Slideout problem

[JohnB]

Originally Posted by roger66ogden

Hi All. Did this ever get straightened out? I have the same slide setup as Charlie. My slide just barely scuffs the rug on the dinette end. Also when my slide is extended out the trim board is not even end to end and top to bottom. The slide is even outside from the camper to inner edge of the outside slide wall and the slide floor is the same distance from the opposite wall on both ends. The seal works and doesn't leak. The slide retracts evenly and closes flush to the camper wall.

Hi Roger,

Not exactly understanding your wording on the trim board, but willing to help if needed.

Sunline changed the slide drive systems around year 2000 through 2003 time frame. From Barker Manufacturing, then to Dewald (then bought by Power Gear) and then to the Lippert system.

All 3 systems work well, but all 3 have different mechanical setups on how they work. To help you better, (if you need help) tell us this as a start.

- Model year of the Sunline,
- Manufacturing date of your camper, (this can be on the VIN tag is you can still read it, front left of the camper, Or by sign off dates on the quality control document on the owners manual if you have one. )
- If your manual states the brand of the slide drive system. (some manuals have this and some don't.)

Pictures: (as a start)
- Outside - Need picture of the slide drive mechanism, outside, under the camper floor that extends and retracts the slide room. Take several, need the motor drive, the slide arm ends when the slide is out, a full width pic of the slide motor drive that connects the front slide arm to the rear slide arm.

- Inside- Pictures of the slide floor at the carpet area inside the camper with the slide retracted in and extended out.

- Pics of the problem area you are having or area of concern.

From this, we can tell what brand/vintage slide drive you have and a start on what the problem may be. We can go from there.

Hope this helps

John

[roger66ogden]

Originally Posted by JohnB

Hi Roger,

Not exactly understanding your wording on the trim board, but willing to help if needed.

Hi John the trim board I mentioned is the molding/finished edge on the inside edge of the slide out. On the rearward the seal is barely touching the camper wall and the forward the seal is pretty much totally in contact with the camper wall.

Sunline changed the slide drive systems around year 2000 through 2003 time frame. From Barker Manufacturing, then to Dewald (then bought by Power Gear) and then to the Lippert system.

All 3 systems work well, but all 3 have different mechanical setups on how they work. To help you better, (if you need help) tell us this as a start.

- Model year of the Sunline,
- Manufacturing date of your camper, (this can be on the VIN tag is you can still read it, front left of the camper, Or by sign off dates on the quality control document on the owners manual if you have one. )
- If your manual states the brand of the slide drive system. (some manuals have this and some don't.)

Pictures: (as a start)
- Outside - Need picture of the slide drive mechanism, outside, under the camper floor that extends and retracts the slide room. Take several, need the motor drive, the slide arm ends when the slide is out, a full width pic of the slide motor drive that connects the front slide arm to the rear slide arm.

I attached multiple pictures of the slide mechanism.

- Inside- Pictures of the slide floor at the carpet area inside the camper with the slide retracted in and extended out.

- Pics of the problem area you are having or area of concern.

From this, we can tell what brand/vintage slide drive you have and a start on what the problem may be. We can go from there.

The odd thing is the slide when fully extended is out the same distance from the camper wall and the slide floor is out the same amount at both ends from the interior wall. That's what baffles me as to why the seal and trim board would be so far off.

Hope this helps

John

Thanks Roger

[roger66ogden]

This picture didn't load. This and the last in the previous post is of the top edge of the slide looking down at the slide seal. This is about 3/4 inch and the other there is about 1 1/2 inch gap.

[JohnB]

Hi Roger,

The pics help for sure. Your slide drive looks like the Barker system. Nothing wrong with them, just noting it as we move forward through this. Sorry this is going to be long, your slide looks out of adjustment. It is not that hard to adjust once we all understand "all" the dimensions as each adjustments affects something else also. Have to find the happy medium for all conditions.

You said this

The odd thing is the slide when fully extended is out the same distance from the camper wall and the slide floor is out the same amount at both ends from the interior wall. That's what baffles me as to why the seal and trim board would be so far off.

