Advice needed on Slide Repair

[rtate]

I am in the process of repairing the bedroom slide and thought I would seek out some advice of some of you experts. I had extensive rot in the outer 10" of my slide. I cut out the bad portion and yesterday routed a 1 1/2" joint in the good part of the old floor. The old floor is 1" plywood. I am using 1/2" marine plywood laminated to form a 1" floor for the patched area.I am using GET ROT on some of the bad areas I can see on the edges of theo firm part of the floor that I did not replace to firm out the very edges of the luan ply in the outside wall that had a small amount of rot.

The bottom of the slide had an extreamly tough plastic laminated on the bottom. I have no idea what it was, but I plan on using fiberglas cloth and polyester resin on the new section of the floor. The slide rollers will bear on this surface when retracted.

Do you think this will be strong enough to bear the weight? Does anyone know what the original plastic was or where to buy it?

Also I am using a polyurthane construction adhisive to laminate the two pieces of 1/2"plywood. Polyurthane is extreamly tough and this is also for "below the waterline repairs" so be water proof. Or should I use the foaming Gorilla glue?

Also is there a better substitute for the butyl rubber sealer the use in the slide construction. I hate that stuff. Always bleeding out of the joints and smearing across my slides.

Appreciate any input.

[rtate]

The metal strips for the rollers is a good idea and that is what i did when I first noticed the rollers digging into the underside. The metal strips collasped because of extensive rot in the slide. The problem now is repairing the rot. Drain holes will not allow the plywood to dry out.because of the wicking action of the plywood sheet.

I need to repair the rotted area and stop the water intrusion.

[joebedford]

I put steel plates into the bottom of the slide.

[MrWizard]

if the plastic you removed was for the slide rollers to roll on

check out UHDM "Ultra High Density Material"

available in strips, sheets , it is an industrial poly material often used for things like this

i got some strips from amazon for a very low price

[Dayle1]

I agree with using SS strips under the rollers, that is a common solution for the weight issue. Most of the problem is where the weight of the slideout sits on the roller when the slideout is retracted. Going down the road, the slideout will bounce up when you hit a bump and them impact the roller. So make sure you use thick enough SS to handle that impact.

The underlying problem is that the plastic is there to protect the wood from water intrusion from below. But it also will trap any water that leaks in from above and then prevents the wood from drying out. Your fiberglass and resin will have the same problem. So, it has to rot. Weep holes would be better or no plastic, just paint the underside of the plywood with an exterior paint, make sure there are no leaks from above (like around window frames), and inspect frequently.

[ScottG]

If you fear the roller digging into the bottom of the slide, some manufacturers have installed hard plastic sheets where the rollers ride.
Due to some damage on our last slide, I installed rollers and a thin sheet of stainless steel under the slide for the rollers. Each sheet was about 10" wide by 30" long. It worked really well and I now notice my slide rollers on our new RV are digging into the bottom material. I will probably install another sheet of metal to protect it as well.
There are on-line sources for SS material that will cut it to any size you need and ship it at a reasonable cost.

[BarneyS]

This is the kind of question best covered in the Tech Issues forum. Since the problem you are trying to fix is not limited to 5th wheels, I will move this thread to Tech Issues forum. Best of luck on your repair.
Barney