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Towing 4500 Pound Car & Trailer - Airlift 1000

9K views 26 replies 10 participants last post by  brandonjansen 
#1 ·
Last night I hooked on to my dad's flat deck car trailer and loaded his car up (1970 Dodge Dart Prostreet Car) to bring it over to my Uncle's shop so we could do some suspension work on it. I'm estimating the overall weight to be around 4500 pounds. That's probably a little on the high side though.

This was the first real comparison I've had for the Airlift 1000 bags on my truck towing equal weight and loading conditions before and after. They definitely kept the truck nice and level at 35 psi. It rides a lot nicer as well. Rather than bouncing around everywhere it's a lot more firm and stable. Overall I'm really happy with them. At $88 for the bags you can't really go wrong. It's definitely nice having the onboard WirelessOne compressor to be able to pump up and deflate the bags in no time and to play around with the PSI a bit to see where it feels good.

Here are a few pictures of the set up last night:





Before Airlift 1000's (November 2012):



As you can see I could definitely use a bit more of a drop on my receiver now that my truck is higher. I'm probably just going to wait until I lift it before I bother spending the money on a new receiver. That way I only have to do it once and it will be right. I don't tow enough to justify spending the money on it now.

If you have any questions regarding the truck, towing, airlifts, or car feel free to ask them. I'll try to answer the best I can.
 
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#2 ·
damn that is sweet! Looks great and those air bags are awesome. Thanks for the pics
 
#4 ·
When I talked to Airlift they said I would need taller bags when I do the 6" lift (4" on the back). So that would be one option. Another thing I'm thinking would probably work is to build a spacer to go above my current bags. The kit came with a 3/4" plastic spacer that goes on top of the bag at stock height. So essentially I could just make one that's a 4 3/4" long and put that on top instead :4-dontknow:

I've also heard that TLC is working on making brackets and hardware for 6" lift applications. If that's the case I might just switch over to TLC (depending on price as well) when the time comes.
 
#5 ·
Sweet truck. Your did has a great car there too. Excellent post on the airlifts.
 
#6 ·
Thanks h2oman! Ya I definitely love the car too. He's had it since before I was born so I've grown up working on it doing everything from engines, to trannys, to suspension and tubbing it out. It's definitely been a great car to learn on. Pretty fun to drive around 720 HP on the street too ;)
 
#9 ·
I have an adjustable drop hitch. It was more money up front, but is a one time purchase. Now it can move from truck 2 truck or different height trailers can be towed on the fly.
 
#12 ·
Yes I did. I will start with saying I'm very mechanically inclined.... so for me the install was super easy. But even if you aren't, just installing the bags isn't hard at all.

I chose to take my rear springs right out to install the bags. It is possible to deflate the air out of them completely and squish them into the coil though. Just remember to connect your airline to the top first and fish it through the frame where the spring sits otherwise you won't be able to get at the connector. From there you can just run your lines along the frame and down to the hitch. You can either T the lines together so they are running the same pressure all the time or keep them separate to have the bags at different pressure if needed. If you're only going to be using them for towing I'd recommend T-ing them together. If you plan on hauling heavy loads in the bed that might be unbalanced I'd keep them separate. After that you can mount the filler valve(s) in the hole(s) on the hitch near where the chains attach.

My install was a little more complicated than that as I hooked them up to the Airlift WirelessOne compressor as well... so my lines run differently and into a manifold etc. The total install probably took me about 4 hours but the majority of that was mounting my compressor, relays, manifold, wiring, etc. Doing just the bags themselves is probably about an hour tops.
 
#14 ·
Even if you're only moderately mechanically inclined you shouldn't have a problem just installing the bags. As I said, it's fairly simple and straight forward. Plus just doing the bags should only take you an hour, 2 hours max! So I'm sure you can fit that in your schedule somewhere ;) :smiley_thumbs_up:
 
#15 ·
Make sure you get the wheels off the ground. Otherwise its a pain. But if a retard like me can do it...
 
#17 ·
That looks pretty good. Different than the other adjustable drop receivers I've seen. I don't think it will have enough drop for me once I lift the truck though. The one I have now is 2 3/4" drop I believe and I already need more (probably a 3 1/2" or so). Then with the 6" lift lifting the back another 4" I would need about 7-7 1/2" drop.
 
#18 ·
I think the one I have gives me up to 10 inches of drop. I would need to check for sure. It is however super heavy and super strong. I would not want to rear end that hitch in a car.
 
#19 ·
#20 ·
That is a very nice look on your truck. I bought the air lift 1000 bags and was told they would work with the rough country 2 1/2 level lift kit. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work. I have contacted some of the dealers and the manufacturer. They say it will work but nobody can tell me how... Any ideas as the lift in the back has a solid cover instead of the top of the coil being open like it once was? Thanks
 
#21 ·
I'm assuming you're talking about the kit that came with the 1.75" rear coil spacer as well? Does that spacer have a solid plate above the coil? It's not open to above? I'm running the Top Gun Customz 0.75" coil spacers and mine are open (link below with some pictures).

http://www.topguncustomz.com/p-6526...am-1500-4x4-rear-steel-coil-lift-spacers.aspx

The coil spacer should not change anything to stop you from running the bags other than you possibly not being able to run the airline through it if it has a solid plate rather than a hole (which is what I'm assuming Rough Country as done). You could probably just drill a larger hole in the plate on your spacer to allow the airline to run through it.
 
#23 ·
I'm a little confused by your post.... the Airlift bags really have nothing to do with my wheel offset. Typically rubbing issues with larger tires and more negative offset wheels are always on the front because they turn. The back is never an issue. Are you maybe meaning does my truck squat enough in the back to hit the tires?? Because if so, that's a definite no. It does not get that low at all. Especially with air in the bags.
 
#25 ·
I am perfectly OK with that look until I can afford the new tires without giving my wife a stroke! That looks great, I absolutely love all the stuff you've done with your truck man.
Yes, leveled is definitely better than stock. Even with the small wheels and tires. And it only goes up from there.... literally ;)

Thanks! It's definitely come a long ways in the past 10 months. I'm definitely happy with it.
 
#26 · (Edited)
Update:

Since I lifted the truck I had a large gap in the new springs because of the increased length. I thought about making my own spacers but did a quick google search and found the Airlift Lock N Lift spacers. I emailed Airlift and they told me they weren't intended to work for this application (they were very unhelpful) but I figured I could make them work. Ordered these spacers from Andrew (at Bully's Performance) a couple weeks ago and got them installed over the weekend. Had to do a little bit of modding to make them work the way I intended them too (cut the lock tabs off the top and bottom spacer) and then I had to drill out the center hole for the bag to go up into properly. Other than that they work great, exactly as I wanted them too.

I got the kit for a 6" lift (even though RCX only lifts the back 4.5") but I did end up using all 6" of the spacers. It just fit better IMO and will keep everything nice and tight.

The one issue I ran into was my airline length... when I first installed the kit I wasn't intending to put them through a 6" spacer before the bag so it was a little challenging getting them hooked up with very little play room.

6" Lift N Lock Spacers



 
#27 ·
Here's a picture towing my dad's car a couple weeks ago. I hadn't bought a big enough drop hitch yet and I wasn't running any air in the bags so it was squatting quite a bit and the trailer was fairly tilted. But it worked fine for the 10 minute drive home from the track.

 
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