air bag idea?

[buggy man]

Hey I was thinking about my hilux today, and about rear end flex and drivability.
How about this setup?
-long springs with no load leaves, so they are very flexy.
-extended shackles
-a Trac bar, or sililar setup to eliminate axle wrap
- now run an onboard compresser, air tank, and put airbags under the back. Attach the to the top of the leaf pack, but not on the chassie, so the rear can droop, and flex but you could also adjust the hight and stiffness of the back with the airbags.
Perhaps run two gauges in the cab (one for each side) so you could fine tune the hight/stiffness of each side.
You could also Ron a limiting strap so the hight stays fixed when pumped up but gets stiffer for on road and when towing.

Now can someone tell me I'm a dickhead so I don't go waist my next few payslips haha.

[Willy Hilux]

Old School, but we used to do the same but with a coil. Flex it up and put in the coil between the bump and bump stop.

[tweak'e]

the basic idea will work. not sure about the trac bar etc, i'll leave that up to the suspension experts.
however i will mention that you do need to be carefull with air bags. plenty of utes around with broken chassis due to overloading and using airbags to compensate for the height.
the other problem you can get is if the springs take very little amount of the weight and the airbags take most of the load, the air bags can place that load in a poor place on the chassis.

so as long as your sensible with your weight loading, air bag location and airbag pressures, then it will work fine.

[hulsty]

Or for a similar amount of effort you could link it ?

[Willy Hilux]

Or for a similar amount of effort you could link it ?

Linking it won't let you have flex and carry load.

[buggy man]

Thanks for the replys guys, I have thought about linking it, but I will need to get it engineered as it will stick out allot more than a few airbags. I assume air bags don't need to be engineered as their are no real mods done...
Anyway I think the airbags will give me good control of ride hight when on the tracks, which could be helpful. And I can carry a load on occasion.
I think I will try it, just got to get together all the parts and controllers ect.
I'll keep you all posted, ill have to start a build thread haha.

[Willy Hilux]

Air bags will limit ya flex as they have to be retained top and bottom.

[buggy man]

Couldn't I just retain the bag on the top of the leaf pack, and then make a cone shaped reatainer on the chassie rails that allows the bag to travel down with the axles? Like the same idea as coil dropouts?

[jenno]

Save your money mate and airbag conversion the rear, trust me the money i spend doing exactly wat u just planned out, by the time i fucked around trying to make it work i could have had bags, so until u can affort it run with a slightly load compromised leafs pac and ull have a winner till conversion time, i tried the leafs airbag thing and the old man had leaf coil and they never worked well in terms of flex. so five link with airbags is everything u want, load carrying, comfort ride, and better flex than a coil truck if set up right. speak to the boys at dna off road they seen to be the go for a conversion

Happy decision making