Re: Henderson lineup or country coach for alignment
Reply #27 –
Yahoo Message Number: 90450
Rod - In addition to comparison test driving against a different unit. No matter what, it is worth a phone call to the suspension builder, and see if your specific front end is involved with the recall. If so, that is your first basic move, IMO. Then, have all of the bushings and rubber components (front AND rear) checked out, to see if the front end flex accelerated wear.
If any of them are close, I like the input on having custom urethane bushings made, as that will also tighten the ride.
For blow out reasons, if a Safety T or Steer Safe will mount (forget the one you said that Henderson's sold you), that would be a good safety edge to have. But, if the Blue Ox Tru Center will fit your coach (it won't on our Allure), I'd ask Henderson's to swap that out for the one they sold you.
And spot on advice about loading the front end as much as possible. I know another Inspire owner, and he felt that his Inspire is just a tad bit tail weighted for his likings.
And a bit of an opinion difference shift from 'stiffening' the front shocks on an overly sensitive front end. If anything, you want to less the impact on the front end from stiffer shocks. If they will fit your coach, that is where a pair of Koni FSD's might help some too. They control rebound on the 'down stroke' vs the normal shocks controlling during the 'up stroke'. This means they FSD's can never contribute to add a stiffer ride. We saw some improvement on our older 99 F53 18K Lbs chassis - that was very tail heavy, especially with a rear full gas and water tank (Fleetwood mounted the 75 gal water tank in the very back right side! I always teased my DW that if I punched it, I good get the front end off of the ground...
!)
One last bit of input. You mentioned even a car will blow you a bit. That backs up the light front end problem. But I will share that also on our old Bounder, with the very front light end - we were first 'sucked in' and then 'blown out' as the Semi's would come up and pass us. I spent several thousand dollars on suspension component upgrades, and big improvements on overall handling. Trucks still go us. So, I added Air Tabs - at under $250 for my coach, they were the cheapest mod I made to help handling. BIG IMPROVEMENT. Trucks going buy were not near as dramatic, still felt them on the 'blown out' part, but near as much. Hardly any 'Sucked In' as they overtook us from the rear. Another dramatic improvement, was in how well the coach handled shifting cross winds. Where I used to be a white knuckle driver in even light shifting cross winds. The Air Tabs improvement on the impact of these shifting cross winds, was very noticeable. Sure, once they started getting up 30 knots, I'd for sure feel them and slow way down. But the 10-20 knot shifting cross winds, were not too much of a problem with the Air Tabs. And finally, in rains, our rear camera always seemed to get blotted out or impacted by water. Air Tabs kept the back of the coach clean (dirt too), and very seldom did we have water on the camera after this. With a bit extra work on pre painting them to match our Bounder's paint scheme, they were not near as noticeable. On many boards, for some reason people who never have had Air Tabs - seem to feel we're all damaged between the ears for 'thinking' we saw any improvements Heck, add in slight improvements to MPG, which I did see - and we were quite often called Snake Oil salesman:)! When we paint our rig in 2015, I will have Air Tabs added then. Mostly for the cleaner back end, and toad, as I doubt they will help my handling as much with the 40' and tags.
But Rod - I'm an arm chair tech on this one, and have never driven an Inspire, so factor that in my 'free' advice:)!
Best of luck, and please keep us updated as this progresses! Smitty
04 Allure 31017
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