Help needed in Alice Springs

**Albert** · 29th July 2013, 10:16 PM

Thanks to all.
Neil at Suttens tried to help but couldnt.
My thanks to Mark for phoning at offering help and some bits.
Thanks for the PM Wally, I am at the G'day Mate c/van park and Andrew is right next door. I actualy met him 13yrs ago in Darwin and knew he was around here somwhere, but didnt know his name.
He was able to pull out some 130 main springs to sell to me. I feel much better now.
The problem I had was not so much with the air bags but with the military chassie. It was fine without being loaded up, but as the instructions say they do expand with shocks.
No problem normaly but the mod to the army rear end starts at the rear outrigger and comes close to the airbag. After the Heather & gunbarrel and half way up the Canning I noticed a wear mark in the bag and put a bit of plastic over it to stop the wear.
Big mistake. It worked like a bit of sandpaper and wore a hole.
Very happy with the performance and comfort of the bags and would put them on again..... but not on this chassie unless I can mod it to give more clearance.

**Albert** · 29th July 2013, 10:37 PM

Originally Posted by Cobber

Are you in a Land Rover, or a 4 Runner ... I don't really understand? I'm not really sure what you're after ...
If you're in a LR, as said above, Suttons is a good place to start.

If you need a heavy ute spring, I'm guessing you mean something like Toyota springs? Territory Wrecking (Nth Stuart Hwy (08) 8952 3060), or Alice Auto Wreckers (George Cresent (08) 8952 3736) might be able to sort you out

Sorry for the not so clear post. I am in a 85 County on a army chassie.
I did the Tanami track from Wolf Crater with a 4runner spring (same coil diameter) and another spring inside it. Using alternater pully and fan to keep it in position and inner coil in.
Territory Wreckers sent me to Smith St Landrovers, but had not heard of Alice Auto Wrecking untill now

I would have thought that one of them would have directed me there also.
I was hoping I would find people like me who have heaps of spring sets sitting around.

**Cobber** · 29th July 2013, 10:44 PM

It makes a lot more sense now - glad you managed to get some springs

**roverrescue** · 30th July 2013, 06:43 AM

Albert,
Out of interest - what airsprings did you have installed
What was the clearance when at rest that soon became insufficient

or more clearly, how much breathing space would you want to see around the bag and is there areas more critical than others - ie more space needed at the base where the bag rolls than at the top for example?

I am currently mounting rolling sleeve air springs on a trailer and the top mounting ring has about 15mm clearance to the upper lip of the bag - not sure whether to increase this a little?

Im glad you got out of trouble and found some springs!

Regards,
S

**steveG** · 30th July 2013, 06:46 AM

Glad you got it sorted Albert. Hope the rest of your trip is mechanical event free

Steve

**strangy** · 30th July 2013, 07:49 AM

Nice to meet you both, hope the rest of the trip goes well.
I like your setup and thanks for some of your tips too!

I figure Al may will post some details later, but I doubt folks contemplating air springs with a regular chassis, will have the same issue with the springs. It really is just an unfortunate (one side) side effect of the mil chassis's strength and seems possible to sort anyway with a bit of a fiddle/mod.

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