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Slide-out problem

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Dougie Brown:
We have a 32ft Rexhall Rexair back in the UK which should have been sold by now, but which instead has been languishing at a (normally-reliable) RV repairers since January.  The slider & rams are by HWH.

I replaced the motor after some intermittent problems culminating in having to manually winch the slider back in after the motor finally packed up.  I noticed at that point, that it slid in a little unequally, i.e. the front went in faster than the back, and at an angle).

On closing the slide that night in the dark, I failed to notice it skewing badly, and it came to a halt with a bang.  Despite several attempts the next day, it was obvious that it would neither go in nor out equally, so with some help, we finally managed to straight it & close it manually.  I then drove it to the repairer, who talked to HWH & eventually diagnosed a faulty equalizer valve (I believe this to be correct given the procedures he went though).  I meantime came back to the US & sent one back to him, and he fitted it a month or so later.  He reported that it had solved the unequal sliding problem, but he could not get the slider closed by about 4 inches.  See pics which were taken yesterday by a friend. Unfortunately, since the guy reported this to me over 2 months ago - and said he thought something had been bent in the process - he's been avoiding contact, which is extremely frustrating.  That's another matter though.

Here are a couple of pics my friend took yesterday.  Any comments or suggestions please?  We're back in the UK in just over 2 weeks, and I really need this resolving in order to sell the coach.

Thanks,

Dougie.

Dougie Brown:
No thoughts from anyone? :-\  I'm still stumped.

Dougie.

Tom:
Dougie,

I don't know much (anything) about hydraulic slideouts, but have you tried calling HWH yourself? When I had a hydraulic issue on our boat, I was able to reach a technical guy at the hydraulic system manufacturer and get a lot of good info, including how the boat manufacturer installed their systems. He also followed up with useful additional info by email.

The 'something's bent' comment reminds me of a situation experienced by a friend who had a problem on his new motorhome just one campground away from the manufacturer. In his case, the slideout had a scissor mechanism on each end. Like the issue you described, one end of the slideout went out (or came in) ahead of the other, and one of the scissor mechanisms bent in the process.

In his case, he merely drove it back to the factory and let them deal with it, which obviously can't happen in your situation. I don't know if your slideout has the scissor mechanism, but I can't think of what else might be bent. If that happened in your case, it would probably require removing the entire slideout, and may be too big a job for a small repair operation.

Another option might be to find a dealer or repair shop here in the US who would be prepared to talk to you about the system and about what might be going on. Even if you had to pay an hourly rate for the advice, it could get you some much-needed info.

Gary RV Roamer:
I'm not familiar with the HWH hydraulic mechanism, but the Power Gear hydraulics we had in one coach (not the current one) used only one ram and had a scissor or lever arm plus two guide rails. The only thing that could skew it was an adjustment of the length of the lever - or if it bent.  You mentioned an  equalizer valve, so it sounds as though HWH has two rams? If it has multiple rams and an "equalizer", I can only guess that one is not functioning 100% and therefore not doing its share of the work.

jim and di:
This is probally not your issue but you never know. A few weeks ago we were in a campground in eastern SC and experienced one of the SC monsoons. What a shock when water was coming in the coach from the bottom of the bedroom slide. We used a lot of towels to control the flood. As I looked for the cause i noticed the slide was about three inches from closing on the bottom, slightly tight on the top. I ran the slide in and out several times,crawled under the bed to watch the track and gear motor. Nothing I could see. Fortunately we found a great RV repair in Beauford, SC Low Country RV Repair. I called him and he said to bring it in and he would look at it. He spent a day looking and his son found a small piece of metal in the gear. When the gear and track met it stopped. He pulled the metal and all works fine. Could you have something between the slide and coach wall stopping it from closing?
Good luck,
Jim

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