Air bag suspension installed

[Depot]

For those of u that dont know me... I drive a 2002 GMC Sierra 3500 dually with a 24 foot car carrier trailer for the toys. Sure enough.. when I load that trailer up.. it really pushes down on the rear axel.. This in turn lifted my front end really messing with my alignment and chewing my tires down fast on the outter edges....not wanting to go 5th wheel and lose my box space.. i opted for the Air Lift suspension system.

In a nutshell... these bags do not replace my current suspension.. its still leafs sprung over as factory. I did have my lift blocks (aftermarket) removed prior to instalation. All these bags are designed to do is transfer the weight directly from the frame of the truck to the axel using variable pressure bags thereby keeping the leafs from flattening out or negative arching. The leafs are left in place to keep the axel from moving and wrapping as stock.

I already mounted the compressor weeks ago when doing some other electrical work on the truck and the remainder of the instalation took fullload and I about 4 hours to do and that includes beer drinking time! :D

So heres a couple pics of the kitt I used...

close up

[Depot]

Amazing thing eh.. when u actually look under ur truck.. u always find something wrong... turns out the spray u see was a blown pinion seal... TG for warranty! This kitt calls for the removal of the bump stop (or as they call it the jounce bumpers)...

2 bolts is all it took...

[Depot]

assembling the top and bottom mounitng plates onto the air bags prior to positioning...

[Depot]

Lift the truck to allow room to position bags.. a couple inches up on the rear bumper is all it took.. no need to lift the wheels off the ground..... 2 bolts grab the top (where the original jounce bumpers went and 1 u bolt on the bottom of the tube. Then let the weight of the truck back down and square off the bags to that they sit nice and level.. the mounts allow for adjustment in both front to back and side to side to ensure a square position...

[Depot]

The drivers side mount icludes a bracket for securing the hand brake cable to ensure it doesnt get caught up in the bags. All that remained now was to plum the lines.. 1/4" id flex plastic lines which we ran through the frame and up the firewall to the compressor, check valves and to the guages inside the cab...

[Depot]

The cluster includes 1 rocker switch to activate the pump, 2 guages.. 1 for each bag.. and 2 push button release valves to equalize the pressure individually... Once we were dun, we pressurized the system to 90 psi and checked for leaks.. found 1, easily repaired and she was dun like dinner.

heres a pic of the rear bumper height with the bags at 0 psi.

[Depot]

heres a pic with bags at 90 psi.. keep in mind.. this kit is not designed to lift ur truck per say.. merely to maintain its ride heigh when u load it up and my truck was empty...

[Depot]

Max pressure on the bags is 100 psi.. I've been running for the last 10 days with the bags at 15 psi and i must admit the ride is much softer.. last week I had just over 1000 pounds of material in the back of my truck and it didnt even drop 1/4" with the bags at 15 psi and i didnt bother puttin more air into the bags to maintain my ride height for that trip.


Total cost - about 700 bucks
Difficulty level - if u can read this and turn a wrench.. u can do it.
Recomended users - anyone that tows a trailer or carries heavy loads. With such a system, u can resore ur factory ride height even under load and MTO wont even look twice at u cause ur truck might be overlaoded and sagging like grandma.

The kitt I used was for 1 ton pickups and the bags are rated for over 5000 pounds a pop. of course different vehicles have different bags for different weights..... This kitt does not allow u to carry more weight then ur truck is built for.. all it does is maintains ur truck level and ride height under weight to prevent leafs or cols from flattening or negative arching.

Depot gives this system all 3 thumbs up :D

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[Fullload]

Very good write up!!!!

[Depot]

Tx Full for the compliment and the help installing :beer:

Good thing Im the mod for this forum.. i can go back and edit the really bad spelling mistakes :D


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[Flanders]

Looks nice Depot. And did the truck happen to get a good cleaning out when it was in the shop. :rofl:

[GoldMember]

Great write up, my Cruiser has a full 4 way Air-ride Technologies Ride-Pro system. Other than it loosing its settings its been the only way of navigating around in a super low car. If my finances would allow I thought either putting a bagged 4 linked system on the rear but I am cheaping out with a Ladder bar (Anti-wrap bar) on the rear axle