Class C steering response

Of course you can't drive a A or C in cross winds of more than 20 MPH without fighting the steering even with everything set up right.

donn0128 wrote:
Take it to a good alignment shop (NOT A DEALER) and have the front end checked. Ford vans have always been notorious for wandering. But a smart alignment guy can fix it for you. At the same time they will do a thorough inspection of the front end and replace any worn parts.

I've gotten better results from Ford Truck Dealers than National brand truck tire dealer alignment shop.

Dusty

As J-D stated Front Axle Loading vs Rear Axle and tire pressure especially If your model is the 29B with the slide behind the rear axle. IMHO these are the two cheapest things to do. And if you can not get the 75% load on that front axle you will never get good handling no matter what you do or how much money you throw at it. NOTE any weight behind the rear axle takes weight off of the front axle the farther back the more the effect

J-NS,

You've gotten great advice. There's NO shortage of E-Series Handling threads here. Couple comments:

Donn - A Good Alignment Shop will check and adjust all the primary angles which are Caster, Camber, and Toe. That shop will understand that proper alignment could call for "offset" bushings at the Upper Ball Joints. This makes E-Series alignment trickier and more labor-intensive (and therefore more expensive) than on a big straight-axle dump truck or road tractor.

Harvard - He's self-taught in alignment and has figured out what works. Setting Caster to Mid-Range (which most shops will try to do) is NOT something that works. As he pointed out, you want Caster on the High-Positive end of its range. Caster and Camber are both set at those upper ball joints. Caster is more important to us, but you don't want a totally wacked out Camber either.

Myself - I found that both C's we've had (both on Ford) experienced vague steering and wandering on the road until I got the Toe from Out (negative) to slightly IN (positive). The spec is Zero or Straight Ahead.

Another factor - Weight and Tire Pressure. Take it to a truck scale. If you can, get a weight for each corner, but you can work with Front and Rear Axle weights. We all know that excess tire pressure makes for harder ride, but excess FRONT tire pressure makes for instability in steering and tracking. HINT: You shouldn't ever need more than 65PSI and possibly much less in the Front Tires.

Front Axle Loading vs Rear - Your truck scale ticket will help here. There are two common suggestions. 1. Front Axle should be at least 75% loaded. 2. At least 1/3 of the total scale weight should be on the front axle. They work out to about the same thing. If your coach's wheelbase isn't long enough, that can be hard to achieve. We had an OP with about 27% on the front axle and could never get it to track on the road. Traded it/Sold it, I forget which.

So - What is the Wheelbase of your RV?

Make sure your tire pressure is proper for the load the tires carry.

If it still wanders after following the advise above, there are other relatively affordable remedies.

Being a 2003, you could benefit from any or all of the following.
- heavy duty front & rear stabilizer bars (the Ford stock front stabilizer bar is near useless)
- heavy duty shock absorbers
- rear trac bar (especially benefitial if towing)
- heavy duty steering stabilizer (ex: Safe-T-Plus, Steer Safe, other)

For our 24 foot rig built on a 2007 E350 chassis, I had all that done 800 miles after buying the rig brand new. It's handled perfectly since....just like an SUV.

What your unit needs is more front end +caster. Here is a link to my story which started in Nov 2010. Good luck.

E350/E450 Handling

Take it to a good alignment shop (NOT A DEALER) and have the front end checked. Ford vans have always been notorious for wandering. But a smart alignment guy can fix it for you. At the same time they will do a thorough inspection of the front end and replace any worn parts.