Re: WARNING - slide out motors come loose
Posted: June 15th, 2016, 8:14 pm
Thanks for the heads up! I'm going to check mine in the morning.
The Lippert slide out system on our 2015 RLS has 2 drive motors. They are SUPPOSED to be held in place with a screw to prevent them from coming loose. During our 2 month road trip, one motor came loose. It must have been from driving on bumpy enough roads to push the motor up, out of position. This meant that during operation, the motor simply spun in place and didn't drive that side of the slide out. Since we didn't know - we over drove the motor to the point some of the delicate wires to the circuit board pulled away.
After a number of YouTube videos and wanting to avoid the 2 week delay of buying a $200 motor, we used a soldering gun to re-attach the wires to the circuit board. The motor was slid back into position, and a screw was driven just barely over the top of the motor housing to hold the motor into place. The slide then worked normally.
A few weeks and a few thousand miles later the other side failed. Luckily this time we knew what it was and didn't rip the wires from the motor. We pushed the motor back into position, then drove a screw just above the housing to hold that side into place. The slide worked perfectly for the rest of the road trip, another 6000 miles or so.
We had no warning the motors would work themselves loose. They are supposed to have that pin holding them in place. No idea who's fault it was, either the factory or the knuckle heads from Camping World who supposedly repaired the slide a year ago. We could find no evidence there ever was a pin holding them in place. No hole where the pin should have been.
My suggestion - Read the Lippert instructions to see where to look for the set pin and make sure you have one installed over each motor. Be aware this type is the IN WALL slide out and not the other type. http://www.amlrv.com/site/wp-content/up ... erride.pdf Page 3 shows a very bad picture of the motor retention screw.
This video is pretty good but also glosses over the motor retention screw. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DviEbWT3lUo
This video does a better job of showing the retention screw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xojUdPDWNS0