[wingnut60]

Have just finished replacing the rollers on the door-side slide in our '05
TK3. Thanks to Dave (rverdlm) for the guidance to convince me I could do it. Turned out not to be such a hard job--it is strictly mechanical, and once I got the belly cover out of the way, wasn't too hard. Space to work in is hard to come by, and had to open enough area to get my arms up in the frame area to get leverage. All I have left to do is repair/replace the belly cover, which is probably going to be harder than the rollers.

As we returned home from 2 months in Colo and Utah, the slide would not go all the way out and some pretty bad noises were coming from the slide gears. Turns out, the bushings on the mounting flanges, along with the bushings in the roller wheels, were shot on both front and rear roller units.

Got the replacements from Lippert (easily found online) at $120 each--I opted for the heavy duty ones. While waiting for them to arrive, checked at Bennetts in Granbury and found one regular-duty unit for $35.00, which I bought and installed before the Lippert units arrived. It looked identical to the HD units except for a different plating color. Seems to be moving in/out ok now, but somewhat noisier. Looking at the condition of the old ones, very surprised they were still moving at all--bushings were gone and shaft was riding on the flanges and wallowing it out. Soon as the hole grew big enough for the drive gear to drop, the slide would not go out all the way and just racheted in one spot.

I have some pictures that I will send by email to anyone interested--just PM me and I'll send them.

I don't know how often this repair is needed on MS units, but the slides weren't used hardly at all for the 2 years before I bought it, so they actually have only 5 seasons of normal use.

Side note--the insulation looks dry and mostly clean that I can see, but there is room for double what DRV had put in.

Joe