| Author | Message | ||
| mark (66.43.13.152) Rating: N/A |
Is this feasable to do?... My Gillig 636D has leaf spring suspension all the way around. Is it possible to add air bag suspension to my front leaf spring set-up? I have a friend that is in the mobil home 'toting' business. He always puts air bags under the rear of his truck to make it drive better (ride better). I never really got to see his set-up, but he told me that it works wonderfully. When he's pulling a house down the road (heavy), he is not using the air bags. On the return trip (empty) he airs up the air bags for a cushy trip home. Is there a way to somehow add that type of set-up to the front of my bus? Anybody out there done it? Pros/Cons? Thanks for the input! mark 75 gillig 636D | ||
| Geoff (Geoff) (66.238.120.44)
Rating: N/A |
Your story sounds backwards-- the air bags combined with a leaf spring suspension is for overloaded conditions. I don't know if they are available for your Gillig but there are air bags made by Goodyear and Accu-Ride that fit motorhome chassis to help with the weight. I put some on the back of my 1-ton P30 Grumman van and they improve handling and raise the back up (instead of having the back of the van sag). --Geoff '82 RTS CA | ||
| BrianMCI96A3 (65.40.154.171) Rating: N/A |
Depending on your mechanical ability it is either really difficult or a fairly straight-forward process. Your best bet would be to remove leaves from your leaf springs, leaving the last two, before adding the bags. Not impossible, but like I said it all depends on your ability. Brian | ||
| Jose (63.190.80.48) Rating: N/A |
You might try Kelderman Air Ride they build air rides for medium duty trucks. | ||
| Jim Shepherd (Rv_Safetyman) (67.73.184.194)
Rating: N/A |
I don't think Kelderman builds a front suspension air bag system. I built one on my toterhome. Made some very long shackles with milled slots so that they could ride up and down on the shackle bolt. Then placed an 10 inch (I think) airbag between the frame and leaf spring. With this system, the spring only acts like a locator and airbag arm. It did a pretty good job of taking some of the jolts out of the truck, but on really bad roads, it was still pretty rough. I have a bunch of photos as I recall, and perhaps some more details if you want more information Jim Shepherd Evergreen, CO ’85 Eagle 10 http://rvsafetysystems.com | ||
| Peter Aduskevich (Slowslowpete) (206.216.217.22)
Rating: N/A |
I have a spring bus with a air ride seat. Works out well. I think as I am getting to fully converted weight my springs are starting to work and the ride is getting better.Really like that air ride seat. | ||
| Johnny (63.159.177.191) Rating: N/A |
I'm considering a system (soft leaf springs with air-assist bags) for the rear of my Ford B-700 schoolie...but it's lots of effort. I more than likely will just have springs custom-built for my axle weights, which can, if done properly, ride very well. IIRC, Wanderlodges used leaf springs. I admit, I want onboard compressed air more than air-ride anyway.  | ||
| Jim Shepherd (Rv_Safetyman) (67.234.239.46)
Rating: N/A |
I posted earlier that I did not think Kelderman made a front suspension system. Well, I was wrong. By coincidence, my son-in-law called me the day after I posted my reply to this thread asking my opinion about a Kelderman front suspension for his dad's motorhome. I found out that they do make a front end air bag suspension system as shown at: http://www.kelderman.com/newsite/productdetails.php?id=F53FRNT If you go to this page and have a dial-up connection, take a walk around the block and it might be loaded when you get back (must be some pretty large .jpg photos). The Kelderman “double shackle” system is a pretty clever design. If you look at the photo next to the text on the above page, it is virtually the same as I built, except I used long sliding shackles rather than the double shackle system. I patterned my system after a system that has been on the market for many years. It was designed by a farmer in Illinois. I am away from home, but will look up his number when I get home. As far as I know, they are still in business. The Illinois system was about the same price as the Kelderman system as I recall and also was not sold as a kit, but had to be installed at their location. The Kelderman kit looks to be well designed. I would worry a bit about the sideways movement of the rear of the springs when you go around a corner since the system does not appear to have a panhard rod to control sideways movement. With the milled slot shackles, the side movement would seem to be better controlled. I did not have any increased steering wheel movement after I fabricated and installed my system. Kelderman also sells a rear end air bag system which uses the leaf springs as locators and mounts the airbags inside the frame. I bought and installed a very similar system from another company and the installation was not too bad, but required some big jacks and jack stands. It did improve the ride. The down side was that, with the springs mounted inboard as much as they are, the truck had a real tendency to lean over in the corners . I did quite a bit of playing with the air control system and improved the handling a bit, but it was still a bit scary to drive it on a tight winding road. I finally had a friend fabricate a very large sway bar (none available off the shelf) and that cured the problem. However, as any engineer is prone to do, I went overboard, and I had a heck of a time leveling the truck from side to side at a campsite because the bar was so stiff. After all of this work was done, the truck rode better, but was still pretty harsh on some types of roads. The truck was a mid-80s class 7 truck with very heavy springs (12K front and 22K rear). Leaf pring technology has improved considerably since that truck was built with the use of tapered spring leafs. Those springs combined with air bags, might make a pretty decent ride. As someone mentioned, air ride seats are a great solution for the poor ride. However, you would need an air ride seat for all passengers. My wife would complain about the ride and I could not understand why. I had installed an air ride seat for her in the front, but she liked to ride on the couch in the camper part of the toter-home and she could really feel the harsh ride. She could detect the improvement in the ride after the air suspension was installed, but she still complained about the ride on some roads. I also had two roof air failures which I believe might have been the result of the jolting ride of the truck – even after the air springs were installed. Both units were new and failed shortly after the warrantee expired. Guess that is why we are converting an Eagle Sorry for the long post. Jim Shepherd Evergreen, CO ’85 Eagle 10 http://rvsafetysystems.com | ||
| DaveD (64.235.199.185)
Rating: N/A |
I use to have a 30 ft. long Winnebago Chieftain with a Chevrolet P-30 chassis and it had air bags to supplement the springs. They improved the ride dramatically when inflated. I think it would be worthwhile installing them on your Gillig. FWIW Dave Dulmage | ||
| John the busboy (12.72.236.212)
Rating: N/A |
I am replacing the leaf springs on the rear of my school bus with air suspension off a Volvo/White. The project is currently on hold until the snow melts. The project is at the point of final alignment before drilling the last holes for the air bags. Next up will be plumbing the air and then installing the lateral control arm. A guy down the street did a similar conversion to his single axle Pete and swears by it. John the busboy |