Supersteer Bellcrank

[dan-nickie]

I must say this has been very interesting as I had never heard of it before

[15berkxl]

Originally Posted by dan-nickie

I must say this has been very interesting as I had never heard of it before

Why haven't we heard of it before?


Wayne

[hammer55]

I heard of it when I bought my 86 Winnebago, never got around to changing it before I bought the coachman, I still have the winne, I will give it to our kids as soon as my son gets back, he might want to install one, I looked again at the site today, didn't see one listed for my chassis,,

[gasman94]

Originally Posted by edgewant

Well I ordered a Supersteer bellcrank for my 2013 Berkshire 390RB. Just helped a friend install one on his 2009 Tiffin Allegro Red. He says it has helped and he isn't constantly having to steer to keep the motorhome going straight down the road. His chassis is pretty much the same as my Berk. My question is: Has only one else on the forum installed one on their Berk and if so was it a noticeable difference over the OEM bellcrank.

Edgewant, what kind of problems are you having? I read about these a couple of years ago and wondered if it would make a difference, but I've never had any issues that I can recall with the coach drifting. I do, however, have a Tru-center on mine and that may be the reason why. If the bell crank is worn out, do you get a non linear response when turning the wheel?


Rich

[I-RV]

Originally Posted by dan-nickie

I must say this has been very interesting as I had never heard of it before

Dan, what haven't you heard of? Steering play? Steering wandering?
I have a 2012 and over 40,000 miles. I believe, when new, I had no problems, but now after 40k, I do.

What exhausts me is that with say 10 ft. wide lanes, there is only one foot on each side. When you are in a middle lane of an interstate at 65 mph, you need to keep the rig in the center of the lane. If it keeps wandering from side to side, it is not too enjoyable.

It looks like edgewant is a pioneer, for which I am very thankful to him and look forward to more of his experience with the Safety Steert,
Hank

[dan-nickie]

Originally Posted by I-RV

Dan, what haven't you heard of? Steering play? Steering wandering?
I have a 2012 and over 40,000 miles. I believe, when new, I had no problems, but now after 40k, I do.

What exhausts me is that with say 10 ft. wide lanes, there is only one foot on each side. When you are in a middle lane of an interstate at 65 mph, you need to keep the rig in the center of the lane. If it keeps wandering from side to side, it is not too enjoyable.

It looks like edgewant is a pioneer, for which I am very thankful to him and look forward to more of his experience with the Safety Steert,
Hank

Hank, I just meant I'd never heard of Supersteer.

But I don't have any driving issues either. I'll keep this in mind if I ever do. :-)

[edgewant]

Originally Posted by gasman94

Edgewant, what kind of problems are you having? I read about these a couple of years ago and wondered if it would make a difference, but I've never had any issues that I can recall with the coach drifting. I do, however, have a Tru-center on mine and that may be the reason why. If the bell crank is worn out, do you get a non linear response when turning the wheel?





Rich

Its not a nonlinear response. Just seems like before Supersteer I was constantly chasing the center of the lane. Small corrections but a lot of them. My limited time behind the wheel since installing the Supersteer was a positive experience and an improvement.


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2013 Berkshire 390RB-60
Toad: 2002 Jeep Wrangler

[edgewant]

If anything I would think that the Supersteer would reduce wear on the steering box and universal joints in the steering column. Interesting to note that they also offer blueprinted steering boxes.


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2013 Berkshire 390RB-60
Toad: 2002 Jeep Wrangler

[silver]

I found this on another site. You all may find it interesting.

XC chassis steering - no more wander
________________________________________
It seems there is no shortage of threads about bad handling motor homes on any board you care to visit. They aren’t reserved for older models either. You will find as many on 1 and 2 year olds as there are on 8 year olds. The unfortunate reality is that while most have similar symptoms, the causes can be many. Sometimes it's one thing and sometimes it’s a combination of many things. If an owner is lucky enough to find “the fix” for his unit, not everyone can duplicate “the fix” and get the same result. It can be very frustrating, and sometimes expensive. I’d love to know how many motor homes are traded just to get rid of handling problems after the owner has become frustrated and are not enjoying the drive any more. I suspect it is a large number.

