Suspension upgrade
For health reasons my wife could no longer tolerate the rocking motion of our 2013 Class A Allegro Open Road 36LA 37 ft on a Ford F-53 chassis. We opted for a hail Mary to try and reduce the suspen...
Forum Discussion
Our sway bar experience has been opposite of Salvo's observation. Handling and Tracking on the Road: Better.
Rocking on the Campsite: Less.
Positive Impressions: All.
Negative Impressions: None
After I installed our Hellwig front and rear sway bars and before a test drive, I got into the coach just to get something. Wasn't even thinking sway bars till I got on the first step of the Kwikee's. I was used to pushing the step down, which of course rocked the coach. Whoa! What happened? Didn't push down! That's how much the sway bars firmed it up. Then driving it, I somehow misjudged a familiar downhill turn and got into it too fast. I simply steered and it went right through comfortably. Just on those two events, I was convinced I'd made the right modification.
As I mentioned, I bought Hellwig, on sale from SDTruckSprings. Free shipping dropped direct from Hellwig. The other brand is Roadmaster. Same steel, same diameters, marketed differently. Both Hellwig bars cost little more than one Roadmaster. I'm old, slow, and cautious. Took me half a day to install both and half of that was on the rusted capscrews holding the OEM rear sway bar. Rest was easy and no drilling.
mikim's F-53 is different from our E-450. We have a rear track bar and it makes complete sense for the F-53. If that F-53 has a single I-Beam front axle (and I thought they all did, now not so sure), I'm a little surprised Henderson's didn't add one there also. Rears are SuperSteer but front is Davis Tru-Trac, Eric's (Davis) RV in Sequim WA. If it has some form of Independent Front Suspension (IFS) then it doesn't need a front track bar. Our E-450 doesn't, the reason for IFS and any Class C but the very rare Ford E-550 not needing one is that the inboard end of the suspension (wishbone or twin I-beam) is already tied to the chassis.
Rocking on the Campsite: Less.
Positive Impressions: All.
Negative Impressions: None
After I installed our Hellwig front and rear sway bars and before a test drive, I got into the coach just to get something. Wasn't even thinking sway bars till I got on the first step of the Kwikee's. I was used to pushing the step down, which of course rocked the coach. Whoa! What happened? Didn't push down! That's how much the sway bars firmed it up. Then driving it, I somehow misjudged a familiar downhill turn and got into it too fast. I simply steered and it went right through comfortably. Just on those two events, I was convinced I'd made the right modification.
As I mentioned, I bought Hellwig, on sale from SDTruckSprings. Free shipping dropped direct from Hellwig. The other brand is Roadmaster. Same steel, same diameters, marketed differently. Both Hellwig bars cost little more than one Roadmaster. I'm old, slow, and cautious. Took me half a day to install both and half of that was on the rusted capscrews holding the OEM rear sway bar. Rest was easy and no drilling.
mikim's F-53 is different from our E-450. We have a rear track bar and it makes complete sense for the F-53. If that F-53 has a single I-Beam front axle (and I thought they all did, now not so sure), I'm a little surprised Henderson's didn't add one there also. Rears are SuperSteer but front is Davis Tru-Trac, Eric's (Davis) RV in Sequim WA. If it has some form of Independent Front Suspension (IFS) then it doesn't need a front track bar. Our E-450 doesn't, the reason for IFS and any Class C but the very rare Ford E-550 not needing one is that the inboard end of the suspension (wishbone or twin I-beam) is already tied to the chassis.
