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When looking to lift or level out my truck I came across an delima. I wanted the two inch lift in the front without lifting the rear. This makes the truck sit pretty much level. With the raked angle our trucks came with, it was intened to ride level with a load in the bed. The first two inches of rear suspension travel will be taken up by a few hundred pounds of weight. Therefore if the truck sits level when unloaded it never will sit level when loaded. The solution is a variable spring rate rear suspension.
The Firestone Ride Rite airbags simply add to the stock suspension rather than changing it. I am using the stock shackle, and leaf spring pack, I am simply placing an airbag between the axle and the frame. The leaf pack sits pretty much flat with jsut the wheight of the truck. There have been post saying that shackles make your leafs flat. This is false. They have always been flat. Nothing wronge with that, this insures that the axles have plently of negative travel. Look at the front axles of Ford 3/4 and one tons the leafs are actually reverse arced.
Ok with that said let me get to the meat potatoes. I bought them from performance suspension, Jerry at 800-572-3768. I got them for 235 shipped. This was the best deal I found. They were dropped shipped from Firestone in about a week. Can't say much for the vendor other than he did me right by this transaction.
First thing to do when getting the kit is to go get some good bolts. http://www.clubfrontier.org/forums/showthread.php?t=16665&highlight=firestone+airbags+install
The kit comes with low grade carridge bolts that not only are low grade but are too long. You have to cut them to length. Remember this kit is jsut Firestone peiceing together a kit from their stock. I am sure that this kit has prices that fit all kinds of trucks. I did not get the shorter bolts so i went through the hassel of cutting and fitting.
The next step is to remove the stock bump stop. The instructions tell you to cut them off, but it is fat easier to jsut remove them. This way you can also put them back. I had the truck up on jack stands by the axel. Quickly zipped off the u-bolt nuts, removed the bump stop and tightened the nuts. Everything held together since the weight of the truck is on the axel and there is a bolt that holds things together, sortta.
Do the passenger side first it is much easier. I used a jack to lift the body up and inch or two, this gave me a little more space to work. Put the airbag assmbly together. Attache the full length of air line to the fitting. Squeeze the airbag down, slide in between top of leaf springs and frame. Attach u bolts and nuts. Leave loose. Here is where the new bolts come in. I would Thread the bolts up from the bottom and and put the nuts on top. The bolt head will be very close to the brake line and the e brake cable. YOu don't want any extra thread hanging down there rubbing on the lines. If you look at the forth pic it is very simular to what I did.
If you don't buy extra bolts and want to use the stock carriage bolts here is what you do. The square locking hole from the C-bolt is on top. Therefore any extra thread that you don't cut off will be dangerously close to the brake lines. I cut two bolts a little long and ground them down to fit. After I knew the exact right length, I cut the rest of the bolts to match. They are all the same size. The bottom channel piece has two holes. The front hole is a round hole but the back hole is more of a solt. The square locking surface fits in this slot perfectly. I tried grabbing the square section with a 7/16 open end but that didn't work very well. Instead I took a dremel with a small stone and made flats in the round hole for the carridge bolt. Once I almost had the flats I slammed the bolt head into the hole with a hammer. If I had a welder I would have thrown a little spot weld.
Tighten the eight nuts at the same time. Don't want to lock down either the top section or the bottom section before the other. You will run the risk of mounting the bag croket. See how mine kindda are. Flipping the bolts also allows one to use sockets on the self locking nuts. These are real self lockers. A few threads are bent so they will go on tight. Takes a little but of muscle to get them all the way snugged. Air tools baby.
I ran my airline to the bumper and drilled a hole through my bumper to the bottom holes of my licence plate. Looks pretty sweet. Run the line and cut the extra. I cut my line in half at the begining. In hind sight i would have jsut cut the extra line . This way you have one long section of extra line, to use as back up or for other lines, rather than two short worthless sections.
That was pretty easy, but you are not done yet. The driver side is a PITA. Along the frame runs the brake hard lines and the electrical bundel. The u-bolts get in the way. I simply poped out the plastic clips that hold the wire bundle and the brake line to the frame. And kindda bent them out of the way. The brake line rest on the top braket of the airbag. I am sure this is not a good thing. Even though the ubolt is part of the frame now. I am sure there is some vibrations that will cause the brake hard line and the braket to rub. I think i will go back there and wrap the brake line or something.
