New Ford V8

Kenneth Sons wrote:
Good Engine, easy to maintain, air filter size is small so it clogs easily. Keep a spare. Oil changes are easy, has variable cam timing so change often such as at 5000 miles to keep the variable device from silting up.

We have a Forest River 2551TS which weighs 13,600 loaded and gets 9.5 to 9.7 mpg at 65 mph. Plenty of power, crests Eisenhower Tunnel at 65 mph. When new it would only do 45 at the last stretch, likely a Ford break-in de-powering mode. The engine is suppost to be limited to 3900 rpm; however, it will run up past 4500 at full throttle. The interior engine cover stays cool.

The E450 chassis like all chassis needs alignment after Forest River adds 7000# to the partial chassis. For us this was a 1-1/4 degree camber/caster bushing (passenger side) installed all toward caster and 0" of toe-in. This chassis hates toe-in, as it caused poor steering response and a measurable reduction in fuel mileage.

Good post.

I've noted a lot of folks have found fault with the steering of new Ford E-450 chassis. Having experienced this myself (along with a buddy who bought the same year), we discovered that a new 450 chassis apparently has exceptionally stiff ball joints. Consequently, the steering direction tends to stick wherever the last road bump deflects it.

During this break-in time, following tire deflection, the driver is forced to constantly slightly correct the steering which is tiresome. Strangely, it may feel as though the steering must be loose instead of too tight and also gives the impression that the new RV truck chassis wanders.

Normally these binding ball-joints break-in (loosen) after the first few thousand miles and then the rig steers just fine, as it now does for my buddy and I. Ford really should earnestly publish a statement to owners, RV dealers and Ford service centers that this break-in situation may or does exist, as it seems not well understood, and I imagine it seriously irritates the majority of new owners.

One questionable fix has been to increase castor beyond factory specs which then becomes unhandy after break-in. The reasoning is that the normal recommended castor setting is only temporarily inadequate to auto-return any brand new "binding-steering" to dead-center, after any minor road deviation diverts it. Later the extra castor is undesirable as it constantly causes the front steering wheels to want to climb the crowns and slightly depressed wheel-track ruts in asphalt roads. Excess castor also unduly increases steering effort to turn during hard, emergency braking.

Also, I'm not so sure that the factory alignment is always off. It certainly may be in some cases, but it seems it shouldn't be by much just on account of the constant "house-load". If this were a chronic design failure, then all van-bodied Ford 450 chassis would greatly suffer between loaded and unloaded conditions. Maybe they do? I don't have any experience in that, just in my RV.

That said, I would certainly have to concur that alignment could be possibly idealized by the assumption that a near-constant heavy load like our RVs would mean alignment could be purposely fine-tuned to the upper range. That may be why some rear suspensions have been boosted level by either air bags or newer plastic jounce spacers.

I suppose any toe-in might already be too much if the suspension is new too. The very idea of toe-in is because there is normally a bit of slop in worn suspension and rubber mounts. The drag from forward motion then causes a slight spread (to toe-out) and the toe-in setting somewhat pre-compensates for this.

Note that front wheel drive cars are normally set to toe-out because the driving force of their traction effort (instead of drag) tends to allow any slop to alternately allow toe-in. You are correct. Toe-in does cause muted steering response. Some auto-cross racers purposely set their normal toe-in to toe-out for quicker steering response.

Wes