'Dry' is another bogus thing. I've never come across one, but doesn't
mean there aren't any out there. That is the stripper model with no
battery, spare tire, rear bumper, AC, appliances, etc, etc...
I hear that model only comes with a vinyl tile floor and a pole. They are very light
Ihave yet to see a trailer that has no appliances. a rear bumper is required by law! every TT I have ever looked at shows the standard features. and all list appliances as standard and most show the awning and A/C as standard along with other things.
Maybe if you have weighed you Excursion and compared it to the listed
'curb'...you might understand that metric the OEMs use
'Curb' is the TV's equivalent of 'dry' for a trailer
Then consider the other factors employed by the OEM marketing folks...
Do you weigh in at 150 lbs ?
My point is that I agree with you that most all TV's and trailers
do come with those options you list...but that is the other part of
my point...the 'dry' weight normally does NOT include those options
For those who are still interested in my saga. I am going to a company that specializes in trailers on Tuesday. I described my problem to him and he is going to take it for a drive and check everything out. Will report back next week
2008 SunnyBrook Edgewater 266RBE
2011 F150 EcoBoost Super Crew Max Tow Pkg 3.73
lcirelli wrote: For those who are still interested in my saga. I am going to a company that specializes in trailers on Tuesday. I described my problem to him and he is going to take it for a drive and check everything out. Will report back next week
Sounds good! we`ll be waiting to here from you.
Wife Kim
Son Brandon 11yrs
Daughter Marissa 10yrs
Dog Shadow
07 Cherokee 32B
02 Excursion 4X4 V-10 4.30 gear 5Star tuner Y-pipe mod Hellwig sway bar
Reese HP dualcam Prodigy brake controller
A bad day of camping is
better than a good day at work!
Ok, so today I went to the trailer expert. He took it for a ride and agreed that it was really bad towing. We did all the measurements, he even weighed the tongue, 1000 lbs. Went over everything on the trailer and truck. He could not figure it out either. His only advice was that maybe there was a hitch. He had an equalizer that he said I could try and if he didn't work any better he would take it back and not charge me. He put it on, it fixed about 60% of my problems. I am tempted to return it and just get a hensley hitch that may fix most of my problems. This has been a long hard road.
lcirelli wrote: Ok, so today I went to the trailer expert. He took it for a ride and agreed that it was really bad towing. We did all the measurements, he even weighed the tongue, 1000 lbs. Went over everything on the trailer and truck. He could not figure it out either. His only advice was that maybe there was a hitch. He had an equalizer that he said I could try and if he didn't work any better he would take it back and not charge me. He put it on, it fixed about 60 percent of my problems. I am tempted to return it and just get a hensley hitch that may fix most of my problems. This has been a long hard road.
Sorry to hear it is such a difficult-to-find obscure problem.
I almost hate to say it, yet again, but that is exactly the symptoms of incorrect (insufficient) toe settings. I do apologise for being so stubborn.
Reading your first post and a few later, I assumed early on that if it were a hitch problem you would have solved it in the first hour like most lucky people. Hitch problems just aren't that persistent.
Toe-out, when it appears because of loading or whatever, never goes away until an accurate alignment turns the front wheels just a little bit inward. Once in a great while toe settings are too far in, but that is less likely and the effect is not as prominent. In such a case, the wear will be on the outside of the front tread. Just for the record, correctly set toe-in settings tend to run true (toe-neutral) when going down the highway because of inherent give (from drag) in suspension components. That is why the factory settings on rear drive always call for toe-in, to compensate for "give". That is also why front wheel drive cars are set the opposite... toed-out. The darn front drive wheels tend to pull, or steer, inward from the wheels pulling the car forward.
As an example of toe-out problems, some Excursions and early F-250's just don't steer right seemingly no matter what. Most have had multiple pro alignments, like I did years ago in sheer futility. If you don't believe the extent of the problem, check the Ford forums out for Excursion "wandering". One forum even offers a type of traction bar, and folks literally buy all sorts of expensive gizmos to correct their tow vehicle from wandering, often concentrating on the rear axle which is simply not the problem, or they would all be that way. Some of these owners correct worn ball joints or steering sectors which may need to be replaced anyway. On the other hand most identical Excursions, and identical F-250's steer just fine, even with semi-worn parts. Why do you suppose that is? The mystery is not so mysterious.
