Air Bag repair--What have I gotten myself into ??

[kieth]

Well someone heard that I know something about air ride systems so last week a rollback dropped off a 2000 Chevy low rider that had been impounded and then recovered by the owner, his frame was on the ground and no one could figure out how to get it back up on the bags, I told him I thought I could but it might get expensive, well that is now a certainty.......

The truck has no bed so we could see fairly quickly a few minor problems:

1. All of the wiring was bad, the relays had been cut out which supplied the power to the 2 compressors.

2. Wiring going to the control valves was hacked up.

3. The plumbing had been cobbled together with a mish mash of fittings, steel pipe, hydraulic, brass, press in quick connect dot, air brake fittings, etc.

4. In some vain attempt to get this vehicle aired back up, some one had tried shop hose quick release couplers and even a air line spray nozzle was plumbed into the mess......and baling wire was holding the nozzle in place....

I wish I had taken pictures but I was too stunned to get the camera.......so we started in on it and in the process I have learned a few lessons and thought we would pass it on so it would save you guys a lot of expense and frustration.

Here is a link to a gallery that shows the truck and the pictures in the gallery have comments already made to each picture........

http://kieth.smugmug.com/Trucks/Air-...316666_DPxDK7k

below are a couple of pictures of the system just as teasers...








I will post more pictures later today so you can see the setup........

[Clyde65]

So did the owner do this or was it chopped up by some vandal?

[kieth]

I think it was a combination of both, vandals damaged it, then the owner tried to wire around everything to get it going (after he bought the truck--which was a repo---without a bed.)

I wanted to make sure we had fused protection on the whole system so I wired it up with a Centech AP2 power distribution center, that can handle 10 circuits and we used up 7 of those.
A. 30 amp 12 volt power coming into the left side of the ap2

B. 30 amp 12 volt power coming into the right side of the ap2

These 2 circuits provide main power to the centech....60 amps


1. compressor circuit fused--operated by relay driven pressure switch

2. 2nd compressor circuit fused and operated by relay hooked to pressure switch.

3. fused relay to operate the pressure switch operated by the ignition

4. fused circuit for up valve for front suspension-----trigger operated by switch center in front of vehicle.

5. fused relay to operate the down valve for the front suspension

6. fused relay to operate the up valve for the rear suspension.

7. fused relay to operate the down valve for the rear suspension

By using the relays we were able to make sure every circuit had a inline fuse.


Now the hard part-------routing and installing all the air lines so the air ride system would work properly and also allow one to monitor the main system pressure in the tanks, and if the whole system fails to allow one to inflate the air tanks via a schrader vale, the front bags via a schrader valve, and the rear air bags via a schrader valve, By doing this one can fill the system manually if the compressor fails, or if the electrical system takes a crap. If one can fill the front and rear bags manually......at least you can get home.......if you have a small 12 volt compressor.

We completely redid the air line plumbing, all black pipe was replaced, all improper hydraulic fittings removed, all faulty fittings replaced,,,,,,,,,sitting overnight the system only loses 5lbs....................whew..We also had to reroute the plumbing to keep the air line from rubbing on brackets, frame etc...and secure everything the lines were just flapping loose in the wind routed outside the frame next to the tires and not thought out very well at all
...Now to see if we can collect on this deal.................over $2,000.00 and I did not even charge him for all the time......... Oh well nothing ventured nothing gained.

After doing all this fitting, wiring, rerouting, plumbing, and cussing we went back online and looked at some of the new systems and how they work, NOW I UNDERSTAND why a good custom designed air control center that only requires 2 quick attach air inlets, and has 4 quick attach outlets (each bag) , and has 12 volt solenoid operated air dump and outlet valves built in is such a bargain at $500.00--------here is what it costs to do this on the cheap with a old manual system...

$320.00 8 12 volt control valves $40.00 each
$165.00 55.00 fused power, 11 relays 10.00 each
$ 200.00 air fittings for control valves

$685.00 this includes no labor, the plumbing is a nightmare as well as the wiring,,,,,,,,,,,

buy a good well designed manifold valve and you will only spend $50.00 for quick release fittings install it in about 2-3 hours instead of 15 to 20 and have a lot fewer headaches because the wiring is predone, the amperage draw very light, and the air line plumbing will not have nearly as many places to leak,

I think the one to use as a starting place would be the Accuair manifold valve
which ties in as described above and costs around $500.00

http://accuairsuspension.com/product_vu4.html

this looks to me to be the simplest of all the valves on the market..... and even though it is expensive it is less expensive on the whole........Kieth never stop learning........buy why does it always cost me money ??to learn these lessons.....

[Clyde65]

I know what you mean, not including all labor, my friend is a mechanic and some folks do the same thing, choke at his labor price but they have no idea how much time he actually spent. his last job was a LS swap gone horrible, he spent at least 16 hours figuring out what the owner did to it, then took him at least 24 more making it all right, wiring wise, then had a guy come for the PCM tune, then exhaust and so on and so on. the owner b1tch3d at $2250.00 plus the tune. I think he got off cheap, but thats me. so I think ur guy got off cheap too.