throgmartin

David: The slide seals for your coach should be double bulb. The factory may have installed single bulb. When ordering new seals I highly recommend ordering them through UniGrip. We quit using Steele and other brands due to the quality of the seals. UniGrip makes the highest quality seals on the market.

First off you have a Carefree SOK II assembly. The SOK III assembly was not produced till mid yer 2006. The spring tension hold down bolt is located on the left side of the topper assembly. It screws into the end of the spring. The bolts Carefree used were a cheap grade and would break when tightened. In order to replace it you will have to remove the spring. If the threads are damaged you will need to replace the spring. See photo of tension hold down bolt.

That appears to be your driver front slide and is known as a flush floor slide. These slides have no rollers and operate on a glide bar instead of rollers. Your other slides will have rollers and are referred to as raised floor slides.

Speaking of maintenance.......... One of the most overlooked maintenance items is caulking. While being the cheapest to perform owners still forget to add it to their list. Few realize just how much over looking caulking can cost you. We just handed a customer an $ 8,000 bill for repairs, all due to letting caulking go to the point of failure. $ 50 worth of caulking could have prevented that huge bill. While engines, transmissions and other chassis components need attention, so does the house portion. Water is your biggest enemy. Identify all the seams that need caulking then stay on top of it.

Tom, Et Al: We wont work on anything electrical if the coach has a Kongsburg system. While I am confident our techs would never cause a short that would fry the CCM, I do not want the liability. If the Kongsburg CCM got fried a few months after we worked on it we would be in the line of fire and included in any lawsuit an owner may have. We work on Sigs, dynasty's and Beavers a great deal but if it has a Kongsburg system we wont touch anything electrical 12 V DC or 120 VAC. We concentrate on slide floors, belt lines, roof's, etc when it comes to the Big Buses that have the Kongsburg system. In regards to your slide, what mechanical issues are you having ? Is this slide an HWH space saver slide ? These are questions you would need to answer in order for me to recommend someone. Some slides are easy to work on while others, like the HWH space saver is an utter nightmare. Work on an HWH slide is best left to an experienced technician who knows the HWH assemblies. There is too much that can go wrong when screwing with an HWH system and we have had our fair share of coaches come in that we had to repair because some tech thought they knew how to adjust and work on HWH slides.

I made a new topper for a guy who owned a Newell. He put some contraption under the topper, forgot about it, brought the slide in and destroyed his new topper. I had to make him a second one. 🙂 I have heard and seen it all. The best one was when I made a prototype topper, installed it on my coach and 2 weeks later a family of squirrels decided to make a nest using my slide topper fabric. Dang tree rats. 😞

The vast majority of Carefree slide toppers will have a little sag. Trying to tighten them up so they are tight is done with spring tension. But putting too many winds in a spring can lead to other issues - spring bind and complete failure of the spring. As the founder of Stone Vos I have over a decade and a half of experience with slide toppers. I also was brought in at service centers to train technicians on Carefree topper assemblies. Working everyday with slide toppers and assemblies while also sewing them has allowed me to witness every issue with a slide topper system. Freddie: You have an 05 coach so will have the SOK II slide topper assembly. The SOK II spring is located on the left side. These assemblies differ from all other Carefree models as the tension on the spring is done with a horizontal hold down bolt. The SOK II came out in 2003 and was replaced by the SOK III mid way through 2006. If you have acrylic ( canvas ) toppers then you need to know they will stretch over time creating more sagging. High quality poured vinyl toppers will not stretch. Laminated vinyl will. My suggestion is if the toppers sag a little let it go. Tightening up the spring to get rid of a little sag could end up creating other headaches. Pictured below is an SOK spring tension hold down bolt. This bolt cannot be loosened until the roller tube has been pinned in place.

There is very little you can do to to ease the pressure when the slide comes in. It is what it is. I have lubed slide rails for 2 decades without a problem. But then I never use grease or anything that will cause a build up or attract and hold dirt. No idea why Power gear would recommend not lubing the rails and gears. We have had coaches come in with a severe amount of rust and after cleaning and lubricating the slide worked better. While the gears may not rust, the teeth on the frame rails will. I might add, I do not like any of the slide lubricants on the market. I only use Boeshield T-9.

