Another RV challenge, but challenge accepted!
Saturday, in preparation for our day trip 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 driver/passenger “cockpit”. This loft operates electronically by pushing either an up or down button 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 it when we got home.
Coming home from a day in Alexandria we were too tired to “deal” with the issue, so Lori slept on the couch. Tomorrow will be a new day!
Sunday we got up and had a chat, 3 hours worth, with our great friend Elaine, took the fur babies for a walk, and bumped into 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 loft issue!
What exactly happened? Well it seems that you CANNOT make up a loft bed using a flat sheet where the foot of the bed is on the driver’s side of the RV. This is where, we now know, the motor/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 Lori was sleeping in the loft. You know, instead of turning the mattress, why not turn oneself? Seems logical, doesn’t it?
NOWHERE 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 changed, for the first time, how we made the bed by switching the foot and the head of the sleeping arrangement. On day 3, which was the Alexandria morning, the flat sheet must have been loose and it, along with the fitted which got dragged in for the ride, got wrapped around the metal rod and in between the straps that maneuver the bed up and down. As this was happening, the motor was struggling. We could hear it slowing down, but of course didn’t understand why. And then………it just stopped.
Barb was talking to Jim back home and he said that it sounded like something got caught in the motor which overworked it. Which we discovered was correct when we were trying to remove the sheets for me to sleep on the couch.
Now – HOW to fix? Before we even get there, we 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 mechanism. We determined that we could not unwrap the sheets ourselves, that we needed the bed to roll down and in turn “unroll” the sheets from the mechanics. Of course that meant we needed to get the motor working again.
Step 1: check fuse box for the fuse specific to the loft bed. Checked and there is one and it was blown.
Step 2: check to make sure we have 2 of the correct fuses, in case we blow another one. 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 it would turn and it did!
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 pics below: the problem, the progress, the sheets released, and – problem solved!
