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Topic ClosedPod leaning to driver's side
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offgrid View Drop Down
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Posts: 5290 		Direct Link To This Post Topic: Pod leaning to driver's side
    Posted: 16 Oct 2018 at 11:18am
Ha Ha, I grew up in Santa Cruz so I know the Mystery Spot well. Last time I went there I took out my iphone to check compass bearings and level and the guide made me put it away.  No fun....I had a friend who lived just down the road from there and funny how he never had any problems at his house, or with his axle weight imbalance either :).

No, its not really that hard to measure a half inch side to side differential in axle deflection. Don't measure to the ground, measure to the hub.  And when that measurement lines up with the spring rate you're seeing and the side to side weight difference you're expecting, you can be pretty confident that it all makes sense. You shouldn't see nearly that much imbalance in your 172 BTW.

Not that any of this is a big deal other than the heavy side is pushing the axle/wheel/tire weight limits on the heavier rPods. 
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Posts: 80 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Oct 2018 at 11:28am
To Offgrid

Thats good info. From the looks of the floor plan the 179 might be a little more balanced than the 178 side to side. That might account for a 1/4 inch difference. That you measure a natural list of 1/2 inch on the 179 adds a little more credibility to the technicians claims that it is due to the weight of the slide out. By the way my  measurement was made at several locations with rpod empty on level surface and properly inflated tires and verified with a bubble level and eyeballing.
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Posts: 5290 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 Oct 2018 at 3:55pm
malkbean2, if I were you I think I'd try to load weight on the passenger side as much as possible, and  just keep an eye on it. To me the biggest worry is overloading the driver's side, the "lean" is just an aesthetic issue as far as I'm concerned. 

From the overload perspective there is no evidence that our axles or wheels fail catastrophically that I've ever heard of, somebody correct me if I'm wrong. So the biggest issue is going to be risk of tire failure. You can run load range D or E tires to mitigate that concern. 
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Posts: 80 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Oct 2018 at 4:36am
I dont recall seeing this leaning when it was new(its a 2016). I think I would have noticed it. That would suggest to me that something is wearing out or wearing in or bending. A likely candidate would be the torsion spring. Yes it is aesthetic mostly but the problem is if and when you go to sell it. A keen eye would no doubt question its value. 

The issue you mention about the tire is interesting. One would think that because of the awkward weight distribution the recommended tire pressures would be different.
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Posts: 3226 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Oct 2018 at 5:24am
This topic peaked interest in that i also own a 177 so yesterday I took it out of hibernation and took it to a level parking lot and took a bunch of measurements and found zero difference in height between passenger and driver side of the pod.  Maybe because there is nothing extra inside because we don't plan on camping for the next 6 months, maybe because they were built slightly different in 2011, maybe because we don't have A/C, convection/microwave, or entertainment system; I am not sure but tire pressure was checked and everything measured the same, no tilt.  
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Posts: 80 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Oct 2018 at 7:13am
To Jato

For me, this is becoming a mystery that must be solved. The only weight distribution item in your list that would seem to make a difference is the microwave and thats not enuf weight to matter, and if Forest River has designed a pod to naturally lean due to the slide weight one would expect that a 7 year old one would tend to lean even more. I'm not so sure I'm buying into the contention that it is natural for a pod with a slide to lean.
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Posts: 2630 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Oct 2018 at 1:10pm
Originally posted by malkbean2

To Jato

For me, this is becoming a mystery that must be solved. The only weight distribution item in your list that would seem to make a difference is the microwave and thats not enuf weight to matter, and if Forest River has designed a pod to naturally lean due to the slide weight one would expect that a 7 year old one would tend to lean even more. I'm not so sure I'm buying into the contention that it is natural for a pod with a slide to lean.
It's not a mystery at all. Purely gravity. The torsion suspension on each side is identical, but independent. Ergo, more weight = more deflection. Even a small amount of weight difference would cause "some" difference in deflection. The only question is how much, and how much of that is reasonable. The amount of deflection is controlled by the rubber rods that are inserted into the square axle. If you were really concerned about it, you could pull out the OEM rubber rods & cut them in half. Then get a set of rods from Lippert or Dexter for the next highest weight rating. Cut those in half, and use the light ones on the light side and the heavier ones on the heavy side.

That sounds like more work than it would be worth (to me).
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Posts: 5290 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Oct 2018 at 5:13pm
malkbean2, was your water heater drained when you measured yours?  FWIW that's 50 lbs. Jato's was doubtless winterized knowing where he lives. 

We know that our pods are some hundreds of pounds heavier on the drivers side, Have to be. That is certainly going to cause lean as GlueGuy says. You also have to allow for some manufacturing tolerance either way. Overall, I don't have any reason to doubt that FR's stated 1 inch "lean" tolerance is unreasonable.  You could for example look at it as 0.5 inch nominal lean +- 0.5 inch manufacturing tolerance. That would explain your's, mine, and Jato's measurements as well as FR's max allowable. 

Also, I don't think that there is any reason to expect the lean to get worse just with age. Steel is considered to be elastic up until yield point so the torsion bars, axle housing, frame etc will all spring back to where they were unless you overstress them. 

But if your concern is that you may have overstressed/or may in future overstress the steel in your axle or torsion bars and that is causing/will cause your RPOD to lean more or worse problems like that is a fair concern, I'm concerned about that too.  We know that the RPOD axles are close to their rated limits on the larger pods when loaded. I've weighed mine at about 3380 lbs with my wd hitch tensioned.  And we know that they're heavier on the drivers side, we just don't know by exactly how much.  I've got to believe my driver's side is a bit over 1750. 

So, what to do? For myself I would really like to know the actual weight difference between the two wheels for the different models to see where we really are compared to the 1750 per side axle load limitation. Anyone have access to a 1-2 ton or higher wheel scale? 
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Posts: 3419 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Oct 2018 at 6:01pm
You might be able to use a Sherline to measure that weight, if 3/4 or 1 " causes you to lose sleep.
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