I don’t want to make this a book, so I’ll get to the point. I have an older Endeavor on an XC chassis, Cat engine, and 59,000 miles. It is a well kept unit, has a very comfortable floor plan, and I like it. I am very deligent about proper maintenance. I do many of my own repairs, but my coach goes to Gaffney every year just like yours. All my maintenance is up to date and current. I could leave tomorrow for a 5,000 mile cross-country trip and not worry. I do not short change maintenance.

But, despite good maintenance, my handling was just fair. Not bad (and I know what bad is --- I once had a GMC Eleganza that you couldn’t hold in the road), but just not particularly good. I read all the information I could find on the RV forums about my problem. Mostly, my coach would wander and there was too much play in the steering wheel. Not bad, but not good either.

I think this is not an uncommon problem. I put all the knowledge together from all the posts I’ve read and started addressing one thing at a time. Here’s the things I did and the order in which I did them:

Checked the ride height – I did a “quick check” with a ruler in the appropriate places to see if it was grossly out of spec. It didn’t appear to be, but I couldn’t tell for sure since I park on gravel. You need a flat shop floor to really tell, since the variance of ½ inch is significant. Gravel is not good enough. I would have to take it somewhere to get this done correctly.

Front end alignment – I began my efforts by going to a good heavy truck alignment place with lots of experience and great equipment. Before doing the alignment, they had me pull onto a “shaker” machine that shakes the whole vehicle side to side and up and down while the tech is underneath in the pit. You can really see the suspension movement and find problems with worn parts like this. No problems on mine though. The tech told me they rarely see suspension problems in the freightliner XC chassis. I was glad to hear this.

The next thing they did was to check the ride height. My coach was completely in spec, so no adjustments were necessary. I also brought the factory settings with me on paper, in case there were any questions --- both for the height and the alignment. They did the alignment. I was completely in spec. My toe was 0. I had previously read a post on the freightliner board that one of the tech’s at Gaffney told the owner (who also had a wanderer) to set the toe at -2. This is one degree more than the spec I believe, but motor homes run so few miles, any extra wear on the tires is insignificant. So I had it set to -2 degrees. When I left and drove home, I could definitely tell a difference. I had much less wander. I was very happy, but I still had too much play in the steering.

Shocks - My shocks were original and marginal I thought. They allowed too much rebound in my opinion. I ordered new shocks online and installed them myself. Not too hard, but the rears are a pain. I went back with Bilstein’s, the original manufacturer. There’s a lot of differing opinions on which brand is the best, but they seem almost equally split from my reading. Besides, new has to be better than my originals. After taking off the old ones, they were not “shot”, like I had imagined. But it’s hard to tell on big shocks like these unless they are completely gone. In subsequent trips, I could tell there was a definite improvement in my bouncing. It was much better, but not as much as I had imagined there would be. It did not help my wander at all though.

Super Steer Bell Crank – One of the things I kept coming across online was that Freightliner used a bell crank that seemed to wear early. The bell crank rotates with your steering changes. There were reports that some had wear and allowed the steering to move slightly. Any side to side movement causes steering slop. Others were seizing in spots and did not allow the steering to come back to center easily. I had someone shake my steering wheel back and forth as I watched for side to side movement. But, I didn’t really see any. However, there is no way to tell if it was seizing in a hard spot without taking it off. So, I went ahead and ordered a new one from Super Steer. They have a great replacement unit that has ball bearings unlike the factory unit that only has a bushing and tends to wear early. I installed it myself. Not too hard, but you need to have some basic shop knowledge how to get it broken loose.

