[Chester Stone]

I spent the better part of this week having work done at Newell. My coach was significantly out of alignment, both front and rear, and Pete spent a whole day setting it straight for only the standard fee. Other minor work and inspections were performed and (except for four gold plated tie rods) I am a happy camper. Competent, friendly and free run of the shop are big positives.
Tomorrow I take the coach to Big Cabin Diesel to have the valves and injectors adjusted. Hope it works out as well.

[Richard]

Have them torque headbta while in there

[qcj]

Chaster, I just had head bolt torque problem. Have them torque the head bolt as Richard just said. There is only about 36 of them.

[bikestuff]

Chester,

What caused you to suspect alignment? Did your coach pull to one side (like a car)...or is there another symptom to identify an alignment problem? My coach sometimes wants to go left, sometimes right and sometimes straight....I always thought it was the road.

Cheers,
bill

[Sundance]

Sooooo, what is the back story on head bolt torque issues?

Is Big Cabin diesel service a Guru favorite?

I too, being a noobie, would like to know more about the alignment 'feel' that had you get that checked out...

[Richard]

Bill,
I know I am dogpiling on your question to Chester. The two things that would cause one to have a hard look at alignment would be an tire wear patterns indicating misalignment, or a consistent pull to one side. Also too little toe can cause the front end to wander a bit.

Apparently the Dana Kirkstall 84 IFS suspensions are subject to wear on both the tie rods and the drag link ends. As Chester winced, the replacement parts are not cheap. Worn tie rod ends and worn drag link ends will cause free play in the on center steering which obviously contributes to wander on the interstate.

In my opinion, a giveaway to worn steering components is the steering behavior on a heavily crowned road as opposed to a flat road. If the coach steers behaves really well on a crowned road by playing the steering against the crown and it wanders on a flat road, that is an indication of worn steering components. On a flat road, you have to take up the slop in either direction to correct the direction. On a heavily crowned road, the crown wants to make the coach drift to the right, so you only are really steering in one direction to the left.

[ron skeen]

I did have Detroit do tune up about 2 yrs ago. They did do the valves and injectors but do not know about the torque. Newell did an alinement 4? Years ago. I did put new bushing in the tag suspension ride well after the alinement.

[Chester Stone]

OK, now I am back and take back all the positive things I said yesterday. First, I will cover the problems I had getting the valves and injectors done. Then I will do another post on alignment. So here is the first part. Before coming here, I had several emails and confirmations of what I wanted done, including adjusting the valves and injectors. To do this work, a trap door on the back side of the bed had to be opened and I wanted someone knowledgeable at Newell to verify that the bed did not have to be move or I would not do the adjustments. They removed the carpet part way, and said I was good to take it to the local Detroit dealer to remove the trap door and valve cover. Wrong!!! The dealer took one look at the partially exposed trap door, and said no way. They and Newell had some words and Newell sent their carpet man 40 miles to remove the carpet. OK, now we can adjust the valves. Nope!!! About 1” of the trap door was under the bed and could not be removed without removing the bed. It is raining cats and dogs and I had to drag my ass back to the factory to get the carpet reinstalled. Sometime this winter I will remove the now cut carpet and cut the friggen trap door in half and take it to Tucson to be adjusted.

[Chester Stone]

Now for alignment. My coach was badly out of alignment. The only thing I was concerned about was over-steering, or constantly have to drive the coach. They found that the drive axle and tag were badly out and I was driving a little sideways down the highway. Further, the front was toe-out, not in. There is a lot of confusion on my part concerning what they found and what they did because they only work in degrees, not fractional inches. They told me the total toe-in after the first alignment was .07 degrees. When it went on the rack today, the reading was .23 degrees. ??? They were unable to convert their machine degrees to the .16" toe-in i wanted. At the end of today, they say that the total toe-in is .31 degrees. They measured the tires and told me that yesterday they set it at 1/8th inch, and today the final measurement is 3/16th inch. I have no idea what I have and perhaps after I get some good advise from my fellow gurus, I can have it changed in Denver.

[Fulltiming]

How does it drive? It sounds like they got it close to what you were looking for. If it came in with toe-out, it is no wonder that it was driving all over the place. The drive axle and tag being out of alignment would have resulted either in crabbing or scrubbing between the drive and the tag. Hopefully Newell fixed the drive and tag alignment and you are back to a 0 thrust angle.

If it doesn't crab and doesn't require constantly having to saw at the wheel, you should be good to go!