Roadmaster RR44R chassis upgrades

[onechaddude]

Originally Posted by deSanford

Watts Links? Sanford

Unfortunately we have no way to have a watts link. Ours is 4 bag chassis. Completely different animal than the 8 bag.

Chad

[captw3]

I have just returned from a 18 day 3500 mile trip and wanted to share my happy tales of much improved ride and handling.
In the last year I have up sized my tires to Firestone F5 560 plus in 275 from 255. I also had to replace my radiator so I upgraded the fan to the Source proformance fan at the same time. The difference in noise and power is remarkable. I had my trailing arms replaced because of cracks and had JoSam do the REK at the same time with a 4 wheel ailinegment and weight.
This trip was the best test possible to check ride and handling. I started in NH and went to Asheville via 90 to 84 to 81. There was wind gusts to 40 mph and a constant parade of 18 wheelers. We then went to Savannah and on to Ormond beach. We went to Leesburg and then Homosassa for a few days then returned to NH on secondary roads like 301 and 220. This is the first time in the three years I have owned the bus that it was a joy to drive. No wander, push from the big rigs or bone jarring slams with porpoising.
I drove 65-70 with a Honda Pilot in tow and enjoyed the trip. No death grip on the wheel or expansion joint ski jumping.
I think I am where I can enjoy the ride finally and not look for more up grades for awhile.
All the upgrades where worth the trouble. It is to bad HR didn't build it this way to start with.

Rick
03 Neptune w/ 05 pilot towed

[CrazyKnight]

Originally Posted by deSanford

Chad and Steve do you both have TRW steering boxes? If not that is where lots of wonder is from (Sheppard boxes are for off road use). Sanford

Sanford,

They bumped this new and WONDERFUL thread from the SWAP thread, after swapping, and WANDERING thread. RR 4 coach owners need their own source of information.
They are making great progress and documenting all the improvements one at time along the way. WAY to go, one MOD one RESULT and then move on.

I am looking forward to the results of your research and testing and I think I will be adding ATRO bushings to my RR8 when we return from Alaska. I would love to do it before, MAYBE if I get the parts fast....nope Grandson on the way. DARN IT !

GREAT WORK !!!! Keep it up

Craig

[onechaddude]

Originally Posted by captw3

I have just returned from a 18 day 3500 mile trip and wanted to share my happy tales of much improved ride and handling.
In the last year I have up sized my tires to Firestone F5 560 plus in 275 from 255. I also had to replace my radiator so I upgraded the fan to the Source proformance fan at the same time. The difference in noise and power is remarkable. I had my trailing arms replaced because of cracks and had JoSam do the REK at the same time with a 4 wheel ailinegment and weight.
This trip was the best test possible to check ride and handling. I started in NH and went to Asheville via 90 to 84 to 81. There was wind gusts to 40 mph and a constant parade of 18 wheelers. We then went to Savannah and on to Ormond beach. We went to Leesburg and then Homosassa for a few days then returned to NH on secondary roads like 301 and 220. This is the first time in the three years I have owned the bus that it was a joy to drive. No wander, push from the big rigs or bone jarring slams with porpoising.
I drove 65-70 with a Honda Pilot in tow and enjoyed the trip. No death grip on the wheel or expansion joint ski jumping.
I think I am where I can enjoy the ride finally and not look for more up grades for awhile.
All the upgrades where worth the trouble. It is to bad HR didn't build it this way to start with.

Rick
03 Neptune w/ 05 pilot towed

Rick, is awesome to hear of your happiness with your coach after some improvements. I agree 100% with you, most of these should have been completed by Monaco before the coach was ever sold. But we all know that they build them cheap as they can and us unknowing people flock to buy them. Then we are left to fit the bill to make them roadworthy to drive.

If you've read this thread you know that several of us are somewhat happy with our coaches. We have a little bit of wander when pulling our toad vehicles, especially when it's windy. I'm glad your experience is great with your additions. It's no fun as you know to fight these things on a long days drive. Keep in touch on here as there are some thing CaymanPilot has in the works to hopefully tighten our coaches up even more. Safe travels.

