[Guest]

I've been reading one of my back 4x4 mags and I was reading about a couple of trick vehicles, all of which had airbag suspension. What exactly is this? I'm assuming it uses some sort of inflated bag instead of springs, but how does it work. Where do you get hte "bags"? Is this anything like the suspension on the back of semi trailers? Lastly, how hard is it to do?

MudFlap 87 YJ POS!!

 

[Guest]

I am guessing the rigs you are speaking of are the Skorpion MK1 and the Quagmire which both ran in TTC 1998. Both of those rigs not only had airbag susoension but they also had some special tricks thrown in. The bags are similar to those used on Semi's and in fact the Quag used semi bags on its rear suspension. The smaller (Jeep sized) air bags are availabe from Firestone (they make the big rig versions too). The MK1 ran the smaller firestones at both ends and the Quag used them on the front. As far as how hard it is to do it depends. I haven't done it myself but considered it and had every thing lined out untill i talked myself out of it. I decided that the only real advantage i could find to airbags over regular coil springs was the manually adjustable rate and therefore ride height. I also decided that coils shoudl be alot more reliable because of thier no nonesense design. But putting together a suspension using airbags should not be much different than a custom coil setup. You would need locating arms of somekind and you would have to custom fab mount for your bags. The only thing that would make it any harder would be routing the air lines. Now if you are not doing a full custom suspension you could use the air "helper" systems. They make these for most leaf spring vehicles and for some vehicles with coils such as the TJ. They have installed both type in Fourwheeler so you could order copys of the articles if you wanted them.

Scott C

 

[Guest]

I'm sure if you setup your rearend for a 1/4 eliptic suspension you could use the airbags as your springs. Basically making a 4-link locating system, which would allow full articulation, and as a bonus, elminate any wheelhop. Then mount the airbags however they're supposed to be. I'd imagine you'd have to use limiting straps to keep the axle from pulling on the bags, maybe not. Or you could creativly engineer (*******) a way to keep the airbags in the same spot when fully extended, and not have a hard attachment to the axle, that way, the axle is free to droop as far as it can go... just remove the shocks, and you can run any ramp perfectly... /wwwthreads_images/icons/smile.gif that'd be alittle work tho.

my .02

Florida Mud CJ-5
'77 RB304, t-150 D20 4" 35" swampers