Air Ride Install - '69 Chevrolet SWB Stepside

[tcb-1]

felt a bit better today, so I was able to finalize the rear and front end bag installs.

the rear was fairly straight forward. I picked up a few 90 degree swivels and a bottle of Loctite and went to town. also found a semi-truck air brake company here in KC that stocks 3/8 DOT tubing for .45 cents a foot, so I picked up 50' and started plumbing.

this photo shows the fitting and mounting hardware. like I said in a previous post, drilling a 1-1/16" diameter hole through .75" of metal was not fun, and is as close to having a tooth pulled as you can get.......that's without anesthetic.



the mounted bag on the trailing arm. OMG Chris, I have a few spots on the frame that wasn't coated!



the rear end done, I moved to the forward end of the stern.......

I drilled a 1" diameter hole in the upper spring perch to allow for the bag's air tubing to exit. on a suggestion by lolife99 (Keith), I wrapped the air tube with a heavy wall 3/8" rubber hose where it exited the spring perch hole....... fuzzy pic of the hole:



here's the bag mounted in the upper plate and the lower drop in cup. this pic also shows the 1/2" npt to 3/8" npt reducer, and the 3/8" to 3/8" tube 90 degree swivel. yeah, I know I got a bit crazy with the loctite.......



here's the finished product. I'm going to detail this area a bit before calling it quits. but it looks good in the dark though . this shows the Monroe Gas-Matic pn#33033 shock installed, the air tube exiting through the spring perch and the bag mounting. Geez, looks like I need to replace the upper control arm grease zerk....... oh well, another day.



then it was time to drop the truck to the concrete. here's the front end aired out bags. I think I'm down 1.5" from my previous static drop. this is about where I wanted it for now. next year will bring cupped lca's, but right now I'm good........



last pic of the night. here are the late 80's GM truck center caps I picked up to mount on these 17" FJ Cruiser rims. don't know if I like the rims naked or with a bit of chrome. then again, I'm thinking I may sell these rims all together and go strick factory 6.5" wides with '54 caps...... maybe with some wide whites. God, I'm fickle.......



now come the raised bed floor project, and the air ride equipment mounting. that's for another day, my friends. I'm hitting the rack.