Somehow while backing into a tree covered campsite with my Thor Axis, I caught the front end cap of my slide out topper on a branch and pulled it out. See the attached pic for the larger view.
So I climbed up there on a ladder a few days ago to see what I could do about it. The first issue was figuring out which model of the Carefree slide topper I had. By looking at the Carefree website and comparing images with mine I determined it was an Alpine model. FWIW Thor's build parts list did no good. All it had was numbers, no manufacturer or model name.
Then I looked on the web for a video of installing or reinstalling one. This is the best I found:
. Review the video and pay careful attention to the tagged pin noted at 15:49 in the video.
Looking at mine close up (second pic attached) and you will see a buggered up black vaned bushing that fits into the slide roller. Fortunately, on this size topper the front or left end doesn't have a spring and all of that mechanism- vanned bushing, metal device that engages the spring (Carefree calls it the spindle assembly) isn't really used. A simple bushing and roller pin would have worked just as well, but I guess Carefree decided to use the same parts for both ends on this one, even though the left or front doesn't engage a spring.
That made repair pretty easy as all I had to do was to remove the black end cap and reattach the spindle to the roller tube using the other non buggered holes on the spindle.
And if it weren't for my stupidity (or trying to figure out what all of that complex spindle assembly really did on the left side) I removed the cap on the right side so I could see what it looked like. Big mistake as the spindle assembly then quickly rotated and I lost all of the tension on the roller.
It wasn't obvious as to how to fix it until I saw the referenced video. At 15:49 the installer's finger is pointing at a tagged pin. This pin holds the spindle with its preset tension in place. So all I had to do was to rotate the spindle and drop a small Allen wrench in as a pin once I got it right. Getting the tension right took some trial and error, but 4-5 turns with the topper almost closed did the trick. You hold the roller tube and rotate the spindle until you have the right tension, then put the Allen wrench into one of the holes to temporarily hold it in place. Then I followed the rest of the installation video and all was well.
The installation video shows another temporary pin that acts like a spacer to give the proper end clearance. But if you are repairing an existing installation as I was doing, the screws holding the mounting for the end cap to the RV are already are set for the right clearance so just go with that.
It now works correctly and except for some slight tearing of the fabric probably made while closing with the buggered end, it is as good as new.
David
Linear Mode
