Taking B+/C Offroad Experiences

tiptoptune wrote:
Anyone have experience you could share taking a B+/C on rutted trails with dips and some steeper inclines?
We are considering replacing our dually 3500 4x4 Bigfoot TC with a 24 foot Born Free.

Has you body developed stress cracks?
Does it sound like body/chassis damage could be occurring?
How you deal with long rear overhang clearance for tanks/plumbing?
Doors/Windows still open easy?
Dual pane windows not fogged year later - seal damaged?

if we do get a BF, may lift an inch to help clearance. build some sort of guard for plumbing.
If find it stalls on inclines/soft soils, may add rear locker and either underdrive unit or a t case for low range not installing a front axle.

Our Class C is a 2005 24 ft. slideless Winnebago Itasca one built on a Ford E450 chassis that we bought new in 2006.. We wanted a stable and reliabe MH that could handle exploring, rock hounding, and camping on rough backroads.

We picked a small Class C on the heavy duty chassis (rather than an E350 chassis) to get larger brakes, stiffer springs, a stiffer frame, a larger diameter drive shaft, larger brake swept areas, a higher ratio differential for improved low speed crawling (4:56.1), torsion bars in both the front and back, and to gain a rear side-to-side stance as wide as possible for best lateral stability.

I have since installed larger diameter tires on it to gain more ground clearance, which at the same time provides no more coach lift than absolutely necessary so as to keep the center of gravity increase as small as possible.

It came with gravity locks on all cabinet drawers that have never come open when on rough roads.

We have installed double locks on nearly all cabinet doors too prevent them from coming open on rough roads.

Since the coach structure has no slides, the walls provide maximum shear strength to the coach structure.

We haven't noticed any coach or frame damage from traveling on rough roads, but we do drive SLOWLY on these type roads. Windows and doors still all open OK (our windows are single pane). Our longest slow speed trip in the back country so far as been around 25 miles each way to a destination at only 7-10 MPH.

The black and grey tanks our mounted up high right up against the underside of the coach floor and there is no plumbing for them hanging down low - it's all up at about frame height, with all of it inside metal walled outside cabinets.

I wish our rear differential was a limited slip or locker one, but the weight on the rear duals is so high that on dry surfaces they offer superb traction and on dry soft surfaces they offer pretty good floatation at the rear of the motorhome. A Class C - whether 2WD or 4WD - should probably if at all possible not be driven on side-tipped backcountry roads or backcountry road grades ... if they are wet.

Also, note in this photo below of us camping off a 4X4 road that our automatic step folds up so as be no lower than the lower edge of the coach wall so that the step won't be prone to scrape on rises/rocks in the road surface.

Note also that the coach sidewalls slope straight upwards starting right at the rear tires on up to the rear bumper so as to provide somewhat of an improved rear "exit angle". Also, when crossing washouts or dips in backroads we try to cross them at an angle rather than straight-on. This helps greatly to reduce or eliminate rear end hangups.