Frozen Slide Motors

[Dave&Ginny]

Yes boys and girls..... the slide motors can and will freeze! Let me explain; for the last few days around here it has been raining. LOTS OF WATER both horizontal and vertical! Everything is soaked and then suddenly it turned cold...real cold. So today while getting ready for my trip I got to fight with a frozen air hose (125 feet) to refill the tires on both the trailer and truck with the wind chill of -6.

After loading everything I thought I'd need I started to retract the slides. Everything was good but slow until I got to the bedroom slide. One side wouldn't even begin to turn. After saying a few things under my breath questioning the morals of my trailers mother...I climbed on top of the roof to make sure the gasket wasn't froze. Keep in mind it's VERY windy and did I mention cold..damn cold. The gasket was fine but now I was froze and too upset to warm myself up.

My loving wife came out around 10:30pm just as I was getting ready to load the gun for target practice. She said she thought it was frozen and she was right. I remembered when I was at the factory last fall, one of the techs showed me how to get to the slide motors. So with my wife biting her tongue I took the trim off of the slide and told her to fetch the hair dryer. After about 5 minutes I noticed water dripping out of it and then after rocking the slide back and fourth a few times it finally worked.

I'm happy to report the when the jacks are frozen in mud puddles they will bust loose but they move pretty slow.

Where I'm going tomorrow it's going to be -7 with 30 mph wind gust.....another adventure and the Redwood may have to stay there until spring. life is full of challenges.

[Beechguyjim]

And then there's the RV guys that go up north east into the -20 frozen north because its there idea of fun

[Tobys Home]

Dave it could only happen to you. Please stay away from Yellowstone.

[Dave&Ginny]

Originally Posted by Beechguyjim

And then there's the RV guys that go up north east into the -20 frozen north because its there idea of fun

Actually....I've enjoyed camping in the winter because usually you have the campground to yourself and hiking through the snow is fun as long as you have the right equipment. But after a long day of getting the winterized rig ready for a short trip while working around so much ice was a bit much.

During the winters my dad and I used to go camping in the Rockies in back of a pick-up truck during snow storms. We made a camper out of an old topper and we carried enough fuel and food to last us 30 days in case we got "snow bound". Wonderful memories....but the Redwood is a bit too luxurious for that.

[BradPAjax]

Dave,

Let us know how you fare on your trip. Those of us from the Great White North would like to know if the RW sales brochure regarding extreme weather camping is true. Toronto just went thru the same weather you had... maybe I will not get my slides OPEN this Saturday to do my monthly genny run.

I used to go Winter Camping all the time at Easter Break as a kid... park all to ourselves... no bugs... COLD beer.

[5th_Time]

Ha Ha Brad, down here,by Easter, we'redeciding whether toskip church andwax the 5th Wheel instead. :-)

[Dave&Ginny]

Ok well as far as using the Redwoods in -7 with a 30-35 mph wind....DON'T. On the road today I kept the genny going with a space heater in the basement on and the fireplace going....water tank froze with 3/4 full of water. You can tell when the water tank freezes because the gauge reads empty. The fender blew off in the wind so I'll have to order another one of those too.

The owner of "Kilderman Suspensions" is a great guy and a fellow RVer so he invited me to pull my rig inside and now it's thawing over night. I just can't wait tel I get to Phoenix

[UNDRPSI]

Wow Dave guess you've had better days. At least your heading to where its warmer. You should have left it winterized till you got to Phoenix.

[Beechguyjim]

Dave the last time I froze up my Jayco water tank it took days to get it to thaw out you need to get south fast it will be 80 on Sat

[BradPAjax]

The way Dave drives those 30 mph winds were more like 100 mph! So much for a cold weather unit. Right back to melting snow on the stove for tea and peeing outside... the tent is just more luxurious than 40 years ago.

[Beechguyjim]

It seems that every time I go to move the RV I'm pulling into a 30 MPH headwind man I hate 9 MPG

[DonMac]

How did the water get to the motor if you had to take molding off to use a hair dryer to unthaw them. Good thing its rated to 30 below.

[Dave&Ginny]

Originally Posted by DonMac

How did the water get to the motor if you had to take molding off to use a hair dryer to unthaw them. Good thing its rated to 30 below.

The motor sits between 2 sets of seals so apparently the moisture got to the motor but it still didn't penetrate second seal inside the trailer.

[DonMac]

Dave can you tell us how to get to those moters? Never know whenI might have have to. Thanks

[Dave&Ginny]

Originally Posted by DonMac

Dave can you tell us how to get to those moters? Never know whenI might have have to. Thanks

Sure..

Know going into this that you're going to need a cheep brad nail gun ($30 from Harbor Freight) to put everything back together.

You'll notice all of the trim around the bedroom slide, that hides the small motor in each upper corner of the slide. On my slide-in-slide I have 4 motors, a regular trailer has 2. The left side of my bedroom slide was froze so I did the following;

#1 pull off the decorative board that covers the upper corner (no tools needed simply grab on and pull)

#2 pull off the vertical board

#3 now a black board is showing with 4 screws, remove these screws and pull the board off. In my case it was kind of stuck from sealant.

#4 at the very top reach your fingers into the rubber seal and you'll find the motor that sits vertically. It's only as big around as a silver dollar.

I used a screw driver to hold apart the rubber seal and to keep my fingers from getting too hot. I pointed the hair dryer at the motor for about 5 minutes and it was fixed. Keep in mind mine froze because of some very unusual circumstances so doubt it will happen again. But if you ever have to remove a motor it's nice to know how to get to them.

[TroutTravelers]

My husband & I have been camping together for 30+ years now & have had only one night below zero. We kept the faucets dripping which made the pump run all night, but we made it through without freezing up.That was in Arkansas in March. He tried to tell me that was unusual, so we tried again. The next time it wasn't as cold but had an ice-storm with thunder & lightening that knocked out our satellite dish & wiring in the camper, also in Arkansas in Feb & March......
This year we went further south to Texas.......I thought we would be warmer here than home. Ha, we missed a major snow storm back in the North East, but warm we are not! New Braunfels, Texas is 25 degrees......At least this year I have the nicest coach I have ever had to be out in the cold weather in!
Is there anything special we need to know?

[atom ant]

Dave, do your motors come out through the inside, or outside? Mine come out through the inside, but its sound simpler than you describe. I know the lippert video shows them coming out through the outside, but I think that was changed by Redwood.

[Dave&Ginny]

The electric motors on the Redwood slide (on the RL, this is the bedroom slide) you get to from the inside behind the trim.

[Dave&Ginny]

The only reason my motor was frozen is because we went through a driving horizontal rain for a few days and then hit a blizzard. As I was heating the motor with the hair dryer, I could see little beads of water dripping out of it.

[atom ant]

Ok, we are the same. I just remember the Dealer pointing out that they had just modified the slides so they could come out in the inside. The Lippert Swhintek video shows them coming out on the outside by removing the large trim, messing up the paint.