Check your slideout cable tension!

[DonandBonnie]

After 15 months of full timing in our Big Sky we felt fortunate that we had not had any of the big issues that we read about on the forum. That all changed this week.

Friday afternoon we attempted to open the large bedroom slide out on our 3700RL. It opened a couple inches and quit. After a bit of looking we found that a cable had slipped off its pulley and wedged between the pulley and bracket. The attempt to open the slide caused the bracket to pull out of the wall. Our campground recommended a local mobile RV repair company who responded to our call. They mounted an aluminum plate to strengthen the wall and reattached the bracket. As they restrung the cable on the pulley they notice that the cable was frayed and recommended highly that I have it replaced as soon as possible. They also adjusted the tension on the cables before they finished.

When they finished they showed me in detail all that they had done. I noticed that there was no sag in the cables at all no matter where the slide was positioned. This caught my eye since one of the cables has sagged almost to the point of lying on the top of the slide out ever since I took position of the rig 15 months ago. I learned that sagging cables are not normal.

We now have an appointment with a Keystone dealer in Ft. Myers, FL to replace and properly tension the cables. After this experience, I would highly recommend to all that you have the cables and tension checked on your slide outs every time you do periodic maintenance.

One other issue that I forgot. Over time and with use all cables will stretch, so that adds to the importance of checking.

[richfaa]

The more we use these things the more apt they are to fail. They are just not designed for the use many of us put them to and the definition of Recreational Vehicle tells us that. I would like to see a poll indicating use VS failure rate.

We place am lot of blame on the manufacturer much of it well deserved but we were told we were buying a recreational vehicle then chose to not use it as such. My self included.

My guess it that during your 15 months of full timing your slides went in and out more than a occasional users would in many years.

[DQDick]

Thanks for the information. If and when we buy a new rig knowing what is causing the cable slide failures is going to be good information to have.

[capn chris]

Gonna check our cable slide cable tension regularly. Thanks for the heads up!

[DonandBonnie]

Rich, You are correct that the more you use something the more chance for a problem. That is true with anything you buy. I also believe that with our constant full time use we can find and repair most issues before they blossom into a major crisis. Along with that my experience indicates that maintenance and repair issues are less severe with full time use than with seasonal or part time use. I do feel lucky in that up until this point nothing has occurred that could be categorized beyond routine maintenance. I don't think there is a manufacturer out there, RV or otherwise, that pays attention to detail like was once the norm in this country. As for the warnings, there is so much "lawyer proofing" that we have come to the point that most is ignored. How many times have you seen a warning not to use something for it's intended purpose because you might get injured? In the terms of the lawyers, I "should have known" that the cable needed adjusting. Now I do know and hope that others can learn from our problem. Probably nothing will change until turning out a quality product becomes more important than covering your butt from lawsuits.

[WaltBennett]

Geez . . reading all the stuff about the last couple years of Montanas really makes me happy with or slightly older one! Only really positive thing I've seen is the full-body paint!

[richfaa]

Don...It is true that with constant use the more apt you are to find problems before they turn into more serious ones. Good routine maint is critical in finding issues before they become serious. However one can not drop the under belly to check for holding tanks becoming loose or pull the front cap to check for poor welds or stress cracks. These are quality issues that the manufacturer should be responsible for.

The serious issues we had with both of our Montana's involved holding tank failures, frame flex and poor routing of wiring
causing a fire .None of which could be early detected with routine maint short of tearing the Rv apart. Oh and the Mission tires of course but we knew these were not high use tires and changed them out. It just cost us money.

My question is what makes this new Big Sky a premium unit and better than the Big Sky we have or the regular Issue Montana.

As high end user like yourself why should we purchase a "premium" big Sky because we are done with this one.

[DonandBonnie]

Rich, Point well taken. Our reason for selecting the Big Sky was that this is our home and as such we wanted something that supposedly would have a bit higher quality to withstand full timing. Not having any experience with any other Montana we can't tell whether we got a higher end product or not. I will say that if we intended to be weekend campers, we would have purchased a Montana and saved the extra cost. In spike of our current issue, we are not disappointed in our selection. As the unit ages, our opinion may change. Time will tell.

[jbcason]

Seems like I hear of more trouble with cable slides than hyd.. Is this the case?

[richfaa]

We had a cable system on our HI LO camper that raised and lowered the entire top half of the HI LO. True we were not high end users but we did use it near every weekend during the summer without a single cable problem.

