Carpet wear from slide out room

MeloyeloCJ7 wrote:
Yes sir that is the exact floor plan of our TT. From what I know, it’s a Lippert brand slide unit. As far as mileage I have no idea. :) It is also flush floor type setup. Thanks for your reply.

OK, this is a start. Good. You have the flush floor setup, OK that helps as there are more things to look for on them. If you want to take this further to look at the mechanical areas of the slide which can cause carpet drag, we need more info so we do not tell you the wrong what to fix.

We need pictures of your camper in these areas "as a start" to see and explain what you have, and where to go looking next. More pics may be needed later pending the first go around.

1.The slide side of your camper, showing back of camper rear wall up to and past the front axle and the front of the slide.

2. The slide drive system under the slide room. Need the see how the slide arms attach to the slide room outer wall. Both front and rear slide arms.

3. Pic's of how both the front and back slide arms go through the trailer frame. Need to know which pic goes with front and which with back of slide.

4. If your slide drive gearing, square shaft and slide motor are "not" under a camper bottom cover, take pics of the gearing, and motor drive system.

Since Lippert (LCI) bought a lot of slide drive companies in the last few years, it is hard to tell which Lippert slide drive you have. The various brands have different setups and wear points. What we tell you can be wrong for example, if you have a Power Gear slide drive OR you have the older Lippert rack and pinion drive that LCI actually made years ago. The adjustments and wear points are different.

I am going out on a limb here as hopefully FR used the heavy LCI rack and pinion drive on your big slide. These pics are of the Lippert original rack and pinion system on a flush floor setup. Does your looks like these?

Inside the camper when the slide is in, there is a large gap under the slide floor to the carpet in the center of the camper. Does your have this?




Under the slide room, there are slide arms, a master rack side arm (has the motor drive on it) and an auxiliary slide arm (driven from the square shaft)

Master rack arm. These are different trailer brands but the same LCI slide drive, but the drive can be configured a little different in left, right, inside frame or outside frame mounts.

On a Skyline camper


On a Sunline camper


The motor drive on the master rack arm on a Sunline. This is under the bottom cover on this camper.


Auxiliary slide arm, driven by a square shaft.

On a Sunline camper




On an Artic Fox camper




Lets confirm what you have, hope to see pics and then I can help tell you where to start looking.

There are many areas on a flush floor setup that can cause carpet drag on an older camper that never drug when it was newer. If yours did not drag when new, approx 0 - 4 maybe 5ish years and now does, then we need to check all the "normal" areas that can flex, wear or fall out of adjustment "before" we adjust the slide room. The symptoms of a carpet drag can be a early detection of a larger problem, or not. Knowing where to look, only takes a little time if you have been through this before, but trying to explain it and get it communicated, can take longer.

I'm willing to help explain it all as needed, if you can do the looking, measuring, pic taking and want to deal with doing all this learning.

Hope this helps

John

Yes sir that is the exact floor plan of our TT. From what I know, it’s a Lippert brand slide unit. As far as mileage I have no idea. :) It is also flush floor type setup. Thanks for your reply.

MeloyeloCJ7 wrote:
TT is 2013 Forest River Surveyor Select SV301. I’ve been noticing more wear to the carpet on the TT floor at each end of the slide from it going in and out. Looking at the slide from outside there are adjustment points for moving it left /right. There are also adjustments to move it up / down but that only appears to be at the wall side of the slide. I’m assuming that would be for adjusting tightness of the seals. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of adjustment to raising the slide above where it rides at the floor level. Am I missing something or is there a wear point that is allowing the slide to slowly drop lower over the years of use? Thanks for any insight.

Hi,

I have been through several slide issues over the years on multiple campers. I may be able to help but need more info on what you have to help better. You may have a simple issue or not pending how yours is made.

I tried find a floor plan/spec on your camper, and it seems the FR site does not go back in time to older models. I found this on the web and have no idea if this is your camper. Please confirm.

Pics of the door side
https://www.smartrvguide.com/L50892133

A possible floor plan, but this may be totally wrong. Please confirm


A few questions trying to understand your camper.

1. Is the slide an "above floor" or a "flush floor" design?
With the above floor design, the slide travels straight in and out. When the slide is out, the slide floor is above the main camper floor. You have a small step up, 1" to 2" up onto the slide from the main camper floor when the slide is out.

The flush floor setup, has a cam action that lifts up the slide room up off the main camper floor as the slide room comes in. The slide room actually goes up hill and down hill on the way in and out. When the slide room is out, the slide floor/room drops down and the slide floor is close to flush with the main camper floor, no step up. When the slide is in, you can see the inside of the slide floor is off the main camper floor in the middle of the camper.

2. Do you know the type/brand of slide mechanism that drives and supports the slide under the camper? It is a rack and pinion drive?

Depending on how you camper is built with which slide drive system, they do have adjustments to raise the slide floor off the main camper floor. But one adjustment affects the other on many slides, so you need to understand how the whole slide works before adjusting.

3. Approx. how many miles is on the camper?

4. What is the gross weight and the GVWR of the camper?

5. What is the main trailer frame height? The vertical dimension from bottom of steel to the top of steel.

If the floor plan I linked is close to your camper, a 36 ft long, rear kitchen, with a super slide (dinette and or large couch in the slide), slide front is close to or over the rear axle, rear of slide is very far back on the camper, there are frame flex issues that can, in some cases affect the slide carpet touching.

Tell us some about how your camper is made, add some pics of the slide side of the camper, and the slide drive under the camper.

Hope this helps

John

EDIT: fixed my senior moment goof on item 1 with above floor and flush floor.

There are glide strips made to put down where the carpet is being worn. They are about 6 inches wide and 3 feet long. They are removed when the slide is extended.

I think in many cases, the carpet is there to aid in sliding. The part that touches/slides on carpet, should be smooth. I too can see lines in carpet, with slide extended, but not worn through...yet. I think on mine, it would take a long time to actually wear through the carpet. If an adjustment will lift from the carpet a bit, it may cause issue with some other point of contact??

I've read of different fixes, on these forums, but hard to find when searching. IIRC, most put a protective piece on top of the carpet, but you would not want something that would catch, when extending/retracting.

Jerry