Thanks Forest! I ordered the correct tool yesterday, Rudy called me with the same thing about the Fortravel thread but to late I'd spent the money. At least now if anyone would need to borrow one I will have it.
I had to have the new tool machined in order to remove the pitman arm, took them a week to Mill off 0.3 of an inch but it works! If anybody would like to borrow this tool it's available all you'd have to do is pay the freight to and from. On another note I shopped for a pitman arm 2.5 inches longer and found one on eBay, it should be here first of the week. Here are some pictures of the old one.
I have the new pitman arm installed on my M110 box and need to set the relief valves but can't find the stops on my Dana IFS 84. Anyone know where they are located? I took a few pictures, the front tires are off the ground.
Its done! I will test drive but can say I have never seen the wheels turn as far as they are now, they turn to the stops which looks like twice as far as they did before. Our coach has some history for which I do not know, I have never owned a coach this big so I didn't know how its suppose to steer but the steering box was changed out at one time in its life either they used the wrong steering box with a different ratio or the wrong pitman arm as I had half the movement of the steer tires as anyone else and there were a couple times this caused major issues in traffic. Rather than change out the box I started on the pitman arm, the only way I could get any information about size of the pitman arm was from Richard who told me the size of what is on his coach and pictures from ebay or other vendors using my CAD program, not one single person responded to my request for measurements. It is very sad what our country businesses have become, talking to a real person on the phone is almost impossible. I downloaded pictures and size it to a known measurement for me it was the locking tab opening which is .3 of an inch, once the picture was sized close as possible I traced the holes and measured center to center and take in account for parallax error as much as possible. I found a pitman arm on ebay for $60 brand new, the center to center was 9.5 inches which is 1 inch longer than standard but it works. I have 3.5 turns of the steering wheel lock to lock. Out of curiosity what do other coaches have?
Jack, as a note of caution, the Shepard steering box on my Foretravel has two valves that set the turning stops of the box. If the limits are wider than the hard stop on the coach, contacting the hard stop will blow out the seals of the box requiring a rebuild to fix.
On my box, the valve adjustments are standard slot screw heads set flush with the surface of the box. One is on the side where the steering shaft comes in and the other on the opposite side.
I can not speak about your box but would like to offer this about mine as a Foretravel owner hit his stops with a new rebuilt box and got to do it all over again.
Rudy Legett
2003 Foretravel U320 4010
ISM11 450 hp Allison 4000R
Factory Authorized Aqua Hot Repair Center
Southeast Texas Area
Rudy I have the adjustments the same as yours, I hope I followed the adjustments correctly, turn the wheels all the way left with engine off, screw in the poppet all the way to where it stops, then turn all the way right and do the other poppet. Is this the way you did yours?
Do not know the correct answer to setting the limit valves as my Foretravel fixer set them. But the acid test is with engine running and an observer watching carefully, turn the steering wheel all the way left and see if the vavle stops just before the hard stop is reached. Then the same way to the right.
If neither hard stop is reached and the steering comes within about 1/4 of the stops, all is well.
Sir Richard the Entrekin will know the proper procedure.
Rudy Legett
2003 Foretravel U320 4010
ISM11 450 hp Allison 4000R
Factory Authorized Aqua Hot Repair Center
Southeast Texas Area
Rudy I was WRONG by screwing in the top and bottom plungers, I didn't hurt anything but the wheels only moved a little in either direction, you must have two people to do the job, one in the coach turning the wheel left to right and the other adjusting the plungers out in order get the proper wheel cut and keep off the stops about 1/4 inch, the top adjustment is turning the steering wheel counter clockwise or turning to the left and the bottom is clockwise turning to the right. I had some pieces of HDPE that I sprayed with WD40 so the tires would turn easy while the weight is on them. I only wore out 1 old T shirt and used half box of Band-Aids to do the job. While I was under the front I greased every fitting I could find.
