THE BLUE BIRD BOUNCE

[al perna]

Well I am finally at Josams for my 8 am appointment . I have been reading this and other with the hope of " TAKING OUT SOME OF THE BOUNCE "
If there are any ideas not covered in this Post , Iam open to all your thoughts .

---

We went to Jo Sams when we first bought our bird and the result was nothing short of amazing. As soon as we pulled away we immediately noticed the difference in handling.

They adjusted the caster and the toe in and also not the anti-sway bar, but the gosh, another bar. I'm trying to remember the name, it will come to me, but it is the same thing that some people have had installed up in Oregon. It stops the bus from having too much play.

They got into the coach with us, drove it. Came back adjusted it again a little more, drove it again, adjusted it another hair, drove it a third time until it was perfect.

It really held so much more steady after that and was much easier to steer.

Can't recommended them highly enough. I believe the cost was $450 may $480. somewhere around that and well worth it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jennifer and Darrell Snell
2000 LXi ME SS
Florida - Palm Harbor and McAlpin

Jennifer/Darrell . could you share what the issue was that brought about the above repair ?
was your Bus Pulling to one side or wandering , over the road ?

David .
Is there a way to check whether your castor is fully adjusted ? our coach doesn't ride like I am sitting in front of the wheels
as the 93wb did prior to the adjustment , but while I am here I would be great to deal with any issues or upgrades I can make to our LXI .

[cmillsap]

Al,

I am having the big anti-sway removed on my bus. David assures everyone that the anti-sway bar is the culprit causing the front end bounce on our LXi. Obviously, bad shocks will contribute to the problem. You may recall that I said in anothe post that I bounced from FL to CA on the initial trip home in the new 'Bird.
The center of balance on an LXi is very low and (with good shocks); there should be very little side to side body sway sans the anti-sway bar. I'm anxious to test drive my bus after the repairs are done. Maybe by the end of this week as I'm having a lot of other things done to my bus while it is there.

While my bus is at the repair shop; I am also replacing the shocks and having the caster set between 6 & 6.5 degrees. The service manager told me that they have been doing this for many brands of coaches. He says the driveability is dramatically improved in 90% of the cases.

Their body shop is also repairing the trim piece on the slideroom and loose paint along the slide's bottom trim piece.

[davidbrady]

That's great Chuck. I'm looking forward to a followup road test report! I'm currently running 3 and 3.5 deg of caster. An increase has been on my ToDo list for far too long. What technique will the shop be using to give you more caster?

Regarding the anti-sway bar. It's not just my suggestion, it's Ridewell's too. I gave Bill Mattocks at Ridewell the dimensions for our steer axle sway bars and he was astonished. He said he wouldn't even use something that stiff on the drive axle. If we were to retain the same width and arm dimensions Bill suggested a bar of around 1 5/8" in diameter would be suitable. No other Ridewell equipped Wanderlodge has a steer axle anti-sway bar and they all handle fine.

[al perna]

Chuck . like you, I plan to have these upgrades preformed , and also inspect whether I, also have this " sway bar " in question .

As to the trim piece , I have decided to stay with my original repaired piece . although upon close inspection one could see that it is bent ,
with the slide in or out the repair is not visual unless you know where to look . I will one day have this repaired , but will wait till a trip to HWH .

We also will need some paint work done in the future along the trim areas . I think this will need to wait till other upgrades are complete .

[cmillsap]

(06-02-2013 22:06)davidmbrady Wrote:  That's great Chuck. I'm looking forward to a followup road test report! I'm currently running 3 and 3.5 deg of caster. An increase has been on my ToDo list for far too long. What technique will the shop be using to give you more caster?

Regarding the anti-sway bar. It's not just my suggestion, it's Ridewell's too. I gave Bill Mattocks at Ridewell the dimensions for our steer axle sway bars and he was astonished. He said he wouldn't even use something that stiff on the drive axle. If we were to retain the same width and arm dimensions Bill suggested a bar of around 1 5/8" in diameter would be suitable. No other Ridewell equipped Wanderlodge has a steer axle anti-sway bar and they all handle fine.

David,

I'm such a dummy on the process they use to set camber. But as I understand it; their alighment machine has the capability (by laser) of setting a precise degree of caster angle. I guess I'm at their mercy as I didn't look at the alignment machine. I was so sobbing over the estimated overall repairs bill; I couldn't have seen anything anyway.

