Drop down overcab bed

[SaraE]

Hello. We have a big problem with the drop down bed in our Fiat Rapido. It had been making horrendous noises on lowering and raising and getting heavier to lift up to closed position. Eventually one of the gas struts failed ,locking in the extended position. So we changed both struts hoping this would sort the problem. However unfortunately it has not. Although it's very slightly easier to lift up its still very heavy. Also when down it literally drops down to rest on the steering wheel top, so obviously not correct. Also when lifting it up it becomes unbalanced and tilts towards the windscreen, so all in all unusable. Any ideas please? Is it the mechanism?

 

[Gaston aires]

These beds are very heavy. The struts need to be exactly the same as the old ones. Pressure is tremendous.
I did this successfully but it wasn’t an easy fix.
Phil

 

[Martin How]

I have a Hymenoptera rather than a Rapido but ours has a parallelogram linkage which stops it tilting as it pivots down. Have you checked that all the links and pivots are sound and not broken?

 

[SaraE]

This is our mechanism?

 

[Wonders]

No picture ??

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[SaraE]

Sorry I'm having trouble uploading it

 

[jongood]

Sorry I'm having trouble uploading itView attachment 677925

Have you tried a bit of white grease on the joints?

 

[Manic]

I renewed my bed struts in my hymer with stronger ones from SGS engineering

 

[SaraE]

I renewed my bed struts in my hymer with stronger ones from SGS engineering

Yes. We did the same with ours. They're from SGS but haven't sorted it. Guess it's probably the mechanism

 

[SaraE]

Have you tried a bit of white grease on the joints?

No. The joints/mechanism doesn't seem to be supporting the bed at all

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[jongood]

No. The joints/mechanism doesn't seem to be supporting the bed at all

The beds normally hang off them and they need to turn easily for the bed to go up and down, the friction element should be the gas struts

 

[Guigsy]

It sounds like something has become completely detached on one side. It could be a mounting point into it body rather than the joints?

FYI: mine will rest on the steering wheel if I fully extended the steering wheel column. Took me a while of wondering why the bed felt like it was rocking and clunking.

 

[68c]

Our Pilote G270 had a similar issue, one of the nuts fell of a lift arm so only supported at three points. You need to find out what is happening before driving the van again. It is a safety issue, if indeed the mechanism is not complete and secure it could fall down while you are driving. Remove the curtain around the bed to see what is happening. Good luck.

 

[iceclimber]

I Changed the struts on my Burstner 660 because the bed would drop quite a few inches when going over bumps / undulations in the road. Was not easy an easy job ! I used equivalent SGS replacements but this did not solve the problem. By tightening the large nylon nuts on the parallelogram mechanisms on both sides it did improve it & sort of reached a balance between ease of using bed & nuisance “dropping“ ?
It could be that the large nyloc nuts have worked loose ?

 

[SaraE]

Thanks. Will give it a go

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