Have any of you ever experienced dog tracking. When Im driving down the road, the rear end of the coach is 10-12 inches closer to the centerline than the front
Assuming your shocks,tires and pressure,alignment,front bearings are in good order,may be your torque rod bushings.Others will soon chime in.
For one reason or another your rear axle isn't parallel to your front axle. You sir, have a problem. It's repairable but it needs to be addressed.
Check bushings, and also bulkhead. Could be serious so don't wait.
Pierce
2-6 in is pretty common. 6-10 is too much. Should be easy to find . Measure the tire gap to fenders and go from there.
You must have some spectacular tire wear issues, no?
Stay away from toll booths and road construction between Jersey barriers. How do you get fuel at truckstops?
Mike,
Can you give us some more details like:
did this happen all at once (like something broke)
has it been getting worse slowly (like something wearing out)
did you just get the coach and that is how it drove on the way home
Can you post some pics of the suspension parts that hold the axles in place (trailing arms/torque tubes and panhard bar) and the bulkhead area. If you have to get under the coach for even pics. use your safety blocks. If you can post pics. some of us may be able to see something amiss.
Mike
mikeshort09
I can't help but wonder, where did you measure this discrepancy?
Was it in the rear view mirror? If so, its an optical illusion. Perhaps, I am just naive but your distance off just seems to be very unrealistic.
OR, are you all putting me on?
Need more feedback from Mr. Mike.
Not to make fun of his problem but has anyone heard that term before?
Just to underscore the seriousness of this problem, here are two quick tests.
1) at about 30 MPH take your feet off the pedals and pull the parking brake. If the rear axle doesn't come adrift you're good to go.
2) Find a grade crossing on a down hill stretch of road, up hill works as well but see #1 above. Anyway drive downhill across the grade crossing at 30 MPH. If the front suspension doesn't come adrift, you're good to go.
We helped weld the front suspension into a friend's Corvair twice, same grade crossing, before we moved him into a 1953 Cranbrook. Pretty hard to kill a Chrysler product.
I inadvertently performed the grade crossing trick with the previous RV, I lost 2-glass pie dishes when the tires met the road again.
Taking well lit video or still images and posting it to the forum is good insurance against future problems.
In the days before 4-wheel alignment machinery, dog tracking was a symptom of a bad collision repair. Slight dog tracking can be caused by a single failed suspension bushing.
YES.
Dog-tracking is the correct term and generally caused by one side of an axle (generally rear) being forward/behind the other side.
Checking for wear on bushings locating the axles is where I would start.
Yup. Have also heard it termed "dog legging".
Will pass on the #12 "trick".
Where's your sense of adventure?
I only wanted to point out that on an 18 year old vehicle with semi-monocoque construction, finding the cause of the dog tracking is not to be taken lightly. At the same time we should remind mikeshort09 that the truss frame construction makes repair simple if time consuming.
Here in So. Cal. the truckers call it crab crawling. On the early rear leaf spring suspensions it was the dowel in one of the leaf springs was sheared and the spring shifted.
Agreed-- it may be something complex/difficult.
But, I always start by checking the easy/cheap things first. Bushings, bushings, bushings. If play in them the axle is no longer located where it should be.
RE bushings... Our previous coach, a 1998 Monaco, had bushing issues. Most were bad, some were completely gone. That allowed a slight shift in the steering to adjust suspension components almost 1.5 inches.
If you want to know about replacing bushings, I did all of them. Not too technical, but brutal, nasty, greasy work.
When we first got our coach we noticed it was a little difficult to steer.
Rudy Legett recommended an alignment shop called big truck alignment which is located at 515 South US Highway 69 in Huntington Texas. Their phone number is 936-465-0701.
They performed a two axle alignment and my rear axle was off approximately 2 inches to the left from the center .
I have read on the forum that there were a few model years including mine that were not aligned properly during the manufacturing process.
Big difference after the alignment was done and the coach is a lot easier to steer.
From LT's post I would find out from Foretravel if the posters coach is in that catagory,but still check all the obvious components.
Soooo Too much doom and gloom? Imagine how relieved the OP will be when he pays the bill for a four-wheel alignment. And maybe a couple of bushings. And the entire bay floor from bulkhead to bulkhead. And has to hire lawyers to fight the shop for the broken windshields after they drop it. Far enough?
Have seen it for years on many posts of this nature,for whatever the reason when the original poster answers quickly and responds
to questions and opinions the speculation and "doom and gloom" is much less,when they post and don't get back for awhile the
opinions keep going on.
I'm getting like the guy on the first Dirty Harry movie,"I gots to know" what happened.
Well, it's kinda hard to help someone who won't supply any feedback on our suggestions...causes me to quickly lose interest.