As an example, my particular Excursion accidentally steers just fine, steady one finger down the road with either of our 30 foot campers (barring excessive wind), and that was with the cheapest WD on the market, the original WD Eaz-Lift. I finally recently installed a Hensley, but that was only because I bought it out of fear a couple of years ago, originally for towing a huge camper with a tiny Ford Ranger sized truck, and I just sold the marvelous Eaz-Lift with our previous camper. The simple Eaz-Lift installs from scratch in 5 minutes; not so the Hensley, and I'm a lazy guy. Hitching time thereafter is about the same though.
But, concerning Excursions, the last camper I talked to last year on Memorial Day, with a mysterious chronic wander, drove a beautiful Excursion diesel. The campground is about 100 miles away. Anyway, his truck steered terrible while towing when it was stock, and he had since installed a proper lift kit (springs, not blocks), replaced ball joints and steering sector, had added a Helwig sway bar and had it pro aligned more than once. Still steered like heck. I should have offered him a low price for it. But I looked at his fairly new tires and they were slightly worn on the inside front tread.
He replaced tires not that long ago when he bought "big meats". The old front tires had been badly worn on the inside. I told him that the pro alignment machines were unreliable and to simply "rifle sight" down the sidewalls, when all hitched up, because his front wheels were most certainly toed-out under those conditions. I hope to see him again this year to get the rest of the story. If he was convinced, and the self-commenced eyeball alignment finally solved his problem, I might let him buy me a beer or two.
I have to admit that most of the problems I have seen are on trucks with a live front axle, no independent suspension. But not all. I think the alignment machines fail the Hotchkiss live axle more often for some reason, which accounts for the 4X4 Excursions and other 4X4 3/4 ton trucks.
Good luck, and have a great Memorial Day, in spite of whatever is causing your steering grief.
Wes
...
Days spent camping are not subtracted from one's total.
- 2000 Excursion V-10 - 2004 Cougar Keystone M-294 RLS, 6140# tare
- Hensley Arrow - Champion 4000w/3500w gen
- Linda, Wes and Quincy the Standard Brown Poodle
...
I have to disagree about alignment problems caused by machines being inacurate. An alignment machine in the late 70's would have been a guy with a level and a measuring stick. The machines today are very accurate pieces of equipment. If the operator has any intelegence what-so-ever the alignment will be right. The manufacturer sets the specifications to make the vehicle handle the way they want. Sometimes this is at the expense of the tires. Nissan Z cars for example will tear the front tires off even though the alignment is correct, it is however set to make the car steer very quickly(like a race car). Many of the late model solid axle vehicles use tie rod setups that cause toe variation as the suspension moves. This variation causes wandering issues.
It is possible to have a poor alignment from the factory though, so I would agree that that should be checked. I will also conceed that to problems will cause wandering. I will strongly advise against sighting down the sidewalls of the tires and setting toe by lining up to the rear tires at many vehicles are not the same track width front and rear, I know the 76 chevy wasnt. Let a competent pro work on it and tell them exactly what your concerns are and discuss if varying from the factory specs may help. Lastly never use a shop that would put P tires on a truck that is supposed to have LT tires. It is not legal, not safe, and shows how they feel about things being correct.
2000 K3500 CCLB DRW 6.5 TURBO
2009 Cougar 320 SRX
2007 atlas 24 auto hauler
1987 GMC origional low miles
retired-tech wrote: I have to disagree about alignment problems caused by machines being inacurate. An alignment machine in the late 70's would have been a guy with a level and a measuring stick. The machines today are very accurate pieces of equipment. If the operator has any intelegence what-so-ever the alignment will be right. The manufacturer sets the specifications to make the vehicle handle the way they want. Sometimes this is at the expense of the tires. Nissan Z cars for example will tear the front tires off even though the alignment is correct, it is however set to make the car steer very quickly(like a race car). Many of the late model solid axle vehicles use tie rod setups that cause toe variation as the suspension moves. This variation causes wandering issues.
It is possible to have a poor alignment from the factory though, so I would agree that that should be checked. I will also conceed that to problems will cause wandering. I will strongly advise against sighting down the sidewalls of the tires and setting toe by lining up to the rear tires at many vehicles are not the same track width front and rear, I know the 76 chevy wasnt. Let a competent pro work on it and tell them exactly what your concerns are and discuss if varying from the factory specs may help. Lastly never use a shop that would put P tires on a truck that is supposed to have LT tires. It is not legal, not safe, and shows how they feel about things being correct.
I agree with most of what you say.
If I remember correctly, an alignment machine in the '70's was a highly touted mechanical drive-on rack that was suppose to quickly determine settings and make quick money for the shop. Something about this set-up did not work correctly particularily for live axle 4X4's. Not much has changed in the profit and marketing department. I am still seeing vehicles with mystery wandering/drifting problems after they have been pro aligned. Why do you think this is?