The Firestone Ride Rite airbags simply add to the stock suspension rather than changing it. I am using the stock shackle, and leaf spring pack, I am simply placing an airbag between the axle and the frame. The leaf pack sits pretty much flat with jsut the wheight of the truck. There have been post saying that shackles make your leafs flat. This is false. They have always been flat. Nothing wronge with that, this insures that the axles have plently of negative travel. Look at the front axles of Ford 3/4 and one tons the leafs are actually reverse arced.
Ok with that said let me get to the meat potatoes. I bought them from performance suspension, Jerry at 800-572-3768. I got them for 235 shipped. This was the best deal I found. They were dropped shipped from Firestone in about a week. Can't say much for the vendor other than he did me right by this transaction.
First thing to do when getting the kit is to go get some good bolts. http://www.clubfrontier.org/forums/showthread.php?t=16665&highlight=firestone+airbags+install
The kit comes with low grade carridge bolts that not only are low grade but are too long. You have to cut them to length. Remember this kit is jsut Firestone peiceing together a kit from their stock. I am sure that this kit has prices that fit all kinds of trucks. I did not get the shorter bolts so i went through the hassel of cutting and fitting.
The next step is to remove the stock bump stop. The instructions tell you to cut them off, but it is fat easier to jsut remove them. This way you can also put them back. I had the truck up on jack stands by the axel. Quickly zipped off the u-bolt nuts, removed the bump stop and tightened the nuts. Everything held together since the weight of the truck is on the axel and there is a bolt that holds things together, sortta.
Do the passenger side first it is much easier. I used a jack to lift the body up and inch or two, this gave me a little more space to work. Put the airbag assmbly together. Attache the full length of air line to the fitting. Squeeze the airbag down, slide in between top of leaf springs and frame. Attach u bolts and nuts. Leave loose. Here is where the new bolts come in. I would Thread the bolts up from the bottom and and put the nuts on top. The bolt head will be very close to the brake line and the e brake cable. YOu don't want any extra thread hanging down there rubbing on the lines. If you look at the forth pic it is very simular to what I did.
If you don't buy extra bolts and want to use the stock carriage bolts here is what you do. The square locking hole from the C-bolt is on top. Therefore any extra thread that you don't cut off will be dangerously close to the brake lines. I cut two bolts a little long and ground them down to fit. After I knew the exact right length, I cut the rest of the bolts to match. They are all the same size. The bottom channel piece has two holes. The front hole is a round hole but the back hole is more of a solt. The square locking surface fits in this slot perfectly. I tried grabbing the square section with a 7/16 open end but that didn't work very well. Instead I took a dremel with a small stone and made flats in the round hole for the carridge bolt. Once I almost had the flats I slammed the bolt head into the hole with a hammer. If I had a welder I would have thrown a little spot weld.
Tighten the eight nuts at the same time. Don't want to lock down either the top section or the bottom section before the other. You will run the risk of mounting the bag croket. See how mine kindda are. Flipping the bolts also allows one to use sockets on the self locking nuts. These are real self lockers. A few threads are bent so they will go on tight. Takes a little but of muscle to get them all the way snugged. Air tools baby.
I ran my airline to the bumper and drilled a hole through my bumper to the bottom holes of my licence plate. Looks pretty sweet. Run the line and cut the extra. I cut my line in half at the begining. In hind sight i would have jsut cut the extra line . This way you have one long section of extra line, to use as back up or for other lines, rather than two short worthless sections.
That was pretty easy, but you are not done yet. The driver side is a PITA. Along the frame runs the brake hard lines and the electrical bundel. The u-bolts get in the way. I simply poped out the plastic clips that hold the wire bundle and the brake line to the frame. And kindda bent them out of the way. The brake line rest on the top braket of the airbag. I am sure this is not a good thing. Even though the ubolt is part of the frame now. I am sure there is some vibrations that will cause the brake hard line and the braket to rub. I think i will go back there and wrap the brake line or something.
