Today, I wanted to review how to Lubricate a Slide-Out on a Travel Trailer. I’m going to do the maintenance on my slide today, and I wanted to give you a few tips and things that you could look at for your slide. We want to stay ahead on the maintenance schedule, do those things that are easy to maintain in the beginning, and hopefully, it continues to work and be protected in the long run so that you don’t have to worry about fixing it if it were to break. By staying ahead of the maintenance, we can reduce the need for repairs, minimize downtime, and spend more time enjoying our RV.
Now, there are four things that I think of when doing the maintenance on the slide: number one; there’s going to be cleaning, inspecting, oiling, and conditioning. So, no matter what kind of mechanism you have for your slide, you will be doing those four things. It may look slightly different depending on which one you have, and we can walk you through that so you know exactly how to keep everything functioning well. I like to do this maintenance at least twice a year. Twice a year is a good start to maintaining the slide. Depending on where we travel, I might do it more than twice a year, so I’ll keep it in the RV—the stuff to maintain it. So, if we’re going to the coast where we might be going through more of a salty air condition, I might want to do it a little bit more. If we’re going down dirt roads in the rain, kicking up much stuff underneath there, we want to clean, oil, and maintain it. I might do it more than a couple of times a year, but that depends on use and how much you use the RV. Twice a year in normal circumstances should be fantastic.
So, the different mechanisms that you’re looking at for slide types: you have hydraulic, you have electric (electric, like the Schwintec, is a very popular one right now), and then you also have cable-driven. So, your slide will usually land in one of these categories here. So, let’s get started on doing the maintenance on ours. Ours is a hydraulic system, so let’s start on that now.
The first thing we want to do for the slide maintenance is clean it so we can begin that inspection process. But if you look here, you can see the product we’ve been using before we cleaned. It doesn’t attract a lot of dirt; it still lubricates and protects it and inhibits rust, but it doesn’t accumulate much dirt. So, if you look around the other places where we haven’t used the slide-out lube, we can see a lot of dirt and grime collected from the road. But it hasn’t attracted it here, so it’s a good lubricant. The one that we’ve been using for a while is this 3-in-1 slide-out silicone lube. It dries fast, lubricates, waterproofs, and inhibits rust, so it doesn’t collect a lot of dirt and grime. And that’s one of the reasons that we use it—it just works well. So, we’re going to get in here. We’re going to clean this up so that we can go ahead and start inspecting it and lubing it.
So, now that we have it clean and I went through that inspection process as I was cleaning it, you can look everything over. I didn’t have anything that was a red flag. The last time I did this, I had a few bolts that had worked themselves loose that I needed to tighten up, but this time, I didn’t have anything alarming or anything out of the ordinary. So, at this time, I want to lubricate these rails that come out. We’re going to use our slide-out lubricant. I want to put it on all four sides. The stuff is quick-drying. That’s one of the things that helps it not attract dirt, debris, and stuff like that as it dries quickly. So, if you have much buildup, you could wipe it down, but I usually spray it on and let it dry. So, I have three of these supports all the way through. I’m going to spray all three. Often, with a slide like this, you’ll have a Rack and pinion, so you’ll see teeth underneath this. So, we’ll talk about that in a minute, but mine is actually a cable type of system in the back along with the hydraulic system. It keeps it straight and true to the RV when it’s going in and out, and I won’t worry about getting this stuff on there as I spray this. It will get on that cable, and that’s just fine. I’ll let the lubricant get on that cable; it’s not bad to have on there.
So, the other important thing about your slide is the seal and maintaining it. The seal is important; it will be across the board no matter what type of slide you have because, for one, it will be your first layer of defense against the rain or snow or any precipitation getting in here when you have your RV set up. It’s going to be what’s blocking that moisture from coming in, and then it kind of acts as like a squeegee when your slide is coming in. So, whether you have a thick seal like this one or a thinner one like on the Schwintec, it’s going to have the same function. With it being able to move back and forth, you don’t want this thing drying out and cracking and disintegrating. It’s important to keep this healthy to use the 3-in-1 seal conditioner. We can either spray it directly onto that seal and wipe it down or spray it onto a rag and wipe it onto that seal. We want to condition it so it doesn’t dry out and crack. So, we can also spray the rag, hook it on that backside and condition the other side. That way, both sides are conditioned. It will protect it from the sun, give it a UV protectant, and keep it from drying out. So, that’s across the board for all the different types of slides.