I had Helms manuals for the truck in the '70's and I still own the manuals. The truck calls for 0 degrees on the K10-20's and 3/16" on the two wheelers. But years ago, my truck was obviously toed out, left this way by three alignment shops, and I corrected this by eyeball. This can be done on any vehicle because it is certainly not the high dollar rocket science that marketing would like us to believe.
Believe it or not, "Rifle sighting" down the sidewall is an extremely accurate method, to within hairs of perfect, as long as one knows what the target is. And I am an expert rifle marksman with open sights and feel I know this; the principle is the same. Tires are made in molds that are within 1000'ths of an inch, very, very accurate. Accuracy does depend on the tire bead being installed straight and centered on a good rim (another gripe of mine) but can be checked by merely rotating the wheel while off the ground. If the sidewall tracks correctly, and they usually do, the sidewall is logically good enough for an accurate sight picture. With rifles, shots may be placed within a half inch at targets 100's of yards away, just a tiny fraction of angular variance. It may be independent thought on my part, but the similarity just makes logical sense when a man truely thinks about it.
Your remark "The machines today are very accurate pieces of equipment. If the operator has any intelegence what-so-ever the alignment will be right" indicates that you expect the operator to just accept the readout and that is what I have a problem with.
...In spite of strange tire wear, vehicles were coming out of shops in the late 1970's incorrectly aligned (check my earlier posts), and they apparently are still coming out incorrect today. By all means, get an alignment from a pro shop you trust. Then doublecheck them with another shop if need be. But, in persistent poor handling, it makes the most sense to know yourself, and it can be done by simply sighting the sidewalls. Camber and castor would not be so easy, but they don't matter much anyway. They are very seldom off far enough to even be noticable unless the vehicle has been in an accident. But this is not true for toe-in. Toe-in is sensitive by just a few degrees.
You stated, "Many of the late model solid axle vehicles use tie rod setups that cause toe variation as the suspension moves. This variation causes wandering issues."
...I fully agree. The correct term for suspension movement is called "bump" and "droop". The toe-change effect is called "bump steer". Because of it, a truck that normally drives ok empty, may drift or wander when loaded. And we can bet that Nissan Z cars, Corvettes and other high performance cars have minimized this flaw. Todays trucks are still crude by comparison.
In the case of wandering, unusual tire wear, I would discuss this with a pro shop. I might suggest checking alignment when loaded, if their machine will handle it. But the operator better not give me a vacant look or I'm gone. Too much toe-in and the tires wear on the outside, or just began to feather if the miles are just a few. Too little toe-in (as in toed out) and the tires will wear, or feather, on the inside. Both errors cause drifting/wandering, but too much toe-out is worse. The operator better appear to already know this on his or her own from just a description of tire wear.
In the end, if the vehicle doesn't steer right, check it yourself.
Thanks for discussing this with me, and agreeing with part of what I said earlier.
Thanks for adding some info that demonstrates how simple the principle of alignment is. The early Fox-body Mustangs are fairly easy to align. They have a simple modified MacPherson strut suspension with a single lower a-frame in front. I used to have a little black 1990 5.0 notchback 5 speed.
I've only ever set toe-in on any vehicle, not caster, not camber. I never used the board trick.
One of the tricks I did use was to slightly raise each front tire and wipe the dust off with a rag. Then by spinning the tire and holding a ball point pen steadily against the rubber, a fine visible line is drawn around the tire circumference. This even works with knobby tires, but you only get a line on a knob every so often. Most highway tires have a complete strip of rubber somewhere near center. The line does not have to be centered, just evenly drawn. The line is there to compare the front and back distances only.
It is then possible, best with help, to just hold a tape measure in the front and back of the tire and check for toe settings. As an example, if the toe setting is zero, the ink lines will be the same distance apart. Since the frame is somewhat in the way, it is only possible to measure the tire lines below frame level, but the gist of the setting remains. The vehicle needs to be back on the ground and rolled back-and-forth a bit to settle the rest point of the alignment.
When the toe setting is off, it is possible to judge this by a sightline down the sidewall. It is so quick and simple, it is worth checking when it is obvious the alignment cannot be correct because of handling or tire wear.
One very important thing to check first. Make sure your wheels are not bent. Jack each off the ground and check for run out. More than 1/16 inch run out and you can not check the alignment with this procedure. This may have been covered and I could have missed it. Also as was indicated the car has to be on a level and flat surface. All four wheels need to be at the same elevation with the exception of toe in. A level flat surface is not critical for the toe in measurement. Most driveways will not have a level flat surface.
I did like the way he checked the toe in.
Offline
