Tank came, also had to buy a 3/16 push to connect fitting for it.
Decided to test it out, have a bunch of random fittings around my shop and a few spare pressure gauges, managed to make this:
Its got a little valve there I can close to take off the gauge, then open again to empty the tank. Used a power supply to power the compressor to not kill my battery, and just plugged the push to connect hose right into the tank! 10 amps was pretty weak though, and ran a lot better off the battery directly
Tank filled up to 20 PSI in under a minute, which for a 5 gallon tank was not half bad. A lot better than I was expecting. The issue came when I shut off the compressor, and noticed a leaking noise coming from the where the dryer is connected to the compressor, at the center of this image:
A small screw was holding the dryer on, so I took it off to inspect the attachment point
It looks to me like this little tapered part of the dryer just sits on the compressor, with nothing keeping it attached other than the pressure that one small screw is able to produce. Which is not much, as the dryer has a bit a play in it. I was able to press the dryer into the compressor with my hand, and that stopped the hissing.
So now I need to make a decision. Keep messing around with this thing, or just buy an onboard air compressor from ARB or VIAIR for 250 ish bucks. My concerns with continuing on with this project are keeping a high PSI in the system without the dryer leaking, all of those dinky little press to connect fittings/hoses, and the compressor itself which was used for 150k miles and a fair amount of towing, so the air suspension was definitely being used a lot. I don't want to go through all this effort of running lines just to have the compressor crap out on me in a year or two. But I guess if that happens I can just go to pick and pull and get a used one for cheap.
I like the size and location of the OEM compressor, but a compressor that can go to higher PSIs faster would be nice too. Although other ones are a lot bigger and I would need to find a good mounting location for it. Im not sure if I would be able to fix the leak in dryer though due to how the coupling is designed. Does not seem the least bit ideal for high pressure applications.
Wanted to get your guys' opinion on it, see if its worth keeping on with this. Havent spent much money on the project yet besides the tank, which I'll need regardless of which compressor I use, and one push to connect fitting. So I wouldnt be losing any money ditching this project, except for the expense of a new compressor.