OK, dreaming a little bit here, since this phase of my project seems years away.......but bags or coils? I would like the adjustability of bags.....but I am not sure if I can justify the cost. I race motorcycles, so I could see myself throwing a couple bikes in the back of the truck and going to race on occasion. Or hooking onto my small enclosed trailer and hauling it to a race. In those cases the bags would be nice to prevent the rear end from draggin. Pros and cons of bags? Pros and cons of coils?
Bags......Adjustable, ride nice, looks good parked and dumped. Coils>..constant ride hight, don't worry about the tank pumping up. Jump in and go. Check out airbagit.com, where I have been buying stuff since the early 90s in the minitruck era. Airride is nice stuff, but way over priced. You can make a system much cheaper on your own. Most of my stuff ws leftovers from the minitruck.
I checked out your photo album, nice truck! Have you considered coils with bags? Air lift makes bags that install inside the coil. Under normal conditions they aren't used, but when you need extra capacity you inflate the bag. http://www.airliftcompany.com/products/air-springs/how-adjustable-air-springs-work I contacted them about my '65 that is running 5" lowering springs. I told them the inside diameter of the spring and the compressed height and they gave me the P/N I needed. I haven't pulled the trigger on this yet but I am planning to this winter. I like the stance of my truck as is, but when hauling loads it sits to low. The advantage of this set-up is it stiffenens the spring only when needed and does so without raising the rear of the truck way up.
You can order a complete basic kit around $1200. You can find swap meet stuff and put a kit together around $400-600. You can beg, borrow and steal and get cheaper depending on who you know and how good a swapper you are. The key parts I reccommend: GOOD COMPRESSOR. Most important. This way you don't have to wait forever for the tank to recover. Use a solenoid manifold to simplify install. I like digital guages so you don't have to run extra tubing into the cab. Order the 10 switch setup....the lowrider looking one....it is much cheaper than ordering the switches seperately, then only use what you need and have spare switches. You really only need a 3 gallon tank.
Thanks......that is definately something to consider. Bak in my younger years I had a low rider Mazda pickup that I had some chep air shocks on for when I loaded it up. This lools like alot better set up.
I think most of us have done the air shock deal at one time or another. The problem is the shock mounts were never designed to support the vehicles weight, they were only designed to withstand the dampening loads the shocks generate. Plus they make for a pretty nasty ride too, at least in my experience. The nice thing about airlift springs is it loads the suspension where it was designed to be loaded. Good luck to you whichever way you decide to go! John
Air Bags SWMBO has a very nice pair..... . I was wondering of these will work on hot air ? she says I'm chock full of that (other stuff too) so maybe it'd work out well...... . I think I'll just keep my factory coils and Bilstein HD gas shocks...
Tank and valves are behind seat, gas tank is under bed, compressor is in tool box in bed. Back in the day I ran a 4 airshock setup on my toyota, before airbags. Rode pretty well, just needed 180 psi of air.
