McGyver stories

ON our returning trip from Alaska, our slide room no longer operated via the motor. The problem with a deep slide is that when it's CLOSED, it takes up MOST of the room inside the RV. We found that it took 200 revolutions when hand cranking the slide open or closed so getting it to work as it was supposed to was high on my list. We had been hand cranking it since leaving Tok a couple of days earlier. Stayed in our overnight boondocking site north of Whitehorse on the Klondyke highway, for a couple of extra hours the next morning, to try and solve the problem but there was NOWHERE to get any help or even purchase parts. Pulled the inspection opening in the belly pan down and found that the top of the motor operating the slide room had simply vibrated loose and was lying inside the belly pan. With the help of a magnet on a stick, lots of stretching and muttering some bad words, I was able to retrieve MOST of the parts. The one thing I was missing was the little springs that hold the brushes in contact with the armature of the motor and without those springs it wasn't going to work. After searching through all of the misc. stuff that accumulates in the bottom of my tool box and parts drawer in the pass through, I found nothing that looked like it would work.

Finally I found an old ball point pen and took it apart to find that the spring was pretty close to the right size. It was also long enough that I could cut it in half and make a spring for the other set of brushes. Put it all back together and the motor worked perfectly (and still does today after three more years of use).

Best thing of all was that DW gave me some "points" as she was both impressed (and relieved) that she didn't have to take her turn at cranking the slide in or out. Not exactly a McGyver story but about as close as I can come.