Slide alignment problem after awning hangs

The only way to find the shear bolt is to look up the kit to replace the cross bar. It's as I described. I went to the hardware store yesterday and bought a full threaded bolt and one that I assume is the one in there. The shaft on the pinion mechanism comes out both sides. So I had a hole to put the bolt through. When it's just the threaded part there is a fair amount of play. The unthreaded collar goes through too but almost no play. I assume that means it is only "shanked" going through one side of the the cross bar on the hydraulic side. I was concerned it was shanked the whole way through. I'll put some penetrating oil on and turn the shaft before I try backing the bolt out with a hammer. I'm thinking with the oil it should go since it's only 1/8 inch tubular steel.

But when I was taking pictures, I noticed another problem. The track is not aligned right on both sides. I thought it was only on the hydraulic sides and it might track right when the slide was squared up. Maybe it still will but I'm less hopeful now. The rack is running on the left side of the pinion and that means it's also not running fully on the right side roller. I can't figure out how the adjustment would be made. There is open space on the right on the shaft. Hopefully you can see that in the pictures below.

Shoot. Forgot I can't upload the pictures directly. Gonna have to set this up on my phone. I'll try to get it this afternoon. I'll also take a look at the rack and pinion on the opposing slide to see if I can note obvious differences and take pics if I do. I do think the bolt was meant to shear. But maybe I'm missing something. My slide, as far as I know, only stops moving when a breaker is tripped. The breaker resets in 30 seconds. The breaker trips frequently when it's cold out and the slide is harder to pull in. It also tripped when it got hung up causing this problem. LCI calls it a shear bolt but maybe what you are describing is the backup for the breaker. I do know there is a lot of force when zzthe slide is moving. Please don't ask me how I know. It's a whole other story and slide. ;)

I'll get the pictures up later. I've got an appointment that I have to get to. Thanks again for helping me through this.

westend wrote:
Wow, really poor on the bolts! If you can get some heat up there or even use a penetrant, you should be able to remove them, especially if they are shanked. I know little about slides but you're in good stead with JBarca and he knows his stuff.

Westend, thanks for the good words. Much appreciated. :)

Hi Bill,

If your bearings are worn enough, yes this will drop the pinion down creating less gear mesh.

I do not know if you use grease on the rack teeth or not. There is a debate on both sides of the fence to grease or not to grease. I myself, grease and I grease the bearing area. And the roller bushing buried up in the inside the rack arm. You can only see the arm end inside roller when the slide is out.

Back to the pinion mesh, open gears leave meshing tracks on where they touch. You can see on the rack teeth if the mesh is not on the center area like it should be. It would be more on the outer part of the tooth. And you would have a lot of back lash. If you pry up on the pinion shaft and see a lot of play, the bushing are bad.

Having that pinion lower is a pleasurable explanation on how you can jump teeth. The slide arm/rack is not lifting, the pinion is lowering and that can happen.

The bolts that are froze up, yes, like Westend said, try and get some penetration oil in there and juice it well and over night.

If you have a hand torch, that can help too. Don't know if you setup will allow heat and not get the vapor barrier. Or if one of your pinions is buried inside a tank compartment like one of mine is...

And this is another option. Unbolt both pinion bearing housings and drop the entire shaft, bolt and square shaft out. Then you can deal with the frozen bolt out in the open. This is mine, yours should be similar.





Worst case if you can not unscrew it out or punch drift it out, turn the shaft until the bolt is straight up and down vertical, prick punch the center of the bolt head and drill it out. Start with 1/8" bit in case you are off center and only go up in 1/64" bit sizes. Only enough to get close to the edge of the bolt. You really do not want a full 1/4" if you can help it. Once you get close to 1/4" then try driving it out again.

As an FYI, I know folks have called the 1/4" bolt in the square shaft a shear bolt. That may be a miss conception. I'm not 100% sure on the hydraulic units but on my electric unit I have an overload clutch that trips when the slide is all the way out. The motor drive will not create any more torque then the overload clutch can give. The clutch will trip before the 1/4" bolt shears. And on the retraction, some slides ratchet the clutch too on the way in. But on mine, the motor just stops, no clutch trip. I basically ran out of motor power as the slide flanges rest against the side of the camper and the stop can and you let go of the button. Again the bolt will not shear as the motor drive does not have enough guts to shear the bolt.

There may also be some logic in using a longer bolt so the body diameter is fully or partly in the square shaft and the pinion shaft. That full body diameter creates a better slack free connection. If there is a full threaded bolt in there, it will wiggle and eat on the threads of the bolt creating a loose connection. Over time it wears faster creating an out of time connection. For what it is worth, mine also has an almost full body bolt. And there may be 3 lines on the head indicating a grade 5 bolt or 6 lines inducting a grade 8 bolt. No lines it is a grade 2.

