Sometimes Ya’ Have To Know When To Quit

As many of you know, I like to do as many of my own repairs to our Journey as possible.  Recently, we had a minor issue with our bedroom slide.  Extending it I heard a “Crack” and wondered what happened.  When bringing the slide in, the bed lifted up a bit before the slide started to move.

I checked under the bed to look at the slide mechanism and found on the slide rail, two bolts had broken on the guide rail.

                

                

The broken part of the bolts were still in the slide guide.

                

I got an Easy Out to drill and remove the broken portion of the bolts.

               

Using a center punch, I hammered a dimple in the broken bolt so the drill bit would be centered.

               

Once I drilled a hole and used the easy out to remove the broken bolts, I saw why the bolts broke.  There is a misalignment in the track and the slide stops are out of adjustment.

               

Looking at the stop bolts, they have a yellow line painted on the bolt showing that the adjustment was in place right from the factory and never moved.

                

Because the slide adjustments are crucial to where the slide stops going in and out, they need to be readjusted before the new bolts can be installed, or the new bolts will just break too.  Misadjusting the slide stops could cause catastrophic (expensive) damage with the hydraulic pressures on the mechanism.

                

I can’t find any place in my owners manual that pertains to adjusting the slide, and I don’t want to monkey with it because I can really damage the slide, so I decided to quit and let the factory do it when we go up there next spring.  The slide is still operational, I just have to push down on the bed when bringing in the slide.

Sometimes certain things have to be left up to the experts.  I know I could adjust it if I just knew how.  I’ll gladly let the factory tech do it, but you can be sure I’ll pick his brain to learn how to do a slide adjustment if it ever happens again.  It will be money well spent.

Some people will point to this and say they’re glad they don’t have slides.  For the extra space they afford, we’re glad to have them and consider a slide repair no different than any other part of an RV that breaks, be it a fan belt or a water heater.  Just the cost of doing business.

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