One more contributor to coach handling - Printable Version

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+--- Thread: One more contributor to coach handling (/showthread.php?tid=5066)

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One more contributor to coach handling - Richard - 07-06-2019

Yes, I know, I have an uncurable obsession with how the coach handles. Despite all my handiwork on my own coach, there was something that just wasn't to my liking. 

Here were the symptoms, and they were most pronounce on a very smooth, and lightly crowned road. There were not detectable on a heavily crowned road, or with a moderate side wind, or a rough road. The coach seemed to want to randomly pull to one side or another. Normally that is a characteristic of too much toe out, or possibly toe in. The toe in was checked, massaged, checked and massaged over and over with no impact. Front tires show no wear patterns. 

This has been going on for a couple of years. I became convinced that the rear of the coach was steering the front. I already had on my winter project list to devise a way of checking to see if the rear axle was moving around because of worn radius arm bushings. 


I did notice the one of the front tires on the Subie tow car looked like the camber was off, and it was wearing on the left side. The car drove just fine with no pull so I assumed it couldn't be too bad. It was a slow day, and I found a tire store, and took it in for alignment. The toe in was out of spec excessively on the toad. After the car alignment was put back in spec, the handling of the coach lost this mysterious mind of it's own. 

Needless to say, I was happy with the outcome. Just wanted to make the gang aware of one more thing when chasing handling issues.

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RE: One more contributor to coach handling - bikestuff - 07-06-2019

When I read the first paragraph of this post, I was saying to myself....what has Richard found?, and how much $$$ is it gonna cost me to do the same to my coach?

I am so happy this turned out to be his tow vehicle. (I haul my bike on the back as my tow vehicle so I don’t have that problem).

Thanks Richard for sharing all these learnings about steering.

If you had a camera mounted in the right spot, do you think you would have been able to see the car moving and thus the coach moving?

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