I ordered a Firestone air spring kit for my truck, installation appears pretty straight forward.  I had a question about the air hose routing though.  I got the optional "T" fitting as I mostly need the kit for leveling while pulling a trailer.  I want to mount the schrader valve near my tool box on the passenger side of the truck close to my compressor for quick easy filling.  Will it matter that the air lines from the bags to the "T" are different lengths or do I need to have them equal with a central meeting point?

No, they don't need to be equal; length doesn't matter.

3 hours ago, Sycostang67 said:

I got the optional "T" fitting as I mostly need the kit for leveling while pulling a trailer. 

 

Personally, I would not join the two rear airbags together with a T fitting.  If they are joined, then truck lean will be accelerated while traveling through a curve because air will be transferred from one airbag to the other during the travel through the curve.  The last thing I would want is additional body roll on a winding road while towing.

 

- John

Keep them separate no T . Length of lines doesn't matter. I ran mine to rear lisence plate bottom holes. Someday I'll get some solenoids to operate it from inside the cab, already have on board air and rear bumper acts as a tank. Just need time and will now. You can even see my air coupler sticking on the bottom side of the bumper next to rear camera.

I love my bags, not that I need them much but nice when I do. 

^^^^^^

I did mine this way too, without the T, glad I did. The Schrader valves are mounted on a bracket zip tied to the receiver hitch 

33 minutes ago, Dieselfuture said:

Keep them separate no T . Length of lines doesn't matter. I ran mine to rear lisence plate bottom holes. Someday I'll get some solenoids to operate it from inside the cab, already have on board air and rear bumper acts as a tank. Just need time and will now. You can even see my air coupler sticking on the bottom side of the bumper next to rear camera.

I love my bags, not that I need them much but nice when I do. 

Interesting license plate 

As others have said do not combine them with a T. 

 

Nearly everyone I know that has been unhappy with airbag performance has been unhappy for two reasons, 1 is plumbed together, the other is overinflating them. 

 

Keeping the separate not only allows for side-side adjustment but it's also a form of vehicle anti-sway as the spring rates change as you go into a corner making the outside spring stiffer and the inside spring softer. 

 

In terms of air pressure be sure you are letting the leaf springs still carry some payload. Let the truck sag 1-1.5" and then use the airbags to keep it there. The will provide the best ride and vehicle stability while towing. 

Well I'm glad I asked, I'll leave them separate then.  Still gonna run them up to the front of the bed so I don't have to uncoil my air hose every time I need to fill them.  One other question though.  When not in use, do I just leave the bags empty or should I leave some air in them?    

When fully loaded with my fifth wheel I have the rear end loaded to the max on pin weight, I have never had to go above 60 psi on the bags to level things out, when empty I generally just keep the minimum of about 5 psi. in the bags,  you will like having these, it really helps on the heavy loads to keeping it level and reducing sway

The instructions will have a minimum psi in them. Either 5 or 10 based on what I’ve seen. 

On 10/31/2020 at 9:45 AM, Royal Squire said:

Interesting license plate 

Yeah I'm not sure anymore where I live, seems common sense is not common and I just don't seem to follow the crowd for the most part, plus I've been called that more than once in my life, especially lately... so why not, can't go on serious all the time in this life. Plus DOT sent me new plates after 10 years it was a good time to upgrade. I wanted to get powerwagon on there but all the different combinations were taken in iowa, maybe you can get them yet in your states. I did it all on line, it was easy and then scheduled appointment to pick them up when they were available. I came up with lots of different themes, but kinda like the whole hillbilly one. Matches my sticker by the exhaust, not sure if anyone notice that one. 

You better stay out of Des Moines.  Some "snowflake"  might see it and complain to the state DMV that you're making fun of people with low I Qs then they will have to take the plate back because you offended someone.   It happened here in California when someone had their initials JAPLTP  on the plate.  

46 minutes ago, IBMobile said:

You better stay out of Des Moines.  Some "snowflake"  might see it and complain to the state DMV that you're making fun of people with low I Qs then they will have to take the plate back because you offended someone.   It happened here in California when someone had their initials JAPLTP  on the plate.  

It seems that we're getting closer to the theme in move idiacrocy. 

