My Charleston Slide Again..

[gmcnitt]

If you have read some of my posts in this forum, you will see I have had my share of issues since buying this unit brand new in 2009. Well my last trip out the kitchen slide broke again. This time the other gear and shaft bent. While researching I see that Equalizer systems has a kit now, that trashes the gears and shafts and adds another hydraulic cylinder and several control valves....the way it should have been built in the first place!

I can fix it by replacing the shaft and gear for about $120, or buy this kit for $670.

I hate to say it, but I think its time to look at other rigs....there seems to be no end to different things breaking each and every trip. I do my own maintenance, its just a lot of hours of work in the hot TX weather.....

It is sad when you pay a quarter of a million dollars for a coach, only have about 35,000 miles on it, and you want to get rid of it due to all the issues.......

[jberndt]

I have a new 2014 purchased 6 months ago, Bedroom and living room slide cables have broke - so far....

[gmcnitt]

Hope you can do maintenance yourself......there is no way I could enjoy this hobby if I had to go to the dealer for all the issues I have had.....

I also had to replace the cables on the bedroom wardrobe slide....got the kit on Amazon, only about a half day repair.

Also I ordered the shaft assembly for my kitchen slide, the “tech support staff” promised me the correct part. Of course when it came in it was the wrong one….luckily I was able to cut the shaft about 2 inches to make it match the broken one, and re-drill the center hole to hold the adapter. Installed it last weekend.

I then went ahead and tackled moving the slide roller that was put in the wrong place at the factory. I do not have the machinery or jig needed to remove the slide, so I ripped out everything under the sink, cut a hole in the floor to locate and provide access to the 6 screws holding down the roller. Jacked up the slide, removed the roller, drilled new holes to move it over 3 inches (so it would roll on the aluminum frame, not the 1/8" sheet of plywood) and screwed in back down. Filled holes with great stuff, reassembled unit.

My wife says the kitchen slide has NEVER sounded or worked so good......I used some gorilla tape outside to try and cover up the mess made for the roller being in the wrong place, so far it looks good and is holding up fine.

Kind of fun fixing these things myself.......almost ready to go to Florida in September now.....rig back together and washed, now I need to get her waxed!