Fitting Polyair (Airlift) Airbags to a 100 Series

I recently fitted a set of Airlift 1000 Series helper airbags to my ’98 HZJ105 Toyota Landcruiser. They were much cheaper ($200 vs $1000+) than a pure rear airbag solution, and easy to fit. At 5psi they have little effect, but with up to 40psi they can handle 2200kg additional load on the rear as per the spreadsheet I worked out earlier. I doubt my shocks would handle that sort of load effectively.

I bought the kit from www.truckspring.com as they worked out to Au$200 delivered to my door vs Au$350+ to buy them locally. I know, support the local guy, but not at that markup. The locally supplied Polyair bags are just a rebadged Airlift kit from what I have seen and comments on various discussion boards reflect this.

The part number for a 2″ Lifted 100 Series Landcruiser is 61730
The part number for a stock GU Nissan Patrol is 61724

Installation in the cruiser was easy:

Kit is fairly comprehensive. The only problem was the hose is not long enough to run two hoses to the front of the car, and it’s a hard to match hose (but not impossible). I wanted my valves under the bonnet near the compressor, but such was not to be.

I dropped the wheels off and undid the bottom shock mounts: I bit of persuasion the got the springs out, it is easier with a second person to push down on the axle whilst the other pulls the springs. Then insert airbag and spacer.

Back in place. Run the lines with some slack up the top as the bag / spacer may move inside the spring and you wouldn’t want to pull the lines out of the nipple. At full droop a gap is normal

I ran my airlines into the T piece supplied and onto a common valve on the bumper. I figure at these low pressures and volumes, doubling the volume will help in getting a consistent pressure. Most gauges aren’t accurate down to 5PSI and the smaller the volume, the harder it is to adjust. I don’t have huge loads on one side only to need the separate side to side adjustment.  The airlines are too small to work as the Landrover system does offroad, allowing air from side to side. It would happen, but too slowly to be useful in improving articulation.

So far they are working well. Fully laden I used to bottom out my rear springs on contours etc, now it’s not a problem, I just set them to 20psi. Most (90%) of the time they are only at the minimum 5psi giving a pleasant ride.

A friend did blow some recently on dirt roads, but they were old. I know they have a finite life, which I heard once as “about the same as your tyres”. I’ll see how they go, but I imagine dirt roads are hard on them for abrasion against the spring.