Onboard Air Systems (Updated w/ Pics)
My truck has two air compressors already, one for the airbags and the other for the Banks exhaust brakes. These work fine but I can't use them for airing up tires because they are two small for this f...
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Have some more pics to show. This time I am working on the wiring harness. There are three sets of wires that need to be run. The first being the wires to power the compressor itself. This is some really thick wire, probably about the thickness of welding cables. I then ran power for the pressure cutoff switch (fills 4 gallon tank to 140psi) and the last is the blow-off valve. While doing this work, I tried to think ahead to make sure I wasn't repeating myself. In this case, I laid out all of the wiring runs I needed and then bundled it all together with zip ties. That way when I fished it through the engine bay and under carriage, I only had to do it once. One of those few times that I made things easier for myself.
The next step was crimping all of the connectors and tidying everything up. The previous owner of the truck had run wiring for the Airbags and Exhaust Brake and he did a really lousy job of it. Wires all over the place that look like a jumble all connected to the battery. I made it a point that I wasn't going to repeat his mess. For the most part, I think I accomplished that and I am pretty happy with the results. I will likely start cleaning up all of his mess as well now that I'm this far into it.
For those wondering, the compressor is rated to pull just under 80 amps at 12v under full load at a continuous duty cycle. This is why the cables have to be so thick. It is connected through an 80 amp circuit breaker and a 12v relay so the power can be switched on from the cab.
Once all hooked up, I was able to power it up. I was a bit surprised that it actually worked the first time and worked correctly (pressure switch and blow off valve worked as expected). I sort of expected I would have missed something but so far all is good.
I do have a leak in the tank where the pressure switch is used to also tie into the mounting bracket back to the frame (last picture of my previous post). This isn't ideal of course but necessary to keep the tank from stating a resonance vibration while the truck was moving. I will need to come up with a fitting to give me more threads while still being able to clamp down on this bracket.
Overall, I am pretty happy with this project. It will be fantastic to have the ability to air up and air down my tires on my terms (and no longer be subject to lousy gas station compressors).
The next step was crimping all of the connectors and tidying everything up. The previous owner of the truck had run wiring for the Airbags and Exhaust Brake and he did a really lousy job of it. Wires all over the place that look like a jumble all connected to the battery. I made it a point that I wasn't going to repeat his mess. For the most part, I think I accomplished that and I am pretty happy with the results. I will likely start cleaning up all of his mess as well now that I'm this far into it.
For those wondering, the compressor is rated to pull just under 80 amps at 12v under full load at a continuous duty cycle. This is why the cables have to be so thick. It is connected through an 80 amp circuit breaker and a 12v relay so the power can be switched on from the cab.
Once all hooked up, I was able to power it up. I was a bit surprised that it actually worked the first time and worked correctly (pressure switch and blow off valve worked as expected). I sort of expected I would have missed something but so far all is good.
I do have a leak in the tank where the pressure switch is used to also tie into the mounting bracket back to the frame (last picture of my previous post). This isn't ideal of course but necessary to keep the tank from stating a resonance vibration while the truck was moving. I will need to come up with a fitting to give me more threads while still being able to clamp down on this bracket.
Overall, I am pretty happy with this project. It will be fantastic to have the ability to air up and air down my tires on my terms (and no longer be subject to lousy gas station compressors).
