Just a crazy idea!!

[cx20]

I have a crazy idea and want to here some opinions on it.

I come from the lowrider scene and I am looking foward to someday having a nice crawling Jeep. My idea is to use air bags (3 or 4 stacked) to replace the coils in a TJ or a modified YJ. I scene the TJ pics with the 17" Coilovers. I belive that was the top of the shocks coming through hood. Airbags do not have rods so they can colapse to just few inches thick. I'm guessing that if you stack 3 bags you could have 18" of travel with a solid heigth of only 6"-7". I also was wonder if it would be benefical to to be able to reduce and increase the pressure on any corner of your Jeep in a crawling situation. With airbags you could just increase the pressure at one corner and maybe increase traction on that tire. Another benefit would be increasing ground clearance to cross logs, water, etc. You could air up all the bags and have an instance 10" more lift easy. I not an avid offroad guy, but I think it would be interesting try my air bag idea.

Waht do you think. Be honest I can take.

Thanks :)

[SamFromCO]

First, I have a question. You've noted the shock mounts coming through the hood and you say airbags don't have rods. Does this mean that an airbag equipped car doesn't need shock absorbers? Off roading traditionally has required a good shock absorbing system.
As far applying more pressure to one wheel than the others, that can work. I believe that it was Walker Evans that used this idea on his ARCA truck. He used hydraulics, I think, but it's basically the same idea as yours. By the way, it's now prohibited in ARCA competitions.
I don't think that your ideas are so crazy. I imagine that with a little ingenuity you could make airbags work, maybe work well.

[Deej]

Ever try to stack three airbags? You might get away with stacking two, but with the third one in the middle the first thing thats gonna happen is its gonna try to spit out the middle one. Airbags have very little side to side stability, so the middle airbags that are basically floating between the top and bottom ones are gonna try to go sideways instead of support the vehicle.

I've tried, I mounted some airbags in the front of my XJ. Yes it was great, more air for on the street makes it handle better, air them down for a cushy ride on the rocks, or over speedbumps, but there just isnt an airbag available that has enough travel to make it worthy offroad.

Even 18" isnt really a lot these days, my XJ has 28", limited by shock length, boy wait till somebody starts making a longer shock and I figure out how to mount the front shock at an angle

[Chris S]

There is a lift kit you can buy to convert to air bags, but I can't remember who makes it. It's not one of the big companies.

[Deej]

Check a lowrider or import sports car magazine, theres lots of companies making conversion kits.

But they're all meant for lowering it to the ground, where we want the opposite effect.

[cherokeefever]

All the airbags for 4WD SUVs and light trucks that I have seen so fr are only for weight-carrying help only, whether it be front or rear, but I would not mind getting a couple pair fo reahc of my Cherokees though.....;)

[satan]

A much more sensible approach (don't stack) for a TJ is to go with a full long-arm conversion and place a bag along the span of a strengthened upper arm. Use the availablility of a reasonable travel/load/durability (sleeve/cone bags HATE dirt!) bag (224c double bellows?)... and the mechanical advantage of the longer arms (for multiplying the bag's available travel) --

something like the 224c has a span of 3" to 8" (only 5" net travel), but a loading capacity of near 2500lbs per bag used at about 40% of the arm length would give you about 12.5" of gross travel per wheel (25" across the axle good enough?) with a per wheel load cap of 1000lbs.

Cross coupling through dampening accumulators to opposite corners is quite effective... but useless on-road...