E350 vs E450 chassis pros and cons for a short 24 ft class C

I think it depends on the brand you choose.
When I was shopping for my unit I really didn't pay attention to that. Its not an option that I would order. If it had them I would take them rather than place a new order.
I need to carry wood blocks to go under each jack foot, might as well just use them to level it under the tires as needed. That's what did in the past and find it easy enough.

I hardly ever use the jacks. My mechanic uses them when he is working on my rig in his parking lot . He finds it easier to do that than bring it inside and use a lift.

im up early, heading out fishing...wish me luck .

bobndot wrote:

Hmmm .... are you sagging in the rear a bit?

No Phil, I sit level.
What I did was make sure the rv was level using the 'autolevel' feature on my jacks. Once it was level I installed two small levels inside the cab so I can view them from the drivers seat . When I retracted the 'autolevel' system the rig sat level.
When I park at a campsite or overnight lot I can get level most of time without doing anything more that maneuvering the rig around a little.

Reason for bags in the near future:
The rear of the Sunseeker only has a slight upward sloped rear.
I scrape the rear triangle guards that protect the receiver etc.
I scrape them on my driveway when I back in and clear by 1/4" if I pull in forward. I also scape at a dump station I normally use as well as a few campsites hear and there.
I'm tired of my DW asking me 'what's the awful scraping sound"?
I either have to get some bags or leave her home. :)
I figure a set of bags with an on board compressor will help a bit.
I'm judging by how much they raised my truck campers that I previously owned...2" or so , up and down. I'm hoping the bags will offer me about the same up/down distance in this 24' C .

Problem I am having is making sure I order the correct bag set due to the Supersteer rear track bar that I have in place.
SS has been very helpful and it appears that both Firestone bags that sit on top of the spring as well as Air-lift's will fit as long as all bolts are installed in the correct way, so the threaded side (longer side) of the bolt doesn't interfere with the track bar or the AB mounts.
I plan to run a hard wired set of bags not a wireless. Not much of track record yet plus in my experience those inexpensive digital interface setups are not very reliable. I need this to work when I need this to work.

Bob

Hi Bob, I notice from your profile you have hydraulic jacks, is that common for newer class C's?

Bob,

Thanks for your detailed explanation!

I'd like air bags in the rear, too, for a non-weight-carrying reason. I'd like them installed with the option of a built-in underhood compressor and to have the two rear bags individually controlled from switches in the cab.

I've had X-Y leveling bubbles on the dash for quite some time, and with individually adjustable air bags in the rear I'd use the cab bubbles and the air bag switches in the cab to help level the motorhome at campsites instead of having to pull out step blocks for the rear duallies so much. I'd still have to drag out the step blocks as needed for the front tires - but at least rear air bags would help reduce the leveling work. I assume that air bags hold their air perfectly so that if I use them for leveling at campsites ... their lifting height would stay fixed at what I set it at when staying at any given campsite day after day.

Hmmm .... are you sagging in the rear a bit?

No Phil, I sit level.
What I did was make sure the rv was level using the 'autolevel' feature on my jacks. Once it was level I installed two small levels inside the cab so I can view them from the drivers seat . When I retracted the 'autolevel' system the rig sat level.
When I park at a campsite or overnight lot I can get level most of time without doing anything more that maneuvering the rig around a little.

Reason for bags in the near future:
The rear of the Sunseeker only has a slight upward sloped rear.
I scrape the rear triangle guards that protect the receiver etc.
I scrape them on my driveway when I back in and clear by 1/4" if I pull in forward. I also scape at a dump station I normally use as well as a few campsites hear and there.
I'm tired of my DW asking me 'what's the awful scraping sound"?
I either have to get some bags or leave her home. :)
I figure a set of bags with an on board compressor will help a bit.
I'm judging by how much they raised my truck campers that I previously owned...2" or so , up and down. I'm hoping the bags will offer me about the same up/down distance in this 24' C .

Problem I am having is making sure I order the correct bag set due to the Supersteer rear track bar that I have in place.
SS has been very helpful and it appears that both Firestone bags that sit on top of the spring as well as Air-lift's will fit as long as all bolts are installed in the correct way, so the threaded side (longer side) of the bolt doesn't interfere with the track bar or the AB mounts.
I plan to run a hard wired set of bags not a wireless. Not much of track record yet plus in my experience those inexpensive digital interface setups are not very reliable. I need this to work when I need this to work.

Bob

bobndot wrote:

Fully loaded for travel what would be the approximate weight of 24 ft Class C.

I roll at 12,500-12,700 with approx. 50 gals of on board water.
24 ft 2018 Sunseeker on top of a Ford E450

Our 2007 Phoenix Cruiser 2350 on a 2007 E350 with no slide out and 40 gallons of on-board water, it measures exactly 23'-8" end to end. Pending the trip, it weighs between 11,200 and 11,480 pounds. That one trip we had gotten extremely close to the chassis limit of 11,500. I run the tires all around at 70 psi. The quality of ride is nice, though the rear end sags a bit as shown.


There are two contributers to the sag.

1) Our 40 gallon fresh water tank is in the worst place possible, against the back wall. If I didn't carry water, that would help the condition a lot.

2) With all the weight in the back like that, the front axle is light. One spring rating lower (now 11500, thinking 10050) would bring the front down a bit and then our rig could go back to the stock center bushings. It's sits up so high that the alignment required offset bushings.

bobndot wrote:

Fully loaded for travel what would be the approximate weight of 24 ft Class C.

I roll at 12,500-12,700 with approx. 50 gals of on board water.
24 ft 2018 Sunseeker on top of a Ford E450
Additions I have :
Alignment with front kit
Bilsteins up front
Koni FSD's rear
Supersteer rear track bar
Sometime soon ….air bags w/2 lines and on board compressor to gain some rear end clearance.

