piece of plastic fell off driver's side slide out floor

When we put out the driver's side slide out on our 2017 View 24G, yesterday there was a piece of black plastic left lying on the floor;  enclosed are photo's showing it, next to a tissue box;  what has disintegrated in our slide out mechanism?  Hopefully, we can pull in the slide still!

That's an odd looking part, no clue here. Send the picture to Owner Relations: [email protected]

It looks like some type of link for a chain. Male to female and so on. Keep adding them and you'd have a long chain. Does it possibly have something to do with supporting some wiring under the slide out.

Rene T said:

It looks like some type of link for a chain. Male to female and so on. Keep adding them and you'd have a long chain. Does it possibly have something to do with supporting some wiring under the slide out.

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Rene, I believe you are spot-on there.  That's almost certainly a cable carrier chain.  I work with automation machinery and see these every day.  A couple of the big manufacturers of them are Igus and KabelSchlepp.  They are used to guide and protect cables on a moving axis, and a slideout would be a completely typical application.  Looks like the attached.

I'd probably want to track down the chain that link came from right away.  You likely now have cables that aren't properly supported, and it's not unlikely that you'll soon find more links.  The links can usually be replaced, but access could be a bear.  I wouldn't put this off - you don't want the cables hanging up and/or rubbing on stuff when you move your slide.

Here's a YT video of the stuff that shows it in action.  The video is from SparkFun, so oriented more to hobbyists than industrial applications, but it does a nice job explaining what it is and what it does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VnistB9LC8

Thanks so much!  Before breaking camp, I took your advice, FunSteak, and opened a strange rectangular wooden box that is under the seat, and there it was....all busted up. The piece that fell out was linked to the attachment point.  So I rigged up some bungee cords in an attempt to prevent damage to the cables, and continue our fall camping trip, until we can get a fix near home..

And thanks John, for that e-mail address;  I've sent the photos to them, and asked for a part #, in case it needs replacing.  The uTube video shows that links can be clicked into each other, so maybe I have enough good links left to make the apparatus useable.  However, when I pull the slide out in, the bungee at the right in the pic barely gets taut, but when I put the slide out  out, the bungee at the left cannot push the cable carrier down the hole entirely, leaving about 4 inches popping out.

Are these cable carrier's designed to be pushed down a hole?  The video shows them with an axis for the radius moving down the pike, but this slide out setup requires axis for the the radius to be fixed at the hole in the floor.

SelVieux said:

.....Are these cable carrier's designed to be pushed down a hole?  The video shows them with an axis for the radius moving down the pike, but this slide out setup requires axis for the the radius to be fixed at the hole in the floor.

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Winnie engineering sometimes comes up with some 'novel' applications for off the shelf parts - 'novel' as in "why did they do that". I have the same carrier for the bundle of cables for our large salon slide out, production didn't quite get the cables matched to the carrier. BTW, there's smaller carriers in Thinguniverse ready to 3D print or scaled up.

I love your home location - I'm a geek as well.  )

SelVieux said:

Are these cable carrier's designed to be pushed down a hole?  The video shows them with an axis for the radius moving down the pike, but this slide out setup requires axis for the the radius to be fixed at the hole in the floor.

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In my experience, they are for a linear movement.  Typically used for stuff that moves back and forth or up and down.  One end is anchored to a fixed point, while the other is anchored to a moving point.  There must be enough length to make the appropriate radius as well as accommodate the distance moved.  So if the one that broke off was the one attached to the fixed point, the whole thing will be flopping around when moved, rather than the smooth, curving action you want. 

Looking at the photo, you have a surprisingly generous access.  You should be able to replace with just about any carrier chain that's of the right size for the cables carried.  You can probably find some at a much lower price than Winnebago will charge.

Best of luck!

The broken part is from the moving attachment point on the slide. Here is the 3-D picture Winnebago sent back, and I cannot figure out what the radius specification would be for a 90 degree turn down a hole.

SelVieux said:

The broken part is from the moving attachment point on the slide. Here is the 3-D picture Winnebago sent back, and I cannot figure out what the radius specification would be for a 90 degree turn down a hole.

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Wow!

Had it fixed by the dealer in Dec 2019. Alas, yesterday, as the slide was being put out, I heard cracking noises; I stopped immediately. I opened that box under the seat and saw the cable jammed up at the attachment point! Again! Are we over-using the slide-out? We use our rig for local transport, as it's only 25 feet long and gets 15 mpg's, so we pull it in a bit more than most, I suppose. Maybe, the rube-golberg bungee cord setup I used last time is a more permanent fix!

SelVieux said:

Had it fixed by the dealer in Dec 2019. Alas, yesterday, as the slide was being put out, I heard cracking noises; I stopped immediately. I opened that box under the seat and saw the cable jammed up at the attachment point! Again! Are we over-using the slide-out? We use our rig for local transport, as it's only 25 feet long and gets 15 mpg's, so we pull it in a bit more than most, I suppose. Maybe, the rube-golberg bungee cord setup I used last time is a more permanent fix!

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No, I don't think you're overusing anything - slides are (should be, anyway) designed to, well, slide. Consider how many similar units are on the road, and the millions of cycles all those slides did.

My initial guess is that some screws got pulled loose while cycling. In my rig, there are some things screwed into particle board, or using screws that, IMO, are a bit small for the application. Bedroom drawer catches, for example, pulled out over time, and I had to reinstall with a larger diameter screw to hold.