Repurposing Suspension Air Compressor

Quoted from above: Was wondering if anyone sees an issue running the compressor right off the battery. The switch I'm using is rated to 15amps so if anything goes wrong that'll function as a fuse lol.

Back to your question from above, YES, you should use a fuse on the power. Setting your switch on fire in the truck is not a good fuse plan.

OverlandExpy said:

Was thinking of where the spare used to be, but that spot seems susceptible to being dropped on a rock when I'm offroad.

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If you get a big rock up in that area, it’ll rip your bumper off anyway.

And in my ~10 years of offroading, I’ve never had a big rock there. To get a big rock up in that area, how would it clear everything up under the truck ahead of that area?

tommyddsr said:

Quoted from above: Was wondering if anyone sees an issue running the compressor right off the battery. The switch I'm using is rated to 15amps so if anything goes wrong that'll function as a fuse lol.

Back to your question from above, YES, you should use a fuse on the power. Setting your switch on fire in the truck is not a good fuse plan.

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Definitely. I went to Amazon and bought some in line fuses already. I'll make sure the fuse is on the forward side of the firewall lol.

ExplorerTom said:

If you get a big rock up in that area, it’ll rip your bumper off anyway.

And in my ~10 years of offroading, I’ve never had a big rock there. To get a big rock up in that area, how would it clear everything up under the truck ahead of that area?

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That's what I was thinking. It'll be tucked up right behind the rear diff and crossmember. So I should be fine, but I was thinking that the crossmember is pretty much in line with where the wheels contact the ground. So if I'm on a big rock, straddling another tall pointy rock that could potentially clear the diff, then the wheels drop down off the big rock, the pointy one could maybe hit it. But that would be a pretty unlikely scenario I think. And a guy I work with just got a plasma cutter cnc and was planning on helping me make some armor for my gas tank and tranny, im sure I could bolt on a little skid plate over the tank if I wanted to be extra cautious.

Tank is supposed to arrive in a few days, I'll keep this thread updated!

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.

Just in case anyone is following this thread or finding it sometime in the future, the stock compressor/fittings aren't meant to run more than about 50 psi. It won't work like a typical compressor that you would be able to run air tools/fill a 35in tire. I ended up buying an arb on board air compressor and will be installing that soon. I'll post future updates to my main "balls to the wall" thread with the rest of my mods.

This will probably be the last post on this thread, but if anyone needs a spare oem compressor that runs great, feel free to pm me. I'm never going back to the air ride suspension anyway.

OverlandExpy said:

Just in case anyone is following this thread or finding it sometime in the future, the stock compressor/fittings aren't meant to run more than about 50 psi. It won't work like a typical compressor that you would be able to run air tools/fill a 35in tire. I ended up buying an arb on board air compressor and will be installing that soon. I'll post future updates to my main "balls to the wall" thread with the rest of my mods.

This will probably be the last post on this thread, but if anyone needs a spare oem compressor that runs great, feel free to pm me. I'm never going back to the air ride suspension anyway.

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Will a larger aftermarket compressor fit where the factory compressor is located? The aftermarket would probably have to be mounted without a tank due to lack of space I would think. My Exp does did not come w air suspension, and I have never opened up that interior trim in the rear (where the compressor would be) to see how much space is available.
I am considering which compressor to get for offroading, and before reading these threads I was leaning towards a portable compressor just because I could not find a good place to mount an on-board compressor. Now I am wondering if an aftermarket compressor could fit in there? Anyway you had a good project going there, sorry it didn't work out.

@Vincent Vega So the compressor I bought is the ARB ckma12 compressor. The OEM compressor and integrated mount is actually a fair amount larger than the arb. I could probably fit it under the windshield wiper fluid reservoir where the suspension compressor was, but it would be way more trouble than its worth since I'd have to fab up a custom mount, so I'm thinking I'm going to mount it how @Vancouver Bob bob did in his here. Looks like he has the same one that I bought. I figured that out of the engine bay would be better for it so it could get some cool air. Also I bought myself a light bar and some ditch lights for christmas and was planning on mounting the light bar behind the bumper on the frame, so I'll be removing the front bumper anyway. I'm planning on mounting my tank right behind the rear diff and crossmember where the spare would go. Plenty of room for it there. Right now me and my offroading buddies use a portable one. Its kind of a pain to pop the hood, take it out, set it up, and have to leave the truck running for 20 min while you air up though. With the 5 gallon tank, I'm hoping to slowly fill it while I'm on the trails, giving the compressor plenty of time to cool down between cycles to not wear it out. Get the tank to 100-120psi ish it should be enough to get my tires filled up most of the way and will minimize/eliminating idling time. This is the compressor I've been using when I hit the trails at the moment, it does its job but gets hot quick and takes a little while. But it'll fill up 4 35in tires no problem if you have some patience. Here is the one I was going to buy before I decided on the on-board arb system instead, heard good things about it and met a few people on the rubicon who used it and swore by it. If you're on the fence about which one you want to do, I'd just buy a cheap-ish but still decent portable one for ~$80, and if its too annoying to deal with, install an on board one and then you'll have a backup in case one ever fails!

The concern I would have- the air suspension compressor for the Expedition/ Navigator times out (***** down) after running for a designated amount of time as a protection against overheating the compressor motor. I speculate the compressor time out constraints greatly limits what the OEM compressor can be used for outside of filling air springs.

OverlandExpy said:

@Vincent Vega So the compressor I bought is the ARB ckma12 compressor. The OEM compressor and integrated mount is actually a fair amount larger than the arb. I could probably fit it under the windshield wiper fluid reservoir where the suspension compressor was, but it would be way more trouble than its worth since I'd have to fab up a custom mount, so I'm thinking I'm going to mount it how @Vancouver Bob bob did in his here. Looks like he has the same one that I bought. I figured that out of the engine bay would be better for it so it could get some cool air. Also I bought myself a light bar and some ditch lights for christmas and was planning on mounting the light bar behind the bumper on the frame, so I'll be removing the front bumper anyway. I'm planning on mounting my tank right behind the rear diff and crossmember where the spare would go. Plenty of room for it there. Right now me and my offroading buddies use a portable one. Its kind of a pain to pop the hood, take it out, set it up, and have to leave the truck running for 20 min while you air up though. With the 5 gallon tank, I'm hoping to slowly fill it while I'm on the trails, giving the compressor plenty of time to cool down between cycles to not wear it out. Get the tank to 100-120psi ish it should be enough to get my tires filled up most of the way and will minimize/eliminating idling time. This is the compressor I've been using when I hit the trails at the moment, it does its job but gets hot quick and takes a little while. But it'll fill up 4 35in tires no problem if you have some patience. Here is the one I was going to buy before I decided on the on-board arb system instead, heard good things about it and met a few people on the rubicon who used it and swore by it. If you're on the fence about which one you want to do, I'd just buy a cheap-ish but still decent portable one for ~$80, and if its too annoying to deal with, install an on board one and then you'll have a backup in case one ever fails!

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@OverlandExpy I agree, the @Vancouver Bob setup is cool. The only thing is I can't figure out from his photo is whether the grille will still fit on there. Also have you seen this ARB deal on Amazon that includes a mounting bracket? I don't know if the mounting bracket would help our application, seems like you would need to order it and play around with it to see if it would work (if you have a Jeep it probably bolts right in, ha ha). If not you are back to having to build custom mounts.