Air Bags

Ray,

I have seen only one vehicle with the springs removed and replaced with air bags and I don't think that it worked that well.

At least if the bags are in the coils and they do happen to have a air leak the coils will keep the back of the vehicle off the ground.

A leak, even a small leak could put the vehicle off the road with no other support for the back of the vehicle.

Wayne

Didnt think that you could have airbags without springs....maybe you can hey!

Anyway I wouldnt do it...doesnt sound right.....we just got polyairs fitted to the standard suspension in the navara, we didnt know you could get different ones for different suspension...!! (idiots!!LOL!!)...

Laura

I'd have thought that it would be hard getting the suspension travel out of the bags compared to coils.
I'm not a fan of changing things from standard. Better off to get the right coils for the job than fitting bandaid approach like polyairs which work fine on the road but will eventually cause grief in continous off road conditions.
Depends I guess on your intended use, if you only want the load carrying capacity once a year then polyairs may be the way to go for your situation.

Ray I'd suggest just fitting the Polyairs inside the springs.(On coil sprung vehicles only) They do an excellent job of carrying the additional weight of trailers or extra gear on long trips. The complete air bag replacement is often something that is done in special applications like to lower the car for easy access for aged or disabled persons or occationally used on utes to aid in fitting/removal of campers as well as leveling. The additional cost would be hard to justify for the slight improvement in ride.
Cheers Craig...........

95% of trucks(rear) and near all buses have airbag only suspension and airbag failures are rare, if they do fail usually its just a valve, however in cruiser I would get springs that are suited to the task you want.
There are many variations of spring rate available and can only cost less than $200 for a pair and are p*ss easy to change( as long as the shock absorber match up), but most of all, are reliable.
There are a few formites that swear by the insert type airbag that can be adjusted to the conditions (load) and are happy with them, there are few that have problems with leaks/blown fittings.
The full airbag (spring removed) are genarally seen on competition vehicles and IMHO wouldn't be suitable for extented use/travell and would also require an air compresser to be running full time

Shane

Hi
I have Polyair bags on my 100 Series 2004 Landcruiser. I tow a 2.6 Tonne van and go off road as well. They are great particularly if the optimum pressure is maintained. I had one split around the join last month . Had done about 20,000 kms and 2 years old bag. Poly air sent me a new one.

If you do put airbag only suspension I would carry a spare bag. I was in the transport industry and when airbags did blow it disabled the bus and truck. They did not blow every day but it was often enough

Regards