Question about slide out usage.

[reeman]

We have the smallish kitchen slide on our travel trailer. I do find because it is at least 350 lbs of mass that a little trick seems to ease the strain on the motors very slightly.
What I have found is that by having the slide ever so slightly tilted down it slides out a little easier and seems to take some of the strain off the mechanism. Then before sliding back in for travel I gently roll up to slightly higher than level on the slide side and the slide motors again run with a little less strain.

I do not mean using radical differences in tilt to facilitate movement, no more than a 2 degree up or 1 degree down.
It does add and extra complication to setting up but it might be worth it as long as the slide rollers and tracks are very well cared for as ours are.

The reason why I do this is because the stabilizers are not great at all at and when I slide out perfectly level the heavy mass of a kitchen slide moved out does tend to tilted down the trailer on the slide out side.

I just cleaned the tracks for this season of camping and am starting the de wintering process. I see no difference in the wear on the gears or the tracks they seem fine. After cleaning the tracks and applying a new coating of white grease it is being evenly spread by the gears and the slide is working better than without grinding sounds or too much strain that cause can cause a motor index register fault or damaged drive gears and overheated motors.

Anyone else use this method to reduce wear on the mechanism?

[Ray,IN]

A cousin bought a new TT a few years ago and specified a manual crank-out slide mechanism for the simplicity of the mechanism. He always does as you state to make moving the slide in/out easier.

[reeman]

Originally Posted by Ray,IN

A cousin bought a new TT a few years ago and specified a manual crank-out slide mechanism for the simplicity of the mechanism. He always does as you state to make moving the slide in/out easier.

Would be nice if there was a crank option on the lippert system on our Winnie Drop. It is a locked indexed motor system so I carry the tools necessary to pull the frame and access the ability to disengage the gears top and bottom if there is a serious system failure or agear strips or the indexing goes too far wrong. So far no serious issues have occured. Critically I always inspect the condition of the slide before sliding in, especially making sure no obstructions might occur during slide in. Thank heavens it is a short distance slide.

The real problems would occur if slide is completely out at failure then the job would get very difficult and require blocking the slide in place in the bush with red neck engineering and logs for props if the slide is too far tilted down while parked and it fails to move back in.
Have seen similar trailers parked in places with slides held in place with wood framing out in the bush especially in homeless camps a few times here in BC in the past few years.
Fairly common problem with travel trailers and slide outs. One thing I would recommend to anyone with a similar short kitchen slide is if there is strain at all then completely unload everything extra adding any weight. Dishes, pots and pans, food and beverage in the fridge. Every ounce might make a difference if the motors and gears start to fail at all. Tricky business indeed when the only option is dismantling the slide frame if the mechanism fails.