It may be dumb, but....I have to ask. I have a 59 Nomad wagon on bags. Can I tow with it? pros...cons... Things I should do first? I just bought my wife a 65 Shasta camper. A 12 footer. Well, 14.5' with the tongue. I don't know what it weighs, but it's enough that my V-6 Blazer knew it was back there. My wagon has a tbi-sbc, and a soon to be rebuilt 4L60E, and around a 308 rearend. It goes like stink on the highway, but not pulling a load. If the wagon is a bad idea, I may try to trade my, basicly rebuilt, newer daily on a late 50's/early 60's truck to serve as tow-pig. Wagon in question vvvvv
don't know nomads-are the bags replacing coils or are they used in conjunction w/ leaves? the psi rating on bags varies. it also depends on what kinda fittings yer using on the hoses.
Yes. the rear bags replaced the coils. I think the bags are 2500 or 2650lbs. I'll have to check, I forget.
Wow! What a wagon!!! I have the same question, as my '59 El Camino has also airbags... Hi pardner if u wanna sell u'r wagon, let me know!!! Can I see more pictures please? Here is my Elky, in a similar style: greetz.
towing that camper you should not have any problems. Towing another car, it might get iffy. I have seen a lot of the 1 ton duellies on full bags towing other cars. the wagon will handle the trailer. If you really want to know get ahold of someone at air ride technologies.
yeah you should be able to tow with it, thats what the Bags were made for. My pops has a fullisize dually on bags that he tows sprintcar trailers with. I wouldnt tow more than what a half ton truck would tow thoough. Just my .02...
Just a suggestion, If you are able to tow with the bags, Which I think you should have no problem with, Make sure you make that trans your about to replace bullet proof, and have a separate trans cooler intalled too. Can't wait to see the trailer. Dennis
Yes, if you are running a bag that will handle the weight. you will want the larger 2600lb if you do. plus you should want them in back (and front if possible) as it will allow the car to ride better (from my experience)
Are you joking? the body is mounted to the chassis and bags or spring are in between the driveline and chassis.
I just took my brain out and slapped it!!!! Now let me try this again----The air bags, or springs, control vertical movement of the body and chassis. This vertical movement is "damped" by the shocks, so that after you hit a bump, it doesn't bounce for 5 minutes afterwards. Movement in all other planes is controlled by mechanical linkages i.e. trailing arms, Panhard bars, Upper and Lower front A arms. There are no "sideways" nor "front to rear" forces applied to the bags. That being said, if you tow a trailer, the only real affect that it would have on the bags is the vertical load added by the "tongue weight" of the trailer. As long as the "tongue weight" is not exessive, the actual "pulling" effort imposed by the trailer should not affect the bags at all, since all this load will be carried by the mechanical components mentioned earlier.
I've got 2500 bags on my 48. i pull my camper or a car trailer and haven't had any problems. Depends on your load you can add air to the back to level your car out but i doubt you will need to. Your camper shouldn't have much tounge weight. Clark
tim 10000 miles pulling this 15 foot scotty with my 40 my rear bags are 2500's.. I think your problem however will be the transmission and rear axle combo.. a 4l60 final drive is like .7 with a 3.08 rear axle your final drive ratio is going to be LOWER than 2.26 (I didnt figue it exactly but got this info from here)http://www.gearvendors.com/cg2wd4s.html so essentially at 60mph.. your motor will be spinning soooo slowly that your torque converter will never lockup. so the car will not ever be able to get into overdrive.. why is this a concern? because what your doing is counter productive.. you should have a 3.55 rear to work with the overdrive.. a 3.73 would be better.. remember that the motor makes power in a certain range.. and you need to work the motor at that speed to achieve the desired result.. PS tire size can affect final drive ratio as well.. I dont know how tall your rears are..
Also Be sure to check if your controls are seperate for all four corners. If they only control front and back then you might get roll and cause a problem. When bags are "T'ed" together weight will transfer air from side to side.
bullshit.. one valve for the rear on my 40.. NO ROLL.. one valve for the rear.. will be fine. tim ISNT gonna Slalom this SCCA style.. especially not with a trailer behind.. and the FAMILY in the back seat..