Upon inspecting my old unit on my bench, I could tell there was a tiny bit of side-to-side movement in it. It wasn’t noticeable on the coach, but I could feel it in my hand. Not a lot, but some. Well, this was a good call to replace it. I installed the new unit and took it for a test ride. I had a noticeable improvement. About 50% of my steering wheel slop was gone. I drove it like this for the last 6 months, happy that I had gotten rid of half my steering problem. It wasn’t perfect, but a lot better.

Steering box adjustment – This is the last item I addressed and the most dreaded one. The steering box adjustment is a bit fickle. Too little and there is still play. Too much and you’ve really got handling problems (binding). The shops are very reluctant to adjust these, probably because it is a fine art of trial and error, and also because they don’t want the liability. Most will only replace them. From what I read, some of the new factory ones have as much slack as the ones they are replacing.

As a side note, there is a company in Washington State called Red-Head Steering gear that rebuilds these with very precise custom parts to give you the best experience possible. They’ve been doing it for over 20 years and have a great following. I decided to give mine a try (adjusting) to see if it made any difference. If it didn’t, I was going to pull mine and send it to Red’s for a rebuild.

So, 2 days ago I got under my front end, found the adjustment, and noted where it was set. Mine was in a 12 O’clock vertical position. I loosened the jam nut and turned it until it hit the end of the slack. I backed it off about 2/16ths and tightened the jam nut. I went back inside and shook thesteering wheel. A huge difference. It felt tight, with no slop in the steering wheel. I opened the side window and stuck my head out so I could see my wheels. Any movement in the steering wheel had a corresponding wheel movement. Could I have possibly cured the rest of my steering wheel slop?

I hoped for the best, realizing that if tightened too much, it causes binding and the wheels will not return to center. It was too late in the day to go for a ride, so I put if off until another day. That day was today. I took the coach out to get fuel and to face the moment of truth. I’ll just say this ----- I am overjoyed with my drive quality now! All my slop is gone. The steering wheel is tight in both directions and it drives like a new one. I can’t imagine this coach driving any better, even when new. Plus, it looks like I saved $600 on a steering gear rebuild.

Sorry for the long post. I hope some part of this post helps someone just beginning to deal with these issues. At least it might point them in the right direction for determining a solution to their problem.
__________________

__________________
Darryl
Smyrna GA

[MotoxDad]

Very interesting read. Thanks for sharing Silver!

[gtsum2]

Tagged

[Paulie Boy]

Great read, definitely a subject to monitor closely.


Paul
2015 XL 40QL-60
2015 Jeep Wrangler Unltd. Sahara
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[I-RV]

edgewant; will you tackle the steering gear box if there is still some play?
Hank

[edgewant]

I probably will. Did it once a long time ago on a similar box. But right now I'm pretty satisfied with the results of the Supersteer


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2013 Berkshire 390RB-60
Toad: 2002 Jeep Wrangler

[gasman94]

Originally Posted by edgewant

Well I got the oem bell crank off. Wasnt too bad but the fender liner and forward compartment really interfere with access. Had to buy a set of gear pullers from Harbor Freight. Had one but it wouldnt fit in the space between the compartment and the pitman arm. The mid size two jaw puller from Harbor freight worked like a champ. Waiting on Supersteer bell crank to arrive Monday by UPS.

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2013 Berkshire 390RB-60
Toad: 2002 Jeep Wrangler

Do you think a pitman arm puller would be wide enough?


Rich

[edgewant]

No. Borrowed one from Jack Daniels (indirectly) and the opening wasn't big enough


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2013 Berkshire 390RB-60
Toad: 2002 Jeep Wrangler

[edgewant]

Drove about 170 miles with the Supersteer installed. There is a definite improvement in driveability. Less free play and steering seems more accurate. I recommend it!

[po 185]

I just installed the bell crank and it took me around 30 min. iam heading off to Alabama from west Texas on Monday and will get there on Wednesday ,, its around 1100 miles and I will see how much it helps.