[Richard and Rhonda]

I jinxed the whole deal by crowing too early. I am at the inlaws in Chattanooga now, but when I get back to Fort Worth, I am going to pay a visit to the guy who I foolishly allowed to touch my coach.

Yes indeed, swapping the tires cured the pull to the right, and that is still working.
When I picked the coach up, it was driving in rush hour traffic so I didn't really get a good feel for the steering. Since the tech said he didn't change anything except for a minor correction to toe, I wasn't too worried about it. I should have been.

The coach wandered in the road. I know from previous experience this is a hallmark of not enough toe in. I looked at the spec sheet provided by the alignment shop and realized the guy had not followed the guidelines I had given him, and actually had reduced the toe in back to almost neutral. Coaches are ill handling with little toe in. Both Newell and Prevost call for 1/4 inch on their straight axle front ends .

You can imagine how mad I was at the prospect of a two thousand mile trip driving this ill beast. I stopped and my son and I set the toe with a tape measure. Crude, but better than sawing the wheel back and forth.

OK, now we have that fixed, it handles better, but still not like it should. Hmmmm, hundreds of miles of aggravation gives one time to ponder. Hmmmm, what else could have this guy touched. A ha, tell me he didn't. Yep, next rest stop, I crawl under again and look at the adjustment screw on the steering gear box. It has been moved. He has tightened up the steering gear box in an ill guided attempt to stop the pull. I started to suspect this when I was still fighting the wheel. When I made a small correction on one direction, I had to consciously bring the wheel back to center. I noticed in a turn that the wheel would not completely self center.

I was mad, really mad. I had spent a whole day setting the adjustment with a micrometer last summer. This guy had screwed it up in a matter of minutes. So, I started a trial and error process of correcting his "fix". It took three trys, but the final leg had the coach driving like I remember before I paid a so called expert to screw it up.

Some of you who know Rhonda already realize that she is going to have great fun at a cross country trip with me crawling under the coach at every stop. Oh yeah, I dropped a BIG wrench on my face and have a little shiner to show for my efforts.