Dodge chassis upgrades

[AK49er]

The newest latest... Received the correct "bent" U-bolts today, yippii. Maybe I can finish this job this weekend or not, and take the rig for a test run. I would only have a couple of smaller upgrades left to try and improve the handling of the famous Dodge flaws, hopefully that would be the end of this thread. Stay tuned.

[AK49er]

The sway bar is in and tested! Finished it last night and took about a 30 mile run today, rides better but still not what I think it should handle like. Per Hellwig, I deflated the airbags to min. recommended pressure before tightening all bolts and then inflated bags to about 60lbs. to "preload" the bar. The rig did handle the corners and wind much better but the front end still seemed to float as always. Tried different pressures in both the tires and airbags to see what difference that made. I settled on 65psi for front tires and came back to 65 for the airbags (rear is 80). I wish I had the specs from the alignment shop on the increased caster that was done so I could rule out that part. The only other things that would be left to try is the optional steering stabilizer from Coach House and also the Michelin tires that people recommend. If the tires I have weren't so new I would purchase the Michelins and give that a try. The tires I have are the Geolanders made by Yokohama, reviews are good so I felt that was not an issue, but I could be wrong. I have driven many types of rigs in my life from Ladder trucks, belly dumps, pick-ups and cars of all sorts to know when a vehicle is just "not right", so I know that the fact is, it's just not right. There are other things I could say but the fact is I am a 2 finger typist and I am wore out, maybe more thoughts later. Any ideas, jump in!

[booster]

I think that I understand why Hellwig is giving you the procedure for setting up the swaybar, but it is not the way I did ours. If everything is right with the suspension and heights, their way would be good, but it does seem backwards if you have unbalanced load. On ours, I used the airbags to level the van out before tightening the bolts, and I actually had to shorten one of the sleeves to make the bar unloaded with the van level. If I am looking at it right, if you had more weight, and sat lower, on one side, with the airbags empty, and then you tightened the bar into place, unloaded, when you lifted it back level the bag on the heavy side would also start to pick up some load from the other side do to the swaybar transferring weight to it. I would think you would want the opposite if you were trying to balance the force on the springs and bags, or neither, as as we did. I also had the front bar disconnected when I did the rear, and checked the front for loading before I reconnected it, but it was OK. Comments on this one would be appreciated.

I assume the "float" you are talking about is that very light steering feel and slow response to steering wheel inputs, with overly large corrections needed (understeer, or push). It is the same feeling you get from going over a crest in the road, when the vehicle gets lighter over the top of the crest. There was a very good discussion of what affects this in, I think, Marcos thread about his suspension upgrades. He was able to get his van much better with the work he did. In general, the front end has to be tight, as does the steering gear. Dodges do get loose quickly, especially if not greased regularly. The alignment, you would want as much positive caster as they can give you while still holding the other settings right. A little bit of positive camber is more stable. The biggest thing is the toe setting. If the toe is going out, WHILE YOU ARE DRIVING, the van will not be directionally stable. I emphasize this because as the front end gets loose with wear, you can have a condition where the toe will check as in when on the alignment rack, but be out while driving, do to the roadforce of being a positive scrub radius suspension. Good techs will push the wheels to the toe out direction when they set the toe, and will also increase toe in based on how tight the linkage is. You want only enough toe to stay toed in a bit while driving, so you don't overwear the tires. More toe in will make it more stable, however. Higher front tire pressure, lower rear will make the steering respond better. Same with stiffer rear springs, softer front. Stiffer sidewall tires like the Michelin XPS ribs are said to make a huge difference in the Dodges. Some folks have had success with using the rear wheel spacers on the Dodges, also. You really shouldn't need the stabilizer, I think, if the rest of it is right.

If you can get the alignment specs, it would be interesting to see what the set it to.

I wish you luck, this kind of stuff can be a long ordeal.

