We have power Gear slides on our coach. Yesterday we had 2 bolts shear off while trying to move the slide. These bolts connect the drive shaft from the motor to the drive gear of the slide rails. It's a hollow square shaft connecting to a solid round shaft. They are 1/4" grade 8 bolts. I replaced the bolts and it works alright again, although I have the sense that if I keep the motor running after the slide has come all the way in or after going all the way out, they will shear again.
Our solution for now is to be very careful and make sure that the bolts are in place before moving. Since the brake is actually in the motor, when the bolts are gone, the slide can wander out on it's own while driving.
I'm thinking maybe a call to Power Gear is in order.
Anyone out there run into a situation like this before? I thought there would be limit switch of some kind to stop the motor from turning when the requested position was found - apparently not.
2005 Country Coach Inspire DaVinci 40'
2008 Honda CRV Dinghy
I have Power gear slides and there is a limit switch when the slide is all the way out and also when the slide is all the way in. The motor stops, but I do not continue to hold the switch down when I know it is all the way in, I get off of the switch the moment the motor stops. One other thing I do when bringing in a slide, I open the door to let the AIR out, the air that is being displaced by the slide room as it is coming in. Any way maybe there is an adjustment for the "Limit" switch, I don't know for sure but a call to Power Gear could be in order. One other problem I had with the bedroom slide was I had to thick of a bedspread and mattress topper that made the last 6 inches bogg down as it tried to slide the bed under the wardrob closet. My wife had to sit on the bed so it would close until I removed the mattress topper and now it slides under on it's own power. Good Luck
Here is a link to Power gear and how the controls work. Could answer your question. but a call to them is possibly still in order . Power Gear
Under Products, click on "Slide Outs", and then on the next page on the left side, click on "Control options"
Othertonka
2004 Southwind 32VS
2002 CRV Toad
U. S. Gear Unified brake system
Retired Fire Captain, SFD
othertonka: Thanks for the reply.You have confirmed what I thought should be the case as far as limit switches are concerned. Without them the systems would seem to be too easy to break, especially with multiple slide operators.
I will look further tomorrow, seems that these limits have failed. As I recall, the other slides stop the motor when it reaches either end of it's throw.
wa8yxm when you pick up the extra bolts you may also want to pick up some extra shear pins that are in the gears through the rods. I think you can get the size off the Power Gear web site. I think that's where I found it.
John & Carol
01 31'Sea View single slide, F53 V-10
96 Toyota 4-Runner auto 4x4 (Remco, M&G brake system)
I am now reasonably sure that the problem is with the load sensor. They use this as the limit to stop the motor from trying to keep turning after the slide has reached it's end point. This is from the power gear web site, (courtesy of otheronka).
I still don't know why the real shear device didn't work, but that is also discussed on the web site.
It works OK as long as you are very careful not to run past the end.
Shearing the bolts on a power gear slide is a common problem. One fix is to remove the shaft and weld heavier steel over the holes and redrill the holes. Tiffin fixed mine by replacing the gear,cutting off the shaft and drilled new holes thru the shaft. Replacing bolts is only temporary and it will get worse.
Power gear had a special replacement bolt to fix it.
The replacement bolt had a shaft (unthreaded part) long enough to go all the way through both sides of the outer shaft and then the threads started. With washers in place, there were just enough threads to catch the nut.
The point was that standard bolts will have a shaft that goes into the center, but then the threads start before getting out the other side, and the weak spot is at the place where the threads start cutting into the shaft.
curious Bob - we fulltime with our Cairn Terrier, in 01 National Islander, and 00 Saturn LW2
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