Sagging cables are a harbinger of bad things to come. If you roll the dice on your cable-driven RV slide-out, you might get lucky, or you might hear a BOOM!… and now your slide-out won’t move.
A quick handshake with BAL® Accu-Slide™ cable-driven slide-outs
Cable-driven slide-out systems are a popular choice for new RV installations. They are lightweight, modular, and easy to install. The BAL® Accu-Slide™ system is the most well-known. It is sold in two configurations: regular and Double Back.
It’s difficult to verbally explain the Accu-Slide system. (How can cables “push” a room, after all?) BAL has published several free videos demonstrating the mechanical magic. I recommend you watch those videos first if you want to understand the ins and outs (no pun intended) of this system.
In short, there are eight cables—four inside, four outside—that alternately pull the room in or out depending on the 12V motor’s polarity. It’s a give-and-take system, where the slack on one cable set is taken up by another. The motor, gearbox, cables, and pulleys are hidden behind the fascia trim surrounding your slide-out room.
What causes slide-out cables to break?
Anyway, that’s enough background information. Here’s why sagging cables are so dangerous:
In an Accu-Slide system, two sets of cables attached to adjuster brackets physically pass by each other as the room moves in and out. There’s not much room to pass (imagine two tractor trailers on a country 2-lane highway), so both cable brackets must stay in their lane.
As one set of cables becomes too tight or too loose, the cable bracket will begin to skew or rotate sideways. Eventually, that cable bracket will “drift” into the lane of the other cable bracket. The two brackets collide as the room moves in or out, and SNAP!—a cable breaks, or BOOM!—the bracket pops. The room either won’t close completely or won’t move at all. Dave Solberg has addressed several of these repair questions here.
Replacing broken Accu-Slide cables isn’t a one-beer job
Fixing a cable-driven slide-out is not an easy task for a newbie. You’ll need to blindly fish a new cable through two pulleys, crimp a new cable and ferrule (circular ring) in place (requires a special tool), and re-tighten all the cables to achieve a proper seal (and to avoid the same problem in the future!). You may need to support the slide-out room with a jack or jockey the room into position. You may need to remove the motor or replace the gearbox, depending on the damage.
It’s not a forgiving system. If you put the wrong chain link on the gearbox sprocket or orient a cable bracket the wrong way, you’ll be right back where you started. Plus, just accessing the mechanical organs usually requires a full dissection of the slide-out room fascia and trim!
Is your RV slide cable loose? Thankfully, you don’t need to be Thomas Edison to check the calibration of your slide-out room. With the room fully extended or retracted, just check each cable. Each cable should be snug, but not guitar-string tight. Grasp it with your thumb and forefinger and gently push up and down. Each should easily move up and down 1/2” in each direction, or 1” total. If any cable is too tight or too loose, all the cables need to be adjusted.
If you’re not mechanically minded, the cable adjustment will require an RV technician who knows the Accu-Slide system—but better to pay $200 for an adjustment than $1,000 for a system rebuild!
More by Andrew, The RV Engineer:
- What you’ve been told about your RV’s anode rod is wrong
- Am I out of propane? Or is it just too cold outside?
- RV tech asks: ‘Am I a crook, too?’ Understanding the facts behind DIY vs. dealership pricing
- Can you figure out what’s wrong with this through-frame slide-out?
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Thank you for the discussion, Andrew. I expect that all slide sytem repairs are more likely “6-pack” repairs than “one beer” repairs. Maybe if I ever undertake enough training to become “hands-on” with my RV repairs, then I’ll think differently. Meanwhile, have a great weekend and safe travels!