Ride Rite Air Bag Leveling System

up-n-over

up-n-over

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2008
Location
Clover, SC
I've been towing a 38' bumper tow camper for about 7-8 months now, and after having always pulled fifth wheel campers, it was a little scary...

Whenever a good wind would blow on the camper, or a semi would fly by, it would get squirrelly and want to sway badly. I adjusted the weight distributing hitch with limited success. I have now solved the problem.

I installed a Firestone Ride Rite air bag system and no more white knuckle driving...

I bought a new kit that contained 5000# bags and brackets for an F350, and adapted it to work with my Excursion. The system originally came with a Schraeder valve set-up for setting the pressure in the bags. I designed my own system to control the bags.

The bags have to have 5PSI to them when they are not being used, and I wanted to be able to set the air pressure on the bags from the driver seat. So, I designed a system that uses a 3-way valve to either feed the bags from a 5PSI regulator, or from an adjustable regulator mounted in a control panel.

I also built a 6HP air compressor and 7 gallon air tank that can run my air tools, power my air lockers, and run the air bag system.

The compressor keeps the tank between 100PSI and 120 PSI (as can be seen in the left gage). The gage on the right is the air bag pressure and the knob above that is the adjustable pressure regulator. The double gage in the center is for the front and rear air lockers.

With 30-35 PSI applied to the bags almost all of the tail wagging is gone.

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Last edited:
My cummins has a set. I bought it like that but it has a remote control for the air bags. I love it.
 
All around nice work Robert. So is that a York compressor driven by a starter motor?
 
Fancy. I just put schraders on the bumper and blow them up that way. Upside is that it keeps the pressure in the bags separate, so you get some sway bar effect out of it.

I also drain mine completely when the truck is empty. The important thing is that you don't bottom out the bags. But if you're just riding around on the street, that's not a problem.
 
The Firestone Ride Rite literature says that you must keep a minimum of 5PSI on the bags all of the time. That is why I installed the 5PSI regulator.

I needed the on-board air system to control my ARB air lockers, so it just made sense to do everything from the same location.
 
Yeah, but then it rides like a dump truck. So I empty the bags. Probably less of an issue with the excursions though, since they were notoriously under sprung from the factory.

FWIW, I found that adventurerv.net in Tennessee had great prices on these when I was shopping.
 
With 5 PSI in the bags you really can't fee any difference in the ride of the big Ex.
 
I gave $240 for my Ride Rite 2176 system, so I saved about $100.... Cool!
 
jeepinmatt said:
All around nice work Robert. So is that a York compressor driven by a starter motor?
Click to expand...

Yes. It is a York 210 compressor driven by a 6HP winch motor. I had to upgrade to a 240 amp alternator to deal with the high current draw. I probably could have gone with a smaller motor.
 
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