Hydraulic slide out misadventure!!

Always Something!!

One of the certainties of RV'ing is; something can and will always go wrong.  You have to accept it as a fact of RV life.  Any time you pull your house over highways full of potholes while going 60 miles per hour, constantly unhook and hook up, constantly level with jacks, or expand your living space with moving slide-outs in and out, something is going to go wrong.  What follows is just one more example.  We have "adjusted and/or learned" to deal with it using humor and patience, albeit sometimes that is not easy at the moment.  

Thursday, August 18th.

We were all packed and ready to set out for a long weekend at Skyways RV Park to catch a Brandi Carlisle concert at Bethel Woods Preforming Arts Center.  We had purchased the tickets way back in March.  Judy made a last minute check of supplies and started to retract the slides.  The electric bedroom slide retracted perfectly.  But nothing moved when she tried to retract the main kitchen and living room hydraulic slides.  She activated the switch several times, but nothing happened.  We could hear the hydraulic pump running, but no movement.  I checked the hydraulic fluid level, and it was low.  It shouldn't be.  Then we discovered oil puddling under the camper.  NOT A GOOD SIGN!!!!

Thru a tiny peep hole I could see that the hydraulic hose fitting had broken off the end of the hydraulic piston the runs the kitchen slide.  There goes the weekend!  Concert tickets and campground fees down the drain.  But, now we are in a real pickle.  We can't manually put the slides in to even take it to a dealer for repairs.  

Oil puddling on the driveway pavement.

Oil leaking through the brake wires access hole.

I had Judy try the slide retract switch while I to peeked through the hydraulic ram port.  Sure enough, the hydraulic hose had blown off the ram.  UGH!!!

Access port through the frame for hydraulic ram.

Time for a beer, some head scratching, and internet searching.  A YouTube video revealed a way to order a replacement fitting and repair the hose.  So I went ahead and ordered the part.  In fact, I ordered two just to have a spare that I will hopefully never use.

While waiting for the part to come, I spent the next several days laying on my back under the camper removing the protective plastic underbelly lining and dragging oil soaked insulation out.  What a mess!  In the process, I discovered the cause of the snapped hydraulic line.  A poor job at the factory of installing the insulation resulted in the insulation wrapping around the rotating cross shaft that keeps the front and back of the slide in sync while extending and retracting.  Over time, with each use, more and more insulation clung to the shaft, eventually catching some electrical wiring and the hydraulic hose.  Soon the hydraulic line and wiring became so tight that they snapped.  The following photos and video show the problem.

Insulation wrapping on the rotating cross shaft.

Hydraulic hose wrapped on shaft.

Taut electrical wiring pinching heating ducts.

Wrapped wiring and broken hydraulic fitting.

While waiting for the hydraulic fitting to arrive, I continued to clean out more oil contaminated insulation.  Finally, the part arrived the following Tuesday, but heavy rain prevented me from installing it.  Wednesday morning I discovered that the part I had ordered didn't fit!!!!!!  So, on to "Plan B".  I removed more underbelly and insulation and traced the hydraulic hose back to the source.  I removed the entire hose and took it to the local John Deere equipment dealer and had them make a new hydraulic hose for me.  By late Wednesday afternoon, we had the new hose installed, slides working, and the insulation and underbelly reinstalled.

New hydraulic hose.

Plastic underbelly reinstalled.

Knowing what we know now, we could have fixed the problem in one day.  But, hindsight is 20/20.  Next time it will be an easier fix, but there damn well better not be a next time.  :-)

In summary, over the years Judy and I have gleaned the following "givens" of traveling by RV:

1. It’s getting ready to break
2. It’s broken
3. You just fixed it
4. Repeat
5. Be handy with tools and/or be handy with a checkbook
6. Dragging your house over potholed roads at 60 miles per hour breaks things!
7. If you come home with nothing broken, you weren't gone long enough.
8. It's already broken.  You just don't know it yet.
9. And finally, it could have been worse.

In spite of all the misadventures we have had, we wouldn't trade our travels for anything.  In fact, the misadventures add to the story years later when we reminisce and say, "remember the time we........."

Stay tuned, and be well.