Rear air springs disco 1

[discotom]

Hi all I am after a bit of advice on fitting disco 2 air bags to the rear off my 300 tdi with a 2" lift.

[BIG DAN T]

Don't!!! Most people I know with D2s that don't do heavy towing have swapped theirs for coils as they are so sick of the hidiously unreliable air springs.

[sutty_32]

_{There are also aftermarket air springs you can fit, think they are around £130 that are air helper springs. May be worth a google? As for fitting D2 air springs, if you want to go for it, but if it was me I would make sure I do it in a way I could go back to coils if I needed to.}

_{As for the work involved, must be modifying spring mounts and fitting an air compressor with some way of controlling the air bag pressure.}

[elbekko]

Perhaps it would be easier to look into the RRC EAS system, should be quite stand-alone and already fits the RRC/D1 chassis

[dave t]

I saw an advert in one of the mags for four little fittings that you fit into the airbag feed line that enabled you to inflate each bag with any small pump or compressor or a garage airline. this would take away the complexity of the system and alleviate the need for height sensors and suchlike, you could adjust pressure with a foot pump but not on the move!

as another poster has said RRC airbags and mounts will fit straight in front and back if you want

[Snagger]

Why would you want to replace a cheap, reliable and robust system with a complex, costly and unreliable one? I did a trip around the Alps with two air sprung D2s; one ripped a spring from top to bottom and was unable to drive except gently on its bump stops on road to the next camp site until the system was replaced. The owner chose to fit HD coils to avoid future problems. The owners of the other D2 spent the next fortnight worrying about their suspension.

[discotom]

Thanks for the advice on this but this post was accidentally sent before it was finished, there is an earlier post with more details!

The reason i want to fit air is because I do a lot of towing and I already have air helper springs fitted but one burst the other day so I want something more reliable and I don't fancy fitting hd springs as I find them too harsh when unladen.

So does anybody know that If I was to fit airbags and a compressor would I be able to control them via a switch on the dash as obviously I won't have the slabs Ecu fitted so will not have the self levelling function , would this ride ok with out the constant pressure adjusting.

Any advice on this would be much appreciated as I know I can get the bags to fit but it's whether or not they will work ok, I'm just concerned that they won't allow the axle to articulate if they both have the same pressures in !

Cheers

Allen

[elbekko]

You could probably make self levelling work by also swapping in the RRC trailing arms and height sensors.

Looks like the RRC ECU is pretty stand alone, it gets a signal from the MFU, but I think you can just replace that with an ignition switched live.

If you just leave the front solenoids and height sensors disconnected, it'll probably give you an error, but I don't think it'll affect operation. If it does, connect a resistor to it so it thinks it's doing something, shouldn't have any effect.

[Snagger]

If the back of the 90 is being dragged down so much, doesn't that point to the tow hitch and trailer hitch levels being incompatible or the trailer being loaded with too much nose weight?

Helper springs like you have fitted will be as reliable or more so than an air suspension system as it has the redundancy of the coils and the air bags are only taking a small proportion of the weight when in use. They leave the vehicle 100% operational when failed, too. Perhaps you have been unlucky or have used some poor quality helper springs.

If helper air bags aren't sufficient and better balancing of the trailer and alignment of the hitch are not possible, then how about fitting the Boge strut from a Range Rover Classic? You'd have to swap the A-frame ball joint with it and fabricate a suitable mounting on the chassis, but that would all be viable and robust.