1) What are the pros and cons of each one, which one do you think is better?
2) Is auto leveling worth getting?

 

for the Rear ? air bag's hand;s down will be the best bet

 

My neighbor put a yard of gravel (1.4tons) in the bed of his truck.

He found out he had Air shocks the hard way.

Just a we bit of over head welding.

 

Air shocks are adjustable for the firmness of the ride.

Air bags adjust the carrying load.

Sent from my rooted Velocity Ally

 

Air bags can adjust the firmness of the ride as well on top of the ability to carry a load. An increase in air pressure will give a firmer ride and a decrease will give a softer ride. They get my vote. I've never heard of a single disadvantage to having them.

 

Airbags are the best investment Ive made. They take a lot of the shock out of the ride. You still feel bumps but sharpness is taken out. They also work great for heavy loads. I really overloaded mine last weekend and it still sat level with the bags. I had a truck with air shocks and I noticed no difference over factory with them.

 

Ok, auto leveled air bags it is! I was thinking of putting them in the front as well as the back, to lift it since its impossible to put any other kind of lift on these 2wd trucks in the front. Thank you for the responses

 

Seems like you made a great decision with the air bags. The biggest problem with an air shock is the stress they put on the shock hanger. Overloaded air shocks have a tendency to bend or break the factory hangers.

Let me know if you have any questions regarding air bags or the different types of controllers available. I would be happy to help.

 

to lift a 2wd you just put coil spacers

 

Note there are two styles of air bag kits -- with fairly different designs.

My Kelderman's sit in place of the OEM rear spring hangers (between each rear spring bushing and the frame). They are designed to soften the ride.

The Air Lift Company units referenced earlier in this thread appear to mount in the middle of the leaf spring pack and are designed to increase the load capacity of the the truck. I expect they would do nothing to soften the ride.

 

you could always remove leaves and run your air bag as the load carrier and leaves as the axel locator

 

you are right they will do nothing to make it ride softer, just make it set level when loaded.

i have them because if i had a big enough spring pack to hold my camper there's no way my wife would ever ride in the truck, and my internal orgains wouldn,t like it ether.



Dar

 

James1, you are correct. The intent of the air bag is not to soften the ride, at least when there is no additional load present. When you have such a heavy load that you would ride on the overload spring, then air bags may soften the ride by providing enough additional force to keep the truck off of the overload spring. Worst than being on the overload would be the sweet spot right before you need it and the truck slaps it on larger bumps.

 

So what is the ride like after you install them? Softer, harder or about the same?

 

The best thing to do is remove the overload springs and just increase the air in the bags when needed . I see a better ride pulling my fiver, I still hit bumps that I can tell would be a lot worse with out the bags . My friends 06 has the short box and an 8' sand spreader. With his helpers the truck would sit low in the *** when loaded and he hated the over loads because when the sand was almost gone the truck would be hitting the over load springs and gave a choppy ride. Because of me using the bags and liking them he removed his helper spring and added air bags with the under hood compressor . This solved all his ride issues. when The hopper is full he just adds air as heeded to level his truck and the truck he says handles better . The sand spreader does look king a funny sticking so far out of his box.

I have found I still feel a bump on the road but the air bags take most of the hard jar out of the bump. one of the best thing I installed for towing . later Don T