[encantotom]

wow,  what a day.  first of all, thanks to the crew who help me.  my neighbor glen who was the head mechanic today, my buddy terry, chuck who bought chesters coach, joe g from ahwatukee.  we started about 8 and got the slide seal in and the slide back in by 530.  still have to put all the trim and such back on tomorrow.  we had to take the couch apart so there is a bit to put back.  

learned alot.  not something for the faint of heart, but completely doable.  

the slide cart worked perfectly.  

what made this quite a chore was the way the slide rams connected to the slide.  instead of the way the 90's coaches are with easy access to a simple nut on the ram up in the ceiling of a bay and the front wheel well, mine has the rams that screw into a welded nut on the slide that us under the floor from the inside.  quite hard to get at, specially under the couch that hangs over.  

we had to play alot with the slide cart to get the slide positioned right.  just high enough to lift it off the plastic gliding plates on the bottom.  

it got hung up on one of them as it tilted up and caught the slide on the bottom of the back side of the slide.  we easily moved it down and it was ok.  

a key thing it to put the new seal on over the outside of the slide before the slide cart is put under.  

we started on the bottom.  works best if you have fingers the size of pencils that are super strong....even though the slide is a few inches outside the coach, the bottom is still totally covered by the slide.  by using the slide cart to carefully lift the slide up high enough to get your fingers  (in this case glens fingers...ha) 

we put the adhesive on the seal about a foot at a time and then pushed it into the rubber track it goes in.  the slide seal track has a notch in it that is tapered that the matching opposite taper on the seal snaps into.  with a bit of force.  all of this is done hunching under the slide inside the slide cart.

we started where the seal inflation tube goes through the bay.  on mine that is an air con bay so i took the bay door off to have access to that hole.  with the cart there the door would not open.

then moving inside we....meaning mostly glen with the others holding the seal up started putting adhesive on the rear vertical part and since it was a bit stretched, had to bunch the seal down as you go so it ends up being the right length as you get to the other end.  

once the seal was all in, we ate pizza and talked big for a while.  good fun.  

btw, to take the slide out we had to screw those rams out equally.  they threaded in about an inch and different amounts on each ram.  i measure how far the outside of the bottom of the slide was out before taking everything apart and it was 29 1/8 inch.  

once the rams were totally unscrewed, three of us sat on the floor and pushed the slide out with our legs.  the drop down floor goes with the slide.  

to put it back, we had to jockey the cart around a bit, then 3 guys pushed on the outside while  2 of us held the rams with the threaded portion up with a stiff piece of wire until the slide was butting the holding nut up to the ram threads.  

then it took awhile to get the slide straight to get the threads to start on each ram.  

then threaded them in each side a few turns at a time until the outside measurements were the same as before we started.  

tomorrow i will finish putting it all back together.  

tom