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Sites's avatar
Sites
Explorer
Mar 30, 2014

Thor Super C (Chateau/Four Winds) improvements and mods

Hey folks,

I purchased a 2014 Thor Chateau 33SW last August and right from the start I experienced the new RV owner blues. In short, after driving back to San Diego from where I flew out to purchase it in Texas, it spent its first 3 weeks in the shop with about a dozen issues, ranging from minor to major.

That said, aside from all of the issues, now that I've resolved most of them either through warranty or just fixing it myself after the local Thor service dealer either did a half-assed job fixing a problem, or just flat out didn't fix it after it sat in their shop for weeks, I like this motorhome. I wanted something fairly nice and that could reasonably tow 10k+ LBS, since I have a desert prerunner truck and several motorcycles to trailer out with the family. Dynamax's were nice, but out of the $$$ range I was willing to invest on a first MH. I also looked as used medium duty chassis Super C's (older Show Haulers, etc.) but anything close to $100k was too dated looking and generally VERY used. So I saw the F550 chassis based Thor 33SW and bit the bullet.

After owning it for about 7 months now, my impression is that Thor came up with a great layout and mated it to a good chassis, but as a result of both production line quality assurance issues and the general feeling that everything beneath the surface was designed to speed up build time, there are many improvements that can be made by owners to make this coach better. And frankly, should have been done at the factory before shipping off to the dealer! :)

The reason I'm starting this thread is because I've noticed a few other Thor Super C owners on here and other forums, that have all mentioned having similar issues (house water pump leaks, front fuel tank filling issues, front hydro jacks too low from the factory, poor house battery capacity, etc.) I've also noticed a few very cool modifications and improvements by others on here as well, such as relocating the house batteries to one of the storage compartments and switching to a bank of four 6v batts. I figured it would be useful to try and centralize the communication of issues encountered, how to resolve them and suggestions to improve the coach.

I've done a few already and will post one of them shortly. Hopefully other Thor Super C (33SW, 35sk, 35sg, Etc) will chime in as well.
Class C

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  • Home_Skillet's avatar
    Home_Skillet
    Explorer II
    Mar 30, 2014
    BigFoot says there should be 7"-8" ground clearance with the jacks retracted.
  • Sites's avatar
    Sites
    Explorer
    Mar 30, 2014
    Here is something I just did this weekend...

    I use my RV to go camping (boon docking) in the desert most of the time, so more often than not, I'm either driving down a dirt road, or going over uneven terrain on the way to camp. And while I've not encountered any major problems with how low the front hydro jacks are mounted, they definitely drag in the dirt occasionally. The final straw was a few months back, when I got home from a desert trip and I went to dump the grey/black tanks at the local rest area. There was a relatively low speed bump going into the dump area and as I slowly rolled over it, the front jack pads dragged over the top -- this was on a PAVED road at a major tourist spot here in San Diego. Not good. Plus, I was getting sick of random people approaching me at gas stations to let me know "my jacks were still down!".

    So today, after spending some time under the coach, taking some measurements and setting aside a few hours. I decided to remove, modify and remount my front hydro jacks in the higher mounting position. In short, you can move them up two full settings on the mounting bracket, which is exactly 2" higher than how they are delivered from Thor. Frankly, Thor should have done this because they are LOW from the factory. But hey, too late now!

    It was pretty straight forward. Aside from being heavy and not having any assistance, I didn't run into any major show-stoppers.

    The passenger side was the easiest. I removed the nuts that secure the jack and hydraulic assembly and removed them from the RV. I used a portable grinding wheel to cut the top two sections of holes off the jack mounting bracket (as you can see before and after in the first two pics below). Once these are removed, the top of the jack cylinder will be allowed to sit higher and inside a recessed section of the cab floor. I hit the newly cut sections with a little shot of Rustoleum as to not allow them to rust and reinstalled them.





    Here it is reinstalled in the new mounting position. As you can see, the top sit up in the recessed section of the cab floor.


    The driver side was a bit trickier. The mounting bracket that the jack attaches to in the frame is offset more than the passanger side bracket. This is to allow the e-brake cable to have clearance down the frame rail. As a result, after trimming the two upper sections of the jack (same as I did on the pass. side) the top of the jack cylinder made contact with the outer, rounded section of sheetmetal on the underside of the cab. To be clear, it only has the clearance issue when trying to put the jack cylinder back on. Once on, it clears the recessed underside of the cab, just as it did on the passenger side.

    You can see the scuffed section where I realized the top of the jack cylinder was hitting the underside of the cab.


    Since I didn't have my dremel with me, I opted to just use a 1" metal holesaw and cut out three holes in the sheet metal where the jack cylinder made contact when attempting to reinstall it. Once the material is removed, the jack cylinder fit right back on and 2" higher than it came from Thor.

    Here is after I cut the three holes:


    After after the reinstallation:


    So anyone that has either had clearance issues with the front jacks, or anticipates having issues, I would suggest this fairly straight forward mod.

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