Chad

[deSanford]

One of the nice results of all the creativity of the outstanding people who have helped "paying it forward" the handling of Monaco Coaches is that the "little" ones now handle as well as the "LARGE" coaches with less maneuverability. Sanford

[CaymanPilot]

Update:
Well, it's Monday again - time for my weekly visit to the RV tech and the Cayman to see if there has been any progress. Whoa! I had him adjust the drag link and that project is complete. Both the front and the rear trac bars are out of the coach and laying on the press. They determined that the trac bar bushings do indeed need to be replaced as they all have stress marks and dry rot! The fun part will be replacing them as the press won't get the job done while the bushing is still intact. They will have to "burn" them out. They heat up the center sleeve with a torch and burn the rubber out and then the center sleeve falls out. Once the center sleeve and the rubber are gone, the outer sleeve can then be pushed out. Glad he is doing this and not me. I reminded him that I want to test drive it after the trac bar bushings have been installed but before the trailing arm bushings and rear sway bar are installed. I can only hope that I get to take her for a spin before then end of the week. He also reported that the front and rear trailing arm bushings show excessive wear and definitely need to be replaced. I think this is good news really because it probably explains why I have the wandering issue.
Chad and I spoke on the phone for almost an hour about our "projects" last week. He shared a lot of information on the sway bar install which I am in the process of documenting along with some photos he sent. Hope to have that complete and posted on here in a few days so anyone who wants to install the rear sway bar can benefit from it. Thank you Chad and it was great talking to you.
I apologize this is taking so long but that is how it is with my RV tech. I'm hoping any followers will stick with me till the end and that there will be good results that all can enjoy. Whenever there is progress, you guys will be the first to know.

[onechaddude]

Originally Posted by CaymanPilot

Update:
Well, it's Monday again - time for my weekly visit to the RV tech and the Cayman to see if there has been any progress. Whoa! I had him adjust the drag link and that project is complete. Both the front and the rear trac bars are out of the coach and laying on the press. They determined that the trac bar bushings do indeed need to be replaced as they all have stress marks and dry rot! The fun part will be replacing them as the press won't get the job done while the bushing is still intact. They will have to "burn" them out. They heat up the center sleeve with a torch and burn the rubber out and then the center sleeve falls out. Once the center sleeve and the rubber are gone, the outer sleeve can then be pushed out. Glad he is doing this and not me. I reminded him that I want to test drive it after the trac bar bushings have been installed but before the trailing arm bushings and rear sway bar are installed. I can only hope that I get to take her for a spin before then end of the week. He also reported that the front and rear trailing arm bushings show excessive wear and definitely need to be replaced. I think this is good news really because it probably explains why I have the wandering issue.
Chad and I spoke on the phone for almost an hour about our "projects" last week. He shared a lot of information on the sway bar install which I am in the process of documenting along with some photos he sent. Hope to have that complete and posted on here in a few days so anyone who wants to install the rear sway bar can benefit from it. Thank you Chad and it was great talking to you.
I apologize this is taking so long but that is how it is with my RV tech. I'm hoping any followers will stick with me till the end and that there will be good results that all can enjoy. Whenever there is progress, you guys will be the first to know.

Steve, it's great to hear your news. If you read my earlier post you know there's still some room for improvement. The sway bar does help but there's still wander there. I had hoped it would have helped more, but it is what it is. In the sway bars defense, it is awesome at what it's supposed to do. Stops the Walmart wobble. Well worth the money for it for how well it does.

One thing I noticed on my breezy trip back home today, feels like the wander comes from the front now. We had spoke about how we thought the wander was coming from the rear of the coach after replacing our steering gear. Now it feels (maybe it's just me) that it's the front wallowing around. Maybe the rear sway bar tightened the back up and thus now allowing the front to show its looseness of those bushings.

Again, we are anxiously awaiting your test drive. Take care and hope to speak again soon.

