Tweaking Slideouts

[andyshane]

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.