On a brand new GT5 the bed slide has had binding problems since the RV arrived at the dealer. When extending or retracting the bed it appeared that the rear side was the problem. We could hear the motors noticeably slow down at points, indicating they were under a heavy load. We could see the rear side "jump" a bit when it broke free. The slide usually was moving a bit asymmetrically because on extension or retraction the front side would "lead" the rear side. This occurred even after the autoprogrammable stops were reset.
The tech and I found a deep gouge in the bottom of angle aluminum (or steel) at the bottom rear of the bed slide. This angle piece runs along the carpet at the aft side of the bed. (These angle pieces comprise the four corners of the slide "box".) Running a hand over the carpet in the area where the gouge occurred revealed that several staples in that area were sticking up but we did not find anything definitive. We went outside and put a piece of blue painters tape on the bottom of the angle, covering the gouge. We wanted to see if the tape ripped, meaning the problem was still present (because we did not know when the gouge had occurred). The tape ripped when we ran the slide in and out.
When the tech and I went back inside we found that the slide had just ripped out a strip of the carpeting, the part where the gouge seemed to occur. We removed the mattress and started opening panels to see if the slide was dragging on a protruding screw head or similar piece of metal but only staples were found (some were ripped out when the carpet was ripped out).
We replaced the blue painters tape and ran the slide. With that section of the carpeting "removed" the tape did not tear this time and the bed slide now moves in and out smoothly with almost no change in the motor sound. It does not have the weight of the mattress on the bed platform but that should be a small incremental increase in the weight and that additional weight is also spread over the entire bed platform anyways.
Please also see the picture that looks like a whiteboard. This actually is the underside of the moving portion of the bed. You can see numerous gouges in that material from the multiple staples that were sticking up.
Hopefully they can get this resolved in short order so we can actually take the motorhome home. It's been there a month resolving various problems.
The good news is that the motors on that Power Gear SlimRack slide mechanism are powerful enough to rip carpet.
I found several other staples sticking up, many under the mattress. I'd suggest running your hand across your carpet and hammering any down that you see.
On the one picture showing the gouge, that nut is part of the rear-most bed roller. We also found that when the slide is within 15" of closed that roller stops turning. That means something is lifting that side of the slide up. It's probably a sixteenth of an inch or more when fully retracted. The Lippert installation manual says the rollers must fully support the weight of the slide. Yes, that is yet another problem. <sigh>
Ray
Linear Mode
