Once we arrived in Texas, I ran over to my brother’s house and picked up the replacement slide motors that I’d ordered. I’d looked up how to replace the motor and it seemed fairly straight forward.
I had already removed the retention screw on the outside and popped it up out of the drive socket to push the slide in. I had Meagan drive the slide out while I pushed on the dead side about halfway out, to facilitate access to where the motor was, at the top right corner of the slide.
The dead DC slide motor.
It took a little finagling, but I did get the motor out. I got the new motor in, but was having some trouble getting it lined up and seated. I had Meagan pulse the drive switch briefly. The motor spun and seated itself and then we were able to operate the slide normally!
I put in the retention screw on the outside and fixed the bulb seals and we were back in business!
Meagan and the kids went to the park for a home school group meet up. I took advantage of the time to get a little monthly maintenance done.
First up was cleaning out the lint on the washing machine. The model that we have, a Splendidie combo, has a procedure for washing out the lint filter. If you don’t do it periodically, it will block the dryer vent and throw an error code.
The maintenance cycle is to use an Affresh washer tabs (available at hardware stores or online), put the washer on cycle 11 until it stops filling, cancel the cycle, start it on cycle 12 until it fills (more) and stops spinning, then stop it, and drain the water out. There will be lint and other yuck left behind, which you wipe out.
The process takes 3 cycles to be done.
Wash cycle in progress.Lint balls wiped out of the washer after two cycles. A fair amount of trapped lint was caught.I also took the opportunity to remove and clean out the dryer hose. It’s not blocked, but there is a fair amount of buildup.I washed out the dryer exhaust hose and got a fair amount of lint out. As a bonus, one of the kid’s Nerf darts came out, which is mildly concerning.
I also did black tank maintenance, which normally happens every 3-4 days with our usage.
I cleaned the AC return filters and the bathroom exhaust fan with the mini shop vac. The fan tends to collect a lot of dust/lint and if not regularly cleaned, will get blocked and not vent the humidity from the bathroom.
I also took the opportunity to replace a broken seat latch on the van (2016 Sienna). This is one of the rear seat latch handles, used for stowing the seats. Some time ago it broke, so when you pulled up on it to stow it, nothing would happen.
The part was actually fairly cheap, about $30 online and took about 5 minutes to replace – 2 steel cables and 2 screws.
The broken handle. I used a spudger to pop the access panel off to reveal the screws.Close up of the broken handle. The two cams on the back had broken, so when you lifted the handle no force was applied to the cables, and thus the release mechanisms.
Parking the RV in the sand has always been an interesting prospect, as it tends to sink into the sand on one side or the other. This gets frustrating as the RV starts torquing itself as one corner sinks.
I had previously attempted to make a platform for the RV out of a 2×12, but it didn’t work out that well. Not to mention when we set it up, we were rushed at night after a long day of driving to get back to Florida. This led to a suboptimal setup. The boards weren’t really long enough or wide enough to accommodate the RV if it wasn’t perfectly lined up. Of course, as soon as I backed the RV onto the boards, they moved, and the RV was carving channels in the soft sand which complicated it further.
This was one of the metal feet for the hydraulic jacks that bent when the 2×12 board gave way under the weight of the RV. It was a less than stable platform.
I replaced the jack pad and placed my new footers for the jacks.
The new jackpads are constructed out of two 2 x 10 segments with a second layer of 2x10s running the opposite direction. This gives the rig a little elevation boost as well as greatly increasing the surface area the weight is spread over. This should, hopefully, reduce the sinking effect in the sand.
