In a quest for better ride, I have decided to ditch the front coils and go with a Kelderman air bag front end. This kit replaces the coil springs with an air bag, this gives infinite adjustment for load/weight and a supposed better ride.
The first hurdle is how to get the entire front end of the truck off the ground on a gravel driveway….. I have 6200lbs on my front axle, not a crazy amount, but enough to drive the wheels of my jack through a piece of 3/4″ plywood…. Trying again with no wood works, but now the jackstand has sunk. Eventually with some grading of my gravel driveway, two jacks and some jackstands and the front end is ready for work.
Next up, lower one of the jacks so the spring bits can be removed. Springs and the lower coil buckets are taken off. I hit a surface little rust with some zinc rust paint.
The upper bracket needs three holes drilled to hold it in place. The steel is thick and hard. Not a fun upside down drilling project, but take your time and its ok. If your doing this be very careful, there is a large wiring harness right above the upper area your drilling on both sides. Don’t hit it when you break through!
The brackets simply bolt in place of the coil, and the airbag is bolted between them. One long bolt holds the air bag to the lower mount seen looking awkward above.
All together with the air lines ran. I simply ran them up next to the battery on either side. Its just manual fill for now. I ended up around 80psi. You simply inflate the bags until they are 7.5-8.5″ tall. I went with 8″ which ends up about 1.5″ tall overall than stock.
Front end of the truck is defiantly a little taller, the jury is still out on ride quality…. I need to play with pressures a bit. Overall no worse than before and 1.5″ taller.