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HWH Bedroom slide failure

Yahoo Message Number: 68280
For those of you with single cylinder HWH bedroom slides, you may want to inspect the the cylinder attach bolts. I didn't nor did I have any warning and I suffered a catastrophic failure of the bolt and cylinder slide tube. We were in Northern California last year and the wife was retracting the slide but she no want to come in. It didn't take long to establish that it wasn't a hydraulic failure but rather mechanical however I was unable to discover the cause. Its a good thing I knew in advance that there is a winch under the bed platform to retract the slide in an event such as this. BTW, that winch is not in my CC documentation. Good write up on the living room slide though. When we got down to San Diego, we had Holland RV look at it.
Good people. The mechanic attempted to explain what had failed and prefaced it by saying he never saw one torn up as bad as this. This don't sound good.
I have attached pictures of the slide so you can see what bolts to check. I have the engineering drawings of the slide mechanism and unless you are the designer or someone who has worked on one, it is extremely difficult to visualize how it works, or at least it was for me and my buddies. The cylinder is attached by 2- 5/16 x 1/2 flat head Allen bolts inside a 5 x 5 square tube about 48" long. The tube in turn is mounted inside the center slide frame. One end is mounted on a frame that is bolted to the bus floor and the other end is attached to the lower wall of the bus. The rod is attached to the outside wall of the slide. Since the cylinder is now fixed, the slide moves in and out by the rod retracting and extending. The center beam slides around the square tube which is fixed. You cannot see the cylinder as it is completely enclosed by the square tube. One can see the bottom of the square tube using a mirror. What happened in my case is that one bolt pulled out of the cylinder attach point and the other wallowed out the hole of the square tube and pulled through its side. I found the bolt that striped its threads on the floor but of course I had no idea where it belonged. The pictures show the openings on the side where the Allen bolt can be inspected. I'm not sure if the bolts can be inspected without removing the bed platform, however I will update this when its totally assembled. The mechanic spent considerable time with HWH in trying to identify part numbers for the failed components and in the end it turned out HWH would have to fabricate the square tube. 10-14 days and about $1000. Add in labor at $125/hr and well you guess. I thanked them paid my $130 bill and left for Florida.

I was totally prepared to bring it to a qualified HWH RV dealership, however my best friend and I removed the cylinder to see if we could fix it ourselves. My buddy who can weld, cut out a 2"x 2" piece of the tube on both sides of the elongated hole and welded in a thicker 1/4 " piece. Redrilled and countersunk the holes and reworked the cylinder and used new fine thread bolts. Its better and stronger than before.
The failure was due to several reasons. The countersunk hole is a very weak attach point and over time the bolts wore through the side of the 1/8 " tube wall. The cylinder depended entirely on the shear strength of the bolt as the tube is larger than the cylinder.
If you have an older coach like mine, and use the slide frequently as we do you may wish to look into this.
photos/album/1270419666/pic/list?mode=slide&order=ordinal&start=1&count=20&dir=asc#
Ed McManus............'02 Intrigue......11361

Re: HWH Bedroom slide failure

Reply #1 –
Yahoo Message Number: 68290
I had a similar failure at the point of Attachment to the outer wall an incomplete Weld It is a unique design Mine was covered By an HWH warranty Bob. 06 intrigue 12047

Re: HWH Bedroom slide failure

Reply #2 –
Yahoo Message Number: 68295
Probably unrelated to the problem but interesting that there are two coach numbers on the slide parts.
...
Dick May
2002 Intrigue, #11438, towing a
2014 Jeep Gr Cherokee ecoDiesel

Re: HWH Bedroom slide failure

Reply #3 –
Yahoo Message Number: 68314
Ed, my Intrigue is close to yours in serial number so you got my attention. Before I do anything I want to understand what you feel can be done to prevent this problem. Some time ago I hinged my bed platform to create some storage under the bed so I have easy access to the problem area. What do you suggest I look for and what do you suggest I do as a means of prevention? Obviously I should make sure the flat-head bolts are snug but what else do you specifically recommend? You referred to a "countersunk hole" in your write-up being a weak attach point but I don't see such a countersunk hole in the photos - all I see is a broken bolt shank below the countersunk head and two elongated slots in the aluminum tubing? And ... are there two such bolts on each side of the aluminum tube or just one on each side? Thanks for the heads up and any follow-up info that you can provide.

