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Air LIft AIr Bag Suspension Upgrades

Yes we overload
them, and with one piece frames, full floating axles, and three
bearing differentials. Imagine your headlights pointing ahead
when your truck is loaded and at not tree tops. I enjoy pushing a
button on the remote control to change the height of my truck.
Important to
remember, adding accessories to your trucks suspension does not
increase your factory GVWR, axle weight rating or payload. The goal
is enhancing what you have for maximum load stability.
Air Lift LoadLifter 5000 with
WirelessAIR Kit 72000, Moderate Install
(Air Lifts air bellow mount inside the truck frame) |
Instant adjustability is the advantage. Being able to remotely
stiffen the rear suspension under a load, does improve stability and
eases control. Over-the-road semi-trucks have proved that air bags
are reliable. Eighteen wheelers can have air bags on the tractor,
trailer, cab and seats. Our 4 and 6 wheelers can use help with air,
especially at maximum payload and trailer weight. What caught my
attention with Air Lifts' new wireless air bags remote control.
I worry about leaking air lines and the usual culprit is the air
lines going all the way to the front of the cab with the flexing
between cab and bed and the lines going thru the fire wall into the
gauge and control switch. Air Lifts eliminated those problems with a
remote manifold hosed to the compressor back in or under the bed and
controlled by the remote control on your visor next to your garage
door opener. When you're showing off to your friends or hooking up
your trailer hitch, you can walk around your truck with the remote.
The WirelessAIR (Advanced Integrated Remote) Kit comes with a
compressor, manifold, wiring harness and wireless digital
controller.
Just like air bags on a
semi-truck, you can change truck position. drop air to release
gooseneck or 5th wheel or increase air to attach to trailer coupler. Having
the ability to change air pressure in the bags side to side, is and
advantage. It's not always easy getting loads and slide-in campers
balanced. Then there's the wonderful side winds than can irritate
you all day driving across most Western states.
Bellows (air bags)
are manufactured similar to tires with layers of rubber and cords. Air Lift LoadLifter
5000 bellows are rated to support 5000 lbs at maximum 100 psi. The
bellow brackets attach to the axle housing, spring stack and joist
bumpers for a solid installation. Factory jounce bumpers (axle to
frame bottom stop) were hard to take out, The embedded bolt stripped out
of the rubber on my 70k mile test truck, (vice grips needed). Bottom
bracket slides over jounce bumper strike plate. Bellow top bracket
is the only hard part of the installation. You have to
align two bolts that you can't see, they go thru the bracket, roll
plate and bellows. If they were pointed bolts it would help align it
all.
Ford factory
trailer wiring harness is on with ignition, so I wired the air
compressor to the trailer harness to be on only with the ignition
key on. Zip ties come in the kit to keep emergency brake
cables, wiring harness and differential breather hose away from the
bellows. Fifteen amp in line fuse for the wire that connects to the
battery, one amp barrel fuse to the ignition side wire. Install
manual has handy templates for drilling holes to match the
compressor and manifold. Joining manifold and
remote controller with a magnet so it's unique to your truck and not your neighbors.
Digital
wireless remote controller, shows air pressure in each bellow and
facilitates manual and automatic adjustments. Two memory buttons in
remote controller for your favorite settings like loaded and empty.
Buttons for controlling air pressure settings and independent air
bag control. The controller automatically keeps the air pressure you
set. The controller can program and control two axles.
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| Removing jounce bumper
from frame, I stripped the bolt out of the rubber |
bottom bracket sitting
on stock jounce bumper strike plate, as I sized up the
pieces to see where they fit. |
Bottom
bracket can be tightened to roll plate and bellow before
attaching to truck |
Roll plate on top of
bellows, these are the bolt holes and air line
connection under the top bracket |
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Top bracket would be easy if you could
put it all together first instead of.... |
...on the truck frame
above your head. The top bracket is loose here as I
align the frame spacer, bracket, |
Gooseneck
hitch brackets attached to the truck frame and are not
in the way for attaching the top air bag bracket. |
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On Ford,
Air Lift attaches to jounce bumper strike plate instead of leaf
springs, so you can add
overload springs such as SuperSprings for supporting the large
slide-in truck campers. While the Ford application is unique
mounting the air bag inside the frame instead of on top of the leaf
springs as with Dodge and GM. Mounting the air bags outside on top
of the leaf springs, makes the brackets more accessible. But the
Ford application leaves the springs open for other options. With the
air bag brackets inside the frame, the top bracket is not easy to
install. The bracket and frame spacer need to be attached first
before the bellow
The kit comes with insulated hose for
running air lines near exhaust and
a stainless steel shield which fit my three inch aFe aftermarket
exhaust. Manifold wireless control attaches with a hose directly to
the compressor.
The compressor is small and fast. Each air bag side connects to the
manifold separately so you
can inflate or deflate individually. I left extra air line
attached so I can repair any holes. I used the manual air valves
that came with the Air Lift LoadLifter 5000 in case all fails, to
air up at a gas station. The air lines are sweet, cut the air lines
straight, just push-to-connect in the fitting.
After installed, it
worked so easy, the compressor is fast,
two presets buttons on the remote controller for empty and loaded. Adjustable air on
the go, remote control from my
visor or walking around. Lifetime warranty
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