Bedroom slide plastic bottom cracked

[Daryles]

De-winterizing the rig, opened the slides for the first time since November.
The bedroom slide made a loud pop as it came out. When i checked it out I discovered the ENTIRE plastic bottom of the Bedroom slide has cracked and splintered.
One piece jammed while putting the slide out and folded in half (that made the loud pop).
It was damn cold this winter (-5⁰F). I'm guessing the plastic shrunk and splintered.
I've searched the forum and found a few other instances of the same thing.
I am familiar with Chucks Darco Repair (best ever) however this is not darco. It's hard plastic. I've not read of any good fixes yet except for removing the slide and replacing the entire bottom plastic sheet.
Using Chucks method by adding UHMW may affect the Schwintek slide system due to the thickness of the UHMW. The Schwintek has very tight tolerances.
We leave Saturday. For now I'm going to put Gorilla tape over the entire bottom. I've read where the wiper seal can cause this to peal/roll back and jam up, so I'm going to run it as deep as I can past the wiper seal and hope for the best. I'll be calling Affinity for an appointment in September after the rally.

[Lee-CI]

Man that really sucks Daryle! Going to be following this one to see how you come out with Affinity appointment.

[C&P RV]

You have far more experience than me with this type of slide but please allow me to make a couple of observations. The slide is supported by at least 2 rollers on the edge of the trailer and at least 2 more inside the RV on the floor. Tape may very quickly gum those up as the slide extends and retracts. Our 2022 had a "rub" through the black plastic at the location of one of the outside rollers. Cause is unknown, but the dealer's fix was to apply black epoxy that cured nearly flat like the original surface. They sanded it a bit to get it as smooth as possible. That repair is only a few weeks old but I offer the info as a possible alternative to tape.

[ChuckS]

UHMW could be used to repair the hard plastic covering found under most Schwintek slides.. The tolerances for the In Wall Schwintek slide out could easily be measured..

The one to pay attention to is the V roller guides.. You have four of these.. one located on the top and bottom track guide of each side of the H rack.

The V rollers should turn with finger pressure.. If they are too tight to turn with finger pressure then adjust the slide bottom roller heights slightly to lower the slide bottom to allow for proper V roller movement

If the V rollers "Free wheel" then the slide is adjusted to low on the bottom opening slide rollers

UHMW cab be bought in thickness of 0.125 (1/8) sheet thickness. It is what I would use and then adjust the In Wall slide bottom rollers IF my four V rollers were too tight on the guide tracks

I I had an area on the hard bottom plastic that WAS NOT in the path of the bottom rollers then I believe I would secure with small pan head screws and apply some black sealant over the crack joint as well as the screws themselves..

A couple of images to illustrate the V rollers and vertical measurements.. Height wise measuring from lower right and lower left should be within 1/8 inch from side to side on the vertical height

I also do not think UHMW would affect the operation of the top wiper seals .. especially if one pays attention to the guide track V rollers

https://lci-support-doc.s3.amazonaws...cd-0002661.pdf

[CDrevant]

Hello Daryle, I just had the exact same problem on my 2021 3670FL. I put the battery back in after this winter in storage and pushed the slides out to do my Spring opening cleanout. Heard cracks when I opened the front living room slides and the rear bedroom slide. Went outside to inspect and found the plastic slide bottom cracked on all three.

[twindman]

With all 3 slide bottoms cracking, it seems to me this is a Keystone problem. No way this can happen unless there is something wrong - maybe they got a bad batch of the material used for the bottom.

[CDrevant]

Yes, I agree but how would I go about addressing that directly with Keystone? My RV dealership won’t touch it as it’s past the one year Warranty.