5 Amazing RV Suspension Upgrades Part 1

[Music] [Music] hello everybody this is big al i want to welcome you to my new channel safe travel rv upgrades tips and tricks tell you a little bit about myself i've been rving for about 13 years in 2017 i became a national certified rv inspector i've learned a lot about rvs that's why i've created this channel i want to show you some of the tips and tricks and upgrades that i've done first video we're going to do involves this 2018 forester on the e450 chassis it's not a bad ride but i'm doing some things that's going to improve it i installed the reflex roadmaster steering stabilizer last year and i can tell it improved it it's a beefier unit and it works really well but the main reason i put that in was to help in case of a front tire blowout to give me more control but what we're doing to this unit today or actually through several videos we're installing a full set of bilstein shocks sumo springs on the front uh it comes with the road rod air bags on the rear so we're not doing springs back there uh we're also installing the hell wig anti-sway bar on the front then we're going to get in alignment we're going to evaluate each one of these application installs uh individually so we can see where the big improvements were but the first thing we're going to do is the shocks and the sumo springs let's do that right now okay on our first upgrade on this 2017 e450 chassis uh was roadmaster reflex steering stabilizer which i added last year i'm not going to show you how i installed it as it's pretty simple procedure to follow if you just follow the manufacturer's directions but there it sits right there but first while we're down here let me show you what else i installed along with these shocks this is the sumo spring after market bump support the original one that came with four as you can see in the picture is very small and i think its purpose is just to take some of the clunk out when you hit a big pothole or a speed breaker and these two parts of the suspension and the frame come together so this guy replaces that uh it's been said that it will compress up to 85 percent so it just kind of takes some of that harshness out especially uh off camber turns going into gas stations running off the edge of the road that kind of stuff is just supposed to help give you more control i had it on the big class a and i loved it i put it front and rear on this rv the class c it came with uh airbags on the back so we're going to keep the airbags i like them and we only put them up on the front so as soon as we get everything wrapped up we're going to do a test ride what i do want to show you is how i remove the old shocks from this chassis this is not a video on how to safely remove and install shocks on your suspension this is purely a video on how i removed the old factory shocks and installed the new bill stein gas shocks please follow your manufacturer's directions for safety when you do this procedure as you can see here on the passenger side the shock has already been installed but access to the bolt back here is very easy to do on this unit you've got plenty of room on this side it's easy to get down there and to remove that bolt easy peasy the problem is over on the driver's side as you can see over here there's no way to get your fingers in there to get to that top of that studs to remove that bolt it's very difficult to get back here and pass it over so i'm going to show you how we did that but here's another little trick that might help you inside here ford thank you created an access hole right there behind the brake pedal it looks like that's a emergency brake cable that goes through there you can pull that plug out and actually see the very top of that bolt and sometimes it'll help you with the re-installation of the bilstein shock or whatever shock you choose to do so now let's move into the garage to the workbench where i'm going to show you how i remove this shock on the driver's side let's do that now okay so this is the shock that came out of the e450 that ford installed originally as you can see in the picture it's uh the bilstein is a lot beefier shock gas shock i'm expecting great things from it i can't wait to do the test drive which we'll do after this video but let's talk about getting this nut off right here that's the problem uh you just can't take a regular socket deep well socket and drop it over there's just not enough headroom okay that doesn't work somebody in another video mentioned using this from harbor freight the 13 16 well you can get it in there and it pivots but this actually isn't a 13 16 bolt it's a 21 millimeter so to get that on there which is very close fit you'll have to tap it down on there and there's no room to do that so this was a waste of money in my opinion what you got to do is get a half inch drive so it'll fit through the bolt 21 millimeter and to get it on there there's several ways to do it one you can do this with some type of little clamp drop it in over there you can use an angled needle-nose pliers i actually use some hot glue with a piece of wire and you can snake it in that way and drop it over there and then just break this wire off and you're good to go but anyway once you get that on there you come in through the front with some needle oh needle with some vice grips clamp it down on there lock it into place then using an adjustable wrench you can come down here and start loosening this thing up you can go ahead and take your bottom bolt out if you want to just kick it out of the receiver mount down there and that'll help it just kind of drop out but basically that's how you get it out of there put your new bilsteins in this post is shorter so you can use a regular socket and go down over it i just used a half-inch socket drive with an extension now i'm just able to tighten it right back down but anyway that's how you do it folks that's how you do it wait until you see our next video all right this is going to be our first evaluation of the suspension upgrade which consists of new bilstein front shocks and sumo springs uh we're gonna do three parts to this test one is you're gonna be going up this driveway which we've done a hundred times and it has a pretty sharp grade going on to the main road the second test will be a panic stop at 35 miles an hour and then we're gonna do some highway driving to see how well it tracks i've got my wife with me now she's been up this driveway several times with me before so we'll get her opinion too so if y'all are ready let's take off this is pretty steep driveway and it immediately goes out to a flat road so we're gonna see how it feels when i turn left no cars are coming here we go oh i thought it was a much smoother transition wow very little rocking very little rocking that felt really good that's the sumo springs helping yeah now i'm going to do a little panic stop at 35 miles an hour so everybody hang out here we go wow whoa i i could i could feel a difference the rig stayed nice and level so we're going to do the highway test here in just a few minutes okay we've been driving on this uh two lane highway for about 15 minutes now everything feels really good vehicle tracks well the ride is a little closer yet still firm don't you agree brenda yeah i think the ride feels tighter yeah it does that's a good way to describe it so our next upgrade is going to be installing the rear shocks max fronts and then we're going to put in a hell wig anti-sway bar do another test on it and then it's going into the alignment shop and we'll do another test on that too so let's get to work our next upgrade is going to be installing this massive hellwig anti-sway bar i can't wait to get this baby installed so please subscribe so we can see how this thing's going to improve our ride until next time safe travel [Music] you

Channel: Safe Travel RV: Upgrades, Tips & Tricks

Views: 21,241

Keywords: RV suspension upgrade, Motorhome shocks, Motorhome Hellwig Sway Bar, Class C suspension upgrades, Class C steering stabilizer

Id: 7wnEImAjyxM

Length: 9min 39sec (579 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 09 2021