We have an 05 Tahoe TT, 32 ft with a 12ft slide-out. I just finished installing new carpet with a 10# pad. So I had everything out of the slide out. The floor & walls are sound. The floor is not pulling away from the walls anywhere.
What I have is about a 3/4" drop or bow in the middle of the slide-out floor.
My question is there a way to pull this bow out to made the floor level again.
The Slide-out is a dinette & sofa so the only floor that isn't covered is under the table.
My thoughts were to put a 1"x1"square tube under the dinette bench seat & jack up the middle & bolt the floor to the square tube. But if I put a thin piece of metal on the bottom to keep the flush bolts from pulling through the may drag the floor or the trailer. Is there an adjustment to raise the slide-out as it comes in?
Anyway I know Greywolf is an experienced RV Tech & I'm sure there may be other here. Any Ideas, Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Craig

 

Craig,

This is the way I would conceptualize it, although I am sure there are many options. As to whether it is possible to adjust the height above the floor, that varies with the slide, but a great many of them simply ride up a ramp so the attack angle to the floor can be changed, but the final height remains a constant. Again this varies by manufacturer. In that vein, I am very tentative about doing anything that goes below the slide floor as I see so many slides that catch carpet or vinyl flooring and rip it to bits.

Now your concern is if you simply screw through the bottom of the slide floor into the metal you want to install, the screws will simply pull through the bottom of the floor, and over time you may be right.

Since you can hide your work inside the dinette base, if I understand you correctly, I might be inclined to use oak instead of metal. you can get 3/4" thick at Lowes or Home Depot in all lengths. Double the thickness and I think you would have a pretty good strength, maybe almost as strong as metal, but I am guessing at least strong enough to keep the floor from bowing. I would cut the carpet back so it can go flush against the floor. Then I would use my jack to take the bow out of the slide floor. Next I would use something on the order of Gorilla glue or comparable and glue the oak reinforcement to the slide floor, holding it in place with screws up from the bottom of the slide-out floor.

I would make sure the heads of the screws are flush with the bottom of the floor and I would be sure to drill pilot holes as oak is so hard, it is very difficult to screws into without pilot holes. Once the glue is set, the joint should be stronger than the wood itself and if you stain it to match you interior, even if someone sees it, it will look like it came from the factory that way.

If you want to try your way first, put your metal in place and bring the slide in a little at a time and watch for catches. If you can, use carriage head bolts up from the bottom so you have a smooth round head, which would be less prone to catching.

I love fabrication, but find it can be very labor intensive.

Best of luck,

Steve

 

Steve,

Thanks for that idea. The idea of a gluing an oak beam inside for a lack of better terms is a great idea. Yea any kind of screws or metal under the slide looked like trouble to me. Simply because I can see where the floor drags (the bowed area across the landing).
What would be the strongest glue you know of. I use to use PL400 sub floor adhesive & now I see they make PL475. Is there a better glue to laminate wood to wood? The Pl 400 use to advertise it would hold up to 5000# on a 4x8 sheet of plywood.
The question is now will just one beam bring it up & hold or will I need more. I guess starting with one will tell. I love fabrication also. There is something about fixing a difficult problem that has great reward.
Again Thanks for that idea.
Craig

 

Hi Craig,

I think any heavy duty construction adhesive should do fine. I would definitely start with just one support as, if you use oak, it is a pretty tough customer. Once the glue sets up, I suspect the bow will be gone. I just left a job where the customer used a laminate flooring. First time the slid came in, it ripped to big tears in the floor. I see stuff like that a lot. Slides are great for space, but they are not very forgiving.

Good luck,

Steve

 

Steve,

Boy isn't that the truth about slides.
I went to Lowes today & talked with one of their guys that had some good knowledge. He suggested using the new PL Poly construction glue. He said it would hold the best & yet there would be a slight flex with the slide coming in & out.
What I'm thinking about after your idea is to first make sure I can jack the bow out. I thought I would take a piece of square tubing under the slide where I want to remove the bow & see how it jacks out. If that looks good then I will continue with the oak inside as you suggested.
On the underside I will take a Roto-Zip & cut a couple of circles the size of fender washers just deep enough to set the washers in & so the screw heads will not be below the bottom surface. Then screw the screws into the oak from the bottom as you suggested, but this way they can stay permanently. I can always epoxy the surface smooth if needed.
Yea, I can see where anything on the underside will tear up flooring. It appears once I get the bow out I will have a very small amount of clearance maybe an 1/8".
We are moving back to Arizona at the end of May. I will most likely wait until we get it there to do this project. We live full-time in our RV.
Thanks again for your ideas & thoughts.
Craig

 

It all sounds good! Good luck,

Steve

 

One other thing you can think about is jacking the floor up a little higher in the center and glue and screw your oak and after it dries the weight should pull it back level just like adding weight to a land beam.

Denny

 

Denny,

Yea a good thought. I just measured things more accurately this evening. I found an oak glue lam beam that was about 2.5" square & 3 feet long at Lowes today. That will work perfect. So I may tackle this deal in the next couple of weeks.

Thanks Again Steve & Denny for your input. Great Ideas Thanks a lot.

Craig