Where on the slide did you put the tape measure when you measured this? Take pics if needed to explain. Very important we understand where this was the same. The slide adjustments are sort of 3 dimensional and not intuitive. But once you understand them, it is not that hard to fix the problem. I can see at least 2 reasons on what can be causing the large difference. We just need to first understand all the slide diminutions as one adjustment affects several things.

And you said this

Originally Posted by roger66ogden

This picture didn't load. This and the last in the previous post is of the top edge of the slide looking down at the slide seal. This is about 3/4 inch and the other there is about 1 1/2 inch gap.

Let's confirm, these 2 pics are with the slide fully extended? Yes/No?

Is this the end that at the top is it about 1 1/2" gap? And is this the front or the rear of the slide?


Is this the top that is about 3/4" gap? And is this the front or back of the slide? Front being, side most towards the front of the camper.


If those 2 pics are the "top" of both ends of the slide (front and rear) with slide fully out, there is an issue yet to be sorted out. That does not look correct.

New needs:

1. On either end of the slide with the slide fully out, inside the camper, looking from the floor to the ceiling up and down, is the bottom slide room wall flange (aka trim as you call it) touching the camper wall? If it is not touching, how far away (need dimension) is front and rear at the bottom?

1A. Confirm, looking up and down the slide flange inside, the entire slide room starts to have a wedge of air space inwards as it gets towards the top where the approx 3/4" to 1 1/2" gap is? Yes/no?

2. Slide room clamped to camper when slide is closed. Post some pics of the front and the rear of the slide with the slide closed up tight when the motor stops so we can see the slide flanges and the camper wall flanges. Note if the "front" top or bottom slide room flanges stick out differently from the camper wall flanges and if the "rear" top and bottom of slide room sticks out differently "and" if it is more or less then the front.

3. Slide room in the middle of the camper slide opening, up and down and left to right. Close up the slide room tight and check these areas. Get dimensions on these.

Top front and top rear, slide room to slide wall opening up and down.




Slide room front to back in relation to the camper wall opening. Get the red arrows dim's top and bottom from the front and rear.


Like this. Note: this slide is out of adjustment. Sorry pics are rotated and I cannot seem to get the software to flip them.


top


Bottom



4. Need to know if your "vintage" camper has the slide floor inside "above" the camper floor or close to "flush" with the camper floor when the slide is out?

This would be the older slide floors that were "above" the main camper floor when out. I am borrowing this pics from RDonald3's reply




If the slide floor is flush with the main camper floor, it would look like this. Sort of hard to see, but the slide floor has a carpet flap that goes over the joint in the floor. The slide floor itself is about level with the main camper floor other then the height of the carpet flap. The slide makes a cam action to lift up off the main camper floor when it retracts in going up hill so to speak.




Here is the slide carpet flap over the cam trough in the main camper floor.


5. Slide seals. Since yours looks really far out of adjustment, I need to see the type of slide rubber seals you have.

This pic is from a fellow Sunline friend we camp with some times. They have a year 2000 Sunline, but this is the Dewald slide drive and not the Barker. The slide seal on the side of the camper is a "double bulb" seal with a wiper.


This is a pic off my camper with the same double bulb seal with wiper looking up from the bottom with the slide open. This is a 2004 Sunline




That double bulb seal would look like this one from Steele Rubber Products
https://www.steelerubber.com/dual-si...al-70-3716-265

This pic of yours, has a black looking seal that does not look like that double bulb seal or is a picture anomaly. Please confirm it is a double bulb seal like linked or take pics of yours from the bottom up so I can see the cross section. With the slide closed take pics inside of the seal bulb at the wall.


6. What model and year camper is yours? For the future, consider adding this to your post signature. I need to look up the floor plan and it helps to know the year as to how Sunline built them which changed often on the slide drives.

Sorry this is so long, if I was next to the camper and we where looking at it, this would only take about 15 to 30 minutes to size it up what is out of adjustment and what is not. So we do the next best, type and show pics or even video if that is an option for you. I can stick it out with this process, if you can.

Hope this helps

John

[roger66ogden]

Hi John.

