Slideout mishap

[alien_scones]

While pulling the slide in I failed to notice the bathroom door was open and preventing the slide from coming in all the way. At first I thought the slow grinding was due to a weak battery, but then I noticed the slide was seriously askew.

The pics should show the damage. A twisted and bent driveshaft.

I guess I'm lucky the shaft didn't completely break. Had to tow the camper back to storage with the slide out 5 inches. Next stop RV service but they are still weeks behind and other campouts coming up in two weeks.

The slide motor still works but I suspect I seriously shortened its life.

I wish the bathroom door shattered instead of this.

[chuckster57]

Ouch!!! Just take the shaft off, go to the big box hardware store and look for square tubing. Cut to lengths and put back together.

Sounds a bit too easy, but if you can find the steel tubing, the fix is simple.

[Propilot11]

Don't feel too bad. I just purchased a Cougar with the same design "Interference" door.
While the previous owners were having it detailed, the crew did the same thing, however a broken door handle and the jamb side of the door separated from the floor seems to be the extent of the damage. Good luck

[Dave W]

I agree with Chuckster and using the square tubing. Any local steel supplier - I use Metals Supermarket locally and at a much lower price. All you need is an electric drill, a few wrenches and a hacksaw plus a tape measure.

[sourdough]

Man, I feel for you. Hopefully the fix outlined above will get you going in short order.

On a side note; on our first trip with this camper we went to FL from TX. Our 2nd day out was from Vicksburg, MS to Mobile. We passed through Jackson, MS with some of the worst, frost heaved? concrete sections I had encountered. I shut it down to about 45-50 because the heaves were bucking us all over the place. When we got to Mobile I went about leveling the trailer and setting it up. I always use the switches for the slides vs the remote so I went inside and started to deploy the slides. I started the bedroom and in short order my wife started yelling at me to stop (she was peering in the bedroom door to check things out). Seems the crappy road had jarred the sliding bathroom door to the bedroom out of its tracks, knocked off the end of the facia and stop bar and fell out right against the interior of the side of the slide and right behind the front edges of the slide. I was just about to compress the door between the outside wall and the front edge of the slide - thankfully she saw it Long story to just emphasize the importance of checking all those "intruders" in the interior that can cause you grief.

[notanlines]

Scones, it looks to me like you have a Saturday project. See how much smarter you'll be when this is all over? None of us here have ever done anything like that before.......well, there is the guy who dropped the bug spray down the bathroom commode, and then there's the guy from Memphis who opened the slide into the concrete power post at Yellowstone (that would be me)
Keep us up on your repairs. That way we all learn.

[flybouy]

Many of us have been there. Our unit has two slides separated by a double door storage cabinet. You can't see the doors when they are open, can't get past the slide to look. If you go thru the bathroom the interior door opens to the slide so no view from there. Well you guessed it, one rough road and upon sliding out it caught a door and ripped it off the hinges. Fortunately it only pulled the screws out of the hinges. A few wooden tooth picks and some glue and fixed in a few min.
After that incident the simple solution was to put a Velcro strap thru the door handles. Having earned a pilots licence many years ago got me accustomed to using check lists. May sound silly, but it's easy to get distracted by a chatty camper, children, dogs etc. or getting CRS (can't remember sh...stuff).
A printed "pre-flight" includes checking this door after that.

[Barbell]

We learned the hard way (don't ask) about checking clearances before opening or closing slides. Also, my better half's only job during hook-up or unhook is to keep the chatty neighbors away from me. It works so far.

[footz1941]

Had a brand new IPad left on the divan. Bounced off into the floor flange of living room slide crushed it when extending. No damage to slide out but IPad was toast

[AbHDToyHauler]

Well......I can feel for what happened to you . We have a Fuzion that came with little stools for sitting around kitchen counter. Wife brought one out to show me how someone could sit and eat at counter. She tucked it into the corner. I walked in... Did a visual (not as good as I have now learned to) and didn't see that little stool. Same thing , outside pushing button it's groaning. THen a crunch. OH OH .. It crushed stool and put a crack into my counter wood. Good thing they are fairly noise proof as the swearing was quite profuse. Hard lesson but I fixed damage. Adjusted slide and learned to specifically walk each area completely and make sure. ! A newbie mistake but could have been worse.

[Duramike]

My story is not as bad as some others but still worth passing on as our dealer got a kick out of it. After a thorough walk thru we brought our new 5er home. The dealer is about an hour drive from our home. Arriving at the house we unhooked and decided to open the slides to see how she traveled. When opening the largest slide an audible alarm kept going off just before it was completely extended. DW and I were in a panic. We couldn’t remember any mention of an alarm in the slide outs. I called the dealer and they had no idea what I was talking about. “There are no alarms on the slides.” I spent a bit of time with the manual. Nada. I decided to try it one last time. When nearly open the alarm stared again. A loud beeping sound that would wake a sound sleeper. I pulled it back in just a bit. The alarm stopped. Looking up with a puzzled look on my face, I saw 2 tiny screws in the ceiling with nothing attached. Grabbed a ladder and started feeling around in top of the slide. Sure enough there it was. The smoke detector had fallen on top of the slide, situated so that every time the slide was nearly open the test button was depressed.