We awoke this morning for my usual Sunday breakfast: veggie scrambled eggs (heavy on the veggies), fruit salad with yogurt and some toast with peanut butter and jam. (By the way, I found some peanut ‘spread’ that has no calories. But I kind of thought that it still might taste like peanuts and, since it doesn’t, I’m a bit disappointed and I’ll probably not buy it again.) After breakfast, Gary was going to work on the supplemental brake problem that we discovered on Friday. The museum opens at 1:00 and we were going to be there. I took the opportunity to get the picture of the rising sun reflected in our RV.
When Gary went out to work on the brake, he looked up to check the RV over, as he usually does, and noticed:
First, there’s supposed to be an awning over this slide extending from the round black cover on the left to the RV on the right, not blue sky. Second, there is a strange strand of cable just hanging there. Hmmm. That brake will have to wait, we’ve got a bigger problem here. So, my stud muffin gets out his ladder and his tools and begins to noodle the problem. Then he asks me to pull in the slide. I push the ‘In’ button and no go. I try again, still the same. On the other side of the slide, we’ve got 7 stands of wire wrapped around to form a cable which extends from the corner of the slide into the RV itself. On this side, we’ve got 3 strands extending from the slide corner to the RV, 1 strand hanging here - where are the other 3?
Oh, yeah, sure. They’re all sheared off, kinked up and wrapped around each other in a tight little ball inside the slide, out of sight and almost out of reach. No wonder, we’re having problems.
OUR SLIDE WILL NOT GO IN OR OUT.
If it doesn’t go out, that means that I have no access to my clothing in a closet in the slide. No big deal. But it it doesn’t go IN - it is mighty difficult to drive down the highway with a 2’ slide sticking out of your RV. Even more difficult to drive through town on the outside lane where the telephone poles, stop signs etc. stick out. We’ve got to get it in.
If it doesn’t go out, that means that I have no access to my clothing in a closet in the slide. No big deal. But it it doesn’t go IN - it is mighty difficult to drive down the highway with a 2’ slide sticking out of your RV. Even more difficult to drive through town on the outside lane where the telephone poles, stop signs etc. stick out. We’ve got to get it in.
Gary took a closer look at the situation to see if he could determine the cause. Sure enough. At the factory, they had drilled a hole for the cables to go through the metal but they drilled it too far to one side. That means that the cable has been rubbing on the sharp metal edge of the hole every time we opened or closed the slide. And, here’s the result. Look on the left of the hole here and you can see where the cables have been rubbing. That metal isn’t supposed to look like that. Nor is the cable supposed to look the way it does. Those strands are supposed to be all wrapped together.
But knowing what caused the problem is one thing and it doesn't help us with our main problem - GETING THAT SLIDE IN.
But knowing what caused the problem is one thing and it doesn't help us with our main problem - GETING THAT SLIDE IN.
And we worked about 2 1/2 hours to do it. First, Gary spent at least 2 hours trying to pull the cables out from inside the RV where they had bunched up, straighten them and pull them out as straight as possible so that I could operate the slide and get it in. Below is what the broken strands of the cable looked like after he had struggled to pull them out of the metal hole and straightened them. Imagine how kinked and twisted they must have been wrapped around each other before he pulled them out.
Next, I stood at the slide panel inside the RV and pushed the ‘In’ button in short bursts to bring the slide in. Gary stood on a ladder outside with pliers clamping the twisted cable strands to hold them out as the RV slide came in. Sl-o-o-o-w-wly but surely, we got the slide in. WHEW. At least now we can roll on down the road. If we hadn’t gotten the slide in, I’m not sure we would have found an RV mechanic experienced enough with this kind of slide in this small town. We think we’ll have much better luck in Mesa, AZ where there are loads of RV dealers.
Gary has a marvelous array of tools. Me - I have a kitchen knife. But, don’t tell my stud muffin - he’s be a bit displeased. Ya gotta have the right tool for the job he says. But, I did have the ‘right’ tool I say since I solved one problem: while Gary was working on the cable strands, I was able at least to pry some panels off so we could see the motor which runs the slides. Not much help today since our problem is that one of the cables is broken into 6 separate smaller cables, 3 of which are still attached to the slide but 4 of which are all twisted and knotted together. But now we know where the motor is and can access it if we need to.
Obviously we saw the plan for visiting the museum 'slide' away from us since we worked until about 4:00 on our problem. BUT - we got the slide in. In to stay until we get this problem fixed, in Mesa where we land on October 1. However, will that stop our plans for the next week or so? Not a chance. We can visit the museum tomorrow and still do some of the things we’d planned for our trip down to Mesa. We’ll just have a few more challenges and some piles of clothes strewn around the RV.
Such is life on the road. But, hey, everyone who has a house has problems: one day the refrigerator breaks, or maybe the washer. Sometimes, the driveway cement cracks. Sometimes, you’ve got termites. We all have maintenance issues. You just have to solve them and move on.
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