Foretravel Owners' Forum For owners and Fans of Foretravel Motorcoaches September 10, 2025 ...

Mark,

With 4, unless you are working on the air suspension (in which case you will need to dump air), leave the air bags UP.  Because there are 4 bags PER AXLE, you will be putting some torque on things by dumping air with just the inner safety stand location (vs one stand inboard of each air bag).  Not a big deal-- nothing is going to break, but you gain nothing by dumping the air.

Which corners do you block, especially in the back? My observation is that putting blocks on only one end of the "H" frame is like a loading one end of a teeter-totter. Putting the blocks in front of the rear axle for instance will push that end (the one connected to the bulkhead joint by the trailing arms) away from the basement. That is in essence how I controlled the separation of the bulkhead joint the entire time I was rebuilding the basement structure. If your bulkhead joint is sound, it would likely be okay with that extra loading, especially if the air bags don't get dumped or leak down. But knowing what I know and seeing what I have seen, I would advise against that option for work that would have the coach sitting heavily on the stands. If it is to do a quick check under one area, then blocking one end could be a life saver. If however, working with the air bags dumped or removed, I would not set the coach down with just one stand in front of each end of the rear axle. Not only is it safer in the event of a catastrophic sir system failure to hold pressure, but it is less stressful on the structure, IMHO. When I am blocking the coach all the way up for some serious work, I always use 8 stands because it gives me the warm fuzzies to do so . If the work is all focused on one end, say the rear, then I will possibly block up the rear with four and just use two in front as a just in case option. The front suspension is not tethered to the front bulkhead joint like the rear because there are no trailing arms acting as an axle locator, so using two in the front would still put stress on the suspension components in the event of an air dump, but the basement to bulkhead joint would not be unaffected. Of course everyone must do what their own assessment of the physics of the situation tells them is best.
Don

Ah, I see your point.  I'll order 4 more.  Thanks, Brett.