New class C partial remodel

[Dairyman_John]

I don’t post very often, but I sure spend a lot of time reading here. Sort of like cheap romance novels I guess;)
DW and I have a new Thor Four Winds or something like that about 22 feet long. They say it’s an entry level Motor Coach. For us in the cow milking business its an awesome way to escape every once in a while to places that don’t have cows. This summer we are planning a mother in law farewell tour. Not really like it sounds, but almost. My mother lives near us in Utah. Our plan is to take her cross country to Connecticut, put her on a plane, ship her home then pick up my mother in law and work our way back west on a different track to go places she would like to go. Both are in their mid eighties and in relatively good health.
Our challenge is that Thor has a dinette set that is okay to sit at and eat but is also the passenger seating which for any length of time to sit at sucks. Even for me or my DW’s mother in law. We would even like them to be comfortable and enjoy this trip.
I checked out double recliners, went to work with the tape and was happy. Until I pulled the dinette apart and the water tank, pump inverter reared their ugly heads. Having that stuff mostly inside is probably good in the cold weather, but makes fitting other furniture in there more of a challenge than working Holstein cows all day in a mud puddle.
First I have been trying to find out at the shop4seats place what the dimensions are underneath said recliner to see if some sort of build out is possible. Failing that I thought maybe a couple euro recliners away from that stuff and build some sort of storage around the other stuff might work.
I’m pretty sure I’m not the first knot head to encounter this challenge. What ideas or experiences have some of you better informed run across for solutions?
I thought about posting on some other forums but the handles look quite similar as far as active OP’s go.
Tomorrow i will post a few pictures. Thank you in advance good people. John

[Dairyman_John]

Ok guys, got the partial remodel and all the other things you all said I must do done. We have gone from Utah to Louisville Kentucky on a shakedown cruise. We had ten degree nights and 40 to 50 mph cross winds to learn how to drive this beast. I want to post pictures from my iPhone to here via my iPad. I have no clue how to do this. Then I can give a ful report of how and what i did to motor home replete with pictures so you can criticize, ridicule and maybe even give me an atta boy or two. Thanks for your help.....

[Dairyman_John]

J-d, thanks for the CB advice, i will seriously consider your ideas and report back here when complete.
Pnichols, you are correct in your assessment of our small class c which is indeed an E not an F. I have a whole fleet of F trucks and mis wrote. When we were looking at the 22e camper they had a bunch on 350 chassis and this one on a 450. The salesman had no idea why,but after driving both i knew i wanted the heavier model. Being that it is taking up residence in my shop to get what i consider road worthy I can’t yet tell you how it handles. We will find out next week. As they make up to 34’ motor homes on these chassis i agree it should be stout. Thanks for your input.

[pnichols]

Dairyman John wrote:
There has been much talk here about steering stabilizers and brands that I cant recalll. What are some good ones? Also have any of you made any mods to front axle stabilizers? This is on a typical F-450 chassis, V-10 etc.

John,

It appears that you have a small Class C coach (22 feet) on the heavy duty Ford E450 chassis (assuming your "F-450" is a typo). Unless Ford changed it in model years later than ours, the E450 chassis - unlike the E350 chassis - comes stock with anti-sway torsion bars in both the front and back (stock E350 is/was front only with a sway bar). I believe that both the E350 and E450 also may come stock with a front steering shock absorber (our 2005 E450 Itasca Class C had a front steering shock absorber - as delivered from Winnebago).

The E450 chassis is overkill for only a 22 foot Class C - meaning that it should very likely in stock form deal with your Class C coach's weight and size like a piece of cake. You should not have to change the stock front and rear sway bars to anything from what they are. They are designed by Ford to handle up to a 14,500 lb. coach + chassis weight, which is way above what a 22 foot Class C RV will weigh.

Our 24 foot Class C on the E450 chassis has driven like a van since day-one in stock form EXCEPT FOR ONE THING: The E450's rear leaf springs are so stiff that they really pound the rear of a light coach hard on highway cracks and sharp bumps. We had to eventually install special high end dual-action shocks in just the rear positions to take the worst of this away. Our front shocks are the original stock ones and still performing well after 11 years of ownership. Our Class C tracks rock solid down the highway using one-hand on the steering wheel, and the brake pads seem to last year after year due to the E450's brakes having to stop way less coach weight than what the chassis was designed for. We take our 24 foot Class C off-highway and it handles tipped and rutted gravel/dirt surfaces just fine if driving slow and careful. We just came off another long trip along a wild part of the Colorado River on gravel and sandy roads and the rig never flinched. Strong highway cross winds do not present any problems.

You should like how your E450(?) in stock form handles a small RV coach.

[j-d]

For CB, I rigged a Mirror Mount. We have the "tripod" mirrors, so if you have the single arm VELVAC mirrors, that won't be too easy. It'd be a long cable, but some have mounted to the Rear Ladder. DO NOT drill the body for a bracket! Way too easy for water to leak in. Sure you can seal it, but if the antenna strikes something it'll unseat the sealant.
Again, you WILL drag something over it on the ROOF. Don't do something that can lead to compromised roofing.
I've seen Fender Mounts (fastens into the inner fender edge with the hood open) on some Class C's.
I don't believe you'll get textbook CB antenna performance on a motorhome. Just figure you can count on talking to people you can see.

