanks for the heads up. I think I'm glad that I have my version

[Starsekr]

Follow-up: After the weeks w/o the slides & Jack's we made it to Moscow,IA and the HWH factory. They installed a whole new manual retract system, but had to modify it to install it at the factory service shop. They also tightened fittings, filled oil, replaced one of the solenoid and the big replacement, the infamous shuttle valve. They also added jumpers that were missing from the "replacement" control box the dealer forgot to mention when we bought the coach last year, and set up the level sensors. Worked fine for a week and we thought we were in high cotton. When we moved on to Gretna,NE, the jack's failed to come down. After talking to the service manager at HWH, Joe, we got a new shuttle valve, which I installed. System has worked well for 4 days now.
Observations: My treatment by HWH was very good once I got to the factory. The second shuttle valve was under their warrentee, but they couldn't get me a service appointment in the area of Lincoln to Council Bluffs for more then a week. So they factory tested a new valve (1 day) and UPS'd it over night(second day) and the "15 minute job" took over a hour. (3 days again without jacks or slides). The machining on the replacement wasn't of the best, and since it went through several hands before it got to me, it shows a lack of attention to detail on their part.
Conclusion: You have to learn your systems, be your own QC on the job, and not sit in the customer's lounge when repairs are done on your RV. If you have to go to Moscow for work, plan a few extra days at the nearby town of Muscatine, there is a nice Iowa state RV camp ground at Fairport,on the Mississippi. Visit the Pearl Button capital of the world.