One thing you must inspect on the hydraulic system is to ensure that you have enough hydraulic fluid. A lot of times, you’ll have a clear reservoir in there; you can clearly see the line of it, but you want to make sure that you have enough fluid for the system to work properly. So, that’s the bulk of how we maintain our slide.
We also like to clean the top of the slide, especially if we’re parked in an area with trees above us. Leaves, branches, pine needles, pine cones, and other debris should be swept off before the slide comes in. Another way we can help protect those seals is to prevent stuff from getting caught in them when the slide is coming in and out and potentially damaging them.
Let’s look at a few of the other types of slide mechanisms out there and how I would maintain them. So, if you had a rack and pinion, so that one would look real similar to ours, you have that tube that goes across the bottom, and then you have some teeth underneath there where a gear can pull those rails in and keep everything straight and true to the RV. I would still use a slide-out lubricant to keep the rust down because it’s a real light oil. It’s just going to be there to protect it against rust. Now, the mechanism that’s back in there with that gear, they don’t want you just oiling it all the time. They recommend doing that if you hear a squeaking sound, and you need to get in there and clean it up if anything is causing it. But then they have a specific oil and six points that they would recommend oiling that at, but it’s only if it’s making noise so that I wouldn’t put that on my regular maintenance schedule. And then, for everything else, I would do it identically to how we did for ours.
Now, we can look at the Schwintec. This is a popular one for RV manufacturers. This is where you’ll see that metal track on the side of the slide, and then it has an electrical motor inside with a gear that drives that slide in and out. So, first off, we want to clean that track well. We don’t want anything building up inside of that. It has these little grooves that things can collect in, so we use this detailing brush to work that out and clean it out so that nothing is in there inhibiting the motor and the slide from going in and out. And then, we grabbed our lubricant. We can bend that tube to get back to where the motor area is. We have a couple of places that we want to oil back in there. So, the first one will be on the lower section, called the Gibb. We want to lubricate that and get some of that oil back in there, and then we also want to do the coupler, which is right above that gear in there. So, we want to squirt some of this lubricant back in there, and then we can go inside and do it from the inside also. We can spray it in those same locations but from the inside area. If you can’t reach it from the inside because you don’t have enough clearance, you can try and do it from the outside and get both sides of that coupler and both sides of that Gibb the best you can. Before the maintenance, this slide was starting to bind, and it wasn’t coming in as smoothly as it should. It was beginning to have some issues, but after we did the maintenance, our friends said they hadn’t had the slide come in that smoothly in a long time.
So, moving on to the cable-type slide mechanism, this one you want to really inspect. You want to ensure that all the pulleys and everything are up above your slide because this whole mechanism will be up above your slide.
So, on the inside, your slide mechanism is usually up there, all the cables, so you can visually inspect that. They say if there is a little squeaking in those pulleys, you can put a little oil in there, but you want to check the tension. You can spray lubricant on the outside and clean off those wires. They should be stainless steel cables, so they shouldn’t rust, but just some of that silicone lubricant and cleaning it off is a great way to keep those clean, so that way you don’t have more of that gunk and sand and whatever coming in with it and then interjecting it into the whole mechanism. So, keep the outside parts clean, and then you can check the ones above that slide area. If those are clean and working well, there are a few troubleshooting things you can do with those, but really, that’s all the maintenance you would need to do on a cable system, along with keeping everything clean and maintaining your seals on that slide just like we did on ours.
The last piece of advice that I would give you is to know how to bring in your slide. At least check that out and run through it before you get out because different circumstances might arise. You need to get that slide in, and you may not have that capability, whether it’s an electrical issue or you need to be able to use your hydraulic system to pump that back in or know where to crank to pull that slide in.
So, most of the time, a slide that does not come in can be mechanical, but you often want to look at the battery first. You may not have enough battery at the end of your trip to bring that slide in, so a good battery monitor and knowing that you have enough power to bring in that slide. You could always have one of those jump-start devices. I’ve seen people bring in their slide with just one of those; it gives them a large enough power source to bring in a slide in an emergency.
In conclusion, regular slide-out maintenance is essential to keeping your RV in top condition. By cleaning, inspecting, oiling, and conditioning the slide, you ensure smooth operation and extend its lifespan. Whether you have a hydraulic, electric, or cable-driven system, each type requires some care to keep it running smoothly. Remember, staying ahead of the maintenance schedule, especially when traveling in harsh conditions, can save you from more significant repairs. So, make it a point to maintain your slide at least twice a year, and always check the seals, cables, and mechanisms to prevent issues before they arise. By following these simple steps, you’ll enjoy fewer repairs, less downtime, and more time out on the road, making memories in your RV.