[AK49er]

Thanks booster. When I said the air bags were empty, they actually had about 5 lbs in them and the van was level before tightening bolts. Firestone says never to deflate bags entirely but to leave at least 5 lbs in them. As an update, we just returned from our weekly 4 day adventure and was very happy with most of the handling of the rig. The sway bar helped the van to corner like a go cart and no sway was felt with passing rigs and such. This trip was a lot longer than our previous "try it out trip" and it performed like any other truck I put sway bars on. In fact, the only time it felt like I was in complete control was when cornering, or to put it another way, when I gave the steering wheel something to do, it responded well. When cruising straight and level is when the rig handles the worst, that "floating" sensation rears it ugly head at that time. I firmly believe that the alignment specs need to be re-checked. I don't have the paperwork from the shop that did the alignment and its not like me to lose it or not get my copy of work done, I don't know where its at! I will check with the shop to see if they can help with that, if not, I will make another appt. with them. As I posted before, I have an upgraded steering box that was installed prior to our owning the van, which I didn't know until the alignment shop pointed that out to me. Stay tuned.

[AK49er]

I guess its time to put an end to this project after our last upgrade. A friend of ours has a 34' class A that has a wandering issue (F53) that he has been trying to resolve with some success of aftermarket parts. One of his upgrades were "Poly type" bushings on his front sway bar, this didn't cure all his problems but he said that it helped and he could feel the difference in steering. Told him my "rubber type" bushings were fine and were showing no signs of splitting or cracking, they looked good! I let it go at that for a couple of months.

Well last week I was under the front end checking on things and thought I would check tightness of a few different components when I noticed that an end link looked a little loose. Instead of tightening it up, I took it off. Looking at the bushing prior to removing it showed a slight bulging like it should but the inside of the bushing which you cant see was almost missing resulting in way too much play. All 8 of the end link bushings were hollowed out the same. The frame mounted bushings were removed but didn't show the signs of the end links.

Went and ordered Poly bushings from Moog that very day! I put them on yesterday and took the rig for a drive, it was a major difference. I believe the front bushings made a better improvement than the rear sway bar I installed earlier this year, it really surprised me. I don't believe the rig is 100% right but it but its close enough unless someone comes up with a guaranteed cure. What surprised me was the lack of play in the sway bar with the old bushings, there was none! The rig puts a lot more stress on the bar than your hands could ever do.

If your rig has rubber bushings on either the front or rear sway bars change them out for poly today. For the small price of $50.00 I made a huge difference to our rig!

[booster]

The endlink bushings are usually among the first of the rubber bushings to show wear, but it sure woundn't hurt to take a look (and pry on) the others in the van. In the rear, you have the front spring eye bushings which can cause some major handling issues if they are loose because the axle can move forward and back. Similar, but not as bad, with the rear shackle bushings as they will get loose but not allow a lot of motion. In the front you have the strut rod bushings which do get loose pretty easily and let the wheels move front and backwards. The upper and lower control arm bushings are at the frame and a-arm junctions and will allow motion but also get noisy when the hit metal on metal. In all likelyhood, most of this stuff is not horrible if the links just got bad and haven't already been replaced once. The rear spring eyes and front strut rod bushings are probably the most likely to be worn, I think.

[stanw909]

Time for an update now that you've gotten all the way to Washington state. How is tge handling? I have a 96 Coachmen Saratoga on a Dodge 3500 chassis that I just took on a 260 mile jaunt and it drives like a Cadillac. I was ready to replace the Monroe's with Bilstiens and add wheel spacers but she drives great. I might do the spacers anyway because they are only $120 and am curious about the possibility that would improve what I consider an already great ride.

[AK49er]

O.K., here we go. The short version is simply that I am an idiot!! I have been wanting to update this but didn't know who was even interested so I will tell only you and nobody else.

To be honest it looks like now that I was really trying to compensate for our terrible roads in Alaska by putting too much money in the rigs suspension. It seems that when we hit the southern end of British Columbia and the roads were great (no frost heaves) the van cruised great!
All the roads we have been on in WA have been far far better than we have ever driven up north. We seem to cruise above the posted speed limit along with everyone else and feel comfortable doing it.

I try to tell myself that all the upgrades are a good preventable maintenance and that does help, but did I really need to do all of it, I don't know. I do believe the sway bar would have been a needed upgrade and am glad that I put it on. As far as the wheel spacers go, I feel they were a good upgrade as our rear axle is 4" narrower than the front and that brought the rear tires out to about the same distance as the fronts. Were they really needed, I don't know that either. By the way, are the spacers you are thinking about a bolt on affair or does the rim hold them tight to the drum? Ours are a billet aluminum bolt on type. We paid over twice that amount for ours inc. shipping.