THIS IS MY TAKE ON THE QUESTION HERE, MAY BE NOT WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR BECAUSE I "HATE" AIR BAGS..... I HAVE SEEN MANY FAILED AIR RIDE SYSTEMS THAT CAUSE THE CAR TO BE NOT DRIVABLE DUE TO AN AIR BAG RUPTURE OR BLOW AN AIR LINE OR SUMPTHIN. IF YOU ARE RUNNING ONLY AIR BAGS WITH NO SPRING, IF YOU DO HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THE TRAILER ATTACHED YOU WILL MOST LIKELY LOSE YER WAGON & TRAILER...... AND POSSIBLY YOURSELF OR A LOVED ONE. "IF" YOU WERE TOHAVE A PROBLEM WITH A BAG OR LINES AND HAVE NO SPRINGS YOU WILL DROP AS FAR AS YOU HAVE THE AIR BAG WILL ALLOW, AND IT SEEMS EVERY ONE WITH BAGS THESE DAYS FEEL THEY NEED TO "'LAY FRAME"" . THINK ABOUT IT, THERE IS THE CHANCE YOU AIR RIDE WILL FAIL .. AND IT WILL, THEY ALL DO .... DO YOU WANT A TRAILER AND YER FAMILY IN THE WAGON WHEN IT DOES ?? JUST MY .02 ... BUT THEN AGAIN .... I HATE AIR BAGS
i'll backup what sawsall said, i have my air setup split up front, single circuit in back, no sway. as far as bags and a trailer goes, my biggest concern, is that your air setup is BULLETPROOF. make damn sure that you are not going to have a line rub through or anything to cause a failure, especially if the car lays frame, or in the wagons case, likely will drag the rear bumper of the rear is aired out. i would also consider if you are running big valves, to buy/make some restrictors to put inline to the valves to slow things down a bit so you are not tossing the trailer around so much when making height adjustments, especially on the fly. what i did was turn some short chunks of aluminum to be a light press fit inside one fitting going to each bag, and drilled a smaller hole in the alum slug. if you like to play with the air at shows or whatever, it's pretty simple to plumb in two sets of valves in the rear, one fast set, one slow.
Gator..that's a cool Elco. And No, mine isn't forsale. for a change. Dennis..yeah, I mentioned to the guy rebuilding the tranny that I may pull a smaller camper 3-4 times a year. he said no problem. I do want a seperate cooler though. Clark..I forgot about your truck. And you pull car trailers too. Excellent. Sawzall...I forgot about your car too. Dooo... You know, My car at 65 feels like it's at idle. I have to be above 85+ mph to make it feel like it's even working any. I might look into a mid-3 gear. It gets crazy gas mileage with the 308's, but that's not even a concern. And I'm running 205/75/15's And my controls are just one for the front and one for the rear. Up and down only. But, the HAMBer who built the car put shut-off valves under the console, so you can shut them off to trap the air. DE SOTO...Good point, but my car does not lay frame. With mine all the way air'd out, there's still clearance..not alot, but some. Ray..My lines are not big. It goes up and goes down real easy. No jumping around. I understand what you mean though. Thanks for all the replies. Things to look at, and think about.
The same could be said about ball joints or brakes or steering but you still drive your car right? Its all a matter of keeping everything well maintained, keep everything up and you shouldnt have any problems that I can think of. Like someone else said I've seen a few duallys and the like towing some HUGE trailers and also the last time I checked Semi Trucks were on bags so if they can do it without problems anyone else should be able to as well just make sure you have the right weight capacity bags and you should be fine. Also turn off your fucking caps lock button ,that shit drives me (and others I'm sure) insane.
Bags are only as good as they are installed. In the ten years I've been running my bags I have only had one bag go. It moved on me cause the top only had 1 bolt holding it in place. I gave it enough clearance after that and haven't had any problems. When that bag went i drove the truck 5 miles home. I set the truck up so it has 1" of clearance when down. The biggest reason I went with bags is to haul stuff. Before I installed the bags I screwed up my fenders once or twice hauling a load of junk and the fenders hit the ground. Clark
Maybe lay off the FUCKIN alcohol and yer head wont HURT If the silent caps on yer computer hurt yer head, What happens when you turn on yer grinder ??? or does someone else do that for you ???
Hey Grumpy I've got bags on my 97 Ram p/u and used to only have f/r control. I tow dollied my big assed Caddy home about 50 miles with no problems. Also put u-haul car trailers with s-10's my 50 truck, 90 lebaron converts and a few camaro's. BTW it has a TCI 53-56 ford f100 parallel four link with panhard bar and made damn sure nothing could rub or if total system failure I can still drive on the bump stops to somewhere I can do the repairs. Joe
Grumpy, I have rear air bags on my '89 Chevy pickup with the tow package with no problems. You '59 Chevy wagon is so cool. Be cool Cruiser 49
Clark, can not believe you are not running the larger bags. I know you have room, it should be something you consider next time you are messing with it (it a need arrises). having the extra load capacity is a good thing especially with how you like to use yours.
One More Point I Would Like To Make About This..... Everyone Is Tellin You How Semi~Trucks, & Dually's, & There Grand Ma's AutoCar Diesel Is Towing All This Stuff Around..... But Every Semi Has Leaf Spring Suspension In Case a Bag fails, These Duallys You Speak Of Have Leaf Springs Also.... True, They have Bags and Tow, But THey Also Have The Stock Leafs Also. You Prolly Know That some '59 Chevy's Came Stock With Air Ride, But The Bag Was Inside The Spring.... Anyone Know Whay They Was In The Spring??? In Case It Failed You Still Had Suspension.
Actually it's yelling, it's rude... and makes you seem like an asshat... Of course your reply to someone that calls you on it doesn't help...
I don't think he'd have a problem with that combo so long as he's got a good transmission cooler. The late-model B-Bodies used 4L60/4L60e transmissions with 3.08 or higher (numerically lower) rearend ratios (well, I guess some got 3.23's). They pull fine. Heck, the wagons with the towing packages typically had 2.56's! No, they weren't. What happens when a tire blows? Do you run solid rubber tires? The reliability and "safeness" of an air suspension system is dependant upon it having properly selected components and a proper installation. If done correctly, they can be bulletproof (so to speak).
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