Home » Public Forums » GMCnet » [GMCnet] sreering
| [GMCnet] Re: sreering [message #367410 is a reply to message #367408] |
Sat, 30 October 2021 01:09   |
Brian Waddell
Messages: 409
Registered: March 2010
Karma:
|
Senior Member |
|
|
Thanks for the input Ken...Jim K thought the 2.5 turns box would make no difference on handling at hwy speeds...but would likely be of more value in city driving...he said he would be doing more research on it
I also got Dave Lenz relay arm and idler...made no discernible difference on my handling
I replaced tie rods. then upper control arm bushings, put offset in the rear....did not replace the lower bushings yet...the old uppers looked good, and gmc guys were saying the lowers when replaced are never worn enough to create steering issues...so new alcoas and tires and shocks and pitman arm. WE, local neighbors and alignment shop can not find any play in front end or rear end ...measured rear wheels to frame scribing mark on tire, then 6 wheel alignment. flat on box at square with the machined edge of cap on box.. 29-64th drill bit....idler and relay arm straight back parallel to frame when steering wheel centered...ride height correct by book front and back, adjusted the front right as it was an inch or so low...took pressure off the torsion bar bolt before adjusting....tried 50 to 75 lbs tire pressure...no difference...left them at 65... I do not know how to measure weight on each individual wheel.....will try a three point measurement as jim K suggested, lots of synthetic
grease in steering cv joint, I guess I gave up on it a couple of years ago ,then a post here about different steering boxes got me thinking maybe that is my problem
Brian waddell 77 ele 455
sperling mb canada
________________________________
From: Ken Burton
Sent: October 29, 2021 11:01 PM
To: gmclist@list.gmcnet.org
Subject: [GMCnet] Re: sreering
I, like everyone else here so far, am not going to answer your steering box 2.5 turn question because I do not know for sure.
I have known several GMC people who have replaced or had their box rebuilt only to find out it did not help much. I believe the box ought to work if
the ratio is close to correct. The 2.5 turns is simply where the internal stops are located in the box. Unless there is a lot of wear in it causing
excessive slop then there probably is no real reason to replace / rebuild the box.
It sounds like you have tried a lot of things. I did the same thing on mine. The biggest things that helped me was replacing the idler arm. There
was a lot of wear / play in the arm bushing to mounting bolt. I put Dave Lenze's bearing type arm in instead of the older bushing type.
The next was replacing the worn and rotted lower control arm bushings with Energy Suspension Urethane bushings and at the same time put offset upper
control arm bushings for more caster.
The next was setting the ride height EXACTLY correct. The ride height is not really the important thing, it is getting the weight on each pair of
wheels nearly equal. Because of the design of the automatic adjusting rear air bags and the front springs (torsion bars) it is very possible to get
each pair of wheels with hundreds of pounds difference between them while maladjusting the heights to correct that problem.
While weighing coaches at one of the GMCMI rallies we actually found one coach the was just shy of 800 pounds difference between the two front wheels
while the ride heights were very close to correct. The rear diagonal corner from the the heavy front wheel was also about 800 pounds heavy (400 per
wheel).
Finally after getting the weights straighten out, getting the rear ride height correct made the biggest difference in handling I found that some PO
liked the rear riding high. Dropping it to the GMC spec made a huge difference.
The last is tire pressures. Airing tire pressures according to the weight on each also makes a large difference in handling. Micheline has a tire
pressure chart on line for our coaches. My wheels and tires all come in at around 62 to 65 PSI for a 26 coach. That makes a big difference in
handling instead of using the maximum of around 80 to 85 PSI that some many people use.
--
Ken Burton - N9KB
76 Palm Beach
Hebron, Indiana
_______________________________________________
GMCnet mailing list
Unsubscribe or Change List Options:
_______________________________________________
GMCnet mailing list
Unsubscribe or Change List Options:
|
|
|
|
Current Time: Sat Sep 28 16:59:34 CDT 2024
Total time taken to generate the page: 0.01008 seconds
|
GMCforum
Search
Help
Register
Login
Home
