air spring DIY

[bdriven]

Question for Gofast guy,
Where did you get your wheel spacers and lift kit?
Thanks!!

[GOFAST GUY]

The lift kit I got from Fluid Motor Union in the states. Great guys to deal with and it fit like it should right out of the box. And the spacers, surprisingly enough came off my E36 M3. I had to get the centers cut a bit deeper (about 1/8") so they would lie flat on the hub but the center hole was the same size and then I just bought the right length/strength bolts. I also had to drill the bolt holes bigger as well as I recall. I'll take pics before I install the springs.

[rogerkiu]

Originally Posted by GOFAST GUY

I'm actually pulling all of it out so all I'll have in the rear will be springs instead of having the air bags, compressor, lines, self levelers.... and I'm selling it all as a pack if anyone wants to buy it. I've got plans to pull my battery and electronics up into the vehicle instead of having them under the spare tire and compressor and then run my exhaust out the center of my rear bumper where the hitch currently is. I'll take progress pics.

If you do that, you will spend lot of money and you will be living with warning signal for the rest of your life, not only the warning of 'self leveling susp. inact', but also some other electronics failure warning. Eventaully, you will mess up the whole electronic system of your car and zero resale value. Think it again before you do it.

[GOFAST GUY]

There won't be that much that is going to chance really. H&R sells the rear spring kits with load leveler arms to trick the computer so you don't get that error message coming up on your dash. As for the location of the computers and battery; if everything works out, they will live about 8" higher into the vehicle then they did before and the moving the exhaust to the middle in just custom piping. My X5 is going to be 10yrs old in January and we all know our toys are not profittable investments and we need to enjoy them. Working on my vehicles keeps me focused on projects which is a tremendous source of stress release for me.

[rogerkiu]

Originally Posted by GOFAST GUY

There won't be that much that is going to chance really. H&R sells the rear spring kits with load leveler arms to trick the computer so you don't get that error message coming up on your dash. As for the location of the computers and battery; if everything works out, they will live about 8" higher into the vehicle then they did before and the moving the exhaust to the middle in just custom piping. My X5 is going to be 10yrs old in January and we all know our toys are not profittable investments and we need to enjoy them. Working on my vehicles keeps me focused on projects which is a tremendous source of stress release for me.

Understood! Have fun!

[AZX54.4]

Now, for almost an entire week my rear suspension has not deflated and bottomed out when left parked... Has anyone else had an experience where the air struts have been inconsistant with loosing air? Is it just sometimes the air bags are in a position that makes them leak and other times not?

[AZX54.4]

One other question to those that have done this job. How did you deflate the system and did you take the fuse out. Did you just loosen the banjo screw like it says in the diy for letting any air out of the system? or was there more to it?

[rogerkiu]

Fuse must be taken out before doing anything on air suspension. My 4.8is also acts like what you said, sometimes the right front drops around 10-15mm, sometimes it holds well. No idea why it acts like this, but I believe it is caused by minor leakage of the air bag, so I am planning to replace both fronts this weekend. Also I am planning to replace both rears sometime later, although they are not leaking, 8 year old vehicle, I guess the time is coming soon.

[sockethead]

Our x5 did the same thing before we replaced the air bags. They all went bad within a couple weeks of each other.

To get the air out of the fromt ones, the air will just bleed off as you lossen the air line. The rears, I just yanked the air line off after removing the clip that held it on... your not going to have any weight on the air bag by the time you get to this step.

[AZX54.4]

I assumed that the bags are just leaking. The fronts behaved like this when they where failing. Some days they would stay inflated and other days they would loose all air pressure.

Sockethead: did you remove the fuse when you did the rears? I don't understand what difference it would make to remove the fuse but to be precautionary.