Doug: I cannot even begin to explain the things I have diagnosed and/or witnessed over the years with Monaco's flush floor slide. Be aware that if your slide tilts coming in or out then it will not have rollers. It is a flush floor slide. As a disclaimer, Monaco did make 50 flush floor slides with rollers and were a direct copy of a Newmar slide. They were designed by Monaco's R & D department, used on 50 coaches and tested then the idea was abandoned. I highly doubt your slide is one of them. Incidentally, we have plated 30 of the 50. I cannot diagnose here or over the phone your slide issue. I need to watch the slide operate, listening to it to help me diagnose the problem. It could be many different things and I have seen them all. Weak motors, bad motors, assembly components gone bad, bolts loose or missing, poor wiring connections resulting in low voltage, etc. My own personal coaches flush floor operated like yours. Turns out Monaco wasn't paying attention when they built my coach and installed 2 relays for that slide. The extra relay caused just enough voltage drop to make the motor weak when running. I know of a guy who thought he had a weak motor. He installed a new motor and the slide was still giving him problems. Turns out it was a voltage issue. One has to keep in mind when dealing with 12 V motors that have to perform big functions like moving a heavy slide or retracting a patio awning that Voltage is king. If low voltage is being applied to a motor, it wont have the power to perform. Monaco was known to under size the wiring on some components. This wire under sizing issue has been a known culprit for Eclipse patio awning issues. If you brought the coach to me the first thing I would look for would be the condition of the underside of the slide floors. Rotted floors, torn laminate and blown side wall corners on a slide will make it work hard when being operated. The slide also needs to be checked for proper adjustment. This can cause binding and overwork the motor. I would next check for obstructions under the slide floor. Don't laugh, we have pulled all kinds of things from under slide floors that were wedged near the glide bar - forks, spoons and once a loaded Glock handgun. Next I would check to see if the slide assembly ( gears, rams, arms, etc. ) is properly lubricated. They need to be lubricated periodically. We only use Boeshield T-9 as a lubricant. You can find it on Amazon. It was originally formulated by Boeing Corp and is a far better lubricant then most of the on the market. It does dry off and wont collect dirt. Hope this helps. If you are taking this into a service center, they need to be checking all of these things. I forgot one last item. Never operate your slides unless the coach is at ride height. Regardless of what the manual says or other people, every Monaco coach had their slides adjusted at the factory at ride height. My buddy who was in charge of slide installs and the body department at the Monaco factory told me they adjusted all slides with the coach at ride height. Whenever you get to a campground, the first thing you do is put the slides out while at ride height. When getting ready to leave, fire the coach up and get it at ride height then bring the slides in.

I would fire it up and let it run till it reaches normal temp. Once it is warm, kick it up to high idle for a few minutes. If it doesn't stall then I would take it on a joy ride of about 20 miles or so. Change the primary fuel filter after you have driven it. I would not change it before hand as after you drive it the fuel will be stirred up and the filter will catch a lot of the sediment. No sense in changing the fuel filter prior to driving it as long as it runs OK in the driveway. Save yourself a filter and change it after you drive it. In regards to algae - You will know if you have any as the engine will run like crap or stall or worse yet not start at all. Never store a coach without treating the fuel with a big healthy dose of Biobar.

Steve: I can work with you on making some adjustments to that slide. The adjustments need to be small as you can get the slide so far out of whack that the inside of the slide can hit the ceiling when bringing it in. Those adjustment bolts raise and lowers the slide. The bolts actually work in reverse. You raise the bolt to lower the slide and vice versa. The inward and outward position ( distance of the extension ) of the slide is accomplished using stop bolts. If these bolts are out of adjustment the slide will not go all the way out or in. It would be better to instruct you over the phone. Send me a text and lets set a time. You can at that time go out to the coach with your slide out and we can go over things. If you have an Apple phone we can do it through facetime. I am currently battling bronchitis so will need a couple days to get to feeling better. Maybe this weekend ?

You can call me anytime during business hours - 352-942-2653. Let Bethany know I asked for you to call and talk with me. I am always running somewhere around the service lot. She has an uncanny way to always find me. Even when I am hiding from her. If I am working on a coach I will call you back. 🙂

The two piece windshield setup that Monaco used was designed for the glass to float. This is why you rarely ever hear of a cracked two piece windshield. I always felt Monaco and the other manufacturers made a mistake by going to the panoramic ( one piece ) windshield. I believe the first year was 2005 and was limited to Monaco coaches built in Oregon. In 2006 the one piece was standard on all Monaco coaches. You hear about cracked windshields often on the one piece. Some one piece windshields will also pop out at a corner. These are all caused by pressure points, typically in the corners and happens while traveling on uneven pavement or while turning, such as into a drive that has a dip or incline. The body flexes front to back, pressure is applied to a corner and the windshield can crack from a pressure point being applied to a small area of the windshield ( normally in the corners ). The other thing that can cause cracks is aggressive leveling. Owners would be surprised if they knew how much our coach bodies flex. Not only will this cause cracked windshields it also will pop the belt lines near the front and back. If you look at the Prevosts you will see they still use the floating double pane windshields. On the earlier H3-45's they had 4 pane windows with 4 windshield wipers.

Mike: Please give Bethany a call and she will help you through the roller inspection and measuring process. I highly recommend that you consider the roller plates. These small rollers are known to damage the underside of the slides. Bethany/Talin RV - 352-942-2653

I went with 295/75's.