[Dairyman_John]

On the partial remodel project, what type and where have any of you put CB radio antennae on class c motor homes? You need a ground plane for them, Can you put them on the rubber roof? Do magnet mounts work up there? Too high?

[Harvey51]

My mother would have loved a motorhome trip but we didn't get the MH in time. MIL had several summers with us in the MH for trips of several hours on the road and several days in the campsite. She enjoyed it and there were no complaints about the dinette seats or bed. Sadly she got too frail to trust by herself in the RV and eventually couldn't climb the steps to get in.

[ron_dittmer]

j-d wrote:
For your Chassis, Sway Bars, technically Anti-Sway Bars... Hellwig and Roadmaster. The two use the same grade of steel and the same diameters of 1-3/8 Front 1-1/2 Rear. Differences are Brackets, Finish and PRICE. Most of us have gotten Hellwig. I think part (maybe most) of the reason Hellwig is so much less costly than Roadmaster is the different types of outlets they're sold through. A good place to look them up is SDTruckSprings. That's where I got ours and many here have also. Personally, I believe upgrading the REAR Sway Bar is more helpful than the Front, but I did both. The link is for 2007 and earlier E450 Chassis Years. I'd do the front bar on those for sure, since the OEM Front Sway Bar design was terrible. 2008-18 is much better, but a Hellwig bar is better still

I couldn't say it any better.

[j-d]

For your Chassis, Sway Bars, technically Anti-Sway Bars... Hellwig and Roadmaster. The two use the same grade of steel and the same diameters of 1-3/8 Front 1-1/2 Rear. Differences are Brackets, Finish and PRICE. Most of us have gotten Hellwig. I think part (maybe most) of the reason Hellwig is so much less costly than Roadmaster is the different types of outlets they're sold through. A good place to look them up is SDTruckSprings. That's where I got ours and many here have also. Personally, I believe upgrading the REAR Sway Bar is more helpful than the Front, but I did both. The link is for 2007 and earlier E450 Chassis Years. I'd do the front bar on those for sure, since the OEM Front Sway Bar design was terrible. 2008-18 is much better, but a Hellwig bar is better still

[Dairyman_John]

I was referring to front stabilizer bars. Sorry it’s late, trying not to dream about Holstein cows.

[Dairyman_John]

Hello good people, I posted back in December on this thread about making our new class c Thor MH roadworthy. Also remodeling dinette to make more comfortable for our “mother in law farewell tour” . We finally bought a couple of nice captains chairs, tore out the dinette and working our way around. I will get some pictures up soon once I figure out how.
In taking the advice of you people here we are also putting in the five star tuner and banks exhaust system and headers with the power pickle and bill stein shocks. Also a huge rear stabilizer bar.
There has been much talk here about steering stabilizers and brands that I cant recalll. What are some good ones? Also have any of you made any mods to front axle stabilizers? This is on a typical F-450 chassis, V-10 etc.
Our inaugural trip is next month from Utah to Louisville Kentucky to the National Farm Machinery Show. That will be the shakedown cruise in preparation for our mothers in law tour.
Thank you for your advice, John

[Off_Pavement]

Bumpyroad wrote:

Dairyman John wrote:
Thanks for the replies. Off Pavement, I really like the concept and what you have looks really good. As Bumpy says, where do your feet go or do you have an ottoman or something for your feet to rest on? .

distance to floor is only one of the issues. the distance from backbone to knees requires a giraffe like body to sit comfortably.
bumpy

Dairyman - I don't have a clue. I found that picture someplace on the internet when I was researching how I wanted to modify our rig. If I recall the dialog that went with it, those chairs are not bolted down, rather just sit on the base. The base will pull out allowing going back to a normal dinette.

Bumpyroad and I agree it looks uncomfortable, but I gotta say still better than the U-dinette we had.

From this...


To this...

[Bumpyroad]

Dairyman John wrote:
Thanks for the replies. Off Pavement, I really like the concept and what you have looks really good. As Bumpy says, where do your feet go or do you have an ottoman or something for your feet to rest on? .

distance to floor is only one of the issues. the distance from backbone to knees requires a giraffe like body to sit comfortably.
bumpy

[ron_dittmer]

Maybe those two seats are not mounted. Just slide them closer to the edge. Nothing prevents one from mounting theirs closer to the edge. Bolt them down and add seat belts. But the height might still be an issue for some people.

Our dinette was terribly uncomfortable to sit at until we replaced the cushions with better ones. What a night and day difference.

Maybe you could setup something temporary with make-shift cushions, and revert back after the trip.

Here is our original cushions. They were a soft foam that I bottomed-out on. Adding the issue that the cloth would not let us shift our weight without first lifting up our bodies.


Here are our replacement cushions. The foam is a little bit thinner which provides more elbow room. It is a much more dense foam and is marketed as memory foam. The vinyl surface makes for easy entry and exit and for the shifting of weight. The change in our comfort was remarkable.

[jspringator]

Alternatively, is there a way to make the dinete seat more comfortable?