Slide Ski Mangled

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We have our dining/recliner slide ski all tore up, right side near the door. I have my suspensions what caused it but lets not go there now.
I found the part on GDRV parts page, TRIM PLASTIC SLIDE OUT SKIS REFLECTION RIGHT SIDE Part Number: 550041. I don't know why it says Reflection on a Solitude 3350RL look up but the part looks right.

I found this doing a search, https://www.recpro.com/rv-slide-out-...UaAsvoEALw_wcB
It also looks correct. An owner that bought this and left a comment said it fit his 2020 Solitude 310 so it should fit our S-Class, trimmed to fit.

I got the mangled one out with a little work, it came out in pieces. Once it got tore up it was pulled out from behind the trim piece. It was only held in with double sided tape along the bottom and a few staples along the side. Once its mangled it just keeps getting worse with slide movement until it ends up like ours and you notice it. In the forth pic you can see the slide threshold block the ski slides on. There's no saving ours. I got it temporary patched until I can get the part.

Keep an eye on yours, and keep crap out of the way so it doesn't jam the slide and make darn sure plastic bottle caps don't end up under the slide!

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I found a YouTube of a tech fixing this problem, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KwD_f2IvQk

Looks pretty simple. I was wondering if I could get the slide up just enough to slide and wiggle the replacement ski in the gap, it's really tight with the slide weight on the ski.

[geotex1]

Very easy to replace in place but make sure you correct what ate it in the first place. I needed wider that OE after the through-frame mechanism failed to fix secondary damage. Used these:

S.RECREATION Duo 028102D-AFT RV Slide Out Ski Easy Slide System - 6" x 53", Pack of 2 https://a.co/d/8090725

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Very easy to replace in place but make sure you correct what ate it in the first place. I needed wider that OE after the through-frame mechanism failed to fix secondary damage. Used these:

S.RECREATION Duo 028102D-AFT RV Slide Out Ski Easy Slide System - 6" x 53", Pack of 2 https://a.co/d/8090725

6 inches is pretty wide but I understand if you have damage to the slide floor underneath you may need something wider to cover the damage or seal it up. The OEM is 4 inches. The exterior slide floor of ours is undamaged, just the ski took the punishment. Getting in there, pulling the seals out of the way, scoping things out while watching as the slide moved in and out, I could see how the plastic ski starts puckering up and bending. There is a lot of weight on those plastic skis. I found there is very little margin for error when these slides go in or out. If something catches it could tear things up in a hurry.

I think ours started to be caused by the slide getting crooked when something fell down on the floor and got jammed behind the interior trim and popped the trim off. Then I also found a plastic bottle cap wedged under the slide interior floor from a jar of smelly good scent bottle. That caused the slide to move/drag slower on one side going in and out. The ski side lip got caught in the slide threshold and tore, cracked and broke the side lip of the ski. The bottom underneath side of the ski was fine, just the slide lip got tore up and ripped up. Then once the ski gets damaged, it catches more and more until it just tears it up. That's where I am now, to damaged to fix, it must be replaced.

[geotex1]

Yeah, the flood coated fabric they use on the bottom of the slide room along with some of the bottom board were damaged. Fabric is practically impossible to replace properly in the field! I was able to mend what I had with the wide ski and then pull some 80 mil HDPE sheet off my Cartersville line to make some custom wide slide roller glides to reduce the risk of damaging the floor if that chaos should ever happen again!

[goducks14]

Bottom of slides should be covered with the same exterior fiberglass panels. No wearing out and much better for waterproofing.

[roegs01]

We're currently in our S-Class and reading this thread prompted me to go out and look at my dinette / recliner ski's. While my ski's still look good, I did notice a few items:

1. My ski's are only 2.5 inches wide. Interesting that yours are 4".

2. As noted above, each ski rides across the floor threshold block as the slide retracts and extends. Quite a bit of weight sliding across the threshold block. In my case, the threshold block is about 1" too short by the entry door. As a result, only half of the ski on that side is supported by the threshold block. Grrr.

Thanks for the posts in this thread....very informative.

Steven....please post how your replacement goes!

[[email protected]]

We're currently in our S-Class and reading this thread prompted me to go out and look at my dinette / recliner ski's. While my ski's still look good, I did notice a few items:

1. My ski's are only 2.5 inches wide. Interesting that yours are 4".

2. As noted above, each ski rides across the floor threshold block as the slide retracts and extends. Quite a bit of weight sliding across the threshold block. In my case, the threshold block is about 1" too short by the entry door. As a result, only half of the ski on that side is supported by the threshold block. Grrr.

Thanks for the posts in this thread....very informative.

Steven....please post how your replacement goes!

No problem I'll give an update when I get it done. Yes the OEM ski is 2.5 inches wide, the aftermarket/universal, the one I ordered is 4" wide and has a 1" vertical lip.
couple more pics, you can see how close things are as the slide moves in and out. And the pieces of our ski I got out, as you see the 1" vertical lip on ours is what got tore up. . Any crack or break in the bottom side of the ski and the threshold block will just bend it over and peel it back.
Course these skis are very thin plastic, If I can just get the slide right side end up even 1/4 inch I can slip the ski across the bottom from the inside out.

If you find a damaged ski don't put off fixing it, if the bottom piece of the ski is broken/missing the threshold block will tear up the bottom side of the slide and another important job of the ski is sealing the edge of the slide and keeping rain water from soaking the floor. The owner in the YouTube vid I included has a Momentum and in the video you can see the bottom of his slide is all tore up with hunks of wood missing from sliding over the threshold block.

Another You Tube on replacing the slide ski...... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqPT4eweX8o

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We got our slide ski replaced today. We made a video of us doing the work. Here is a direct link to our video,
https://youtu.be/G9MF-jgjjY0

[roegs01]

We got our slide ski replaced today. We made a video of us doing the work. Here is a direct link to our video,
https://youtu.be/G9MF-jgjjY0

Thanks Steven....great video. Appreciate all the detail. I've been doing some reading on this topic and searching for parts on GD's parts catalog. Turns out the 'threshold block' is referred to as a 'wear bar'. As I mentioned above, my wear bar is about 1" too short on the entry door side. Your video shows a good view of it and I wish mine was as long as yours. As a result of mine being 1" short, not all of my ski on that side is fully riding on the wear bar.

Glad to see you're back in business!