Class A georgie boy swinger question for anyone with air bag suspension

[annelizly]

Hi there!
I was hoping that someone could help me. My husband And I just bought our first class A. its a 1996 GB swinger and it has air bag suspension. We just had new ones installed. Before they were installed it rode really rough. After replacement its better but still riding rough, like a semi truck. Is this normal?? I don't remember class A's being rough riding. I guess I expected it to be smooth, sort of like a car. does anyone know how many lbs. of air should be in it?

HELP PLEASE!!
THANKS!

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

No, it won't ride like a passenger car.  Afterall, it IS a truck chassis with a house built on top.  There's simply too much weight plus you need more than a bit of stiffness to control body sway & lean.

It's difficult to say whether yours is unusually rough without driving it myself, but it shouldn't be very noticeable on decent roads.  But some parts of the country don't have many decent roads either.    It is possible your bags are inflated more than necessary for the laod they are carrying.  The recommended pressure is 50-60 psi for the 4880 lb axle and 80-90 psi for the 5500 and 6000 lb axles.  Pressure can be set lower than the recommendations for a softer ride but if reduced too much you will definitely begin to notice some reduced handling quality.

You may also need new shock absorbers. If your rig has more than 30,000 miles on it, it's probably time to replace them.

 

[rhmahoney]

Read the Feb 2006 page 58 article on suspension upgrades in FMCA mag which covers all of what you need to do. It covers tires, shocks, antisway bars, steering stabilizers, fine tuning and implies that that is the proper sequence of doing things.

 

[Howard R]

Rough ride?  How about your tire pressures?  It's most likely not the max allowable shown on the side of the tires.

If you're not familiar with how to determine the correct cold inflation by weighing the coach, let us know and we can fill in the details.

Howard

 

[King]

What I did (do) is let all the air out and measure the bumper hight.  Put the maximum in and measure again.  let out air equally (measuring repeatedly) both sides until the hight is half way down.  Record the hight.  If the chassis loading changes, you can add or release air to get to the determined hight.  This is what I do, others may not agree.