Living room hydraulic slide sucked in to the cabin while going down the road

I have a 2007 Forest River Wildcat. I returned from a camping trip and noticed that the main 12' slide was sucked into the trailer.  I had to use a lot of force to get it to release and open.  Any idea on how the slide can be pushed inward while driving?  Wind? hydraulic malfunction?  Should there be a stop to prevent this?

Thanks
Mooch

That's crazy, I have never heard of such a thing. I would think that if it was wind, it would about blow the trailer over first. It seems like it would have to be a mechanical malfunction. Hydraulics are definitely strong enough, but most have "stops" on the frame that would keep it from pulling inside the shell of the RV.

If you were looking for a sure fire way to stop it from happening again, you could pull the fuse on the hydraulic pump after you have retracted the slide before you leave.

Sucked in?  Meaning the outer side of the slide is further in than the rest of the sidewall? How can that happen when there is a flange on the outside? Did the outer edge flange bend or break somehow? Do you know what brand of slide mechanism it is?  And you are sure its hydraulic?

There is indeed mucho air pressure on the sides of the RV, e.g. when passing other vehicles and encountering their "bow wave". Crosswinds, too. But there can be suction as well as pressure on it, so the slide gets tugged both ways.

do you have a picture?

I'm going with a hydraulic malfunction on this one.

Yeah, a malfunction is much more likely than wind pressure, but I still don't see how the slide could physically move that far inward without being ripped apart. I must not be understanding mooch01's description correctly. Hope he comes back to explain further.

I agree Gary. The thought of a slide pulling itself right through the wall of the RV is mind boggling. 

I would love to see a picture if one is available.

Was he driving with the slide already out and it sucked back in where it belonged?

Seems to be his only post ~ Wonder where he went????

I apologize for the delay, router crashed.  Thank you for the help

I retracted the slide before starting home.  It was flush with the exterior.  When I park it in storage, I found the slide was retracted into the shell of the RV.  It was only the upper left corner(facing the side of the camper).  I checked the outer flange of the slide on the corner and it is bent out as a result of being retracted in further than it should have been.  I don't have the make of the slide but the hydraulic unit is a Lippert or LCI.  I checked the hydraulic fluid and it is at the previous level and no leaks.  I don't have a Pic as I was freaked out and just wanted it opened.

I'm not sure, guessing, is there a valve that stops the hydraulic pressure after it is fully retracted that is malfunctioning? 

I will pull the fuse on the next trip(this weekend).

I would guess there is a microswitch that is activated when the slide reaches a certain point wheb being retracted. This may be out of whack causing the pressure to stay up longer than the factory set point. Also there maybe a ridged stop mechanism that was forced past its limits. I would look into getting that looked at asap...

Where is the microswitch or the ridged stop located?  Would it be on the track?

Thanks

That would be an LCI slide mechanism.  Sounds as though some limit switch failed to detect the slide was in and shut the pump off, but I don't know anything about that particular set-up. Could be based on physical position or on some max hydraulic pressure level.

Yikes! That's a new one on me. (How's that for a helpful response.)

Kev

Not being familiar with your slide system, but knowing a bit about hydraulics, the hyd. pressure of the system has to be powerful enough to overcome the weight and friction of the slide room to operate it.  The hyd. fluid that is piped to the actuator/cylinder normally would be controlled via a solenoid valve of some type.  This solenoid valve also functions as a device to change the flow of hyd. fluid so that the actuator/cylinder has the ability to change direction.....thus pushing the slide room out or pulling the slide room in.  Inside these directional solenoid valves are "spools" that slide back and forth, thus changing the flow direction of the hyd. fluid which of course changes the direction of the actuator movement; bringing the room in our out.  These directional valves in a coach or trailer would be controlled electrically by 12VDC operating coils on the directional valve itself.  Many times in an Industrial hyd. system there are proximity switches or limit switches of some type that detect when a device has reached its end of travel, and it then opens a set of contacts and de-energizes the operating coil and the actuator stops travelling.....think slide in or slide out position.  Now a couple of possibilities......
1.  The switch that should control the travel distance of the room has failed and is not stopping it at the proper place.
2.  The spool in the solenoid is sticking and not returning to full cutoff position, thus allowing some hyd. pressure to try and continue to bring the slide in further.

There are most likely other possibilities, but since I have zero knowledge of a coach hyd. slide system, I probably don't need to go any further than my very basic hyd. system explanation.  Some systems "dump" back to tank when travel distance has been satisfied, but those normally will have a hyd. check valve in line to prevent creep when system pressure is relieved via the dump sequence.

So hopefully, someone with a fair amount of experience troubleshooting coach hydraulics will chime in.

Thanks for the hydraulic information.  I will look for a mechanical stop and or a limit switch.    I don't think there is a bypass valve on the unit so it makes sense there is a stop or limit switch. 

Sucked is better than what happened to ours.  A bolt broke in ours and it was falling out while we were going down the road I had to hold it in with all my strength while coasting the last 40 minutes home.  This was the sofa and dinette slide which is quite big for little 120lb weakling me.

Hope it didn't cause too much damage for you.

workingtorv said:

Sucked is better than what happened to ours.  A bolt broke in ours and it was falling out while we were going down the road I had to hold it in with all my strength while coasting the last 40 minutes home.  This was the sofa and dinette slide which is quite big for little 120lb weakling me.

Hope it didn't cause too much damage for you.

Click to expand...

We were riding in the back one day while a tech was test driving our rig.  He took a curve too fast and we watched in horror as our big slide tilted out from the top.  We had often heard loud noises in the back while driving but never knew what it was.  Now we know the importance of actually using the slide braces provided!