I didn't notice either the tag or the sticker. 40 boards haging halfway out the bed is what caught my eye. Thats alot weight behind the wheels and its sittig level. Always liked that picture.

Late to the conversation but... If I was to upgrade to air bag I would do a in cab controller that is separated left and right controls. I had a job years ago where I was going to install a system like this then @MoparMom went into the hospital with kidney failure. I lost the job...

 

There is in cab controllers for air bags so you can do everything in cab and not have ot adjust left and right fighting with a tire gauge and air hose.

8 minutes ago, Mopar1973Man said:

There is in cab controllers for air bags so you can do everything in cab and not have ot adjust left and right fighting with a tire gauge and air hose

Do you have any leads by a chance, I'm thinking about doing it this winter for a project. Just wasn't sure how many gauges and switches and solenoids I need. I have one gauge already, guessing 2 is enough. One for psi in the tank and the other to monitor air bags. 

Just need to have the controller so when the switch is set for left your looking at left side pressures. Then flip to the right side now the gauge sees the right side pressures. So a singlwe switch and single gauge is fine. This allows for offset pressure for like your heavy one side you can adjust for the offset left and right weights then while you roll. 

Works good just wish the gauge was more accurate about 3-4 psi off digital and scale a 100 instead of 200 for better accuracy. Other than that I like it. Had to run 3 lines in the cab on my set up, one that I tied in to the air tank ( my rear bumper ) and 2 to the bags. I just used T's on the bags that way I can still use schrader valves or the switches. Btw these switches bleed air out in to the cab when you lower pressure, which is I figured they would do. To mount I used a long hose clamp and attached it to the rear view camera monitor. There are posts missing including a link to this switch, here is number for the guage set up, couldn't attach the link.

26229-200 psi airlift

Wow that's a lot of stuff there...

 

Just to keep posting going I'm going to tell what I've got in mind. 

 

So instead of dedicated screen for back up camera I've been looking at clip rear view camera that record both forward and rearward. I'm actually looking for one so I could do something like @IBMobilewhere the rear camera can be WiFi and remote mount in the rear window of the RV possibly.  Then have a second mount on the truck possibly. This covers both forward and rearward views. Already got my radar detector hanging from the rear view mirror and the emergency red light hidden behind the rear view mirror.

 

https://www.amazon.com/TOGUARD-Control-Cameras-Waterproof-Assistance/dp/B0899J7471/

 

To this day I've never found a really good reason for air bag as of yet. Even towing my big 31 foot RV I don't normally have a lot of front to rear rocking. I would most likely skip the air bag still after 423k miles without air bags. 

 

My Mopar1973Man High Idle is hidden in the pouch of the dash. It hangs downward with the knob from the top of the pouch that manuals have. Nobody even knows that is there. Nice hiding spot for the switch. Pouch is still in the dash.

 

Manual CAD cable. Thank gawd I've got solid axles I hate that design and still do... I have guys constantly coming with vacuum issues or CAD diaphragm issues. That one less on my dash. To this day ZERO 4WD issues yet with solid axles. Even on my 1996 With CAD axle I've still got issues with it locking and unlocking the axle. 

 

Converted the cigarette light over to USB QC3 ports with a volt meter. I'm going to change the power point over to another USB QC3 port without a display being that circuit is +12V hot constantly. This will get rid of all the cigarette light USB chargers I've got. Like my Radar was a cigarette light powered. I went on Amazon and convert it to a directed wired device. 

https://www.amazon.com/Cobra-Hard-Wire-Radar-Detectors/dp/B004AMBW1U/

 

One day I want to do another mod of the exhaust brake switch. The shift rod would be replaced with gas pipe and the wires ran inside the pipe up to the shift knob and have the exhaust brake switch either in the knob or just below with the typical switch. 

 

My stereo was a good choice the Kenwood Bluetooth model is really good at playing my music from my phone but just as I bought that stereo Google Play (Music Player) was obsoleted. I had to download a different player to play my massive amount of MP3 files. I got Audify Music Player off of Android play.

https://audifyplayer.com/ 

 

As for the Kewood playing Spotify or Pandora isn't working correctly being the Kenwood app is not designed for my Samsung S10+ Android 10 software it was designed for older software.