Torsion Axle

I have a concern about our torsion axle on a 2017 179. I seem to remember that these axle housings are supposed to have a slight arch (crown?) to them. My question is how much? Ours seems to have about 3/16" over the length of a 4 ft. level. I'm concerned ours might be sprung since it's had a hard life.

Yes, about 3/16 is right, but not the 4 ft distance. Run a string line from end to end of the bottom of the axle tube and measure the gap in the center.

As StephenH suggests, the more important measurement is the camber angle of the wheels themselves.

If you are concerned about the axle getting bent (and you should be, it's not uncommon) you can reinforce it. I have a series of posts on how to do this (as do several others with various methods) You can use the advanced search and go back a few years to find it.

While rpods aren't made for rough or off road use I found I could get pretty much anywhere I wanted to go as long as I went really slow.

It's high g forces that will bend things, and high g's come from hitting potholes or bumps hard. So speed is the enemy. Just roll through really slowly, crawling speed, and you should be ok. Might take an hour or more to go the 3 miles but what's the rush?

We accidentally got on a road like that near Chaco Canyon. It was about 20 miles of the worst washboard I 've every driven, and I am used to dirt roads. I don't think it harmed our axle on the Rpod, and I was traveling without water or waste, but it shook a lot of stuff loose in the trailer. I would have done a u-turn but there's no room to do so on those roads. I was fortunate that some locals gave us some directions back to paved highway, because it wasn't apparent how to do that, and in that region the phone signal was too weak. Not that I would rely on google maps or apple maps again. I was following google maps directions. It turned out ok, but was a road I would not take my Rpod over again. C