Steve Bufty, Intrigue #11382

Ed McManus wrote:

For those of you with single cylinder HWH bedroom slides, you may want to inspect the cylinder attach bolts. I didn't nor did I have any warning and I suffered a catastrophic failure of the bolt and cylinder slide tube. We were in Northern California last year and the wife was retracting the slide but she no want to come in. It didn't take long to establish that it wasn't a hydraulic failure but rather mechanical however I was unable to discover the cause. Its a good thing I knew in advance that there is a winch under the bed platform to retract the slide in an event such as this. BTW, that winch is not in my CC documentation. Good write up on the living room slide though. When we got down to San Diego , we had Holland RV look at it.
Good people. The mechanic attempted to explain what had failed and prefaced it by saying he never saw one torn up as bad as this. This don't sound good.
I have attached pictures of the slide so you can see what bolts to check. I have the engineering drawings of the slide mechanism and unless you are the designer or someone who has worked on one, it is extremely difficult to visualize how it works, or at least it was for me and my buddies. The cylinder is attached by 2- 5/16 x 1/2 flat head Allen bolts inside a 5 x 5 square tube about 48" long. The tube in turn is mounted inside the center slide frame. One end is mounted on a frame that is bolted to the bus floor and the other end is attached to the lower wall of the bus. The rod is attached to the outside wall of the slide. Since the cylinder is now fixed, the slide moves in and out by the rod retracting and extending. The center beam slides around the square tube which is fixed. You cannot see the cylinder as it is completely enclosed by the square tube. One can see the bottom of the square tube using a mirror. What happened in my case is that one bolt pulled out of the cylinder attach point and the other wallowed out the hole of the square tube and pulled through its side. I found the bolt that striped its threads on the floor but of course I had no idea where it belonged. The pictures show the openings on the side where the Allen bolt can be inspected. I'm not sure if the bolts can be inspected without removing the bed platform, however I will update this when its totally assembled. The mechanic spent considerable time with HWH in trying to identify part numbers for the failed components and in the end it turned out HWH would have to fabricate the square tube. 10-14 days and about $1000. Add in labor at $125/hr and well you guess. I thanked them paid my $130 bill and left for Florida .

I was totally prepared to bring it to a qualified HWH RV dealership, however my best friend and I removed the cylinder to see if we could fix it ourselves. My buddy who can weld, cut out a 2"x 2" piece of the tube on both sides of the elongated hole and welded in a thicker 1/4 " piece. Redrilled and countersunk the holes and reworked the cylinder and used new fine thread bolts. Its better and stronger than before.
The failure was due to several reasons. The countersunk hole is a very weak attach point and over time the bolts wore through the side of the 1/8 " tube wall. The cylinder depended entirely on the shear strength of the bolt as the tube is larger than the cylinder.
If you have an older coach like mine, and use the slide frequently as we do you may wish to look into this.
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/Country- Coach-Owners/ photos/album/ 1270419666/ pic/list? mode=slide& order=ordinal& start=1&count= 20&dir=asc#
Ed McManus..... .......'02 Intrigue.... ..11361

Re: HWH Bedroom slide failure

Reply #4 –
Yahoo Message Number: 68316
The Allen bolt or cap screw you see in the picture is not broken, its the one that pulled through the side of the square tubing. That is the actual length. I put that in the picture to demonstrate the angle of the countersink. Its beside the new bolt that is fastened to the cylinder through the countersunk hole in the square tubing. The elongated hole allows access to the bolt when the slide is either fully retracted or extended. Of course, there are 4 openings. They use a countersunk hole and bolt to allow clearance as the square tube sits inside the slide frame. The only thing you can do is to ensure the 2 flathead screws are secure and if they were not, make sure that they didn't enlarge the hole. Yon cannot substitute the screw for a regular head bolt and washer as the head would interfere with the frame slide. I know its difficult to visualize how the slide works, but once you see it yourself, it will become more oblivious. Just remember that the cylinder (which you cannot see) is attached to the square tubing using those 2 cap screws which in turn is mounted inside the aluminum beam of the room slide. HWH has the drawings on their web site, but they are very confusing.
They also have a video showing the slide in action. There is also a type of brochure which may be helpful

Ed McManus................'02 Intrigue....11361

Re: HWH Bedroom slide failure

Reply #5 –
Yahoo Message Number: 68322
Thanks Ed! I checked my two allen head screws and they were tight.

Larry, 03 Allure, 30856

Re: HWH Bedroom slide failure

Reply #6 –
Yahoo Message Number: 68344
It probably goes without saying but if the screw was loose, using Loctite is about the only way to secure it. There is no way to use lockwashers.

Ed McManus....'02 Intrigue...11361
 

Re: HWH Bedroom slide failure

Reply #7 –
Yahoo Message Number: 68346
True. And, another thought is that the scews were never torqued during manufacturing or a previous repair?

Larry, 03 Allure, 30856