How To Fix Your RV Slide Yourself

Has one side of your slide completely stopped working? Are you thinking of taking it into a repair shop?  Well STOP! We can help you avoid that costly trip and repair it yourself.  A broken slide is a pretty common occurrence and depending on the problem, it isn't that hard to fix on your own.  As long as you are somewhat handy/mechanical, have a couple of tools, a partner who is as fearless as you are and these instructions you should be set.  

From the moment we purchased Wanda, our used 2007 Winnebago Vista, we anticipated a problem with the slide one day.  While it did work, every time it went out or in it sounded awful.  The sounds of rubbing, scraping and clunking predicted that one day it would cause us a lot of stress on the road.  And it sure did, at  a very inopportune time.  But luckily after some troubleshooting and research we figured out how to fix it. 

These directions are specially for those who have a DigiSync Kwikee slide made by  Power Gear and are having the following issues:

• When you push the button on the control panel, one side of the slide doesn’t move in either direction;
• You verified both motors are running;
• When you try to manually crank both sides of the slide, the problematic side still doesn't move; and
• Resetting the DigiSync Room Slide System does not fix the problem, as one side is still stuck.  

These were the symptoms we had with our slide.  You might be having 1 or more these issues or none, it could be a different problem altogether. After this happened and at a loss for how to fix it, we called Power Gear directly and spoke to their support. They were extremely helpful and knew what the problem was right away, the Acme Nut. This plastic nut keeps the acme screw in place in the slide housing. He asked for my email and sent me instructions on how to remove the nut and replace it and fix the issue.  The nut can be found on Amazon, but we found it online from Lichtsinn RV.  The part only cost $14 dollars. So we bought 3 spares and upgraded the clevis pins which hold the acme screw in place.

Lichtsinn RV Part Number: 
62832-01-702 Acme Nut                $14
162832-01-700 Clevis Pin              $1.50 x2 

Amazon Link

​Time: It took us about 4 hours, but if we had to do it again we could probably do it in half the time.

Tools:

• A set of sockets wrenches
• Automotive Pry Tools
• Flat head screw driver
• White Grease
• Drill 
• Drill Bits
• Flash Light

​1. Park and level your RV.

2. Remove Covers exposing the slide assembly. ​

3. Using the provided slide cranks extend the slide about a foot. Make sure to keep both side of the slides coming out evenly. It’s important that the slides come out evenly, you can damage other components if brought out unevenly.

We were unable to move our slide out a foot but we were still able to work around it and continue the fix, it's just a little harder to remove some of the bolts.  

4. On the broken side, remove the bolts on the mounting bracket securing the room. 

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5. Remove the four (4) 1/4" bolts securing the actuator from the inner tube.

6. Remove plastic motor seal covers held in place by plastic tee rivets. Do this for each side. 

Be careful when removing the plastic tee rivets. They break really easy. The perfect tool would be a trim removal tool but a flathead screwdriver works well too if your careful.

​

7. Slide inner tube assembly back into the outer tube assembly until the pins
anchoring the acme nut are clearly visible.

8.  Remove both of the hairpins and clevis pins securing the acme nut to the inner tube assembly. 



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9. ​Remove the cotter pin securing the clevis pin and then remove the clevis
pins from acme screw/actuator drive point.

In our case, the acme nut was sitting on top of the clevis pin, so we held the acme nut with a pliers and used the slide crank to thread it off the clevis pin. 

Remove actuator from the screw and unplug the two cables. Make sure to label the plugs so you know which one goes to each other. We used a zip ties on one set.  
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10. Remove the four (4) 5/16" bolts securing the room mount to the inner tube assembly.

11. Carefully slide the acme screw out of the inner tube assembly. You will have to guide the acme end carrier out of the inner tube assembly so that it is not damaged. Do not twist the acme screw during this step.

12. Note the measurement from the acme nut to the drive-end of the acme screw.  

We couldn't note where our nut was because we had to slide it off the clevis pin a couple of steps ago. 

13. The original pins diameter were smaller than the replacement pins The new pins are 5/16. Using a drill and a 5/16 drill bit make the 4 holes larger. 

14. Remove damaged/broken acme nut from the acme screw. Inspect the acme screw for damage. Don't forget to clean inside the inner tube as well. 

In our case, the nut was in a lot of pieces and it took a while to clean inside the inner tube where most of the damaged pieces were. Also clean out the drill shavings from when you enlarged the 4 holes. 

​

15. Apply white lithium grease to the threads of the new acme nut and install
on acme screw to the same position as the old acme nut.  

​In our case we put it near the front of the screw. We then carefully spun the screw while holding the nut in place. This moved the acme nut into place.
​

16. Slide acme screw back into inner tube assembly making sure to depress the acme end carrier tabs when you slide it into the tube. 



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17. Then you will Re-attach the room mount to the inner tube assembly. 

Use the markings left by the bolts before they were moved. This will align the room to the original alignment. 

18. Re-Install both of the hairpins and clevis pins to secure the acme nut in the inner tube.

​

19. Install both motor seal covers onto the outer tube.  Since we broke a couple of the rivets, after we put this back in place, we further secured it with some gaffers tape. ​

20. Slide inner tube back out aligning mounting bolt hole with the holes in the room mount & install room mount bolts.

21. Install the four (4) 1/4” bolts securing the actuator to the outer tube & attach wiring from actuator to harness.

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22. Depress the service button (center button) on the touch pad until LED’s flash, then using the IN & OUT buttons, bring the room in all the way.

23. Wait for 60-seconds. Hit the out button and watch it slide out! You did it! 

We got some error lights that the slides were out of sync after the first time we moved it out. Move the slide in and out a couple of times and the slide re-teaches it self and will clear out the codes. 

Congrats you fixed your own slide and saved yourself a ton of money. This repair probably would have cost you anywhere from $300 to $600 to fix.  

If you have any question, feel free to reach out to us and leave us a comment below if this helped you. 

By: Kevin Quiambao

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