Fixed my neighbor's slides this morning - felt great

[holstein13]

My neighbor came knocking on my door this morning around 8:00 looking for an RV repair service. I looked up the number for my guy but he wasn't answering. I figured he was very busy post Thanksgiving so I decided to take a look at this system and see if we could fix it ourselves.

When I got to his slide we noted that the motor was spinning but the slides weren't moving. So I stuck a camera up on top of the slide-out to see what was the matter. From the video I took, we could see that there is a shaft going from the motor to the gear box and that shaft was completely twisted apart.

Now comes the daunting part. We decided to take apart the fascia above the slide to access the motor and gears. We took everything apart to reveal the motor and gearbox and proceeded to call the nearest parts stores and see if we could get a replacement. Turns out the nearest replacement was 40 minutes away.

My neighbor jumps in his car and goes off to get the replacement. Meanwhile, I look up slide repair on youtube.com and find the exact mechanism we were dealing with. Now I know exactly what we should have done. Unfortunately, we had already disassembled the entire motor / gearbox assembly. This meant that upon my neighbor's return, we would have to re-tension the cables and adjust everything properly.

Upon my neighbor's return, we reassembled everything, tensioned the cables and gave it a whirl. Of course it ran backwards so we reversed the polarity of the power and tried it again. This time it ran forward and backwards properly but we had slack on the lines. After adjusting all the slack everything worked properly and we mounted back the fascia.

It turns out that all we needed was a $5.00 shaft. He started off the morning wondering how he was going to get his slide in and travel a few hours north and in a few hours, we had completely repaired the problem for $5.00.

I was really proud that I decided to get involved in this. I've never worked on this kind of slide before and have only made a simply repair to my own slides. It goes to show you that you can under-estimate your own abilities. Sometimes when we are faced with a problem and there are no easy solutions, we are forced outside our comfort zones and we end up better off for it.

[RVcircus]

Nice work!

[Clarryhill]

Nice job, there Mr Samaritan...May you always have good traveling!

[Snowman9000]

Youtube is really good for things like that. It's still viewer beware, though. But 95% of the time the DIY videos there are great for learning how to do something.

[rexlion]

That's great news and an amazing tale. Glad it worked out so well.

This is the only way one should ever give his neighbor the shaft. 😄

[Cloud_Dancer]

I might've gotten the wrong impression of Ft Lauderdale (based on the area that I experienced). I would've guessed that all you did was call the chauffeur and tell him to go get a replacement coach....:B

[jsmart]

Nice job. like others have said, wish you lived next to me.

[John_Joey]

That's how the "Good Sam's" club was formed. RV'ers helping each other on the road when in trouble.

Nice to hear it's still alive and well.

[spoon059]

Good deal... probably cheaper for me to drive down to Florida and have you fix my camper if the slide ever breaks!

[blackeyed1]

Great when things work out. Make sure you pat yourselves on the back for a job well done!

[diesel_man_03]

Great job, wish you where my neighbor.

[Oasisbob]

What a great neighbor you are. Glad it worked out. Merry Christmas

[4aSong]

There are still those willing to help others, thank for posting.

[holstein13]

gbopp wrote:
Good job, thanks for sharing.

Personally, I would tell the neighbor to get another shaft and duct tape it somewhere out of the way but easily accessible.

He may never need it but, for $5 he's prepared. And, if he does need it in the not too distant future you will need to figure out what is causing it to fail. Maybe something is out of alignment?

Hopefully you made a permanent repair.

Yes, good suggestion. That's what they told him at the parts store and he did buy two of them.

[2oldman]

holstein13 wrote:
I look up slide repair on youtube.com and find the exact mechanism we were dealing with. Now I know exactly what we should have done. Unfortunately, we had already disassembled the entire motor / gearbox assembly.

Hate when that happens.

Anyway.. good job!