Bob,
I believe you are right about the arms to a point. The arms just seem to be a stabilizer when in the open position and are on the shallow slides of the pasenger side that are electric. The other two slides on drivers side are hydraulic and do not have them.
Gulf Stream changed this design last year I believe, 2006 models, on the electric slides and now they have something else, no arms. Like computers, something new and better comes out all the time, at least they say.
The one thing is unlike your backhoe which moves lots of times at the pivots and actually supports heavy loads, the arms are just a stabilizer as I stated. Of course if I could have or would have purchased a Provost, it would not have any of those.
But in all truthfulness, the slides function very good, are tight, move in/out true and seal tight with no leaks, now.
As far as your description of how to remove the arm out off the pin so that one could seal it, I believe you might be right about supporting the slide weight, but like I stated, I told the dealer what to seal and they did it. I probably can find out from Gulf Stream techs at the Back Home Rally in June on how to remove the arms and what procedure to do.
Ron