I think I have most of the pictures requested. I can confirm that the slide floor rides over the camper floor and there is no carpet flap to flip up as shown in the pictures you posted. The slide is out the entire way in the pictures below. I will have to add the additional pictures with another entry. I am trying to keep them in some kind of order so it will be easier for you to make sense of them.

[roger66ogden]

John Additional pictures.

[JohnB]

Roger,

Great pics! Just a quick note they came through. I will study them and report back.

This much I can say, Sunline has not yet upgraded the seals on your vintage camper to the double bulb. It must of been a design timeline thing. Your 2001 T320SR has the older seals on them then the 2000 T250SR. It may be the camper frame sizing/time line. The T320SR is a 10,000# GVWR camper with an 10" I beam frame using the Barker slide drive. The T250SR is a 7,000# GVWR camper with a 8" box tube frame using the Dewald slide drive which replaced the Barker. It may be yours did not yet make it through the engineering change until later to get the newer seals and slide drive.

By any chance, is your VIN sticker on the front left of the camper still readable? It has the manufacturing date (month/year) on it. Or any of the inspection paperwork in the manual would have sign off dates on the yellow sheets.

Learn something new every day here on Sunline Club!

John

[roger66ogden]

Good morning John. The label is in very rough condition BUT I was able to make out the month and year of manufacturer. June 2000 It took multiple attempts to get a good enough picture so I could add it to the post. This will provide some more historical data to the data base😁

[roger66ogden]

This is a picture of the seal from the outside of the camper with the slide closed looking up at the seal from the ground. I was going to grab the measurements around the upper edges of the slide but I have a slide awning and that makes it near impossible without first removing the awning.

[JohnB]

Roger,

Thanks for the extra pics. They for sure help. Sunline did use the double bulb seal, and they added an extra inside slide seal. That is good to know.

Originally Posted by roger66ogden

I was going to grab the measurements around the upper edges of the slide but I have a slide awning and that makes it near impossible without first removing the awning.

OK, you mean along the top of the slide., I think. Meaning these dimensions


Yes, the topper will cover the entire length of the slide. NO NEED to remove the awning. Just reach in on each end and get a dimension. That would be one dim on the front and one on the rear of the slide. Just note which is which.

While you are out taking pictures, take more pictures of the slide drive system under the camper. This is where the adjusting will take place. I marked up some of your pics to help explain what we are needing.

Need these areas: (you can take more too)

1. The front and rear slide arm end angle connection


Look up the way the arrow is pointing. Is that angle plate with the 2 large threaded posts bolted to the end of the slide arm? Check front and rear arm and get pics of the connection.

2. Slide arm end adjustment. This slide arm appears to be the front slide arm. Go to the rear arm in this same area and take pics of the rear arm connection.


We need to see if there is any slotted bolted connection of the square slide arm tube to the end angle bracket to allow adjustment in and out of the camper on the slide arm.

3. Confirm direction and need rear slide arm end pics


Confirm the red arrow is pointing towards the front of the camper. It looks that way by the shore line cord in the back ground.

Take pics of the rear slide arm on the inside and outside.

4. Sq shaft connection to the gear box


Take pics of the joint between the gear box round shaft and the pinnion drive square shaft. Need to see how they are bolted together. Need front and rear sq shaft connection.

5. Rack and pinnion gear attachment


Take pictures looking at both sides of the bearing mounting plate. Need to see is there is any adjustment in rotational phasing between the gear rack and the pinnion.

6. All thread rod adjustment - Front and rear slide arm (this is not your camper but a pic to show what I need on yours.)


Need a clear shot on the front and rear slide arm showing the all thread rod. Need pic to show the camper main frame all the way to the end of the slide arm where it attaches to the camper slide outside wall.

Question: All the pics above are places where we will be adjusting the slide. Do you have the tools and a place to adjust them if we can tell you how to do this? (meaning you feel you can handle those size bolts.) OR will you take this to a repair shop and have them do it? Just trying to gauge what you would feel comfortable doing before I create a "how to adjust the slide procedure."

Thanks

John

Now back to painting the bathroom... Have to keep the wife happy.

