Air Shocks and More

[chop509]

Just thought someone else might be able to use this info.

The rear suspension is a bit soft on my ’34 Ford Pickup.
It tends to lean to one side or the other, and have too much body roll when cornering depending on the weight in the cab.
Not sure what the exact cause is, maybe this is common with an elliptical spring setup.

Anyway, I’d like to replace it with coilover’s but can’t justify the cost right now.
So as a cheap alternative, I thought I’d try replacing the rear shocks with air shocks to see if this would help (hopefully not to stiff).
The problem is, most air shocks I’ve seen have a really large diameter upper casing's, and I don’t have that kind of room.

I got to looking around and found this information on Monroe’s site:
http://www.monroe.com/catalog_lookup/ocl_miscappinfo.asp
(be sure to look around their site – other good info on here too).

I used this information to find a set that had the right compressed/extended lengths I needed, and cross-referenced a set of air shocks that looked like might work.
As it turned out the shocks were for a ’69 VW Bug.

Still concerned about casing diameters, I emailed their Tech Support and the lower casing diameter is 1.52” and the upper is only 2.27” (pretty small for air shocks).

So I ordered a set, we’ll see how they work out.

Jeff

 

[Inked Monkey]

I was thinking that I might have to add air shocks to my impala also. I had a 65 olds that had them and it had barely any body roll. This imp has a ton. I might upgrade the sway bar in the front and add one in the rear, but air shocks are more in my price range!

 

[FlatBroke]

When used properly, air shocks can be a good idea to add to the suspension as long as you don't add too much air pressure to them. That's what makes them ride like a goat wagon. You may need to spend some money for a good, high pressure air guage so you will be able tu adjust the pressure to the 1/2 lb. increment. Plus the overall weight of the vehicle play a large role in the ammount of air you will need to run.

Let us know how it turns out...

 

[donsrods]

My shop truck is a Jeep pickup that I swapped a 5.0 Mustang into. The motor mounts ended up being too close to the front radius rods, and would bang on speed bumps and curbs, so I added air shocks to the front end. Made a world of difference, and now the front height equals the rear height, because it has overloads back there. I run about 80 pounds in the shocks, and it is a little stiff, but not horrible.

They don't make front airshocks, so I used some Ford application rear shocks, and made mounts for them.

Don

 

[satanherself]

Personally I don't like air shocks ,there nothing but hassle

 

[chop509]

Personally I don't like air shocks ,there nothing but hassle

I'd tend to agree, not my favorite way to go either, but I hope this will work as a temporary solution to get me through this season. This winter I plan on completely blowing the truck apart and redoing her.

Jeff

 

[joehalford01]

i'm contemplating bags for my truck but have been wondering this myself. how are bags for durability and reliability once set-up? i plan to get a set-up that allows me to have pre-programmed ride heights. so i can set it once and then just use the pre-sets. this will be a shop truck/daily though, so i'm concerned about the bags holding up to the weight of a couple motors or a cab in the bed and just general wear and tear. thoughts?

 

[FlatBroke]

These air bag suspensions were originally designed for BIG RIGS. very thick, durable, and I don't think you can overload them at all.(I could be wrong though) The only drawback is they need to be accessible so you can clean and treat them so they don't dry rot and that sort of thing....

 

[chop509]

I had bags on my ’62 Impala, and they will definitely carry the weight. If I remember right they were rated around 95 lbs max. pressure.
However they will puncture relatively easy. The rubber is about 1/8” thick, so if you catch any road debris that flies up it can put a hole in them.
They are also prone to dry rot just like tires.

Jeff

 

[joehalford01]

i guess the trick is to keep a spare at all times?

 

[WIZEGUY]

i guess the trick is to keep a spare at all times?

A patch and some Monkey Grip.......


Tracy

 

[maddog]

I had a pair of unused air shocks when I re-did the suspension on my truck. It was low and I wanted to be able to carry weight when I wanted to so I used them. So far they are working out great. I keep about 20 psi in them most of the time, then put up to 125 psi on occasion. The instructions said max 200 psi.

The thing about air shocks you have to remember is that they will be carring weight. Your vehicle is expecting the springs to do that, so the shock mounts are not too strong.

I beefed mine up with cross members and heavy tabs. They are capable of carring mucho weight now.

I also was very carefull when I put those cheesy little lines and o-rings together. I also ran a piece of 1/2 steel fuel line (welded to the frame members) from the center of the cross member where the lines came together to the valve at the back corner of the frame, and ran the lines in it. This will protect them from everything.

 

[Mike P]

".....The thing about air shocks you have to remember is that they will be carring weight. Your vehicle is expecting the springs to do that, so the shock mounts are not too strong......"

Very good point. As I recall, the El Caminos in the 60's came standard (but may have been an option) with Delco air shocks, and I have repaired/rebuilt upper shock mounts on several of these over the years.


"....i'm contemplating bags for my truck but have been wondering this myself. how are bags for durability and reliability once set-up?...."


Joe I'm not sure what setup your planning on running, whether it's one of the newer setups or the older red colored bags that fit on the inside of the factory coil springs. As far as the old bags go, I've run them on several cars over the years and really like them. The lift from the axel/frame and will haul a load. I've loaded my 68 El Camino with big blocks/transmissions and spare cylinder heads (all at the same time) and they work. The set that is on the El Camino is going on 17 years old now and still no problems.

 

[LordMaximo]

There is another way to add support to your coils, and that is to run the airshocks inside the coils. I had a neighbor who did this tohis 69 Chevy truck.
He bought some heavy duty air shocks and made the adaptors to run the shocks inside his coils. I have seen this done on several car setups too. mainly on the front suspension. The shocks are mounted in the center of the lower "A-arm" section of the rig and attached to a tower. Some have the large coils along with this adaption.
They make the coil incerts that are large buffers and act as a stop. Thus your truck does not bottom out with a load. You still have a short reaction to road bumps, and your load is balanced and not dropping to the ground. Air shocks were the best thing to use before the addaptation of bags was made the mainstay for ride height control. Good luck...Maximo

 

[FlatBroke]

Now that is something I never would have thought of.....

I got new ideas on the 81 in the driveway....

 

[joehalford01]

this is great info, thanks guys. My future plans are to run a bag system so i can raise and lower the truck for speedbumps and my driveway. I don't want to manually control and do any side to side lameness. I want one of the systems with presets so i can set it in my driveway and get everything sitting right for the various heights. I will probably get one of the self-contained units from bagit.com, they look decent but i havn't done a whole lot of research yet. I just like the clean look of everything in one box and it's fairly compact so i should be able to hide it nicely in the "custom" tool box i plan to build.

 

[lanechange70]

Plan on upgrading the pump 1st the one in THAT kit is weak 2nd upgrade the fittings with those you need a wrench to remove otherwisebuy the kit the otherway with the upgrades and install in ur own box(wiring isn't difficult)u can lay it out the way u want that way,personally the valves work better near the bags versus near tank

 

[joehalford01]

didn't know that, have you installed stuff from them before? are their products pretty decent?