Chad

[USAF Wings]

Steve, thank you for developing a rear sway bar installastion checklist. I am looking forward to it Thanks Chad for the great photos of your work, my installation will about the same as yours.

[deSanford]

Chad does your coach have a front sway bar? Sanford

[onechaddude]

Originally Posted by deSanford

Chad does your coach have a front sway bar? Sanford

Yes sanford the rr4r comes factory equipped with a front sway bar. Doesn't look to be as "solid" as the rear roadmaster I just installed. I may look and see if roadmaster makes an upgrade front bar.

Chad

[deSanford]

I'm sure Wayne at Roadmaster can make one with a larger diameter. Even increasing the diameter 1/4 of an inch makes a BIG difference in strength. Also they don't use "rubber" bushings. Someone might have to drive their rig up to their plant so they can get the info needed to make one fit. My old Gillig Chassis Motorhome had a sway bar in front. Roadmaster made me a larger diameter bar for the front and a big one for the rear (the chassis didn't have a rear one). Night and day the difference in handling around curves at speed etc, before it was like an accordion. The wheels stayed on the asphalt, but the "box" tilted on curves. Chad and others with the 4 bagger with these mods you guys are going have some nice keepers. Sanford

[CaymanPilot]

Update:
I am happy to report that I finally have some results to pass on to you all today. Today makes exactly one month since I dropped off the motorhome to my favorite RV Tech. Phase one is now complete and the ATRO bushings have been installed in both the front and rear trac bars. My RV tech calls them "torque rods" and I believe that is what the semi people call them. I was fortunate in that yesterday was a relatively windy day with some good gusts straight out of the north. I-74 goes through Peoria east and west so we had a good 90 degree crosswind for the test drive. The steering felt significantly better. I still had to see-saw the wheel somewhat but the amount of correction input to compensate for the crosswind was much less. In addition, I had a much better feeling of being in control. At the time of the test drive the NWS reported the wind at 13mph with gusts 15 - 20 mph. This test was conducted with the HHR in tow and a full tank of diesel. Fresh, gray and black tanks were empty and we were not loaded to go on a trip so GVW was less than when we travel all loaded up. I believe weight (especially over the front axle) helps to minimize wander in our case. Tires were inflated to 95 psi drives and 100psi steers. There are generally 3 conditions that produce the most wind induced wander with resulting steering wheel see-saw in my coach - going under an overpass where you have the crosswind before the overpass, then no wind under the overpass and the blast of wind after coming back out from under the overpass, at the top of a hill where the wind and gusts seem to be the strongest and finally when a semi passes on the windward side. All three conditions were experienced during the test drive and all three resulted in significantly less wander and resulting wheel see-saw. Interestingly enough, the previously most dramatic wander/see-saw was produced by the semi passing and during the test drive it produced the least wander/see-sawing of the 3 conditions. Please be aware that there are so many variables in a test like this that results can and will be skewed to a certain degree. It's not very scientific. On the other hand, be aware that I have driven this coach for 28k miles on many windy days so have a pretty good feel for how it reacts. It's also a Monaco snow flake and already has several chassis mods so results will vary from coach to coach. In summary, the results are significant enough to motivate me to continue on with Phase 2 and install ATRO bushings in the front and rear trailing arms, the rear trailing arm link and install the Roadmaster rear sway bar as Chad has done on his RR4R. Phase 2 will take some time but be assured that I will post here when it is complete and the test drive performed. Also note that the trusty GoPro was mounted on the wall during the Phase 1 test drive so I will post videos as soon as I get my iMac running again - needs new hard drive.

[CaymanPilot]

It's been a while. I finally got my iMac running good again and can edit videos. I have 3 videos that I will link to below of the test drive taken right after the ATRO bushings were installed in the front and rear trac bars. The wind was 13mph with gusts 15 - 20 mph at 90 degrees from the left in the videos. The first video shows going under an overpass which typically causes me to see-saw the steering wheel when the crosswind stops under the overpass and again when the crosswind resumes after coming out from under the overpass on the other side. I have the cruise control set to 62mph which is where I usually have it.