I could not find in the LCI manual any mention to a shear pin setup. This would not be the conventional way to create an actual shear pin setup if it was suppose to be. It might be campfire thoughts that this is a shear pin setup and not actually one. It is just a economical way to connect the shaft to the square tube.

What ever you do, when you put a new bolt back in, grease the outside of the bolt real well or put anti seize on it. That will help the next time you have to take that bolt out...

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

John

Wow, really poor on the bolts! If you can get some heat up there or even use a penetrant, you should be able to remove them, especially if they are shanked. I know little about slides but you're in good stead with JBarca and he knows his stuff.

Was looking to see what the real shear bolts looked like and ran across this post from 2011: http://www.5thwheelforums.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-2061.html

Looks like the same problem only the track jumped because of worn out parts in the pinion assembly. It would be a huge coincidence if mine had worn out parts. Looks like I have some more investigating to do before I try to remove the bolts they put in there. Definitely the wrong bolts because the right ones are threaded the entire length, have an allen wrench head, and are either 1 or 1.25 inches long. These have hex heads, are only threaded about half the length, and are about 2.5 inches long. **** it keystone. It's like a $2 part and instead you pound in something else you have laying around. The idiot probably dropped them on the floor and was too lazy to go back and look. I wonder if the right ones are installed on the opposite slide.

Well, the bolts didn't sheer. I don't think the could. Keystone put in the wrong bolts. They're over an inch too long and are threadlees on the part that goes through the hole in the shaft. And they're too big. They had to pound them in with a large hammer. One they got all the way in. They other came up a quarter inch short. It was hard enough just getting the nut off because the threads were slightly damaged and rusted. Now I'm hoping I can get at least one out. It's wedged in so tight that I couldn't get it to budge with a regular hammer. Any ideas will be appreciated. If they had put the right bolt in, I doubt I would have this problem. It looks like there could be some minor damage on the hydraulic side. I always assumed the damage would be on the other side since that's where it got hung up. But now that I think about it, all the force outward was on that side. If it jumped the track, maybe it did there. My phone battery was dying and I couldn't take pictures. It will be easier to show you what I mean. I can now see how it might have gotten off track. I'm hoping that if the other side is made even, it will track better on that side. I'll see if I can get the bolt out tomorrow.

Hi Bill,

You have the right thoughts now for a good investigation. The only thing I will add on doing adjustment, make a mark or take measurements of where you are now before the adjustment. You can always come back to it.

As to adjusting a slide, once the "entire" slide system is understood, then adjustments are truly mechanical and give the intended end results. What tricks many on the way into the learning curve is, some adjustments are not as obvious as others. If you get to needing help on adjustments that you are questioning, let us know.

It "sounds" like in your case something knocked the system out of working right. Have to identity that first, and ideally correct it and the whole unit may come back in line. And if not, then you can go through the entire slide adjustment check and adjust as needed.

Good luck.

John

Thanks John,

Yes, the gear is the pinion and then in the manual they have yet another name. Page 28 is a good representation of what I have. I'm hoping to get under there tomorrow and I'll take picture. It looks to me like a system similar to how the landing gears work. Both sides sides had the same mechanism but only one side had a motor. A cross arm moved moved in sync with the motor side causing the other jack to move exactly the same way. Take off the cross arm and you could jack each independently using a wrench. Actually a screw driver worked better. I just put it through the hole for the sheer bolt and turned it a quarter rotation at a time. I'm hoping something like that works here. I want to take the cross bar off anyway to check the sheer bolts. I'm thinking one might have sheered but is somehow wedged in as if it didn't. It seems unlikely because you would think the vibration from traveling would at least cause it to come loose. More likely might be the shaft the cross arm attaches too broke. That happened with one of the landing gear jacks and I was able to drill another hole in the shaft and get a couple more years out of it. The thing is, if the slide is moving, everything you can see is turning. A broken shaft or sheer pin would not change that. Still unlikely though because if the shaft broke, I would think the cross arm would come loose and there is no sign of that. I guess I'll know soon. The unknown for me is the cam. When thid slide goes out, it drops down an inch or so at the end of its travel so the floor of the slide is flush with the floor of the RV. I'm going on faith there hoping it still works as before. It wasn't in operation when the original problem occurred, and is still working on the side that goes out all the way, so I'm thinking it should. I can probably test that with the wrench or screw driver before hooking everything back up. At least I hope I can. I'll let you know how it goes and thanks. It really helps to talk it through with someone. I've had people tell me ti leave slides to the experts. But I've also had people tell me that's baloney because it's all pretty basic. It looks bssic to me. Two adjustments and mechanisms that aren't all that complicated.

bearsnob wrote:
This does help a lot. We got another big snow storm and I've been thinking it through with the info here. I don't really see how it could jump the track for the reasons you mention. More likely would be a problem in the gear. I had figured out I can turn it with a wrench and watch what happens. If I see anything suspicious, once I know it closes right, I'll just buy the new part. It's only about $30. Do you think I need to replace both if I replace one?

