Air Ride conversion

[2stroke]

Has any one on this site converted a f350 drw to air ride if they have please let me know the process?

 

[GOOSE]

diesel4me2 (Chris) has a real cool setup. He could probably give you some good insight.

 

[2stroke]

What I am looking for is a full change of the rear spring suspension over to air bags like the truck tractors. This would require left and right side control arms that have the air bags mounted to them and a centering control arm from the top of the rear center section to the frame.

 

[Dieselcrawler]

chris was in the process of removing his due to issues IIRC

 

[kc0stp]

Just for the record at least on school buses the "air ride" just amounts to putting air bags on it but still have leaf springs and shocks I will admit Ive never dealt with semi's and air ride wise they are probbly ahead of the bus side of things...

 

[cbarm]

I have considered this a few times as well and I dont see why it would be all that hard to do if you know someone who can do custom fabricating. I think the whole changeover could be done in a day or so...

 

[NO_SPRK]

There is a company that made a whole rear air ride setup for the chevy duallys. 4link and everything. Im sure you could copy the design

 

[OLDBULL8]

I don't think you really want to remove the springs and install total air ride springs. In the 1st place the cost would be pretty hi. Air bags cost $200 ea.for your application, then you have to have an onboard air compressor, air tank, auto water drain, alcohol injection (winter air line freeze up) height valves, etc., then build an air frame to support the truck with some sort of sway control and traction bars for axle wrap. You can't just put two air bags on, it has to be four to support any weight. You would have to have something like this , two sets then try to adapt them.http://www.sdtrucksprings.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=6725

 

[Dieselcrawler]

Way off mr bull. I can explain more later when I get home.

 

[OLDBULL8]

OK , got a DR appointment at 2 PM any how. I'll check later.

 

[hesutton]

Where's Chris? Like stated above, he did this back in 2008 and had some issues. I'll shoot him a PM and see if he'll put his two cents worth in.

Heath

 

[NO_SPRK]

what about kelderman air ride?

 

[bobracing]

Thinking outloud:
Remove all the springs except the main leaf. This will center the axle.
An anti-wrap bar of some sort would be needed to stop axle wrap from no leafs.
Air bags and mounts.
Compressor, lines, and maybe an air tank. Suppose you could just run lines to filler valves and fill as needed from a compressor.
Don’t stay cold enough around here to worry about de-icing

On the other hand:
Two trailing arms or radius arms and a panard bar would probably work too for centering the axle.
Bags as above.

 

[diesel4me2]

Where's Chris? Like stated above, he did this back in 2008 and had some issues. I'll shoot him a PM and see if he'll put his two cents worth in.

Heath

thanks for the heads up on this . as stated previously i had air on all four corners. i ran four links with pan-hard bars front and rear, on board air, D.O.T. tubing, valves, heaters, dryers, condensate blow off,air pressure gauges, switches in the cab, etc. look here, here, and here. it worked great till i lost an air bag. they stopped manufacturing the style i used. i tried their replacement but had no luck running them in the rear, so i removed them and installed springs with a rear shackle flip to get the height i needed. i have plans to remove the front as well and run a coil-over/ radius arm set-up. any questions ask away

 

[hesutton]

Was the 4 link ever developed into a "kit" by the folks you were beta testing this for?

Heath