Rear suspension travel F350

Well, I got it all together and it's testing ok for the most part. I've got a new compressor on order. My 26 year old salvage compressor has been sitting too long . It was working ok 6 years ago but it won't build over 25 lbs now, but at least thats plenty to test the works and it sure makes it ride nice. I set it up on a single leveling valve and my theory worked out, that rear end is so stinking stiff, it works just fine . I didn't set the valve to crank massive air to push the thing into the sky, I just wanted it to keep the thing settled After fireing it up I went a few miles and it raised teh truck about a quarter inch and smoothed the ride out very nicely.

The storage tank is off a semi trailer from between the axles, I rigged a quick disconnect for an air hose for air tools so I can run my impact wrench off the thing for changing tires , plus I have a line running to myy air seat so it's nice to just be ablole to push the button and have that work. There's a check valve in the compresor ( and the new one I'm getting) so I plumbed in a shrader valve to where if the compressor konks out, I can disconnect the leveler valve and pin it to where it wont vent air and then pump the bags up with an external compressor.

I would definitly be interested in seeing how your rear axle air ride is set up. I would LOVE to have a true air ride setup, but the cost and lack of a shop to build it are holding me back.

After the way this is feeling, come next year, I think I'm going to get another set of bags and eliminate the factory overload and mount the extra bags forward of the axle and have a 4 bag setup. THat ought to ride pretty sweet.

I was wondering-- could you install rear air bags between the axle and frame and then remove all but about two leaves of the OEM leaf springs?

That way the leaf springs and shackles would remain in place to locate and stabilize the axle in the usual way both front to back and sideways, but the air bags would carry the load and ride softer than the leaf springs.

Seems like it would be a lot simpler and more affordable than the 4-link type set ups that people do to use air bags in place of leaf springs.

Am I missing something or would this work OK? (of course you'd become dependent upon the air bags for carrying the entire load and you would have to size them correctly for that)

pybyr said:

I was wondering-- could you install rear air bags between the axle and frame and then remove all but about two leaves of the OEM leaf springs?

That way the leaf springs and shackles would remain in place to locate and stabilize the axle in the usual way both front to back and sideways, but the air bags would carry the load and ride softer than the leaf springs.

Seems like it would be a lot simpler and more affordable than the 4-link type set ups that people do to use air bags in place of leaf springs.

Am I missing something or would this work OK? (of course you'd become dependent upon the air bags for carrying the entire load and you would have to size them correctly for that)

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I'm betting that you could if you got stout enough air bags. Just use the main springs and about 2 leaves as your control arms . Just have to get your bagsat a heavy truck supply because most of the other ones are 2500 lb max ea ( now you see why I want to do 4 of them on the rear of mine, that would give me 10k max carrying on the airbags alone, so they shouldn't have any trouble handling 5 or 6k and taking care of most of the load With my bed I can't fit a Kelderman setup , there's too much stuff down there already One of those 4 link setups would be nice, but I do kind of like having the springs as a redundancy