- Update -
This post is going to be a little messy, a lot of things happend in a short period of time, so i didn't get enough pictures made to make things clear.
So bear with me on this one
First of all some goodies I bought before I even begun the project:
Firestone F9000 rear bags
Slam Specialties RE-7 front bags
AccuAir VU4 Manifold
AccuAir E-Level with touchpad
AccuAir I-level Wifi receiver
I got a great deal on this set, unfortunately a month after i bought it AccuAir closed there business.
But I have to stick with it.
Made a bracket in the frame for a panhart bar.
The other end on the axle side was a little more difficult.
started out with a 3"x3" square tube. and with a bit of hacking and welding we get this:
And after a little more fiddling around we end up with this:
Tacked on the axle:
I wanted to strengthen the frame because I also wanted a notch.
I've seen all the bolt in notches which get used a lot. But somehow I think it looks a bit too weak for me.
So height in the frame makes it strong, so i want to have as much height as possible.
measured the distance between the frame and the underside of the bed and drew it on som cardbord.
I ended up boxing part of the frame and welding a ridge on the outside of the frame.
then added plates on top to make it a steel box again
all done with 6mm steel plate (roughly 1/4")
Drawing where to cut for the notch:
After cutting:
Boxed this in after:
after cleaning up the welds and making new brackets for the panhart bar:
I'm confident that it's stronger than it was before based on flex in the frame when jacking up on the hitch an just side to side flex.
Made the frame brackets for the air bags
Started off with a piece of construction I beam with one side cut off
ended up with this (yes needs cleanup)
I Didn't like the placement of the panhart bar behind the axle, mostly because it gets really short, which causes more side to side travel from the axle when going up and down.
So I decided to change it to the front of the axle, where it could be 4 inches longer which resulted in 1/2" less side to side travel overall.
At this point I mounted everything and tested the system with the shop compressor.
Right now the only thing going above the frame line at full airout is the brakeline bracket on the diff and the very top lip on the diffcover
So I'll be leaving it at that for now.
Hope you guys like the progress so far, would love to hear back from y'all since i cant see if anyone is viewing this tread at all