I just like this bus and I know I'll end up spending too much on it because of that. I'm just getting too old and too lazy to do much of the grunt work myself. I'll do the easy things and pay to have the hard stuff done.:

[al perna]

Josam s have just finished the Alignment and castor adjustment . I was told the castor was fully adjusted already and the alignment was dead on .
I don't have the # s yet but I think he said 4 4 1/2 .

I am now getting 2 new koni shocks full 2 turns back and that Stabilizer bar from BB removed . I sure hope they take out the correct one haha

[davidbrady]

Al,

I like my steer axle Koni's adjusted 1 turn from full soft. IMPO, folks have a tendency to adjust them too stiff. Remember most of the damping (if not all) is in the rebound direction. If adjusted too stiff then the suspension can't fully recover from a series of bumps and the ride becomes progressively stiffer as the suspension loads up. It's a matter of personal taste but I trade off a little more bounce for a softer suspension and ride over the bumps. Your mileage may vary!

[al perna]

David ,

The sway bar has been removed and the new Koni shocks installed . Now it was only a 60 mile test ride, and the Roads of the North remain , but so far I am very happy with the results . she rides much softer . With the sway bar you could feel every bump in the road . You could feel a pebble , no lie she was stiff.
Now ,I actually stopped to check the air pressure in the front tires . hahaha

Thank s for the giving me the extra push I needed to remove what looks to be a vital piece of equipment. Imagine telling a alignment specialist to remove suspension parts ? I was surprised when Barry stated I was the first one who ever asked him to remove that bar . I must tell you I was a bit concerned . But now Iam around 100 lbs lighter and gliding down the road, as this Bus was designed .

I have owned this BB since Oct and have put 35 k miles on her and I must say , she is much more comfortable to drive so far . By end of June I expect to have 1500 more miles on her without the sway Bar . At that time I will report back on whether I want a stiffer tight ride or a smooth loose ride .

The Koni's are a full turn from stiff for now, so I guess I could play with that part of the ride over the summer . I f I would have read your thought s prior to having the work done ??

The cost to remove the sway bar was 200 dollars , to me well worth every penny . Thanks again for your help David .

[nedb]

(06-02-2013 22:06)davidmbrady Wrote:  Regarding the anti-sway bar. It's not just my suggestion, it's Ridewell's too. I gave Bill Mattocks at Ridewell the dimensions for our steer axle sway bars and he was astonished. He said he wouldn't even use something that stiff on the drive axle. If we were to retain the same width and arm dimensions Bill suggested a bar of around 1 5/8" in diameter would be suitable. No other Ridewell equipped Wanderlodge has a steer axle anti-sway bar and they all handle fine.

Hey David--

Would you care to speculate on why bb put the anti-sway on these front axles? I can come up with two situations that suggest anti-sway would have benefits:

Does a de-anti-sway bar'd coach tend to get lifted and shoved to the right by truck air waves? (Picture a 40-50K lb coach being buffeted by truck wind. LOL )

Easier to imagine the coach rolling more to the outside of turns, without the anti-sway. Does anyone note a change there?

--Ned

[davidbrady]

That's excellent news Al. You hit the nail square on the head. The bus with the bar has you feeling every pebble on the road. I used to joke with my wife that I could roll over a dime and feel it! Enjoy the new ride!

Hey Ned,

I'm certain BB installed the bar to tighten up the handling, and it does. Without the bar the bus requires a moment to "take a set" in the turns, say when exiting a clover leaf. It's not unlike driving GrandPa's 1957 Cadillac, you need to feed it a good amount of steering and let the coach roll before it starts turning. But, with the bar you still need to do that. This is a 50K lb bus after all, not a Corvette. The trouble with having the bar is that you get the worst of both worlds because you can't keep bushings in it. The bar is so stiff that it quickly shreds the bushings in the vertical links. When that happens then you get this weird non-linear handling. What happens is the bar w/o bushings is super sloppy and is doing nothing at the beginning of a turn, then suddenly it catches as the play is taken up, then the bus becomes darty. I'd rather have a linear progressive roll, with a softer ride. Some folks say a sway bar shouldn't effect the ride quality. Well, when both wheels hit the exact same bump at exactly the same time this is true, but in the real world this is hardly ever the case. I understand the benefits of a well tuned anti-sway bar, and when I get some time on my hands I may experiment with various size bars. There is a size out there that will provide an improvement w/o too much of a compromise. All I know is that the 2.125" diameter bar that BB used isn't the right one!

Also I want to point out that this is personal preference. All you need to do is remove the vertical links and tie the bar snugly up against the frame rails, go for a test drive and make your call. If you like it, then good. If not, then swing it down and connect up the links. No harm done.