OVERPASS

The second video is of a semi passing on the windward side which usually causes see-sawing of the steering wheel when the bow wave of the semi hits the rear of the coach and again when the bow wave hits the front of the coach during a pass.

SEMI

The third video is going under an overpass again but this time the overpass is a the top of a slight hill where the wind effect is usually more pronounced.

OVERPASS ON TOP OF HILL

In each case the see-sawing was much less that before the bushings were installed. During the semi passing you can see a little see-sawing when the bow wave of the semi hits the rear of the coach. Even though it is still swaying a bit, it is a lot better than before and I believe this will be minimized when the rear anti-sway bar is installed. In all cases, I had a noticeable improvement in control. My RV Tech had knee surgery last week so it will be a couple more weeks before I can get the coach in so he can get the rear sway bar installed. Stay tuned!

Since the test drive the bushings in the front trailing arms were replaced. We also lowered the rear trailing arms enough to be able to inspect the bushings and found out that they were not the same bushings as the rest. This is most likely due to the trailing arms being Source Engineering pieces. Fortunately they looked in good shape and a much better design than the original Monaco bushings with maybe 1/16th" of rubber between the 2 pieces of tubing so we are not going to replace them. The bushings in the rear trailing arm link have also been replaced. The next test drive will be when the rear sway bar is installed and the project complete.

[onechaddude]

Originally Posted by CaymanPilot

It's been a while. I finally got my iMac running good again and can edit videos. I have 3 videos that I will link to below of the test drive taken right after the ATRO bushings were installed in the front and rear trac bars. The wind was 13mph with gusts 15 - 20 mph at 90 degrees from the left in the videos. The first video shows going under an overpass which typically causes me to see-saw the steering wheel when the crosswind stops under the overpass and again when the crosswind resumes after coming out from under the overpass on the other side. I have the cruise control set to 62mph which is where I usually have it.

The second video is of a semi passing on the windward side which usually causes see-sawing of the steering wheel when the bow wave of the semi hits the rear of the coach and again when the bow wave hits the front of the coach during a pass.

The third video is going under an overpass again but this time the overpass is a the top of a slight hill where the wind effect is usually more pronounced.

In each case the see-sawing was much less that before the bushings were installed. During the semi passing you can see a little see-sawing when the bow wave of the semi hits the rear of the coach. Even though it is still swaying a bit, it is a lot better than before and I believe this will be minimized when the rear anti-sway bar is installed. In all cases, I had a noticeable improvement in control. My RV Tech had knee surgery last week so it will be a couple more weeks before I can get the coach in so he can get the rear sway bar installed. Stay tuned!

Since the test drive the bushings in the front trailing arms were replaced. We also lowered the rear trailing arms enough to be able to inspect the bushings and found out that they were not the same bushings as the rest. This is most likely due to the trailing arms being Source Engineering pieces. Fortunately they looked in good shape and a much better design than the original Monaco bushings with maybe 1/16th" of rubber between the 2 pieces of tubing so we are not going to replace them. The bushings in the rear trailing arm link have also been replaced. The next test drive will be when the rear sway bar is installed and the project complete.

Wow Steve, That's so much better than before. I know it wasn't extremely windy like some days, but it is so much better. Hopefully in a couple weeks I'll have my bushings installed just like you and I'll be wander free. After changing the front trac bar bushings it's easy to see how they can allow the axles to wander.

I truly believe that once you get your sway bar done, and I get all my bushings changed we will be as close to as happy as the 8 baggers with vans x-bars and watts links.

Steve, a huge thanks goes out to you. Without you stepping forward and spending the $$ to try this, none of us would have benefitted.

I feel certain once your tech gets the sway bar on, you'll be glad you have it. It pretty much takes the Walmart wobble away. I was surprised that one bar at the back of the coach could affect the chassis that much.

Take care and keep us informed once the sway bar gets installed.

Chad