Hello all,
I wonder if anyone has any advice. We have a 2021 372RK that has a problem. The day before a recent trip, I ran the bedroom slide out to load some stuff in the bedroom, and noticed some water damage on the underside of the slide floor. The roller had gouged into the plywood for a couple of layers going in about two feet. The layers underneath that (well, I suppose that should be “above that”) seem fine. I started a claim with Progressive and went to see a local RV repairman. He told me his minimum slide repair charge was $6000 due to the difficulty of removing the slide and so on. Well, Progressive denied my claim, saying water damage isn’t covered by my policy, so it’s on me to fix it. I do not relish the idea of paying $6000 to fix it, so I am considering doing it myself.
i believe that if I can jack up the slide a bit and hold it in place, I can grind away the water damaged portion of the plywood, rebuild the layers with fiberglass, then install some sort of metal strip for the roller to ride on when the slide goes in and out. I may have to install a metal strip on each of the four roller to keep it level. I’ve never worked with fiberglass before, but it doesn’t seem to be too challenging, and I think fiberglass should be strong enough to bear the weight of the slide going in and out.
The first photo shows the overall view of the damage from the front of the slide looking back along the underside of the slide. The rest are closeups of the damage.
So, is this a really bad idea, or do you think this could work? I know people do all kinds of things like this to repair boats, so it seems like it should work. Or, will the compressive loads of the weight of the slide destroy the fiberglass when I run it in and out?
I wonder if anyone has any advice. We have a 2021 372RK that has a problem. The day before a recent trip, I ran the bedroom slide out to load some stuff in the bedroom, and noticed some water damage on the underside of the slide floor. The roller had gouged into the plywood for a couple of layers going in about two feet. The layers underneath that (well, I suppose that should be “above that”) seem fine. I started a claim with Progressive and went to see a local RV repairman. He told me his minimum slide repair charge was $6000 due to the difficulty of removing the slide and so on. Well, Progressive denied my claim, saying water damage isn’t covered by my policy, so it’s on me to fix it. I do not relish the idea of paying $6000 to fix it, so I am considering doing it myself.
i believe that if I can jack up the slide a bit and hold it in place, I can grind away the water damaged portion of the plywood, rebuild the layers with fiberglass, then install some sort of metal strip for the roller to ride on when the slide goes in and out. I may have to install a metal strip on each of the four roller to keep it level. I’ve never worked with fiberglass before, but it doesn’t seem to be too challenging, and I think fiberglass should be strong enough to bear the weight of the slide going in and out.
The first photo shows the overall view of the damage from the front of the slide looking back along the underside of the slide. The rest are closeups of the damage.
So, is this a really bad idea, or do you think this could work? I know people do all kinds of things like this to repair boats, so it seems like it should work. Or, will the compressive loads of the weight of the slide destroy the fiberglass when I run it in and out?
