cantilevered air bags?

I have firestone airbags with daystar cradles on my 3rd gen. I don't tow a ton but I do regularly install and remove a shell with a rooftop tent so I love having the air bags. My complaint is the tiny amount of travel they have especially the up travel.

I've been seriously considering moving the airbags up and behind the axle and using a cantilever to increase the travel of the airbags. Has anyone see something like this on a Tacoma?

Two problems I see are,

• The exhaust is in the way but could be moved
• The cantilever would be inside the frame making the point where they attack to the axle slightly more inboard, slightly increasing body roll.

 

Interesting idea. Here is a cantilever coilover setup for a 4runner.

https://wicked-creations.com/wc-2003-current-toyota-4runner-cantilever-kit/

One thing that youd need to be careful with is the axle path on a leaf sprung vehicle isnt as obvious as a linked vehicle. That may make for some odd suspension performance.

This seems like a cool Send Cut Send project.

 

This is basically what I had in mind (minus the coil over and adding the air bag). Instead of the lever being outside the frame, it would be inside to avoid running into the stock shock location. For the bearing, I'm strongly considering using Tacoma wheel bearings. I'm sure I could find something cheaper, but future replacements would be much easier this way.

I'm not worried about the axle path because of the links like the ones in this gif.

 

^Is your spare already relocated? On my truck the spare is already butt up against the shackle hanger, so no room for any mechanism inboard of the frame.

 

We ended up plating the frame (boxed too) and notched the frame up a little for our air bags to breathe a little bit better for up-travel. So far its been working great while wheeling

I've entertained the cantilever system as well but opted for just notching and making more room for the bags (simpler) and less weight

 

Your picture isnt showing up for me, not sure if others can see it.

 

For a coil over, you're right about the lack of space but for an airbag, there should be enough. Here is a quick drawing that is not to scale. I was just trying to jot down an idea I had. Note that the square bar that crosses, has a bend in it that would be needed to clear the tire.

 

I can't see your picture

 

Any idea what you could use for the upper mounting location for the air bag? I think youd be up into the bed at that point.

 

I'm not sure yet. I have a 3d scanner so I'm going to take some scans later today or tomorrow and go from there.

 

Sweet, I need to get one of those. Seems like it would help designing parts rather than just wingin it.

 

Airbags are fatter than coilovers. Will the airbags be horizontal? I think you'd have to cut off the factory X-brace (and the spare tire hoist) to fit it. The spare takes up a lot of room - the rear axle diff housing can scuff the tire at full jounce.

The GIF you posted has the coilover on a bellcrank i.e. it has to be a triangle, not just a lever like an anti-rock sway bar arm.

 

It's soooo close. I still think it's going to work without cutting anything but we'll see. The images below are fully extended with a 2:1 ratio. Currently my lever is intersecting the cross brace that holds the spare tire. I'll keep messing with it and if anyone has any ideas, please pass them my way.

 

One thing to keep in mind is you probably want to figure out a bumpstop setup that will be independent of the cantilever.

 

My initial thought was going back to stock-like bumps. I doubt I'm going to spend $1k on hydraulic bumps.

 

I didn’t mean hydro bumps… just I wouldn’t send the force from a bottom out through the cantilever.

 

Oh right yeah I see what you mean.

 

plenty of space!!!! lever ratio is currently about 1.9:1. Pictures are all drivers side. I'll likely need a cross brace between each side of the frame to keep it from twisting the frame too much. someone on pirate 4x4 used dana 60 hub so they could use a 35 spline torsion sway bar between each side of the lever. https://www.pirate4x4.com/threads/cantilevered-suspension-design-and-build-threads.1814593/

• lever is green
• bag is orange
• bag mount is blue

picture 1 -- inside looking out with lever at full droop



picture 2 -- outside looking in. bracket needs more work. I want to make it bolt on not weld on.


picture 3 -- showing arm at full compression

 

Should be fixed now

It aint no Cantilever, but this setup notching the frame has been working great so far for additional up-travel

 

That seems a lot easier than what I'm trying to do but I don't know if I can bring myself to cut my frame. I only have 50k miles on it. I have D44 hubs, so I'm going to move forward with this.