Onboard air tank

[red90 driver]

Evening all,

The ARB compressor is just not up to the job of airing up 35" tyres, so I want to use a much bigger compressor with a 10 litre-ish storage tank. I have been looking at the Viair compressor packages, and they are not actually a bad price, but you can buy just the compressor on its own.

What I want to know is:

On a disco chassis, there is a 5" X 24" round steel tube that the rear 'A' frame arms mount from.

Has anyone here used that as a compressed air reservoir?

Whats involved in making it air tight and clean inside?

Is it capable of storing air at 100 ish PSI?

[Orange]

Hmmm... Not sure,

But... There is a big space in front of that crossmember (from memory) that you could mount a proper air tank, or adapted fire extinguisher into and use that instead. Probably easier than trying to make do with the existing chassis...

You may also want to investigate the T-Max twin cylinder compressors. They are a very neat solution and can be strripped of all of the unnecessary plastic and hard-wired/mounted beneath the drivers seat... As shown HERE

This set-up is regularly used to air up 35" Simex so we know it works. Given a reservoir, it would be even better.

HTH

Adrian

[red90 driver]

Unfortunately, on this particular disco, all that remains of the disco is the chassis!

I'm trying to get everything sorted to go into what is now a Whitbread buggy....

[Bowie69]

I remember reading about someone trying to use that cylinder(might even have been simonr...?), and failing as it leaked internally.

Probably less hassle to do Orange's suggestion above ^^

[Orange]

I would strongly recommend looking on e-bay or around your local commercial vehicle breakers/scrapyard to see if you can find a small tank off of a lorry (Ford Cargos used to have 2 small tanks rather than 1 big one) or from a bus.

Or, as I said, convert an old fire extinguisher and build it in to your set-up.

[red90 driver]

OK, sounds like a better plan than mine.

Will go looking for a wagon air tank or something similar.

[Mark]

Check your local scrap yard too - I have picked up a couple of nice reservoirs from knackered Chinese nailgun type compressors - the ones with 6l tanks from b&q or screfix etc... just a thought....

[mickeyw]

I used a reservoir from an air sprung RRC. Think it's about 10 litres. Given the rarity of these I would think you're better of lorry type from air scrap yard.

[Orgasmic Farmer]

I used one of the 10 litre ones from a ford cargo lorry. Also go a load of the fittings with it which helped.

[RPR]

Why not go engine driven? I have a Sandeman style compressor on mine and a 5 gallon tank. It will run a rattle gun and fills up 36" Swampers in seconds. I think I got all the necessary information on the set up and specs from a Tony Cordell info thread on here.

[sean f]

Good source of air tanks as someone else mentioned is air sprung range rovers (P38) or discoverys that have been converted to coils. The tanks come with fittings to mount them and fittings for airlines and drain plugs.

Most of the time when some one converts to coils they leave all the air stuff in place so if you know any one with a converted vehicle stick your head underneath and you may get a decent tank for free.

I would be wary of using any thing not designed as an air tank to hold pressure if it ruptures bits could fly off with some force (fair enought if it is under a vehicle this isn't likely to be to big an issue but...). Air tanks are built with quite big safety margin so tend to be quite thick walled (pre corrosion!). Not sure of the quality of the welding on a crossmember either, should be structurally strong but may have pin prick holes which will cause you problems.

Depending on your engine as has been mentioned mounting up an aircon pump and using that as an air compressor is quite easy and has a high output. The pumps should be oiled by the air con gas so pumping air unless you add an oiler they will have a limited life but I have only just siezed up the first one after using it for 3 years and you can normally get hold of replacements from breakers or e-bay quite cheap. There are other air con pumps which don't need lubricant in the air but these tend to be more expensive or difficult to get hold of and are often physically larger giving mounting problems.

[j90 mud]

the vivair compressors are very good.we replaced our 2nd worn out arb comp with one last year and an air tank.now we have plenty of air ,so that we can operate the arbs 6-7 times beforte the snall tank we fitted empties (compressor turned off)

drop matt a line he is really helpful and the advice is free.

i would not use any not tested air tank for road use and if y9u dont want to pay for a new air tank would recomend the hgv scrapyard route.

or you could buy the brand new med air kit thats sat in the garage waiting to be fitted.

http://www.mattsavage.co.uk/acatalog/onboard_kits.html

[Drizz]

Is a 50l tank overkill for ARBs and general air tools?

[heath robinson]

A little, maybe

I suppose it depends on your compressor, and the tools you'll be using. If the compressor is providing enough air to run the tools as is (like a sanden) then the tanks are more there as a capacitor if that makes sense. If not, then you might well want more than 10L, but inflating tyres would be slowed down by the tank filling. As with all things landrover, it's a bit of a juggle to get it do do everything well, which is why I'm going down the sanden route, as, with 10 or 20L of tank, it seems to be the most sensible compromise.