Air ride!
I just installed an airbag suspension on my new '15 F350 dually and took it on the first camper trip. I will put at the end of this post the reasons for doing it to save the long narrative for those i...
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They build kits for 250-550 Fords as well as other brands I think (also E series vans?). Their primary market appears to be emergency vehicles - ambulance, fire truck, etc. You should get a quote from them because I got a few options, it came in a bit under $4K but that is Canadian, and right now you get the 25 percent or so American discount on the exchange rate making it a bit over US$3K. The shipping out to California ate up that difference - if I lived in Tacoma I would consider driving across the border to pick it up at a terminal, might save a bit. Everything was included, I haven't had to buy even a single washer. I have not put the included compressor, tank, leveling valves, etc. on yet. No time, so I just put two schrader valves on the bags and ran fixed pressure. Which works pretty well, but would be a pain adjusting all the time as you loaded and unloaded stuff. It was nice to blow the bags down to help unload the camper, drops the rear end by several inches.
I intend to build my own control system for it because I would like manual control for leveling when camping. To do this I intend to use the electronic sensors from Airlift or Firestone as it greatly simplifies the plumbing in an automatic/manual system. One switch would remove the sensors from the control circuit, a couple more would give you up/down on each side. I would need in-cab pressure gages to make sure I wasn't exceeding limits.
I bought a spare bag to carry, just in case. They seem quite reliable in heavy trucks, but it is also not the sort of thing the local Ford dealer would have on the shelf. Replacing a bag on the side of the road would be a bit more complicated than changing a tire, but not by that much. Autoflex told me I could drive on the bump stop as far as I could stand it :).
I intend to build my own control system for it because I would like manual control for leveling when camping. To do this I intend to use the electronic sensors from Airlift or Firestone as it greatly simplifies the plumbing in an automatic/manual system. One switch would remove the sensors from the control circuit, a couple more would give you up/down on each side. I would need in-cab pressure gages to make sure I wasn't exceeding limits.
I bought a spare bag to carry, just in case. They seem quite reliable in heavy trucks, but it is also not the sort of thing the local Ford dealer would have on the shelf. Replacing a bag on the side of the road would be a bit more complicated than changing a tire, but not by that much. Autoflex told me I could drive on the bump stop as far as I could stand it :).
