What you may face when your slide doesn’t work (long)
The rear of my slide started to make groaning noises and have issues going in and out.
At a music festival at a ski resort, it made loud snap noise and the rear of the slide didn’t close the last inch or two.
Back at home, inspection underneath showed no rusted, bent or broken parts. The slide then was able to go out and in OK once but then only the front end would go out. That caused the slide to twist after the front went out only several inches. The 7-blink error code on the Kwikee digisync referred to "stall on front actuator only" A Google search and searching the Kwikee/PowerGear site revealed nothing about what that meant. The powergear site did say that they don’t sell the motor and gear box separately – you have to buy both together.
PowerGear has discontinued their customer service number and there is none on their website. You have to fax or email. Two days later, they have not replied to my email.
Their web site listed a nearby Camping World as the only service facility within a hundred miles. I drove there and to discuss the options with the service manager. He said that they could troubleshoot it for $125 per hour plus about $20/hr shop supplies. (What shop supplies are needed to troubleshoot a slide?) However, they couldn’t make an appointment until next week and then it would probably sit on their lot for 3-4 days before they looked at it.
If it need a motor-gear box, that would take probably 2 weeks to come in, and then 7 hours or so to change. He said the slides were very time-consuming on Winnebago’s and required cutting access holes in the coach. He did one a little while ago and it cost $1,500 to $2,000.
I called Winnebago customer service line and was told:
Can the slide be re-synced? Maybe, extend a little, then try the semi-manual override procedure (didn’t help)
Does the overide only work for retraction? Yes
Does the manual crank only work for retraction? Yes – can strip gears if using crank to extend slide
Go to Powergearus.com site then troubleshooting then system lookup to see parts diagrams and user manual
Older Winnebagos may take that long to change slide gears but he thought newer ones should take less than 6 hours. Also, access should be available through the side compartments. (It looks like still have to cut an access hole in the compartment wall.)
Summary: to fix the slide, it would probably take over 4 weeks and a couple grand. I hope this doesn’t happen to you when you’re 3,000 miles from home and scheduled to drive back.
Upon further inspection, the problem seems to be that the rear gearbox is stripped or disconnected. The motor runs in both directions but nothing happens now. I could carefully manually push the rear out while the front motor pushes the front out – and hopefully do the reverse to retract the slide.
Also the rear end of the slide is not pulled tight to the coach wall, it could slide in and out a couple inches while driving. To prevent this, I used a ratchet strap to pull the rear compartment strut on the slide to the frame.
My plan: Unless a fellow forum member has a better idea, I’ll pull the rear assembly when I get home and try to repair the broken parts myself. I don’t wish to reward Kwikee/PowerGear for making defective/fragile parts by buying another one. One reason is that the Kwikee steps failed early and I found the cause to be that it had a chip of wood for the armature thrust bearing. Kwikee’s Chinese hovel must have run out of the thrust washer and just stuck whatever was handy to ship the steps. I fashioned a nylon bearing and it’s worked fine since then.
My suggestions from this experience: if the slide seems to not move smoothly, or jerk, or twist (i.e. the front and rear not moving the same amount) – have it examined right away. Since new my slide jerked constantly going in and out (one side moving s little and then the other side moving a little – back and forth) but the dealer said that was normal for this system. Upon reading more about this system, it appears the sync (shutting off one motor) should only happen if one slide moves too quickly compared to the other. If this happens ever few inches, chances are one end of slide is binding, or has some other issue.
I hope some of this experience is helpful to other members.
Coach: 2008 Itasca 30B
At a music festival at a ski resort, it made loud snap noise and the rear of the slide didn’t close the last inch or two.
Back at home, inspection underneath showed no rusted, bent or broken parts. The slide then was able to go out and in OK once but then only the front end would go out. That caused the slide to twist after the front went out only several inches. The 7-blink error code on the Kwikee digisync referred to "stall on front actuator only" A Google search and searching the Kwikee/PowerGear site revealed nothing about what that meant. The powergear site did say that they don’t sell the motor and gear box separately – you have to buy both together.
PowerGear has discontinued their customer service number and there is none on their website. You have to fax or email. Two days later, they have not replied to my email.
Their web site listed a nearby Camping World as the only service facility within a hundred miles. I drove there and to discuss the options with the service manager. He said that they could troubleshoot it for $125 per hour plus about $20/hr shop supplies. (What shop supplies are needed to troubleshoot a slide?) However, they couldn’t make an appointment until next week and then it would probably sit on their lot for 3-4 days before they looked at it.
If it need a motor-gear box, that would take probably 2 weeks to come in, and then 7 hours or so to change. He said the slides were very time-consuming on Winnebago’s and required cutting access holes in the coach. He did one a little while ago and it cost $1,500 to $2,000.
I called Winnebago customer service line and was told:
Can the slide be re-synced? Maybe, extend a little, then try the semi-manual override procedure (didn’t help)
Does the overide only work for retraction? Yes
Does the manual crank only work for retraction? Yes – can strip gears if using crank to extend slide
Go to Powergearus.com site then troubleshooting then system lookup to see parts diagrams and user manual
Older Winnebagos may take that long to change slide gears but he thought newer ones should take less than 6 hours. Also, access should be available through the side compartments. (It looks like still have to cut an access hole in the compartment wall.)
Summary: to fix the slide, it would probably take over 4 weeks and a couple grand. I hope this doesn’t happen to you when you’re 3,000 miles from home and scheduled to drive back.
Upon further inspection, the problem seems to be that the rear gearbox is stripped or disconnected. The motor runs in both directions but nothing happens now. I could carefully manually push the rear out while the front motor pushes the front out – and hopefully do the reverse to retract the slide.
Also the rear end of the slide is not pulled tight to the coach wall, it could slide in and out a couple inches while driving. To prevent this, I used a ratchet strap to pull the rear compartment strut on the slide to the frame.
My plan: Unless a fellow forum member has a better idea, I’ll pull the rear assembly when I get home and try to repair the broken parts myself. I don’t wish to reward Kwikee/PowerGear for making defective/fragile parts by buying another one. One reason is that the Kwikee steps failed early and I found the cause to be that it had a chip of wood for the armature thrust bearing. Kwikee’s Chinese hovel must have run out of the thrust washer and just stuck whatever was handy to ship the steps. I fashioned a nylon bearing and it’s worked fine since then.
My suggestions from this experience: if the slide seems to not move smoothly, or jerk, or twist (i.e. the front and rear not moving the same amount) – have it examined right away. Since new my slide jerked constantly going in and out (one side moving s little and then the other side moving a little – back and forth) but the dealer said that was normal for this system. Upon reading more about this system, it appears the sync (shutting off one motor) should only happen if one slide moves too quickly compared to the other. If this happens ever few inches, chances are one end of slide is binding, or has some other issue.
I hope some of this experience is helpful to other members.
Coach: 2008 Itasca 30B
