The promised update and explanation

We usually take our motorhome problems in stride.  After all it is a big box, not unlike a small house that bounces down the road trying to shake everything loose, and the fact our coach is now almost 12 years old, we accept there are going to be problems now and then.  But right now they seem to be coming a little too quickly for us, and this last one is a doozy, perhaps one of the worst we've experienced.  Yet, we are still thankful, it hasn't affected us going down the road, it just may cause us to have to spend a lot of money and has caused us to alter our plans completely until sometime in July.

First problem was the leak in the drain pipe that I shared in the last post, then our slide lock broke.  Jan and I have a routine when we leave, she starts up the coach while I unhook our electric, water, and sewer, and usually by the time I get that done, the motorhome is up on its air suspension and the slides are ready to come in.  When I see it is clear I indicate to her to retract a slide, and as she was I noticed the slide lock was broken and got her to stop.  Now only our front driver side slide has locks, one on the front and one on the rear.  There is a lever at the bottom that hits a plate on the sidewall and with a pulley system it extends the locking arm on the top to hold the slide in when you go down the road.

A closeup of the lever with the plastic cover off

At this point in time, we checked and felt we could just close the slide anyway and it wouldn't hurt anything one time, but it needed to be fixed or removed soon.  So we continued, and have since removed the lock, and are operating right now with only one.  Unfortunately it did internal damage to it and will have to be replaced, and further, unfortunately, the company that made them is no longer manufacturing them.  One place has several pairs, yes, they are sold in pairs, left in the whole world, so we broke down and ordered a replacement set for a lot of money.  This was the easy problem.

The next day, as we pulled in the slides, I noticed the passenger side front slide was much lower than normal.  Since it was pouring at the time, I decided we would take a look see later.  Now I need to explain, this slide is what they call a raised floor slide, the slide mechanism pulls it in and out and is supposed to support most of the weight of the slide, then the slide bottom in our case rides over 3--9" rollers that are mounted in the floor of the coach under the slide, and on 2 other 5" rollers that are mounted in the bottom of our galley cabinets that roll over the floor of the coach.  If you have been reading my blog you have seen pictures of our roller woes when we replaced the floor several times.  Now Monaco when they built our coach only put 3 rollers in the floor that go from the front of the slide to about the 2/3's point down the slide, so the weight is not evenly distributed, the slack is supposed to be taken up by the 2 rollers mounted in the cabinet bottoms.  I know, a lot of info but important to the situation.  We arrived in Longview, TX on our way east and I went under into the basement to see what was what, yes, before we attempted to extend the slide and found 2 of the 3 outside rollers had broken.

Look closely and you can see where the rollers in question are

I will include a few more pictures to try to explain these rollers.  They are adjusted up and down with a single bolt in the middle that moves the saddle the roller spins on, there is a locking nut that holds it in its adjusted position, and here's where it's really important, a nut welded to the case is what allows the bolt to move the roller, it had broken free on 2 of the 3 rollers, so the slide was sitting down on the opening in the side of the coach, NOT GOOD!

This shows the similar roller that is mounted in the cabinet bottom
but you can see the adjusting bolt, the lock nut just below the head,
and the nut that is black that is welded to the case

Another view, here you can easily see the setup, and the black nut welded to the case

And one more

Now so far this is bad, but big deal, replace the bad rollers and proceed, ha.  When I look up at the bottom of the rollers, I can see no way of getting them out, no mounting bolts, nothing except the adjusting bolt and the broken out nut!

Now, there is really only 1 place in the whole USA that I would trust to fix this, and that is Elite in Oregon, and in the case of a real emergency I would go to Alliance Coach in Florida.  I call Elite and have a long conversation about what to do, and find it very interesting they say they have never heard of this before!  But yes, the entire slide would have to be removed to replace those rollers.  That folks is a huge and very expensive, time consuming deal, so I hang up to regroup, then call Alliance and they confirm the same solution and also allow as they have never heard of this happening before.  That is a hard thing to hear when you obviously have HAD it happen to you.

Look close and you can see one of the broken rollers
You can see the nut popped out of its weld rendering the adjusting
nut useless, and you can also see there is no way to get it out of there.

Well, I get to thinking, could that nut be welded back in?  I get on the internet and find a welding and fabrication shop in Longview and give them a call, it's 4pm on Friday to put this in perspective, and they say sure they would take a look, but probably not til Monday, then they ask where I am.  When I tell them they say, wow, you are only 2 miles away from us, we'll be right over to take a look!  And they show in a few minutes, take a look, confer for a bit and say they think they can fix it without setting the motorhome on fire:-)  The campground won't let us do it there, so Jan and I move the coach over to their place.  It is a big place, kind of muddy, but everyone seems very professional and they jump right on our job.

Getting set up

Tacking one nut in place

And then the other right above the fuel tank

After, they say it is as good if not better than new.  We tentatively raise the slide just enough to clear the bottom and so far it works, but the $64,000 question is for how long?

So Jan and I stopped and tried to contemplate all the ramifications of this, what should we do, where should we go?  We decided that we felt confident the place to repair this was Elite in OR, but we were planning on heading to Buffalo and PA then west to NM, CO, and MT.  

So Jan and I have spent literally hours changing, cancelling, altering reservations, and routing to accomplish this.  The very soonest Elite can take us is June 17th, but we are making a U-turn and heading west.  They are expecting us, and we have our fingers crossed our repair will hold until we get there.  There is a small chance, hope I'm not jinxing it now, that with an adjustment of the slide mechanism to relieve a lot of the weight on the rollers, and if the new welds are as good as they said, we may be able to avoid the 25-40 hours of labor to have to pull the slide.  So cross your fingers with us as we daintily proceed with our new westward plans.