OK folks, you can stop sending me requests for what I did to the coach and
why to fix my handling problems. I was surprised by the number of you who
wrote. Sometimes it's hard to tell if the information is really of interest.
Where we started - we bought a 1976 Palm Beach with about 63k original
miles on it. It was located in Bremerton Washington, which is about 1200
miles form Santa Cruz California. Part of the purchase price included the
owner delivering it to California. we had the coach delivered to Nor-Cal
GMC in San Rafael since at the time I did not have the facilities to work
on a large vehicle.
Tony and Dave did some basic suspension work for us:
1. new Bilsteins all the way around
2. front bearing service
3. inspection of front end
4. set ride height
5. alignment
I had driven the coach before having the work done and was not satisfied
with the way that it handled, although it wasn't too scary. We drove the
100 miles home from San Rafael and discovered a few things about the GMC
that I didn't care for:
1. slight wander on the road
2. a little torque steer
3. a bit more bump steer
#2 and 3 were tolerable but undesirable to me. I had driven several coaches
that didn't seem to have the problems. Keep in mind that this was all at 60
MPH or slower.
We had the coach for about six weeks before I really started to evaluate
the handling situation. I purposely drove over some railroad tracks that
had a rise before and a dip after to load and unload the front end. The
front end "wiggled" a bit when being loaded. So I started looking at the
steering gear closely. everything looked pretty good. It was all apparently
tight. SO, I had my wife stand on the front bumper and try to bounce the
front end while I watched the suspension components. I grabbed the steering
shaft above and below the universal and twisted - it was fine. Then I tried
the same thing with the "slip joint." There was part of the culprit. When
sitting with no load on the front end beyond that provided by the coach,
the assembly showed no significant signs of wear. But when moved by putting
some weight on the bumper it was possible to get about 10 degrees of
movement in the assembly. I replaced the assembly with a new unit and most
of the problem went away.
Re-torqueing fasteners in the front end removed the rest of that problem.
BY now I was convinced that I needed to move to load range E tires. Tony
and Dave had originally suggested it to me, but the rag wall tires were
pretty new (
why to fix my handling problems. I was surprised by the number of you who
wrote. Sometimes it's hard to tell if the information is really of interest.
Where we started - we bought a 1976 Palm Beach with about 63k original
miles on it. It was located in Bremerton Washington, which is about 1200
miles form Santa Cruz California. Part of the purchase price included the
owner delivering it to California. we had the coach delivered to Nor-Cal
GMC in San Rafael since at the time I did not have the facilities to work
on a large vehicle.
Tony and Dave did some basic suspension work for us:
1. new Bilsteins all the way around
2. front bearing service
3. inspection of front end
4. set ride height
5. alignment
I had driven the coach before having the work done and was not satisfied
with the way that it handled, although it wasn't too scary. We drove the
100 miles home from San Rafael and discovered a few things about the GMC
that I didn't care for:
1. slight wander on the road
2. a little torque steer
3. a bit more bump steer
#2 and 3 were tolerable but undesirable to me. I had driven several coaches
that didn't seem to have the problems. Keep in mind that this was all at 60
MPH or slower.
We had the coach for about six weeks before I really started to evaluate
the handling situation. I purposely drove over some railroad tracks that
had a rise before and a dip after to load and unload the front end. The
front end "wiggled" a bit when being loaded. So I started looking at the
steering gear closely. everything looked pretty good. It was all apparently
tight. SO, I had my wife stand on the front bumper and try to bounce the
front end while I watched the suspension components. I grabbed the steering
shaft above and below the universal and twisted - it was fine. Then I tried
the same thing with the "slip joint." There was part of the culprit. When
sitting with no load on the front end beyond that provided by the coach,
the assembly showed no significant signs of wear. But when moved by putting
some weight on the bumper it was possible to get about 10 degrees of
movement in the assembly. I replaced the assembly with a new unit and most
of the problem went away.
Re-torqueing fasteners in the front end removed the rest of that problem.
BY now I was convinced that I needed to move to load range E tires. Tony
and Dave had originally suggested it to me, but the rag wall tires were
pretty new (
