Safety steer

Yes, those were the exact weights with all items, less passengers during a previous weigh in several years ago. I will be weighing the rv again tomorrow but don’t think there will be much difference since we keep same items in rv. Gas, water and are exceptions. Will update after new weights.

Doug

bennefim wrote:
Gjac, you make some good points, but a light front axle is not easily correctable. For example, my w22 came stock at about 6600 lbs. rear axle is about 14,500 lbs. I can’t add weight to frontend other than passengers. I have bare load on rear axle. Using tire load tables, front tires should be at 75-80 lbs and rear at about 85-90 lbs. I’m always going to have a light frontend.

Doug

Are those your actual weights minus passengers, full FW tank, and all your stuff ready to travel? Or is that your UW from the factory?

Anyone else with w 22 chassis have similar problem or suggestion for correction?

Doug

Gjac, you make some good points, but a light front axle is not easily correctable. For example, my w22 came stock at about 6600 lbs. rear axle is about 14,500 lbs. I can’t add weight to frontend other than passengers. I have bare load on rear axle. Using tire load tables, front tires should be at 75-80 lbs and rear at about 85-90 lbs. I’m always going to have a light frontend.

Doug

I had steer safe on my MH when I bought it 17 years ago. After reading so many posts on here about how bad P-30 chassis handle and always needed constant correction. I always figured it was the steer safe that made a difference until about 5 years ago I had to drive home without it. I noticed no difference at all, I still drove it with one hand just like a car and was not bothered by passing trucks. It should defiantly help with a front tire blowout, but as others have said get a front end alignment and get the castor right. Another thing not many people on hear mention is to weigh the MH and rearrange your weight(the stuff you carry) so each tire carries the same weight. A light front end will make for a MH that needs constant correction. You can throw a lot of expensive suspension mods at it and they will all help, but I would start with the two things I mentioned which are very low cost.

mistaken

bennefim wrote:
I’m not familiar with “casters” or their settings. Would that be something that large trucking company could check/ repair?

Doug

Caster.. This is easiest to explain on a STRUT system popular on many modern cars.

This is zero caster >Direction of travel> |
this is positive /
And this is negative \
You are looking at the angle of the strut from the side of the vehicle.

In both cases it's never that much (Just a couple degrees) but the idea is positive caster tends to make the vehicle wish to go straight down the road and harder to turn.

Negative caster makes it very hard to control.
That said. the safety steer even with proper caster will help. And it really helps when TSHTF (a tire blows)

One other thing that may help is a trac bar or two (front and rear) I put one on teh front but I'm told rear is better if you use only one

What is a trac bar and why (Oh it's standard with Struts but most RV's have leaf springs.)

Springs are clearly for UP/Down movement but they can also be stressed side to side.

Imagine if you will the rear of the RV is swinging a bit to the right while the front swings left. YOU the driver see the rig as heading into the left lane and compensate. then the ends "Swap" and now you think you are headed to the ditch so you compensate. and they swap again so you go down the road like this ~~~~~~~

Well the trac bar, or pan-hard bar, LOCKS the body in position over the axle so it can not move side to side.. Now you go down the road like this ===================

Higher caster makes the vehicle more stable, but can increase the amount of steering effort. They would need shims under the front axle to change that setting. It’s worth it if it needs an amignment done.

I’m not familiar with “casters” or their settings. Would that be something that large trucking company could check/ repair?

Doug