Replacing rear coils with Suspension Airbags (1 Viewer)

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Joined
Mar 3, 2006
Threads
16
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Location
King Island Tasmania Australia
Attached are pictures of the parts, process and end result for fixing the handicapped LCs and LX470s with AHC.
1 Vehicle with congenital defects on the operating table.
2 Prosthetics for replacement
3 Spring and rebound removed

The only thing different from normal coil removal is to mark and remove the Height control sensor linkage on the back axle before removing the shock absorber lower retaining bolt .

Limited to three photos so continued shortly

Donald
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Cont

4 Fit the adaptor plates using the retaining nut for the rebound rubber

5 Fit airbag to adapter plate with 2 bolts at the same time feeding the airline up through the tower hole, so kindly provided by My Toyo

6 Lower vehicle on to coil base with the airbag lower retaining bolt going through a another hole so kindly provided by Mr Toyo.. This bolt in fact need to be shortened by a bees dick as it interfered with the axle housing.

Need to fix the airlines to the chassis and the airfittings to the rear of the vehicle and put about 70psi to check for leaks, then lower psi to around 16psi in my case.

A rebirthed cruiser capable of now doing what I expected it to do when I purchased it.

Donald

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If you are in there playing around again, could you put 100 psi (or close to it) in them and measure the distance between the lowest point of the bumpstop rubber and where it touches the axle housing.
 
Another aspect of this coil/Airbag conversion will have some impact on other users. This is because the airbags have an entirely different behaviour to springs. A spring will have a set spring rate or an increasing spring rate determined by it compressed ht. The airbags on the other hand have a very flat response, ie over a given ht range say between (7 & 12 inches) the reactive force is nearly constant.

Springs on the other hand have a reactive rate that is generally set say 140lbs/in such that as the spring compresses, the reactive force increases at that spring rate.

I had wondered whether this flat response would in fact make the vehicle bounce or roll slowly. My understanding, since installing the airbags is that this can be a problem, and it may need shockers specifically configured to deal with it.

However, it is not a problem with the AHC suspension as the shockers maintain a spring rate action more akin to the normal coils. You end up with the best of both worlds!

Donald
 
Dragging this thread back from the dead as it seems relevant...

FYI these airbag kits are on Special 20% off on ebay at the moment, just picked up a set for my "stinkbug" stance non-AHC 2003 LC

ebay item number 162705216483
 
I'm curious to know how these are intended to be used? Without actively controlling these air bags I'm not sure they offer much over the King KTRS79 coil springs (unless you tow a heavy trailer) at 5 times the price! The airbag doesn't do much over a steel coil spring when you raise into H position, unless you manually pump up the pressure, am i right?
 
I'm curious to know how these are intended to be used? Without actively controlling these air bags I'm not sure they offer much over the King KTRS79 coil springs (unless you tow a heavy trailer) at 5 times the price! The airbag doesn't do much over a steel coil spring when you raise into H position, unless you manually pump up the pressure, am i right?
I have on board air so up and down is only a switch away, also as mine is not AHC I'll add some auto leveling valves to keep it level day to day.

The other benifets are dump all the air out to hook up to a trailer, pump the air right up to have lift, better ride and quieter.

On an AHC cruiser with on board air you could just run a regulator to set the bag pressures and then forget about them...

Next trick is some kind of air shock for the front, for lift on demand without sacrificing CV life...
 

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