How do you tell if you need new shocks

[D in Davie]

I am driving on a 2007 F53 chassis with OEM shocks. I recently hit a tire retread at 55 MPH that caused damage to my drive shaft bearings and exhaust system. Driving it home I came upon a portion of uneven road on I 95 in South Carolina that caused the MH to fishtail and porpoise at the same time. It only stopped when I brought the vehicle to a complete stop. While inspecting my tires for a blow out a truck passed and my motor home rocked from side to side 4 times before stopping the motion. A few years ago I did the CHF but I have noticed my MH was getting more difficult to handle with cross winds. The shocks look old but do not appear to be damaged. Do I need New shocks and should I have my alignment checked as well? The vehicle seems to be more difficult to keep in the same lane than it normally is.

[LarryH1481]

Sounds like rear suspension may be loose. This will cause the RV to sway excessively with cross winds, etc.

Check the rear sway bar's mounting bracket/bolts and bushings. Ford F-53 chassis is known for loose/missing mounting bolts and rubber bushing failures.

If necessary, replace bracket bolts (torque + blue loctite) and change bushings to blue poly type (ebay "skuterdude"). Good luck! My rig needed this modification!

[NowAndLater]

Pull the shocks off (2 nuts) and compress it. If you can do it easy it's shot. If it's hard, it's not.

Skip to 3:31 in this video for an example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1TItFFF42g

[Sweetbriar]

With a car it was fairly easy to bounce the front or rear end and judge the oscillations up and down. A bit harder with a coach. You have two choices. Remove the shocks and manually compress and extend. In general they should all require equal or so force. Also considering Ford uses a gas shock once remove the shock should slowly extend to the limit of travel. Second option is to climb up on the roof and stand about center of the rig with you feet spread apart and start sifting your weight left and right rocking the coach. Once you stop the coach should only oscillate one or two maybe three times. Less is better than more. You could try bouncing on the trailer hitch.

Considering the shocks were installed on the production line I would go ahead and replace them. I pulled mine at six years and two of the four had little resistance and one had no gas pressure.

Regarding lane wonder first item to check is tire pressure to coach weight. I played with pressures never dropping below minimum for my normal loading. At about 10 or 15 PSI cold pressure over what I needed the coach had a mind of it's own regarding direction of travel. Next check all that all the suspension hardware is tight. Leaf spring shackles, roll bar clamps and end links, shock mounts and such. Don't forget a shot of grease to the 9 zerk fittings on the front suspension that need attention from time to time. I can't recall the recommended service interval but I give mine a couple of pumps each when the engine oil get's changed.

[D in Davie]

Goodyear and other sources state the PSI should be 80 PSI but I keep it at 95 PSI because that low pressure may have caused premature tire failure a few years ago. I will lower the pressure to 85 and see what happens. I've decided to just change the shocks as they are 98 years old. I responded to truck stop the inquire about doing an alignment on the F53 chassis and they told me they don't do them because they don't last very long on that chassis. ???? Went to another place and they advised me they will do an alignment and will change the shocks if I supply the shocks. So that's the plan. I'm really tired of trying to keep this boat between the navigational beacons. I did the bushings 4 years ago but I will reinspect them for wear.

[TeJay]

D in Davie,

One point!! Anything on a vehicle can be checked or tested to determine if it is serving the purpose for which it was designed. Some items like your shocks as pointed out are hard to test unless they are taken off. So based on the age just replace them.

Keeping an alignment on the F-53 chassis is not any harder than any other system. Those folks don't know what they are talking about. Actually the F-53 system is a bit easier. The toe is controlled by the tie rods. If they are bad then they are changed and the toe is re-set to about 1/16" total toe in.

The caster is set by inserting shims. Again easy to do and unless they fall out it won't change.

The camber is determined by the bend of the front axle is for the most part can not be re-set unless they are cold bent. Most shops won't do it. If it is off then the axles should be replaced by Ford. Gook luck with that happening. I don't believe I ever heard of Ford doing that.

With the age of your coach you need to find a shop that knows what they are doing and have all steering and suspension parts checked. Nobody can really tell you what may be wrong. AS some can do is tell what they did to fix their RV but your RV is not theirs. Just get the systems checked.

As I said from the beginning every part on your coach can be tested to determine if it is still doing the job. It it's not then it needs replaced.

When and if you find a decent shop make sure you ask them to show you how they tested a part to determine that it was worn. If they can't or won't show you then you didn't find a good shop. No technician should be afraid of an owner that just wants to know why they think a part needs replaced. On the other hand if a shop is just replacing parts just because they THINK it is bad is not a good shop.

If you find a shop to do an alignment ask them to show you the BEFORE measurements before they start replacing parts. Also alignments are only done for three reasons. 1. Worn parts. 2. Bent parts. 3. The last shop didn't do the alignment correctly. So if they want to replace parts they should tell and show you which part needs replaced and how they know it needs replaced.

I've worked on cars,trucks, RV's for 40+ years and never replaced a part that i first didn't test. Good technicians begin by diagnosing what's failing before replacing things.

[AKJohn]

I replaced the OEM shocks on my 2011 Ford F-53 with Bilstein B-6 series shocks. I'm getting less sway with no sacrifice in the ride comfort. You can get a set of 4 on Amazon for about $425. If you have a mechanic that will install them while doing the front end alignment I would do it. It would be a good time to do a thorough exam of the rest of the running gear as suggested in the previous posts.

If you go to the Bilstein web site you can look up the shock part numbers for your vehicle. Run that part number in Amazon to bring up the correct shocks.

[D in Davie]

Thanks TeJay, I was hoping you would respond. I replaced the shocks with Koni FSD's today. I also had the alignment checked and it needed toe in and caster adjustments. I then took it for a spin up US 27 and found the rocking from side to side was almost eliminated. While it still needed constant minor steering adjustments there was a brisk crosswind so I knew I was getting a good work out. I did a brief inspection of the rear bushings and brackets. I had replaced them a few years ago with the blue poly brackets mentioned on this site. I'll do a better inspection tomorrow to make sure the bolts are still tight. After spending over $1,000 for these repairs I'm not inclined to sink much more money into this 9 year old coach. I'm getting a lot of conflicting information about air pressure in the tires. Original tire recommendations were 80lbs but then I read that its too low and could contribute to premature tire wear on the sidewalls. My original tires only lasted 4 years so I keep the new ones at 95 psi. It makes for a bumpy ride. Could you recommend some threads that discuss this issue. thanks