Happy Ending to an expensive worm gear slide out problem`
Hello,
I thought I'd post this since my experience could be the same for any user with a motor driven worm gear slide out mechanism.
Early on after buying my used Winnebago Sighseer 30B, my punch list of things to fix was mostly inexpensive and easy to fix items, that is until about the 30 day mark my slide out stopped with an error code 10 (no power to rear slide out motor).
Well I tried for months to get a decent quote on fixing it. The best I could get was about $1600.00 for parts and labor (no good sam warranty unfortunately).
Anyhow, I finally reached the point of digging deep in my pockets but had a second thought and decided I'd go for broke and maybe mess up the whole thing trying to fix myself. I was lucky.
Anyhow what I did was get under the unit and I pulled the whole thing out. I opened the slide out then propped it up so that dropping the extension arm and whole unit wouldn't let the slide out move out of place. It is held in place by only 4 bolts to the frame and two sets of bolts connecting the end to the slide out face. Remove these 8 connections and pull apart two wiring connectors at the motor and you can drop the whole slide out in your hands.
I had a hard time getting the motor detached from the worm gear so I called my local alternator repair shop and the tech agreed to look at the motor connected. So I carried the whole unit to him and he was able to remove the bell housing and repair the motor. ALl it needed was resoldering as I'm sure a lot only need something as simple. The tech said it's rare the windings burn up but even if they did it's a lot cheaper to rebuild the motor than to buy a replacment at $600.00+ dollars.
Well he resoldered the motor and eliminated the internal crimp connections with solder connections. He buttoned it up and charged me $60.00. The unit had given me an encoder error 11 a few times so I bolted on a new encoder costing $55.00 (4 bolts is all you have to work with to replace it) and I put the whole assembly back under the coach.
Perrrrrfecton! The units function was restored and it has been flawless ever since. Total cost $110.00 verus $1600.00.
The point here is some things are simpler than you might think. Last year I would have never considered pulling out part of the slide out myself. Don't be afraid of these mechanical worm gear slide out assemblies. They are simpler than they seem and the alternator repair guy said $600.00 for the motor was outrageous. I agree. I didn't pay that or the other $1000.00 the dealer wanted for labor.
Now if I can be as lucky with other things that will eventually go wrong as nothing lasts forever, especially a 2002.
Bill
I thought I'd post this since my experience could be the same for any user with a motor driven worm gear slide out mechanism.
Early on after buying my used Winnebago Sighseer 30B, my punch list of things to fix was mostly inexpensive and easy to fix items, that is until about the 30 day mark my slide out stopped with an error code 10 (no power to rear slide out motor).
Well I tried for months to get a decent quote on fixing it. The best I could get was about $1600.00 for parts and labor (no good sam warranty unfortunately).
Anyhow, I finally reached the point of digging deep in my pockets but had a second thought and decided I'd go for broke and maybe mess up the whole thing trying to fix myself. I was lucky.
Anyhow what I did was get under the unit and I pulled the whole thing out. I opened the slide out then propped it up so that dropping the extension arm and whole unit wouldn't let the slide out move out of place. It is held in place by only 4 bolts to the frame and two sets of bolts connecting the end to the slide out face. Remove these 8 connections and pull apart two wiring connectors at the motor and you can drop the whole slide out in your hands.
I had a hard time getting the motor detached from the worm gear so I called my local alternator repair shop and the tech agreed to look at the motor connected. So I carried the whole unit to him and he was able to remove the bell housing and repair the motor. ALl it needed was resoldering as I'm sure a lot only need something as simple. The tech said it's rare the windings burn up but even if they did it's a lot cheaper to rebuild the motor than to buy a replacment at $600.00+ dollars.
Well he resoldered the motor and eliminated the internal crimp connections with solder connections. He buttoned it up and charged me $60.00. The unit had given me an encoder error 11 a few times so I bolted on a new encoder costing $55.00 (4 bolts is all you have to work with to replace it) and I put the whole assembly back under the coach.
Perrrrrfecton! The units function was restored and it has been flawless ever since. Total cost $110.00 verus $1600.00.
The point here is some things are simpler than you might think. Last year I would have never considered pulling out part of the slide out myself. Don't be afraid of these mechanical worm gear slide out assemblies. They are simpler than they seem and the alternator repair guy said $600.00 for the motor was outrageous. I agree. I didn't pay that or the other $1000.00 the dealer wanted for labor.
Now if I can be as lucky with other things that will eventually go wrong as nothing lasts forever, especially a 2002.
Bill