BTW, with all the leftover payload my DW can carry all the shoes and extra hair dryers that her heart desires. :)

Hmmm .... are you sagging in the rear a bit?

Our 2005 24 foot Class C on it's E450 doesn't sag in the rear. In fact, although I've never precisely measured it, I think we could be ever so slightly high in the rear - probably less than an inch though. That's with the spare tire, 55 gallons of gas, and 45 gallons of fresh water in the rear behind the rear axle ... plus sometimes a load of rocks (we're part time rockhounds) midway between the front/rear axles. However, Winnebago installed the heavy refrigerator, Onan generator, and 18 gallon propane tank about midway between the front/rear axles - which does leverage their weight to help reduce any weight-bias behind the rear axle.

The stock front and rear sway bars have always seemed fine in controlling side-roll action - even in high cross winds. It makes sense that side-roll control is also being helped by the rear FSD shocks switching into their low frequency stiff damping mode in these situations. We have never experienced any tail wagging, which I wouldn't expect should be an issue on a 24 foot Class C, even though our wheelbase is only 158 inches. Our E450's stock front/ear sway bars may help a bit with tail wagging - but I'm not sure on all the geometry dynamics involved with sway bars. Our original stock front steering shock absorber is still in place after ~71K miles and the service tech says there is no need to replace it yet.

FWIW, I do run 75-80 lbs. of pressure in the rear duals at all times, even though the tire pressure weight charts probably would show that much pressure is not necessary for the weight in the rear of our Class C. I do this because one of the benefits of high tire pressures is a more rigid tire that helps to reduce side-to-side cross section shape-changing of the tires - and any of this kind of tire wiggling motion is going to get translated right up into the vehicle - and of course is not good in the rear of an RV with overhang back there. (High tire pressures also reduce internal heat generation in tires due to the resultant reduced flexing of the tire sidewalls ... and of course heat is a hugh enemy of tire life and safety.)

Fully loaded for travel what would be the approximate weight of 24 ft Class C.

I roll at 12,500-12,700 with approx. 50 gals of on board water.
24 ft 2018 Sunseeker on top of a Ford E450
Additions I have :
Alignment with front kit
Bilsteins up front
Koni FSD's rear
Supersteer rear track bar
Sometime soon ….air bags w/2 lines and on board compressor to gain some rear end clearance.

BTW, with all the leftover payload my DW can carry all the shoes and extra hair dryers that her heart desires. :)

Hi Gjac,

Yes, that sums it up.

About the E350 and E450 IFS (independent front suspension). Alone it has no faults other than a wimpy front stabilizer bar with the poorly designed end-link grommet problem. The 2008 and newer has a much better design. Regardless if you have a 21 foot E350 or a 32 foot E450, many people replace the front stabilizer bar with a much more robust heavy duty version for improved handling. The same applies in the rear.

The E350 models 2007 and older, Ford did not install any kind of rear stabilizer bar, wimpy or otherwise. So if purchasing one that old, if the previous owner did not install a heavy duty one, plan on that as well.

Our rig is built on a 2007 DRW 11500 pound E350. A few months after buying the rig new in 2007, I invested in the following suspension improvements. Our rig has since handled like an SUV, not an RV.

- installed a heavy duty rear stabilizer bar (no bar existed)
- replaced the wimpy front stabilizer bar with a heavy duty version
- installed a rear trac bar (to eliminate the tail wagging the dog)
- replaced the stock shocks with heavy duty versions (today I have HD Bilsteins)
- replaced the wimpy front steering stabilizer with a heavy duty Safe-T-Plus version

Concerning why the higher horse powered 3-valve V10 engine does not fit in the E350 and E450 engine area. That thing is "HUGE" by comparison. Everything above the engine block is taller to accommodate the 3-valve design. Given the limited space and the angle of the V10, it's clear why Ford installed the 2-valve version in the E-series. It seems even the stripped chassis would get the same 2-valve version or there would be no room for your feet. The foot wells are tight already.

So this is what I think I learned from this post. No difference in HP engine is smaller with 2 valves instead of 3 on class A's in pickup trucks used for TC's. Brakes are the same from 2008 on. MPG is a wash. GVWR is higher for the 450, but in reality storage space for stuff is the same so not a big discriminator. Lower gears in the rear of a 450 allow larger size tires for greater ground clearance for dirt roads. Having spent a small fortune on my IFS front end I would still like to know if either front ends are problematic? I assume they are IFS not straight axles like the class A's is that correct? Fully loaded for travel what would be the approximate weight of 24 ft Class C.

fourthclassC wrote:
I have found the brakes on my 2003 E350 stink. This chassis has rear discs. They are under sized in my experience. Just simply too small. Does the E450 have bigger brakes on both front and back? Also I think I heard the E450 has a better parking brake set up on the drive shaft. My vehicle parking brake set up (internal expanding shoes inside the rotor) is way too small. In fact if you check your owners manual it says the parking brake is not intended to stop the vehicle. It sure won't even when perfectly adjusted .....

Your 2003 E350 brakes sound exactly like my 2007 E350 brakes, though I offer a much better rating for them. Yet I do agree, more braking power is always welcoming. I wonder if we could improve matters by replacing our stock vacuum power brake booster with the same model year E450 stock hydro power brake booster that operates off the power steering hydraulic system. It would make for an interesting project. I wonder if there is a YouTube video available on how to do it, the parts list, the associated cost, and the evaluation afterward.

As far as the E450 drive shaft parking brake is concerned, I believe it was changed in 2008 to what we have. Hopefully someone with a 2008 or newer will confirm or correct me. I recall the drive shaft parking brake having issues for some RV owners, not sure how serious they were.