Does anybody have any experience with the Kelderman Air Ride Suspension? I’ve had “Old Blue” for over 30 years and love my old truck, but I am afraid “Old Blue” is destined for the bone yard if I can’t smooth out the ride. My wife’s body is getting fragile and even the slightest pothole will put her in agony for days. She does all right in a passenger car, so I thought that if I could soften the ride down then I could save my truck. Of course, Kelderman claims their product will, but I am always skeptical of any manufactures claims.

 

No experiance with keldermans, but lots of experiance with air ride on trucks and the ride is not to be compared with spring or other suspensions. Looking at kellermans site they do not have onboard air or a leveling valve you have to manually adjust it for load and as an airide system on a truck adjusts automatically when you hit a bump these would not compare.

 

Like Starmilt stated above, most "manufactured" air ride systems are set to run at a certian air pressure to achieve ride hieght. (Kelderman was aimed towards show and go) You could use the same basic principle setting up an air ride system yourself but I would reccommend purchasing leveling valves from a big truck to keep your truck level but at a respectable air pressure. If your truck is 2wd setting up an air system is very easy to do but does require a little fabrication. To stay basic, for the rear, you could simply fab up a ladder bar that attaches to the front leaf spring hanger and goes to the rear axle. You would also need a trac bar fabbed from one side of your frame to the axle for side to side movement. (I have seen F-150 4x4 front axle trac bars modified and used for this.) As far as bags, you have many to chose from. (I used 2 Kenworth bags from thier 8 bag suspension setup. They are much lower profile but VERY durable.) To keep the ride smooth and level at all times, purchase a leveling valve that is used on the newer International 9200 semi trucks. (I don't recall the part # off hand.) These leveling valves have a built in dump valve that will allow you to dump your air from in the cab which is great for hooking up your trailers. For your source of air, you can do several things. You could get an electric compressor, belt driven compressor or do what I did and use an old ac compressor and convert it to build air pressure. Either way you want a pressure switch so the compressor automatically kicks on when your system drops below a certain pressure. Then you will need an air gauge and a toggle switch to opperate the dump valve. I will be more than happy to share any information I can give you to help you with this. We have done the same thing quite a few times for wreckers, trucks to haul our horse trailers and so on.

 

Is there any chance you have any pictures as I have been toying with this idea for awhile. Thanks.

 

I will sure do some digging and try and find some for you. I know I have a couple but not too many. Dad and I never really took to many pictures unfortunately. I have since learned the importance of pictures, pictures, pictures!!

 

I would definitely be interested in looking at what you did as well. I wonder if I can use the bags off of my exiting AirLift system. I am going to remove it anyway. All it did was make the ride even rougher. I did load the truck down with 3K of concrete block once to haul it back from Arizona to California, but that was an exception. I doubt that I would ever load it over 2K ever again. Would these bags be good enough to make an air ride system out of? And yes it is a two-wheel drive truck, so the rears would be all I would be interested in doing.

 

I would not use your AirLift bags as a stand alone bag for your system. Those bags are designed as "helpers" for your existing suspension. I would look for bags that are made to replace your existing setup. Still digging for pics.