Stuck Slide

[molly]

I'm new here, though I bought my 2002 Mountaineer298 RL 5 years ago to live in, not really travel in. As soon as I bought it, I got a job requiring me to live there, so the past 4.5 years I have had it moved once, torn out the carpet, thought very looonngg and hard about reflooring with vinyl click lock, which is sitting there for about 18 months now; fixed a leak and fixed the floor where the leak rotted it. I've cleaned it, and cleaned it again and washed off the mildew, ad infinitum, inside and out (this being Florida) and cleaned it some more and waxed it and waxed it and waxed it....but I have done little else. In fact, I don't know how to flush the toilet. No worries; I haven't used it. I'm a bit clueless, but not that clueless.

So, I am getting ready to have it moved again. Someone stole my battery, so I got a new one. I put it in and pushed the button to retract the first slide, which went in fine. I wanted to watch from inside to pull in the living room, so I went to the door and pressed the button again. It went about 3-4" and stopped. The noise part continued, or maybe complained - I'm not sure. When I tried to reverse and push it out again it wouldn't go back those few inches. I stopped after a couple of tries and decided to research before I caused an even worse problem.

Did I mention the rig has been parked and the slides out for 4.5 years? I now think I should have been paying attention and lubricating them and moving them, but that's water over the dam. I have researched and read every stuck-slide story I can find and may have to learn to retract it manually, but before I go there I wondered about something else. Well, a couple of things.

First, is there a hydraulic pump and a motor? Does the first run the second? Or are they completely different things? You can see I didn't major in engineering (though I did manage to replace my Dometic thermostat for another wildly inaccurate one).

Second, I measured to see if the slide is out square - the distances on both sides is the same within 1/16 of an inch. From the ground to the slide also seems level. But, the actual rails appear to slant about 3" down from where they leave the coach to the outside edge where they stop. Do they normally do that or has gravity had its way with them? I wonder if that slant is causing them to impinge on the -track?- where it enters. If that seems likely, maybe the first thing would be to try to raise the outside edge of the rail - is there a way to do that? Or would that raise the slide itself and cause the roof to bind? I have checked all the seals (and sprayed them with dry lubricant, as well as the rails) and cannot see or feel any debris. The seals are astonishingly supple and good for being 16 years old - much prettier than the tires which are my next anxiety attack. I can only handle one at a time.

Would appreciate any input. I have not found a story like mine, where the noise part (the pump or the motor or both? or how do I know?)runs but it just won't move. And "running start" won't work because it won't reverse either.