Any Place For Air Suspension In Overlanding

[Brav]

I have decided to run the bag-over-coil-over set up and I will add a couple of simple, redundant features that will get me home in the event of a failure.

I have to be very careful about my "normal" ride height selection as I am running a a radius arm system and the castor will change significantly as the suspension travels.

The arms will be similar to those on the front of an 80 series Land cruiser or front and rear on the Discovery 1 and 2

This set up is very durable and stone simple.
Not to mention it is used on most of the most capable overlanding vehicles produced in the modern era; the Land Cruiser, The Discovery and Defender and the G class Mercedes.
While these don't have Baja 1000 levels of suspension travel or rock bouncer limits of articulation, generally they are regarded as being very capable off road.
With a few select changes with some geometry it should work quite well for my particular situation.

My plan is to set it all up with a little extra positive castor when the bags are fully deflated and the vehicle is at its' lowest ride height.

The hope is that this will make it stable at speed while on road with the vehicle set at its lowest point.

Then, once the bags are aired up a bit for off road use, this should put the castor back to what would be considered stock on a land cruiser.
This would probably be the setting for most off roading.

Then there will be the max PSI setting for when I need every bit of ground clearance I can get.
Generally in this setting the vehicle will be moving very slowly and the castor angle will not be much of a concern.

I have not done any work at this point and have no plans to do so until this time next year.
However the research, design and analysis work will continue until I am comfortable that every thing will work as I see it in my head.

There will be a full build thread when work does begin or perhaps a little sooner as I finalize my drawings just to give people an idea what I am going for.

Any update on this?

 

[luckyjoe]

Two weeks ago I installed new air bladders on my 1995 Range Rover Classic.

The originals finally stopped holding air, which after 21 years is not too bad. Yes, 21 years - the original bags were date-coded 9402 and 9401 !

Aside from no leaks, the ride is 100% transformed - soft, supple, and really soaks up corrugations.

 

[kmlacroix]

My JGC has the air suspension. It is a Nitrogen filled closed system.

 

[Lykos]

I've run heavy haul in tractor trailers with air ride trailers. I've also seen many an off road (logging mining etc) truck with air ride suspension.

Since you'll be using bags of the same design and material I can't imagine you'll throw anything at them that they can't handle.

 

[freshlikesushi]

ive used the coilover bags, but in a different application. worked fine for me