Quote:
Originally Posted by jtyphoid
I just finished replacing the floor of the front BR slide on our new to us 2009 Raptor 3612DS. It took me two full days, but I was taking my time to make certain that I didn't make any costly mistakes.
The leak in my case was improper caulking on the bottom piece of the trim that goes around the outside face of the slide. Rainwater hitting the slide out was able to run down the face and continue on underneath the trim straight to the OSB floor.
Edited to add that it was two days of actual work. There was also time spent on the computer looking for ideas on how to approach the job. I found a youtube video that showed the basic procedure, but I modified it some to make it a bit easier.
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I had a request via PM for any tips or tricks for replacing the slide-out floor, so here goes:
First, I found this video series on youtube that was very helpful:
Because the bedroom slide out is much smaller and lighter than the one in the video, I chose to support the slide out in the open position using a different approach. This was much easier to do than it will be to describe. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture. The approach was to "pin" the slide-out in the open position by inserting bracing between the vertical flanges on the slide out and the outer wall on the trailer (where the flanges contact the wall when the slide-out is closed).
With the slide out open, cut two 2x4s to a length equal to the height of the body of the slide out (not including the flanges). Position one on the inside of the side flange, with the bottom of the 2x4 about 4 inches above the bottom of the body of the slide. It's important that these be at least 4 inches above the bottom of the slide out or they'll be in the way as you work on the bottom of the slide out. This will also make the tops stick up about 4 inches above the top of the slide. We'll use that in a minute. Position the 2nd 2x4 up next to the body of the trailer at about the same height. Next, measure and cut two short 2x4s to wedge horizontally between the two vertical 2x4s. One will go at near the top and the other will be at the bottom. They don't need to wedge the slide open very tightly, so it's better if the horizontal pieces are slightly short instead of slightly long. You'll also need to build the same structure for the other side of the slide out.
Now back to why you want the vertical pieces to stick up above the roof of the slide out - I cut two more 2x4s that ran across the roof - with one close to the body and one close to the flange - and screwed them into the vertical 2x4s to "hang" the bracing so that it couldn't fall out of place. In fact, I cut the roof pieces first and "hung" the vertical pieces so that I didn't have to have helpers holding them in place while I measured and cut the horizontal pieces.
Whew! A lot of words for something fairly simple.
Now that the slide out is braced in the open position, the real work can begin.
1) Remove the mattress
2) Remove the two bed platform pieces
3) Remove the "floor" of the under-bed storage space
4) Remove the bed frame
5) Remove the bolts connecting the hydraulic ram plate from the angle iron that is bolted to slide out floor.
6) Retract the ram just a little bit to verify that the bracing is keeping the slide out open. Check outside again to make certain that the bracing didn't move when it took the load. If everything looks good, retract the ram the rest of the way to clear the slide out floor as much as possible.
7) Moving back outside, remove the bottom two flange corner caps.
8) Remove the bottom flange
9) Remove the angle iron at the bottom of both sides of the slide out
10) Carefully peel off the plastic sheet that is glued to the underside of the floor of the slide-out. This extends slightly into the trailer, so you may need a long putty knife of the like to get the adhesive to release. Try not to damage this, because you will need to reuse it.
11) Remove all of the screws that hold the slide out to the bottom of the outer and side walls of the slide out. On my trailer, there were two screws that I couldn't get to because they were about even with the side wall of the trailer. I used a reciprocating saw to cut them from the inside of the trailer.
12) Remove the bolts that hold the angle iron to the floor and remove the angle iron.
13) You should now be able to pull the floor out from the outside.
14) Hopefully, your floor is still in good enough shape to measure the thickness, length, width, and placement of the holes for the angle iron. Use that information to prepare a new floor. I used plywood instead of OSB for a replacement floor.
15) Carefully inspect the outer and side walls of the slide out for water damage. Also, inspect to find out how the water got to the floor in the first place. In my case, the caulk where the bottom flange contacted the outer wall of the slide out had failed, so water running down the outer wall was going under the flange and down to the floor.
16) Clean everything that you'll be reusing. Cleaning off the old silicone caulk was the most tedious part of the job, and probably the most important. Because new silicone caulk won't stick to old silicone, you have to clean very thoroughly so that you can be leak free.
Now just reverse the process to install the replacement floor and put everything back together.
I had to replace most of the screws and bolts due to rust. I didn't bother with putting carpet on the new floor. You can paint it if you want it to match or just leave it raw. It's not very visible after the bed is installed.
I also used butyl rubber tape instead of caulk tape wherever caulk tape had previously been used.
Bedroom Slide
Linear Mode
