JRscooby wrote:
Lose several inches of ground clearance from load? Don't they use leveling valves on MH? I don't know RVs, but on trucks and trailers load it, rig goes down, opens valve to increase pressure to raise it back up. (My last tractor, 62 lbs of air was 34,000 on the tandem. 95 lbs, was 45,000)
You can only put so much pressure in the bags and then BOOM you flat.
The air bag works kind of like a spring in that if you put pressure on a sprint... it bends and lets you down.. Same with the air bag only there is a more complex relationship between pressure of the "load" and air pressure ... But if you exceed the maximum air pressure (The real maximum not the rated one) BOOM. the bag blows and you are flat.
So yes. you can lose several inches. Now there are other ways to do it where you'd need like 100 tons of cargo to compress. but that's goiong to give you a very rough ride and loss of control so I won't even speculate as to those methods other than say "Eliminate springs and air bags entirely" (I've worked on farm wagons like that)
But air bags are kind of like springs in that the more load you put on 'em the more they "let you down" only difference is the math is a lot harder.
For example if 100 pounds compresses a spring 1" then 200 pounds likely would compress it 2
But with an air bag if 100 pounds compressed 1" I'd expect 200 only to get to about 1 1/2.
