Well Bob and Pat, it has taken me a week to get to this.....sorry about that....but I will send you a few other photos. These will help introduce Forum members to your new coach. That was a long two days getting it on the road, hard on MOT and you, about normal I think for a rush job, and will leave you, as us, with the typical questions along the way, "how does....?" "where is.....?" "how to fill my tank?"
The first photo is the Saturday morning visit you made to Herman Power for new tires. Frank explained how he and Stewart called in favors to get these, even though they missed getting on the right truck for delivery to Nac! This size tire seems scarce if you specify Michelins. We joked, maybe they needed a machine to mount those tires, and then Sergio showed how could beat any machine.
Next are two photos of you with your coach, those will give folks an idea of how pretty your coach is, and I will send others separately.
Mike
Thanks to Mike for these pix. More later as we have grandchild to entertain
I don't have any idea as to forum etiquette so I shall ramble. We just completed trip from Madison,WI to Crossville,TN. We had to resort to running generator and front a/c (zone1) today as temps were 90+ in TN. Coach performed well in mild hills of TN. Love the tranny braking feature. My coach is a handful in wind and traffic. There may be some slack (free play) in the steering gear or other front steering components. My first true estimate of fuel consumption is 7.8 mpg and this is with some night time use of gen. for sleep comfort in a walmart lot.
As entered Spring Lake RV Resort in Crossville Gibby from the forum came up to greet us. His coach is stored in the area and he was visiting friends here at Spring Lake.
Bob,
Pretty easy to check for play in the steering components:
With engine off, have helper sit in driver's seat. You start looking under the front passenger's side of the coach. Look at the right wheel steering knuckle to tie rod. Now, have your helper turn the wheel in ever-increasing arcs left-right-left (about 1 second in each direction) until the right steering knuckle just begins to move... Look for any movement of the tie rod that does not move the knuckle.
Move to the driver's side and look at the left steering knuckle to tie rod-- same drill.
Now check both ends of the drag link.
Sadly, the steering box, a Sheppard M100 is not adjustable. If that is where your play is, you will need a blueprinted steering box.
These guys do it for a living and many of the RV suspension shops around the country recommend them ( I have no first hand experience): Red-Head Steering Gears - Custom Rebuilt Steering Gear Boxes in USA (http://www.redheadsteeringgears.com/)
Gootie after the checks Brett mentioned which are the required steps and the steering box may well need work, I found a slightly preloaded set of front wheel bearings took all the play out of ours.
Legal spec is .001-.005 play as its measurable and verifiable in court.
Still wanders more or less.
A slight tension on the bearing cured my wander. My guru has preloaded hundreds of rv's to help solve coach wander.
Checked with a heat gun no running hot at all.
Excellent advice from both gents.
Factory specs for end play of .001- .005" will NOT give you play in the steering. Those have been the correct specs for decades. Good shops, set it up with a dial indicator. Bubba may "eye-ball it" and leave it well looser than that.
I would like to see any bearing manufacturer's recommendation to pre-load these kinds of bearings.
My motor home wandered and I check the toe in which was toed out. I changed it to 3/16 to in, problem solved
When we first got our coach it was toed out 3/8" and Wayne set it at 1/16" toed in (as per the label on the inside of the glove box lid---DUH). Absolutely amazing difference in steering and handling! Apparently somebody had done an alignment job without opening the glove box.