Hey Herman,,,,about that air suspension...:-)

[dstoops]

You mentioned putting air suspension on your truck. I'm curious as to how you did it and what components you used. Any pics available?
Thanks
Dean

[Herman_Bolger]

Dean,

We are just finishing up our homemade air suspension. Basicly what we did was copy a setup off the net.

It consisted of removeing the complete spring assembly and the fabbing up the trailing arms. We constructed the arms from 4x2x.125 mild steel tubing. The arm mounts at the factory front spring mount with a new factory bushing that we had a bushing mount welded into the front of the arm. That arm is long enough to go past the spring perch on the rear end. then we had another peice of tubing that is welded down at about 90 deg and the another piece welded to that at approx 90deg to form the mount for the air springs.

Since we were copying this from a picture and not an actuall piece there was some trial and error, cutting, fitting, cutting some more, you know.

The air spring we bought from a local tractor trailer supplier, we had several firestone part numbers that we gave them, we started with the smallest bag that we thought would take the load, but many of the part numbers they did not stock. We literaly worked our way up the list untill they had one in stock. They then said that they stocked it because it is very popular and most tractor repair suppliers would carry it in stock.

My thinking was that if i blew a bag away from our local area i should be able to go to any supply store and pick up another one.

Once we had the style of the arms made we tacked all together and the sent it to a welding shop to have them finish it. Our welder is only a 120 amps, needed something a little heavier.

Then once that was done we assembled it onto the truck located it to the rear housing and then had to make a panhard bar to locate the housing in the side to side movement. Used some chromemoly tubing and heim joints. Fabed up a mount to go around the axel tube with an arm that clears the new 4" exhaust that i had to cut up to clear the air springs, and made a mount to the frame rail to anchor the other end of bar.

We just now made an under bed gooseneck reciever and mounted the box this week. I am finishing off the air conditioning ( another long story, see my reply in -cheapo exhaust thread) This week coming, then send it to the dealer to vacuum and recharge the air and realign the suspension.

Hope to have the truck on the road in about 10 days. I rally missed driving it, especially since it gets better mileage than my S10 truck. I will have pics posted on our shop website soon. If you go to our site www.offshoregroup.net, (http://www.offshoregroup.net,) its in our signature, choose "offshoremarine" then go into "current projects" there will be a ton of pics there in the next week or so. There are some there now, but i think its just showing everythin apart.The next update will be showing it back together.

Thanks for the interest, i will let you know when its on the road,again.
I noticed you have a TA. I used to have a bunch (9) my best one was a 1973 455 4speed, not a S.D.

I am finally seeing the light at the end of this tunnel,am pretty excited, hope it works like its supposed to.

Herman

[Herman_Bolger]

OK, I could not wait till next week to drive the truck.

I have most of the nuts and bolts in lights etc. Anyway the air suspension seems to work OK, a little stiffer than I thought it might be but it seemed to track real staight, let go of the steering wheel and it keeps a nice straight line.

I am going to have them check the alignment anyway. The truck seemed a little smoother but not as smooth as I had hoped for. I need to check to make sure the air springs are "working" there may not be enough weight in the truck to let them work.

I am going to bring the truck back to our shop on Mon. and check that all the nuts and bolts are still tight and finish putting the rest in. I am pretty happy so far, I think it needs a little fine tuning.

Herman

[a5150nut]

Herman, tried to peek at your website. Didn't come up right. 4 bars on left with little red "x" in them. What do I need to turn on on my end to view .............

[Herman_Bolger]

I am not sure what is the cause of the site not coming up. I will check everything out on my end first, this has happened before, but to be honest i can't remember what the cause was, I will check our settings here. Hope you will check back in a couple of days.

Herman

[Herman_Bolger]

aperantly, because our site has stuff that moves, the veiwing computer must be j a v a enabled.