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Weird Steering Issue, Any Ideas
ok, have a 97 Marathon XL45. This past week we were heading on a 3 week trip in our coach, put in some gas and as we left the gas station heading to the interstate on ramp we experiences what I can only call a “wobble” in the front end. We initially thought it was the ruts in the worn out road and after we made the turn to the I15 it went away so we continued on. Everything was smooth for the next 100 miles or so when it happened again as we made the turn to the on ramp on the I40. Somebody driving by us pointed to our front tire like something was going on. This time we pulled over and took a look around, no bubbles on the tires or anything else that would explain it. Even though we were stopped on the side of the I40 pretty well off the road we decided it would be safest to get it looked at and found a mobile mechanic who came and took a look. He crawled underneath looked at everything and saw no issues. We decided to get back on the road to the next exit to take a closer look at things, I realize being stopped on the side of the interstate is not the best idea, but we figured at this point it was better then having a wheel fall off driving down the interstate. The mechanic followed us to the next exit, exit, it drove perfectly. we stopped in a parking lot, he lifted the wheels off the ground and crawled around underneath and found nothing, no play in the wheels, no tie rod issues, no visible suspension issues, nothing. So we decided to try it again and took off, only to have it happen again after making a turn, this time 2 different people pointed to our wheels with one saying it looked like the wheel had become disconnected from the steering wheel, whatever that means. After driving around a few minutes with a few turns it stopped, but we called the mechanic again and met with him. Looked things over and decided to just head back to our home base with the mechanic following to see if he could see anything. Drove 106 miles back to home, no issues at all, drove perfectly. No idea what is going on, anybody ever seen anything like this? The only thing the mechanic found was a little play in the driver side front wheel and the hub very low of oil. I know wobble isn’t the best description but I don’t know how else to describe it, felt like we had a big bubble on one of the front tires or a really rutted road. Nest step is to get it off the ground again, pull both the front wheels and stuff and take a closer look over the entire front. Sorry for being so long winded but anybody have any suggestions? thanks for your patience,
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6 Replies
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You didn’t say if you had the rigid beam frt axle or IFS? 1997 was the transition year.
If you have rigid beam? the “steering damper” may be bad. See pages 985 & 986 of the parts manual.
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Thank you for the reply, it is a 96 chassis that was converted by Marathon in 97 so I think I have the solid axle and it has Howard Center Steer so this is something I will have to take a look at, thanks again,
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What you describe sounds like either the drag link or idler arm being worn. if you jack up the front end see if you can move the tires towards then away from each other , if there is any slop check the steering components to find the worn ones. These coaches do not have an idler arm, i believe, but the same logic applies. It soulds like play in the steering linkage that creates a death wobble so to speak.
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Coach doesn’t like gas
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Thanks to everybody that replied, after looking at things and researching on the internet, I think that that what I actually experienced was the “death wobble” of our 2021 F-150 toad. everything seems to fit, it happened after turns on bumpy roads, it went away and stayed away for over 100 miles, etc. I am going to have a closer look at all of my front end steering and suspension components, including the damper and howard center steer, to insure there are no other issues. I had never even hear of the “death wobble” issue before I started looking on this issue and I have never had the issue in the 10000 or so miles that I had previously towed a f-150. Of course, before this trip I had never had my Blue Ox Patriot braking system decide, quite erroneously, that it was in a breakaway situation and needed to melt my pads and rotors either,
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If it is a death wobble it’s usually a simple fix with a bungee cord
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