Front Air Springs
The front Air Springs come with two custom stainless steel brackets that are needed to bolt the air springs to the frame and the axle.
Here is a picture of the top bracket used on the front air springs.
The bottom of the front air spring also get a bracket that slips over the solid metal piston on the bottom of the air springs and mates to the axle spring perches.
Installation
This installation is not rocket science work, but you do have to remove some existing parts which include the track bar, shocks, springs, bump stops and sway bar disconnects.
Once I had everything out and the axle supported by floor jacks I took the time to sand blast off loose paint and light rust so I could paint everything up nicely using Hammerite.
Fitting the Top of the Front Air Springs
The only real cutting involved anywhere in this installation deal with the upper bump stop perches. These need to be trimmed down to 2-inches. This isn?t difficult to do with a saw-z-all or other type of reciprocating metal cutting saw.
In order to insure accuracy I measure down two inches from the top and then marked this line with a piece of duct tape. Then I simply cut the bump stop perch off at the tapes edge.
Here are a couple of photos of the perch marked with the tape and what was cut off.
The bottom spring perch needs to have a ?-inch hole drilled in the center of it. This hole will be used to bolt the bottom of the air spring into place.
Here is an ugly picture, with the metal drill fillings still in place.
To mount the front air springs you simply slide the top mount over the upper bump stop stub and attach to the top with a rather large 1-7/8-inch nut. Being I don?t have a wrench this size I used a pipe wrench to tighten this nut down.
The bottom of the air spring has a ?-inch stud that passes through the hole drilled in the bottom of the spring perch. You need to put a stainless steel 3/4-inch Nylock nut on this stud.
Here is a picture from the bottom of the axle on the driver?s side.
Doing this on the driver?s side is a no-brainer, but the passenger side is a different story.
On the passenger side the stud on the bottom of the air spring is located under the axle track bar mount. There is no easy access to it to put the nut on. The folks over at Off Road Only have come up with a way to do this rather simply.
They supplied a small piece of clear hose that is used to start the nut threading onto the stud through the misaligned hole where the track bar mounts lives. Once the nut has been started a ?-inch ?Crow?s Foot Wrench? is needed to get into the misaligned access slot to tighten the Nylock nut down.
When I first saw this I scratched my head, figuring this was going to be a big headache. As it turned out the procedure described in the directions worked flawlessly the first time.
Here are a couple of pictures that demonstrate what had to be done.
?-inch Nylock nut on the end of the supplied hose.
Inserting the nut with the hose to get it started.
This is the nut inserted in through the slot. Now you have to tighten it down a bit.
To tighten this nylock nut you will need a ?-inch ?Crow?s Foot Wrench?
I found you have to slide the Crow?s Foot Wrench into the slot and then attach a socket extension to it. It just wouldn?t fit through the hole (slot) while attached to the extension. It can be a little tricky positioning the Crow?s Foot Wrench to get the socket extension onto it once it is in the slot, but it is doable.
While I am not all knowing I can?t imagine how the nylock nut on the driver?s side could possible be tightened without the use of the ?-inch crows foot wrench.
While I had crow?s foot wrenches in my tool chest (Never ever used before) I did look around to see what these cost. Ace Hardware will sell you the one size you need for about $16. Napa will sell you an entire set, including the size you need (3/4-inch) for $14. Else, I would barrow one from a friend.
Once the top mount of each air spring is tight, and the bottom nuts have been started (but not tightened fully yet) I ran the airlines.
The air fittings for the front air springs are located inside the top spring mount, about three inches down.
To install the hose you simply cut the end square with the supplied tool and use the ?brail system? with the end of the air hose to feel around for the air fitting through the top of the top mount. Once again this is really not difficult to do. Once I found the fitting I simply pushed the hose in and pulled it back a bit for it to seat and seal.
I ran the air lines from the air springs to the air manifold, again cutting it square and to size and did the push/pull into the appropriate fitting on the manifold.
Shocks
I then put the shocks in place.
The shocks that came with this system are Bilstien 5100 with a custom built-in bump stops.
The bump stops lives under the blue shock bellows and sits around the shock shaft at the top of the sock. The bump stops, like all others are designed to collapse or compress when contacted.
I?m not completely sure on this bump stop concept. I need to test this out fully as to the performance of these bump stops and their effects on the shocks. If I need to I will engineer my own bump stops that live back on the frame and contact the axle directly.
Time will tell on this one.
Once the shocks were on I put a little air in the air springs, just enough to allow them to remove any deformities. Then I put the tires on, and inflated both air springs to 40 PSI before lowering my Jeep to the ground.
This is necessary to allow the air springs to naturally seat themselves. Once the weight of my Jeep was sitting on the air springs I slide under the axle and tightened those two ?-inch lower air spring nylock nuts down.
After double-checking everything I re-connected the sway bar. I did not put the adjustable track bar on yet as I wanted to complete the rear air spring installation prior to setting up any front end geometry.
Hopefully I will get that section written up latter.
Frank