[MDL]

Thanks Don. I've made many notes on things to check when the new rig arrives. Thanks for this one too!

[Phil P]

Hi

Be aware in one of the previous post a structural failure at the slide opening was blamed on improperly adjusted cables!

Phil P

[Rainer]

quote:Originally posted by jbcason

Seems like I hear of more trouble with cable slides than hyd.. Is this the case?

I beg to differ. And here's why:

During our tour of the Keystone Montana factory in Goshen this past summer, we learned from our tour guide that it's exactly the opposite. The problems with hydraulic slides are almost common, yet cable slides are very infrequent.

According to our tour guide, there are more parts to go wrong on a hydraulic slide system than on a cable one. Keystone is now building many more cable slide RV's than hydraulic.

[1retired06]

Not what I heard. I was told by Keystone that they went to the cable drives because of weight and cost. They never said cable was better, and stressed how they knew how to adjust and fix them when needed.

I have had hydraulic slides since 1998, and including almost six years of heavy full-time traveling, have never had a hydraulic issue other than a couple of minor slide adjustments over the years. I'll take the hydraulics over cable every time.

[CORattler]

quote:Originally posted by jbcason

Seems like I hear of more trouble with cable slides than hyd.. Is this the case?

Just replaced 2 hydraulic rams on ours. Guess everything is subject to failure. Luck of the draw?? Cost us $2000 to get it fixed.
RVing ain't cheap!!

[priceml]

I must have a good one.I haven`t had any problems with my 03 except the o-ring on the hyd.pump a couple of years ago.

[jlb27537]

The cable system came out in around '05. In a "normal size slide" it is probably trouble free. When you put in a large full wall slide, probably not good.

A friend has a '05 Monaco M/H and has this system on his bed slide. Perfect since he has had it. He full-times in it.

We have the cable system on our '14 3150RL and for us it works. We go somewhere and stay for a month or 2. So not in and out every week end.

Just be glad you do not have the Schwinteck slide system. I would NEVER buy a rig with it.
http://www.lci1.com/schwintek-in-wall-slideout

[grayghost03]

Talking to the dealer here, this morning, in response to this topic, he told me they see 10 to 1 hydraulic problems on the Montana lines versus cable problems, but then again there are 10 to 1 hydraulic system to each cable system, but they are seeing more hydraulic failure recently, due to the increase in the level up system, not much more in the slide systems (on a year to year basis), as he said the hydraulics have always been an issue, but not a major issue. They(service writer and tech) both said cables need to be adjusted but as I know it is a very easy adjustment. Also according to manufacture cables should not be adjusted tight, should be a small amount of slack, such as no more then 1 inch of total slack. But totally tight will create problems, such as pulled brackets and bent pulley assemblies.

[DonandBonnie]

As mentioned, our cable issue occurred on Friday, January 24th. January 25th we made an appointment with the nearest Keystone dealer, Ft. Myers, FL. We explained that the emergency repair folks told us that the cable should be replaced as soon as possible. The earliest appointment that we could get was Feb. 11th and that we would arrange to be in the area on that date to have repairs done. At the appointed time we arrived at the dealer and re-explained our situation to the service rep. His first comment was that they didn't stock replacement cables and that his service tech would inspect our trailer and determine what parts were necessary. He further added that since cables are special order he could not predict how long it would take to be delivered. Luckily for us the service tech inspected the cable and determined that the repairs made by the emergency repair people were very good and that the damage to the cable was not great enough to warrant replacement. As it played out we had nothing to be concerned with, but I was starting to get angry since the dealer had two weeks lead time to the appointment date and said nothing about the necessity of ordering parts. Our time in Ft. Myers was limited since we had prepaid reservations at another campground 100 miles away for the end of the week.

The moral of this story is that when you have repairs done coordinate with the dealer so that he knows you have limited time to be in his area and so that he can take the steps necessary to get the parts in time for your appointment.

[jlb27537]

The cables are available on Amazon. You can get them in 2 days

http://www.amazon.com/BAL-22305-Cabl...ide+out+cables

Norco Industries makes system.
http://norcoind.com/bal/products/oem...de/index.shtml
http://norcoind.com/bal/downloads/ac...gner-guide.pdf

Most dealers could care less about your travel plans. If the first guy said the cables were damaged, they probably were. The second tech did not want to mess with a Keystone warranty repair.

Buy a cable off Amazon and teach yourself how to install a cable.