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Thanksgiving we were in Baton Rouge for a brief vacation. When we got ready to leave, my slideout pump, HWH brand assembly, stopped working after bringing in one slide. We finally called a mobile mechanic, Leo Johnson, (225) 772-4305, that was recommended by the RV park. Great guy, friendly and informative. This was a Sunday afternoon. He couldn't get any info till Monday, so we stayed another night. Next day, he told us that the replacement assembly was $700 plus shipping and would not be available for a week with expedited shipping. He helped us manually push in the slides and we went home. The pump assembly is located directly behind the door step and is easy to access. At home, I removed the assembly and looked for the pump manufacturer and found it on the internet. Love google. The pump (see pix) was only $97 and could be shipped in 2 days. I had to purchase it through a local distributor since the factory only sold to distributors. I disassembled the pump tank and motor and pulled the pump out. For those of you who are my age, (64+), the drive motor looked like an old starter from a Ford or Chevy, held on by 2 bolts. I removed the motor from the assembly during re-install to remove weight from the assembly. The motor by itself seemed to weight as much as the rest of the assembly. It was not a difficult job. All of the electrical was plug in, so I numbered the wires and took pics with my phone of their locations. Did the same with the hydraulic lines. It took about 3 hours to reassemble the pump, tank, motor AND install it in the RV. It works great and I saved $600 plus labor by doing it myself. Leo did tell me one thing that was interesting. He said that this is only the 2nd pump that he has seen go bad in 25 years of working on RV's. So, HWH builds a good unit, if that's the case. Had a similar experience with an Avion 5th wheel and a broken door handle back around 2003. I couldn't get the part from Fleetwood, so I went to the internet. Bought it direct from the manufacturer. I love google for repairs.

We are experiencing water seeping in our slideouts and the result is a mildewy odor in our cabinets, We have actually taken our Class A Monaco motorhome back to the manufacturer and had two of the slideouts repaired. They were drenched in water in the walls so all insulation had to be removed and replaced with new but that was when our motorhome was less than one year old. Now we are experiencing it in our full wall slide. How do you get to the seam when it is a full wall (28' long with a slideout cover over it? So my husband is thinking about drilling from the inside of the cabinet somehow and putting vents in? Has anyone experienced this problem? If so, please advise as to what works! Thank you.

Months ago, I first noticed that the corner trim in the bathroom had a little gap, at the bottom. This is the inside corner strip behind the toilet, forward outboard. After carefully inserting a brad or two to lock it down, it came back up. Then, came the discovery that the trim-to-wall gap varied with slide extension! To make a long story brief, the passenger-side slideout pushes the coach's wall slightly (about 1/16") outward upon reaching full extension! So, today's project is to align the slide. This is not as hard as it sounds, verifying slideout alignment is something any owner, regardless of sex, creed, age or mechanical abilities can do. The first step: go to http://www.powergearus.com/ and find the appropriate manual. Then, I extended the slideout to an arbitrary point (about three inches) and put a rule to the edge. Sure enough, the spacing was different between the front and back edges, but not in a way that made sense. THEN, I put the rule under the slideout and got a surprise. The forward rail led the aft rail on extension by a slight amount. 'Turns out, that is the space between the gear teeth below, on the drive shaft. Today, I'll slip off that gear, nudge the room in a tad to make it perfectly parallel with the coach side, and reinstall the gear. The results will be listed in an addendum below. I undid one of the two gears by releasing tension and sliding it aft, off the track. Then, KayCee gave short bursts in/out until the front and back were the exact same distance from the side of the coach. Then, the gear was slid back into place. While the results are vastly improved, I'll bring it inboard one notch in the morning, so the room is exactly parallel to the body, on retraction. At present, the bottom contacts the side slightly after the top, exerts assymetrical pressure on the wall. Voila! I removed a tilt-bin in the kitchen, and laid eyes on the area where the slideout presses to the wall, only to discover a large wiring bundle had migrated to be PINCHED between the two. Okay, this fails on two counts. First, repeatedly crushing 110VAC romex is baaad thing. Second, I'd say the same thing about distorting exterior walls. So, using the technique of measured consensus with the other slides, I rigged this one to track simultaneously and to be as vertical as possible in the retracted position. It is a little bothersome that the absolute margin for adjustment is reached shortly prior to a perfectly parallel pre-tightening seal gap is achieved; but, that might be due to factory error or structural shifting. The slide is within an eight of an inch of perfection, which is within tolerances.