Another RV challenge, but a challenge accepted!
Saturday in preparation of our departure to Alexandria we encountered a “loft malfunction”. There are two beds in this RV. One King in the back bedroom and one Queen loft bed above the drivers/passenger “cockpit”. This loft operates electronically by pushing either an up or down arrow which raises and lowers the bed. On Saturday when raising the bed for the day, the motor started struggling to the point of grinding to a halt. Then the motor no longer worked, period. Given we had a full day planned we resigned ourselves to fixing when we got home.
Coming home from a day in Alexandria we were too tired to “deal” with the issue, so I slept on the couch. Tomorrow will be a new day!
Sunday, got up had a great chat with our great friend ER (3 hours worth), took the fur babies for a walk and bumped into a fellow RVers, R&S from Minnesota, who told us about a night tour of Washington (which is now booked for Tuesday night!). SO with the day starting out with a bang, we decided we were in good shape to tackle the issue!.
What exactly happened? Well it seems that you CANNOT make a loft bed using a flat sheet where the bottom of the bed is on the drivers side of the RV. This is where, we now know, is where the motor and apparatus is to actually move and hold the bed in place safely while sleeping and driving. We had decided a few nights ago to “switch up” the way I was sleeping in the loft. You know, in stead of turning the mattress, why not turn oneself? Seems logical doesn’t it?
NO WHERE in the manual does it say, don’t use flat sheets, don’t have the foot of the bed on that side of the RV. WATCH for loose sheets, watch that nothing gets caught in the motor. ETC!
So, what happened is that we did change for the first time, how we made the bed by switching what was the foot. Day 3 which was the Alexandria morning, was I guess when the flat sheet became loose and it along with the fitted (being nicely pulled in with it) got wrapped up around the metal rod and in between the straps that maneuver the bed up and down and hold it. As this was happening the motor was struggling. I could hear it slowing down, but of course didn’t understand why. And then………it just stopped.
Barb was talking to JL back home and he said that it sounded like something got caught in the motor. Which we discovered was correct when we were trying to remove the sheets for the couch for me to sleep on.
NOW HOW to fix! Before I even get there I do want to point out to all of you, if you were not already aware,, that we ARE BRILLIANT!
We first looked at how bad the carnage was in the mechanisms. We determined that we could not unwrap the sheets ourselves, we determined that we needed the bed to roll down and in turn “unroll” the sheets from the mechanics, and we determined we needed to first get the motor working again.
Step 1: check fuse box for fuse specific to the loft bed. Checked and there is one
Step 2: check to make sure we have 2 of the correct fuses, in case we blow another one, if indeed this was an issue. Checked and we had 2 extra
Step 3: change fuse. Done
Step 4: test if this worked by quickly hitting the down button on the motor to see if we did indeed blow a fuse. Which we did and it WORKED!
Step 5: with Lori holding the sheets up to allow for no slack, and Barb maneuvering the controls, SLOWLY lower the bed
Step 6: once comfortable that this approach is working, move the bed all the way down and RELEASE THE SHEETS !
END RESULT???? See for yourself the progress.
