Air suspension system conversion to useable on board air system?

[TactialMonkey]

For those of us with air ride and did a coil spring swap, did anyone else take the tanks and lines out? I didn’t and wondered how much work it would be to just re-wire the compressor and put a fitting on the lines off the tank to use a hose off a bumper or something? Thanks guys for the help I know that someone can answer this question and if it’s not to hard hopefully a lot of guys can have onboard air for pretty cheap

 

[Sir William]

I'll second this request. I've thought about it too, but wasn't sure if it was worth the hassle or if the compressor would have the cajones to do much.

 

[IMINYOURCHAIR]

let me get this straight, you want to re purpose the compressor as an actual air compressor for utility like airing tires up?

if so, it isn't impossible you will just need to wire a switch to control the relay that powers the pump so that the truck can't control the pump via it's logic control. from there you need to know what the max pressure the pump is rated to pump and then get your plumbing done for the air lines

 

[Sir William]

That's basically what I'd figured, but I assumed somebody had done this already and could shed some light on the subject. I didn't want to go in blind....especially if it meant throwing $$ at the issue with no potential positive outcome.

But yes, having some onboard air to fill a tire here and there, etc. would be nice. I don't expect it to run air tools or anything of the sort, but it's there, it's mounted, it's paid for....so if I can use it? Yay me!

 

[z168]

I decided to keep my air bags until the lines decide to quit.

That seems like an awful amount of work when a portable air compressor is cheaper and allows better flexibility (not tied to the truck). I have both a 12V cheapo and a 110V craftsman air compressor.

 

[IMINYOURCHAIR]

I decided to keep my air bags until the lines decide to quit.

That seems like an awful amount of work when a portable air compressor is cheaper and allows better flexibility (not tied to the truck). I have both a 12V cheapo and a 110V craftsman air compressor.

well you're not wrong there ha, if I had swapped my bags for coils I would do it for more of a display of my engineering prowess , that, and it would make for quite a space saving design seeing that it's already tucked in nicely and there would be really no need to unravel then repack all the equip that would be with a portable one.

 

[cheapjeep]

Don't know a lot about the Expedition compressors but Jeepers a few years back were fooling around with the compressors from failed Lincoln car systems and gave up because they didn't put out enough volume.

 

[b514]

Interested in this as well. Swapped the bags for coils over a year ago, but the compressor and lines are still there. I could use the compressor to slowly fill up my air horns tank, though I'm not sure it's powerful enough to give me the 100 PSI i need.
I'm embarassed to say I don't even know where the compressor is located.

 

[IMINYOURCHAIR]

on our 1st gens it's just in front of the battery directly behind the rad support.

 

[TactialMonkey]

Glad too see this idea took off ill look in to tomorrow some more while I'm taking the trans out. The tank in the first gen is on the driver frame rail in the back so I feel like its totally possible to run a fitting to the bumper with a hose inlet just wonder if the compressed is capable I wonder how much psi goes through the rear bags when towing and such.

 

[Sir William]

Hey Monkey, did you ever come up with anything on this?

 

[TactialMonkey]

No I believe that the consensus is that the pump and air lines are to weak to be of any real value to drive tools or inflate tires

 

[IMINYOURCHAIR]

inflate tires in an emergency, probably, run tools, no.