Slide bottom Darco wear marks

[Mikelff]

Originally Posted by Mikendebbie

The bedroom slide in my unit has a single wythe plywood floor (no aluminum framing) as shown in this screen shot from a YouTube video (AZ Expert) replacing a rotten floor of a Montana bedroom slide. I am pretty sure my dining and kitchen hydraulic slide floors have aluminum framing.

I would double check that aluminum framing in the floor?. Most slides only have framing in the walls and roof. The floor is typically 3/4 inch plywood only. If you do have aluminum frame in the floor that’s even better from a strength standpoint, but any new floor will probably have to come out and in from the inside of the slide. Not very desirable.

[Reset19]

Yes, drill a small hole and use some wire to verify. The bands are the aluminum structure within. The plywood is on top of the floor above the aluminum.

[Reset19]

The wear marks in the first picture of this thread outline the aluminum structure where the thin luan flexes underneath the Darco. When I countersunk the UHMW, there was not sufficient threads on the screw to hold in the thin luan plywood layer the Darco was adhered to. Note the living room and bedroom slides are different. I was not comfortable targeting the aluminum tube only for the screws. I chose not to try and use longer screws to penetrate the luan, extend beyond the air gap created by the aluminum tube, and reach the plywood on top that the kitchen cabinets are mounted to.

[Mikendebbie]

Back in June 2023 there was a thread (link below) where I drew the sketches below - trying to figure out what the slide floor construction was. This was only my guess. I have never been able to find a photo from (say) a factory tour showing the slide box structure…and I have not found a YouTube for someone fixing rotten floor in a Montana living room slide where the framing might be exposed. Again, this was a guess…I have no way to verify it or provide dimensions for thickness of the members.

https://www.montanaowners.com/forums....php?p=1275427

[jsb5717]

I might be a cynic, but I’d be surprised if there was any framing at all in the slide floors. Our living, dining slide is single layer plywood. I’d be surprised if it was more than 3/8”. The OEM table pedestal was screwed to the floor and the screws were sticking out the bottom…long since corrected.

Neither the bed slide nor the kitchen slide needs additional framing. The interior cabinetry in the kitchen provides strength to the floor. The bed slide carries the head of the bed and not much weight.

[Baldicon]

Originally Posted by jsb5717

I might be a cynic, but I’d be surprised if there was any framing at all in the slide floors. Our living, dining slide is single layer plywood. I’d be surprised if it was more than 3/8”. The OEM table pedestal was screwed to the floor and the screws were sticking out the bottom…long since corrected.

Neither the bed slide nor the kitchen slide needs additional framing. The interior cabinetry in the kitchen provides strength to the floor. The bed slide carries the head of the bed and not much weight.

I have the same wear marks as MikenDebbie under my kitchen slide. Stud finder show studs at each wear mark, assume they are aluminum. My LR/DR slide and bedroom slide are just one sheet of plywood as far as I can tell.

[Mikendebbie]

I re-read several past posts on the subject of this thread and I drew these sketches to illustrate the differences in my kitchen hydraulic slide and the dining hydraulic slide. My dimensions came from a post from Reset19 who drilled a test hole in the Kitchen slide and measured layers with a nail. Cable or Schwintek slide floors may be different - in fact, my bedroom Schwintek slide has a single layer 3/4" plywood floor.

These sketches are not to scale! I have not confirmed the thickness of the plywood for the Dining slide...3/4" plywood is my guess. My hydraulic slides do not have rollers - only the wear bars.
I took photos of my slides this morning to help with these sketches- but they still are not perfect! It is for illustration purposes only.

Edit: These sketches might help decide what length of #10 stainless steel screws to use with ChuckS darco fix using 1/8” UHMW plastic strips.

Edit #2: I need to get up on the roof and measure the dimension from slide box roof to slide out opening header. The dining slide will need to be jacked up a bit more than the kitchen slide in order to get the UHMW strips pushed in to the end of the slide. I would like to know how much to jack the boxes up.

[Baldicon]

Originally Posted by Mikendebbie

I re-read several past posts on the subject of this thread and I drew these sketches to illustrate the differences in my kitchen hydraulic slide and the dining hydraulic slide. My dimensions came from a post from Reset19 who drilled a test hole in the Kitchen slide and measured layers with a nail. Cable or Schwintek slide floors may be different - in fact, my bedroom Schwintek slide has a single layer 3/4" plywood floor.

These sketches are not to scale! I have not confirmed the thickness of the plywood for the Dining slide...3/4" plywood is my guess.
I took photos of my slides this morning to help with these sketches- but they still are not perfect! It is for illustration purposes only.

Thanks MikenDebbie for your contributions to this thread, I think a lot of us are facing this repair.

[Reset19]

EXCELLENT DRAWING!

Watch the screws that you choose. The screws I bought did not have threads all the way to the head.

[Mikendebbie]

Originally Posted by Reset19

Watch the screws that you choose. The screws I bought did not have threads all the way to the head.

So - should the screws be fully threaded?
Here are some pics i took this morning…

[jsb5717]

Originally Posted by Baldicon

I have the same wear marks as MikenDebbie under my kitchen slide. Stud finder show studs at each wear mark, assume they are aluminum. My LR/DR slide and bedroom slide are just one sheet of plywood as far as I can tell.

As I said, I'm just cynical. It is possible that our kitchen slide has some kind of structure in the floor as well as you seem to have. I haven't investigated it, I just installed the rollers to better carry the weight over the wear bar.

There are also some differences between the Montana and the High Country so who knows. I just know that our Living/Dining slide is so flimsy that you can sit down in a dining chair and spill something on the table. It bounces like a trampoline. So I made an assumption as to how the other slides were built.

Either way, the rollers are a good solution for taking a bit of weight off of the wear bar in the dining slide.

[Reset19]

Please do not look at the photo for anything but a visualization of my comment on threads. It is the only counter sink wood screw I have with me.

I grabbed a box of screws for my project and headed home from Home Depot. The wood screws I bought did not have thread within 1/4 inch of the head.

This type will not have thread to grab the 1/4 plywood in the air gaps between the aluminum frame.