I bought this cool air spring setup from a HAMB member to use on my '29 Dodge. He advertises it as a 31" spring ( he also has a 29" version ) It almost works. I have a 48" axle, 36.5" perch to perch that takes a 31" steel spring ( according to Speedway ) The pic below shows the spring with a 3" spacer ( the min thickness of the airbags). Notice the shackle, not much room for movement, both sides are the same. I can only get 3" of suspension travel which aint gonna work on the roads around here. I see two solutions; 1. Longer shackles. ( Does anyone even sell 2" shackles?) 2. Cut the tube off of the spring and move it out making it longer. Am I missing something, doing something wrong? Is there a better way to fix this? I'm pretty disapointed that it's so far off. Hopefully I screwed something up... I can get more pictures if needed. Thanks Keith
the shackles have nothing to do with the travel now if I understand the system right. The bag is gonna push on the piece that took the place of the spring and the axle as a unit. If you had a pic of the set up, end to end I would know for sure
You have the spring perch bolts (the ones that run thru the axle) installed backwards. They are supposed to be installed with the offset upper portion in towards the center of the car.---Brian
Does anyone have a picture of the adjustable perches? If I swap the batwings the 4 bar angle is all wrong. If I turn around the perches the spring is way too low and the spring hits the axle.
i think your perch bolts are backwards too. i looked at the pics on the cl***ifieds and his are facing the other way.
don't rotate the batwings, switch them. (move the right one left, left one to the right) The 4-bar angle won't change, and you'll get the desired (correct) result with the perches. Keep us posted. I was thinking about trying this set-up. What is the overall quality, how do the welds look, etc? How long did it take to get it?
Here is a picture of perch bolts installed the correct way. Your spring is too long for the axle you are using.
From my research the batwings are correct and the perches are correct. Changing them make things worse not better. The spring is too short for this axle. Plain and simple. It's advertised as a 31" axle so I'd expect it to fit where a 31" spring would fit. But that seems to be not the case. Here's a pic of the whole axle. I have 3" spacers in it so this is as low as it gets with the airbags deflated. I think the setup has potential. It just doesn't work as is. I'm also still waiting for the bags. Workmanship is acceptable. I got it unground so it looks rough. I think if the shackle mount were made a little different it would have a more range with a better drop, even despite it being too short.
It looks like to me that the shackles are connected to what amounts to control arms. The 'springs' are the air bags. I'd expect very little movement at the shackle.
I think it would work better if is was behind the axle instead of over my budy temper_mental just installed the same setup only behind the axle and his works very well
Yea we need to come up with some terminology for this. The Springs are indeed airbags, the arms could be called springarms? The arc of by the springarms is different than a steel spring and I suspect thats part of the problem. They are fully extended as shown and only get shorter. I would like to see them get longer as the suspension raises and then shorter again
Can you get some pictures? I think it doesn't matter above or behind if the dimensions are correct. What length axle does he have?
UUUhhh did you contact the guy that sold you this setup and try to get it figured out straight from the horses mouth???? Seems to me he would be the guy to ask these questions.
If you do what he said it looks like you should gain about a 1/2" per side. That will reduce the distance between the shackle mounts by aleast 1" . Pull the horizontal threaded part attached to the shakle out of the perch bolt and turn it 180 degrees and slide it back in. Both sides!
Nope, the perches are installed corectly, You are missing the angle of the perch head. If you turn it around the geometry is all wrong. I have tried it and it's worse that way.
machine some spacers to move the perches in a bit. no matter what you do, i don't see you getting a lot of travel out of that setup, the geometry just ain't right for airbags.
I have this setup in the 37 ford pu . It has a superbell 4" dropped axle made for a32 ford which I believe should use a 30" spring.It has hairpin radius rods with the same shackles in you picture.I am still building the frame but have it mock up pretty good at this point. As I see it the shackles do not move as much as they would with a spring. The setup seems to work well ,but the bags fit to tight for my liking . I think I will go measure the travel and movement of the shackles. be back in a few minuts.
You will need to get the shackle thing worked out .But as far as the arms go when the bags fill the frame will rise and will not come near the axle .I do know he sells 2 different arm lengths .Very helpful guy I would give him a call Larry W .PS I would post a picture of my car but the last time I almost had my head knocked off .Good luck worked great for me
I just went down and measured this deal from fully deflated mine sits just like in your picture the spring arms just p*** over the center of the axle .The centerline of the inner shackle bolt measures 31" .Fully inflated it shortens only 3/4" .It seems to have plenty of travel ,way more than most buggy spring cars that are lowered. I am using this setup because I live on a bad*** dirt road. sorry I can't get any pics today Tomuch going on in the shop.
I measured 5 1/2" from fully deflated to fully inflated. With 100 psi in the bags and two 150# guys jumping on it we could not get it to bottom out. How tight do the bags fit inside your crossmember. They rub on mine when they are deflated.Seems like it should be about 1/2" wider.Before I finish welding my frame I am going to fix this.
Thanks, I don't have bags yet, still waiting. 5 1/2 would be great, do you know how high the bags are fully deflated? the specs say 3" maybe they are less??? Could you measure springs perch center to spring perch center? I have 36" maybe your's is different? Rubbing the bags is really bad, they will fail doing that, unless it's just a little on full compression.
I don't know what engine you are running, but my guess is it weighs more than 300#. Better get some big boys for testing. Also, if the bags are rubbing, I would go to a smaller size. I think mine is 4.5" dia., the one recommended for the Cen-Pen Speedshop air ride setup, which is similar to yours. I can find the Air Ride Technologies part number if you need it, they were $65 each. One more thing, if the bags don't have internal bump stops, you need to add some. Your shocks need to be the right length to keep them from over-extending, as well.
again. a 1/2" spacer on each side would probably move the shackle mount in enough to get the travel you want.there looks to be plenty of thread on the bolt to accommodate a small spacer.
Now that you mention it, a nice well fitting steel spacer would distribute the load to the perch and not just to the threads. That might be a dang good idea, Thanks...
427 my perch bolts are 36'' on center.Let me know you get bags how they fit in the crossmember. Richard D I am running 350/350 comboboth are mounted in the frame body & bed also . I just checked 4.5 would work good If you have the info an air ride bags I could use it because it is to tight as is.
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