Rear Air bags in a 2 1/2 lift

[RPG]

Is anyone running rear air bags in a lifted TJ? I have a 2 1/2 lift and I want to run air bags to level it out when loaded up with camping and recovery gear. Interested to hear what you think of them and what brand you purchased.

[piggy]

airbag man does them, but on a TJ it could be a lot of $$$ spent for very little gain IE ;- rough pricing comparison
airbags $280ish
fitting $400ish.

coils at correct rate for vehicle & load from $200 pair (easy to fit yourself.

a set of rear coils that are correct for the car should cary the weight of the vehicle, its accessories, its passengers, & a small amt of luggage.

[RPG]

Thanks Piggy, current setup is custom rear draws, tail gate table, 130 amp/hr deep cycle battery and 55 ltr fridge/freezer. add recovery gear in one draw and tools and spares in the other. Add camping gear on top of this and she is pretty full. I don't cart all this around on a daily basis and when it is just the draws some tools fridge and battery it s not bad and quite a comfortable daily drive. Come weekend toy and tinny under tow it looks a bit bum down.

[Redemptioner]

Originally Posted by piggy

airbag man does them, but on a TJ it could be a lot of $$$ spent for very little gain IE ;- rough pricing comparison
airbags $280ish
fitting $400ish.

coils at correct rate for vehicle & load from $200 pair (easy to fit yourself.

a set of rear coils that are correct for the car should cary the weight of the vehicle, its accessories, its passengers, & a small amt of luggage.

Problem is the TJ is light, so any changes in weight make a reasonable difference, that's why variable control shocks have such a big impact on the ride quality. So no matter what coils you run, either they will be too hard without extra weight or not hard enough with extra weight. In mine, you can tell a big difference between a full and empty fuel tank due to doubling its volume. I went with a soft set of variable rate springs then added the airbags, one of the best things I have done. Admittedly I have 5" of spring so more ability to affect the spring rate, make sure you set them up correctly for bump-stop, I did not find an airbag place around Brisbane that knew what they were doing, they all just wanted to fill the spring up with bag, no f'n idea what they are doing. I then made up a custom front panel to control the bag pressure front the driver seat, worth the trouble to do this cause you can adjust them when needed.

Get the bag that goes round them too while you are there.

[RPG]

I saw the kevlar bags that go around the air bags, yes I agree good idea on a 4WD. So you left you bump stops in, all the setups I have seen completely fill the coil and leaving about 5 psi in the bag that acts as the bump stop. I like you control set up.

[Redemptioner]

Originally Posted by RPG

I saw the kevlar bags that go around the air bags, yes I agree good idea on a 4WD. So you left you bump stops in, all the setups I have seen completely fill the coil and leaving about 5 psi in the bag that acts as the bump stop. I like you control set up.

Only problem with filling the coil is you lose most of your up travel, on a 5" spring that is a lot of loss. Bags will depress about 1 inch at 5psi against normal bump stops which is not much when the whole coil is full of airbag (and not at all at 30psi). Replacing the bump stop with a poly plate (from airbag supplier) will take the bump stop travel to less than 1cm, then you just get a bag to match the travel you want and bingo you are good to go. You can also run a lower pressure when you run the kevlar bag and a correctly setup bump stop, at only 1-2 PSI they are doing nothing other than acting as soft bump stops, a 5psi they are affecting the spring rate.

[piggy]

airbag man has 2 types standard & HD, HD comes with Kevlar bags.
we fit dozens of them but they arnt cheap.
if your handy measure the ID (internal diameter) of the coil, the height between coil base & chassis or if your bumps are inside the coil measure from coil base to bump stop. give these measurements to Airbag man & they can supply the bags you require.
they even have an internal inflation/deflation kit with in cab pressure gauges, this way you can inflate & deflate while sitting in the Wheeling position.
cheers piggy