There are two adjustments on the end of each arm. One is the one you showed but without the markings. I checked that as soon as it happened and I could find no evidence of it sliding. It's painted and dirty, so you would think I'd see something if it did move and it would have had to move nearly three inches. The other adjustment seems to be tilt. The only way that can move is by turning a bolt. There was no way for that to happen. I will take the measurement you mentioned. I'm sure it's off but it wont hurt to know exactly how much. Then I'll try to run it out with a wrench. I should probably remove both sheer bolts first. Maybe it sheered in a strange way and it just looks like they are intact. I was certain one had sheered because that's what's supposed to happen. They look good but you can't see inside obviously.

Hi again,

I'm not following what gear you are referring too in the first paragraph in blue. Do you mean the pinion? I'm assuming so, just look at the teeth and if all is good, then OK. If damaged then yes change.

You mentioned just turning the slide out with the wrench. Maybe a clarification here. On mine, and maybe yours, if both square shaft bolts are installed on the ends of the square shaft, you cannot use a wrench to crank out the slide. On mine, the motor ACME screw drive will prevent this. It locks the master rack/arm from moving. And the master arm/rack only moves if the electric actuator and the ACME screw drive runs. For me, I have to insert a hand crank on the actual ACME screw to move the slide manually in or out.

Your hydraulic slide. I "think" yours shows up on page 28 of this user manual. You confirm. LCI hydraulic slide manual

If that is the one, yours master rack is locked in place by the cylinder where in my case the ACME screw drive and motor.

Point being. Wrenching the square shaft with both square shaft drive bolts in will not allow the slide to move unless something is sheared off or partly sheared.

Basic operation is, hydraulic cylinder moves the master slide arm. The master arm has a gear rack welded on the bottom of it and that rack drives a master rack pinion that then turns square shaft when the master arm moves. Then the square shaft drives the pinion of the slave rack and pushes/pulls the slave arm in or out.

Now that said, if you are out of time and the slave rack is not compressing the slide totally upon retraction, then unbolting the master rack end drive bolt from the square shaft will allow you to turn the sq shaft with a wrench and push/pull the slave rack in or out. This is only due to the master pinion being unbolted. But the master rack never moves in this case. You can only turn by hand a short distance as the one end of the slide is moving and the other is not.

You can also test if one of the square shaft bolts is partly sheared. Take each out and look at it.

If you half sheared a square shaft drive bolt, that could be the bang. Then the slide is out of mechanical time due to the play in the drive bolt. Now the slide will not compress correctly against the camper and may not extend out equally either.

Hope this helps and when the weather cooperates let us know how you made out. It is snowing here tonight too in Ohio...

John

This does help a lot. We got another big snow storm and I've been thinking it through with the info here. I don't really see how it could jump the track for the reasons you mention. More likely would be a problem in the gear. I had figured out I can turn it with a wrench and watch what happens. If I see anything suspicious, once I know it closes right, I'll just buy the new part. It's only about $30. Do you think I need to replace both if I replace one?

There are two adjustments on the end of each arm. One is the one you showed but without the markings. I checked that as soon as it happened and I could find no evidence of it sliding. It's painted and dirty, so you would think I'd see something if it did move and it would have had to move nearly three inches. The other adjustment seems to be tilt. The only way that can move is by turning a bolt. There was no way for that to happen. I will take the measurement you mentioned. I'm sure it's off but it wont hurt to know exactly how much. Then I'll try to run it out with a wrench. I should probably remove both sheer bolts first. Maybe it sheered in a strange way and it just looks like they are intact. I was certain one had sheered because that's what's supposed to happen. They look good but you can't see inside obviously.

Yes, the hydraulic rod just pushes and pulls one side. I don't see any advantage over an electric motor other than it being possible to put all slides out/in at once. I've never had a desire to do that because I like to pay attention when a slide is moving. Maybe I get under there Saturday. Snow just turned over to hard rain. Thanks again for the information. I could also call lippert now that I think of it. I think they made the landing jacks on our previous fifth wheel. I got stuck once 150 miles from the nearest town. They not only walked me through the repair, they also sold me the parts wholesale saving me over $200. I was really impressed. I think it was them but its been a long time.