By Joel Badskey
As part of my job, I have had the opportunity to travel all over the United States and Canada. With that travel I have been afforded the opportunity to experience a variety of foods, a myriad of festivals, the incredible diversity of cultures, and more twists and turns of the English language than I would have thought possible. But no matter where I find myself, there is one thing I can never seem to avoid: Rough roads.
Rough roads appear to us in a number of different ways. Maybe in your neck of the woods you have more potholes than people. In some rural areas you may drive on a lot of dirt roads, or roads with loose gravel. Perhaps you live in a part of the country where railroad tracks are common place, so crossing them several times throughout your travels is unavoidable. It could even be that you are lucky enough to do most of your driving on the highway, but the occasional introduction of a few expansion joints is enough to rattle the teeth right out of your head. Regardless of where you live or what the conditions are, we all have to live with the fact that our roads are not as smooth as we would like them to be. Even when the construction crew finally addresses the road issues that you have been concerned about, it seems like three more sections of road suddenly appear that are just as bad. In spite of this, your ride quality does not have to suffer. Rough roads do not have to equal rough rides.
The solution to your ride quality issues is very simple and possibly more obvious than you think: rubber! Our vehicles already have rubber tires to soften the ride and improve traction beyond what the original wood or steel wheels would have provided. Rubber motor mounts are used on most vehicles to decrease the vibration that the engine transfers to chassis. It only makes sense that we would use rubber to soften the blows that our rough roads are dishing out, as well.
MORryde International has been using rubber’s natural tendency to isolate and absorb for decades. The rubber is incorporated into the design of the suspension system, so that it works in conjunction with the OEM leaf springs. This design allows for another two inches of suspension travel up and down. Greater suspension travel is another one of the keys to improved ride quality. Improved suspension travel, coupled with the rubber’s ability to soften the ride, really takes the harshness out of traveling on rough roads in a way that you will feel in the seat of your pants. Potholes will feel less like craters. Railroad tracks will no longer jolt you from your seat. Bouncy dirt roads will not shake your joints unbearably, and expansion joints will suddenly go unnoticed. You will wonder how you ever went without it.
MORryde suspension products run the gamut of the cutaway bus market, from the smaller Sprinters and Ford Transits, all the way up to larger F650s, Freightliner SC2s, and International, equipped with leaf springs. MORryde’s most popular suspension products are for the Ford E350, E450, and GM3500 and GM4500s. Each system is customized for different makes, models, and weight ratings, to ensure that they get the best fit and performance possible.
A large percentage of bus operators order the MORryde Suspension System as a factory-installed option so that they can enjoy better ride quality from the start. However, if you have a bus or fleet of buses already in service that would benefit from upgrading the standard suspension, there are several options available for you to add the system aftermarket. You can contact your bus dealer, or MORryde International directly, for more information.
At MORryde, we have a passion for solving problems. Whether we’re fabricating custom solutions, installing a bus suspension system, or engineering innovative products, we answer to a wide range of markets and provide solutions for variety of needs. At MORryde, it’s simply about doing MORE for our customers, and it doesn’t stop at the sale. We stand behind our products, believing in quality first, service always. No matter the issue, we’ll be the first to respond and the last to be satisfied.