Home made two stage rear suspension
 

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As the title states I'm building my own two stage rear... The plate pieces are some I had laying around and so is the pipe.. Expect to have less than 200$ in it all together... Plan on using airlift 2600's for bags. Weld in Dom bushings as pivots and the unit will face backwards as compared to the kelder man setup. It will also feature bags mounted outboard the frame allowing the spare tire to remain in place. I will however need to run an axle dump:( or so it currently looks.

If it goes the way I think it goes it will be very rigid. That might be OK for a drag racer but could cause problems on the street. but i am probably not understanding the workings[laugh]

Watching this one.

Me too!

Mknittle, hope this sketch explains it better. Obviously this is not to scale.

Attachment 51034

Interesting design. I can see why it is tied together now.
My dad built a scaled down copy of a Peterbilt air leaf for his 89' w 250. worked out pretty good.
At any rate keep us informed It is cool to see people building cool stuff:thumbsup:

I'm assuming 2-stage being the fact that the leaf springs will still be in place?

Yes, but basically eliminating the leaf springs function.. It more or less turns the leaf springs into links.

For air ride I like this set up best.

It can be replicated using the front portion of the stock springs.

looks like an air leaf setup paying homage to class 8 trucks.

Why waste your time with a leaf? Just do links if that's what your after... You would have to build some pretty serious mounts to go from the axle to the air bag to keep the truck useful to tow with

Yeaper.[laugh] Did I show you the one under my dad's w 205 flatbed when you were here?
This one is Airtrack. It has a link parallel to the spring(under the spring)

Well it is Petrebilt air leaf/Track design and it uses less (half )the leaf than the two stage, is lighter and articulates much better.[laugh] My reasoning.

Lighter, 50 lbs maybe. Articulate better? Please explain. And on our frames you run the risk of bending the frame by moving the rear point a good foot forward( why you don't tow heavy with 4 bar/ bag setups) if that was the way to go then kelderman would have done that. But they didn't because the the two stage supports your frame all the way back to the hitch. Plus you don't have to come up with some crazy bracket that can withstand the force that air leaf will generate (there's a reason Pete casts the bottom bag mount; it's far to complicated to weld it on production)

Just my opinion though