I guess I would say that if your rig handles like a caddy, leave it go for awhile until you start to notice anything starting to happen, and then take a look at upgrades. Thanks for letting me get this idiot thing off my chest finally!

[stanw909]

The spacers are billet aluminum that bolt on and have studs for the wheels. When I drove the van back from Joshua Tree Ca. Where I bought it to San Bernardino it was a little scary. Although it had Michelin tires , they were completely dryed out and probably under inflated. I put Hurcules ATs on it with a very heavy sidewall and that is what made the difference. If your setup helped on Alaskan roads then it was the right thing to do. That is where the van will be most of the year anyway. When I need bushings I'm definitely going poly. Never thought of it til you mentioned it. Thanks for the update. Happy travels.

[Montana170]

Just replaced the stock 1" sway bar on my 97 RoadTrek with a Addco 1.25". Made a huge difference, noticed at the first corner I took.

[AK49er]

Hello Montana, did you replace the rear bar or the front? Ours didn't come with a rear bar, I put on a Hellwig. The front had a bar and all I did there is add poly bushings, which I might add, might a difference.

[Montana170]

I replaced the front bar. Initially I replaced the perished rubber sway bar bushings with poly bushings on the original, helped but not to where I wanted to be. The 1.25 really did improve things. I haven't figured out how to put in a rear bar, on the 170 there is a lot of stuff in the way, can't really get to the chassis rails easily. I may install a receiver hitch and fabricate a mount off the hitch brackets. I have a hobby fab shop so it might be doable if necessary. I'll put some time on the motorhome and decide if I need to go further. The 170 has KYB shocks installed not too long ago, so I will do some research in that area. My Dad gave the unit a few months ago, it hadn't been used much the last several years, so I am getting it sorted. I think the next step will be the alignment shop. Dad put tires and had it aligned a few years ago, but I am not convinced it was done correctly. I want additional castor and the same settings side to side. The idea of adjusting the alignment for road crown is silly, when the real problem is a tall vehicle in a cross wind. Hopefully I can get them to align to my specs. I don't expect this thing to be a sports car, but I do expect it to handle better than what it does. Actually I am a little surprised the manufacturer didn't do more work in this area.

[AK49er]

I know that Dodge had a TSB on the front ends of late 90's vans, maybe yours is covered in it. I need to measure my front bar for size and check on that upgrade, more money, yippee!

[Montana170]

Well here is what I did. The upgrade to 1.25" front sway bar helped but didn't get me quite where I wanted to be. Installing a rear sway bar would be near impossible with all the stuff hanging between the chassis rails. I installed a Roadmaster Active Suspension, that really did do the job. Took it on a curvy road and what used to be swaying, wallowing pig, was actually almost fun to drive. Preloading the Roadmaster springs raised the back of the van about 1", which is good. Also painted the wheel wells black when I had the wheel off for installation of the Roadmaster. White wheel wells, good lord. Looking for a front spoiler next. Then off come the perishing decals and redoing the graphics.

[AK49er]

Is the Roadmaster Suspension a set of leaf springs or an add a leaf? Check with Hellwig, they may have a rear bar for your rig, I think it all depends on gas tank size.

[Montana170]

No room to fit a stock bar,that is why I used the Roadmaster. http://www.activesuspension.com/

[AK49er]

Montana170, been looking at the RAS, almost too good to be true. Have you had the rig out lately? What has changed?

[Montana170]

Haven't had it out except for the test drive. Winter started to close in, so I winterized and parked it for the winter. If the roads would clear off a bit more I would do another test on it. I would like to sit at the dinette while being driven at highway speeds. I tried it before the suspension mods and found it very uncomfortable, kinda headed towards seasick with the endless swaying. I really think it will be more palatable know. Incidentally I replaced the aluminum angle seat support across the back with steel angle with ears welded on to bolt to the door frame. I attached lap seat belts to the angle.

[olddodgevan]

Any updates to report?

[AK49er]

Nope. Too busy driving around the south east looking for good weather. Thought about the RAS system as talked about above but haven't jumped yet. As I stated earlier, once I got out of Alaska the rig handled better, not as good as I think it should, but better. I think before long I will change over to the Michelin Ribbed tires and give that a go.