[roger66ogden]

Hi John. Definitely don't want you to be in the dog house because of me. I will be attaching multiple pictures with comments on them. I don't have an issue with doing the work myself. I was a mechanic in the US Army for 21 years and now I'm Dad and Pap's fix it shop for anything and everything ��

Roger

[roger66ogden]

Additional pictures

[roger66ogden]

Last of the pictures.

[JohnB]

Hi Roger,

Originally Posted by roger66ogden

Snip…

Hi John. Definitely don't want you to be in the dog house because of me. I will be attaching multiple pictures with comments on them. I don't have an issue with doing the work myself. I was a mechanic in the US Army for 21 years and now I'm Dad and Pap's fix it shop for anything and everything.

No worries, you are not getting me in the dog house, I can do that well enough all on my own! I’m good, finished painting the bathroom today.

You are more than pre-qualified to adjust your slide. Thank you for your service. Now back to the slide. Below are both info and some more needs. To make it easier to get all the needs, I have marked in bold lettering the needs.

I called Barker Manufacturing this week and talked with their tech service person. This company is A no. 1 in my book. The tech guy I talked with knew of the slide drives and Sunline. I asked him if he could send me any drawings or manuals they had on the Barker EZ slide out system which is what your camper has. And he sent it today. I have uploaded it to our FILES section for the club to use. See here for your copy for long term record. They still sell parts for that system. https://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/d...o=file&id=5633 What is on that drawing file is what Barker supplied, there are some parts that Sunline provided which mainly surround the stop rod and the brackets that mount the slide room to the slide drive arms.

To help align the floor plan with the pics, this is the brochure floor plan for a 2001 T320SR. They have layout options, a twin bed/ single queen front bedroom and a full camper width large bath/ standard bath with bunks in the back. Which bedroom and bath area setup is yours?


I created a sketch of dimensions from your pics on how the setup is right now. This will help as we see parts of the system to know what to adjust. I This needs to be right in order to tell you how and what to adjust.


Some of the dimensions were easy to see they are correct, others may have some picture anomaly. Please verify all dimensions and that I have the location labels correct.

From what I can see so far, you have two issues going on at the same time. There may be more, but we will start with these two. The slide room does not appear to extend out as far as it should. I cannot yet tell how much short in extending it is until we can back into how far away the inside slide flange is from the wall at the bottom when the slide is extended. See here

Here is the top rear gap.



Here is the bottom.


On the bottom, that 3” is really hard to tell if I have that correct. The angle of the camera distorted how to read the tape measure. Please confirm. We also need to know the distance from the wall to the back side of the slide flange on the inside. I can see it at the top, but the bottom we can’t, as there is not much if any room to see and measure back there. Since you can measure to the outside of the slide flange molding face, then measure that thickness wood what I call out as “What is this thickness?” With that thickness I can subtract the slide flange thickness from the 3” (or whatever it is) to determine the space the wall is from the back of the slide flange. Normally, the slide room is closer to the wall, almost touching it and sometimes touching it. We have a mega gap on top, and some kind of gap on the bottom. We can adjust to make the slide room go out more, and we can adjust to make the slide room flange inside more parallel to the wall to close up the wide gaps. We just need to know the gaps at the top, the bottom, front and rear.

Here is the front. We can see the front and back are not close to the same. We have to know the bottom gap first, to figure out how much the slide flange out of parallel to the wall.




Here is new info we need. Need from the bottom of slide floor to the top of the tube at these 4 locations with the slide extended. They may all be different, and that may or may not be OK depending on what you find. Place a straight edge on the top of the square tube to align the ruler too so you can get this as close as you can. Try to be accurate within 1/16” on these. Note: This is not your camper, but one with the Barker slide system. It was just a clear pic I had to show what we need.


I went out and looked at my slide today which now has an awing topper on it. Ah, yup, the top if the slide flange is for sure covered up. So we will get the needed info another way.


The need is, is the slide room as it stands today, true to the camper opening or is the slide room twisted on an angle in the opening when the room is closed? There are a few ways this can get out of alignment. The slide arms vertical height is different front to back, or the main camper frame has main camper frame sag behind the rear axle hanger. Those are 2 of the main things that create the problem. Adjustments to correct this also affect how the slide flange inside the camper is parallel to the wall. Here is what I would like you to check.

