SOLVED!! Slide Skid Replacement - Questions.
Reply #5 –
Yahoo Message Number: 111794
I was able replace the slide skid myself by jacking up the slide from the outside. The hardest part was determining how far out the slide needed to be in order to access the bolts and how high to jack up the slide in order to remove the Nylon/Plastic block. The slide needs to be run all the way out and then back in about 1" to an 1 1/2". You need to jack the slide up about 2" maybe a little more in order to have space to remove the nylon block once you have unbolted it. The bolts are actually self tapping fine thread screws. Apparently they just shot the screws holding the nylon block down through the plywood subfloor into the steel coach frame. The downside of this is that the self tapping screws can loosen over time and back out to where the head of the screw extends out of their countersunk cavity to where the slide rails slide over the top of the screw head, catching and dragging the slide and after time, cutting a channel into the slide skid.
To jack the slide I positioned a floor jack under the slide and placed a vertical and horizontal 4x4 on top of the floor jack in a T shape along the underside of the slide at the corner of the base of the slide and the front facing wall (I was replacing the front skid). I jacked as little as possible, repeatedly checking to see if I had the clearance I needed to remove the Nylon Skid. In the end it was about 2 1/2". The slide is not made to be jacked, so the least amount you can jack it, the better. Once the skid was exposed it was relatively simple to replace the block. I have the block currently replaced with a new one but one of the screw holes is stripped (probably during the build and probably contributed to the problem). I have ordered a very slightly larger diameter screw to see if I can tap it into the existing hole.
Why is this explanation important to a CC owner? Because (in my opinion) because of the variety of slide designs and their relatively complicated engineering, MOST RV repair places are wary of working on them and tend to over-engineer the problem. A couple of places I called cautioned that they would have to remove the slide and that it would cost thousands. This was a 1 hour fix requiring tools that any small repair shop would have. Even if you had to buy or rent a floor jack, they aren't very expensive.
Jim and Jona Seifert
jim.jona.seifert@... 2007 Country Coach Intrigue Ovation 530 42' Coach #12150
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