When Sunline installed the slide at the factory, they “normally” tend to have the siding on the slide room line up with the siding on the main camper. Using a straight edge aligned to the main camper wall on the front and rear ends of the slide can help tell us how the slide is adjusted.

Get a straight edge, at least 4 ft. long, longer is better. Find the bottom of a piece of siding without a window or cargo hole door in it if possible, and hold the edge of the siding joint flush on the main camper wall. Then project the straight edge over to the slide room corresponding siding on the slide room. Measure on the front and rear of the slide, does the siding line up straight true, is the slide room X inches high or Y inches low from the main camper siding? Tell me what those measurements come out to be. If they are not lined up straight true even, try and take a few pics looking straight on and the distances so I can see them out of alignment.

If you run out of hands to hold things and take the pic, then just take the pics front and rear without the straight edge across the slide room flange to the main siding at each end.

Here is doing the front. This slide siding all lines up.


The back. In this case, I had to go across a window but lined up the siding beyond the window.


Down on the bottom sometimes may be easier. In this case they had gold siding and white siding and that edge makes for a great alignment edge. Yours may have something like this or not.


At this point, we can hold off on the check for main frame sag until we see what the dimensions turn up. If the dimensions do not add up right, then we will come back and do the main frame rail sag check and check for worn slide arm rollers.

From these checks, we should have enough to know where to start the adjusting and/or checking if things are worn causing part of the problem.

Hope this helps

John

[roger66ogden]

Hi John. I attached a sketch of the slide out room and got the actual measurements from the inside wall to the back edge of the molding. I did this with the calipers I use for measurements during reloading ammo. Then I cheated and used my machinist rule to get as close as possible to the fractional measurements. I will grab the outside measurements this weekend when the weather is better. The L is rear of camper the R is front of camper.

Roger
2001 Sunline T320sr

[JohnB]

Originally Posted by roger66ogden

Hi John. I attached a sketch of the slide out room and got the actual measurements from the inside wall to the back edge of the molding. I did this with the calipers I use for measurements during reloading ammo. Then I cheated and used my machinist rule to get as close as possible to the fractional measurements. I will grab the outside measurements this weekend when the weather is better. The L is rear of camper the R is front of camper.

Hi Roger,

I have a machine shop background, if you have caliper dimensions, I'm golden with them. Didn't know what your tool box had to offer.

Sorry about this, I am not sure I am understanding your sketch correctly, you said

the actual measurements from the inside wall to the back edge of the molding.

One too many surfaces to know the what the back edge of the molding is. We both have the "wall" the same I think...

See the picture with surfaces and dimensions. The ultimate goal is to understand dimension A, which is the wall to surface A at the top and bottom, front and rear. Normally, surface A is very close to the wall or touching it but not under a real hard clamp force to damage the wall.


Which dimensions on your sketch line up with which surface? Somehow we need to back into Dimension A.

No worries on getting info over the weekend. We just had a mini monsoon thunder storm blow through here.

John

[roger66ogden]

The dimensions I gave you are A. We just had a tornado watch here. Fortunately we didn't get to watch it.

[JohnB]

Originally Posted by roger66ogden

The dimensions I gave you are A. We just had a tornado watch here. Fortunately we didn't get to watch it.

Dimension A, OK got it.

You for sure have 2 issues going on at the same time.

1. The slide is not fully extending out, but the system is tracking pretty much dead on even on the front and rear slide arm drive. This is a more easy adjustment to correct and it appears your gear rack timing is good and system backlash is not out of whack. This is good news.

2. There is an issue with surface A not being parallel to the wall. Will need the info you get over the weekend to help determine next steps on that. There are a few things that can cause that.

Thanks

John

[roger66ogden]

Ok. I can tell you that I checked the rollers both inner and outer and there is no noticable side to side or up and down movement in them. They also roll "spin" very smoothly like a bearing should. I just noticed that I forgot to tell you the floor plan. Our camper has the bunk beds with the smaller bath. It does not have the optional full bath which I am thankful for because with 11 grandkids bed space is a premium when the gang goes camping.

[roger66ogden]

The camper also has the full bed up front.