Thread: Emergency air up instructions

Originally Posted by INter674

This thread raises several questions for me.

Is the LR EAS really that unreliable that it warrants bypassing ...how many owners have actually suffered failures and what is the most common cause?

I've seen some comments on this forum e.g. Paul (?) advising of problems with suspension and I'm aware of the LCA issues.

Air bags themselves appear very reliable so I'm guessing the compressor is the main issue causing failures?

I have had both front struts replaced,and one corner valve,thats over 8 yrs of owning the vehicle from new,and 85 000K's,which is low K's.

It is actually slowly losing height now,but not badly,and seems like an intermittent fault,such as a corner valve,but i am leaving it ATM,as its not bad.

These were slow leaks,not show stoppers,but they could have been if i had not got them sorted,as the air compresser would probably have worn itself out.

I think many systems probably have slow leaks but the owners do not realise.Our vehicle is not used a lot,as we have company vehicles,so it may sit for a couple of weeks,so its easy to see if it is sinking,where if its a daily driver,it probably will not be noticed.
Until the air compresser eventually fails.

We have done a heap of remote area trips,mainly Desert trips,and i have never really worried about the EAS system failing.I have a GAP tool,which can manually pump up the system,and then removing the EAS fuse will keep it up.This will help if the vehicle lowers to its bump stops due to a system fault such as a height sensor.But obviously this won't help if there is a large leak in the system,but the chances of that are probably remote.

The system does run at over 200PSI,so a very small leak will cause an issue.

There was someone on here who fitted the GEO kit,and then one of the fittings failed,or broke,or came undone,and caused an issue,on a remote area trip.

For me,i would prefer to leave the vehicle un modified,and take the Gap tool,there are other more important things to worry about while travelling.

Originally Posted by Bulletman

Could you find a OEM compressor and fit it to the spare system , that way it would have filtered air , and a pump that will build pressure a lot easier , altho I haven't looked to see if it could fit , but if you are going to the extent you speak of it could be an option. Prolly need to see if it can be wired to just be on off , instead of controlled by the ECU .

just a thought

Bulletman

I can't see any point. The ARB twin compressor is designed to pump up four large tyres from 18psi to 40psi or thereabouts. If used carefully, it could easily cope with filling a 9 litre air reservoir up to 150psi and keeping it topped up. You'd get away with a smaller reservoir but I don't know where you would fit it. There's a spot for a second EAS reservoir under the driver's side which is otherwise vacant. A new tank is about $200 but you'd find a used one for less than that.
The EAS does not go through an enormous volume of air once the EAS reservoir is filled. And unlike the Classic and P38 first gen system, it seems to leak little if any air through the valving system.
BTW, the EAS filtering system is through a desiccant canister that dries the air on input to the compressor and air tank. But it needs to be purged and so all expelled air is sent back through it. So even though you could connect a second EAS compressor (and integrated canister) into your back up system, the canister would not be purged by expelled air.

Scarry's comment that the system runs above 200psi had me scurrying for the manual. He's right of course. The nominal pressure is 16.8 bar (244psi).
I had the idea that the system actually ran lower than the first gen EAS. Therefore, my idea of using a primary tank set to 150psi is completely blown out of the water.
To inflate a tank to that pressure would need a much more powerful compressor than the ARB twin tank model. So Bulletman's suggestion of using an OEM one makes perfect sense. It could be easily set up to be operated manually and could be housed in the rear right storage area with a bit of clever engineering. If ever I get my hands on a used one that I could rebuild, I'll look into that.
In the meantime, fitting an emergency kit (and if fitted correctly will in no way fail or interfere with the EAS) and using a decent compressor to inflate each air bag would be my recommendation for remote off road travel.

Originally Posted by Bulletman

In my situation i had the compressor dryer blow its arse out .Attachment 160698 if you look in the picture you can see the base split , I checked my records and I installed this compressor new in feb 2017. So just over 3 years old , and this basically rendered my suspension system inoperative, as the compressor would start but run for a few secs and shut off with a code that basically said compressor faulty. Luckily for me it happened at home and I refitted my old spare compressor which I had fully rebuilt and all is good.

So i strip the new compressor to fit another dryer housing and uon removing the contents of the split dryer I see my bottom strainer is quiet badly rusted compared to the top strainer. I know I live in the tropics and we have high humidity in the wet season , but this really showed me why you need to have filtered air.
Attachment 160697

Another thing I learnt was that removing the old compressor isn't always straight forward, and I am not talking about just the top mounting bolt. I also found my quick release connections on the cap wouldn't release , so in the end I had to cut and join the main air line. I know people take spares for their compressors travelling remote , but unsure if they carry a spare dryer housing , plus some 6mm air line and joiners. , even carrying a spare compressor would have been an issue for me as I couldn't release the airline, even tho I have a lot of experience using these type of fittings.

All in all for me having a back up system is just piece of mind that if I need to I can get the car drivable till I can find a suitable place to start trouble shooting and look at repairing the system back to normal.

Bulletman

Did the rusting disc swell just enough to split the canister or weaken it just enough to crack under pressure?

Drown those quick connectors in WD40 prior to removing and like many connectors pushing the male side in while releasing the clasp makes a huge difference.

Originally Posted by PerthDisco

Did the rusting disc swell just enough to split the canister or weaken it just enough to crack under pressure?

Drown those quick connectors in WD40 prior to removing and like many connectors pushing the male side in while releasing the clasp makes a huge difference.

I don't think the rusting disc did swell at all , but seeing it was right where the split happened and it seems to be a very rare place to split from what I have read both on here and the UK site , then I can only assume its related.

I did soak them with heaps of WD40 , tried everything I could think of to release the fitting , needle nose pliers, circlip pliers , a veriety of different things, 1 came out easy , the other wouldn't budge, even after removing the compressor I couldn't release it after 24hrs soaked in WD40. I now have a coulpe of short lengths of hose and some 6mm quick connects that live in my glovebox , plus a couple of spares with my spare compressor.

Bulletman

Originally Posted by DieselLSE

Scarry's comment that the system runs above 200psi had me scurrying for the manual. He's right of course. The nominal pressure is 16.8 bar (244psi).
I had the idea that the system actually ran lower than the first gen EAS. Therefore, my idea of using a primary tank set to 150psi is completely blown out of the water.
To inflate a tank to that pressure would need a much more powerful compressor than the ARB twin tank model. So Bulletman's suggestion of using an OEM one makes perfect sense. It could be easily set up to be operated manually and could be housed in the rear right storage area with a bit of clever engineering. If ever I get my hands on a used one that I could rebuild, I'll look into that.
In the meantime, fitting an emergency kit (and if fitted correctly will in no way fail or interfere with the EAS) and using a decent compressor to inflate each air bag would be my recommendation for remote off road travel.

Murphy will always cause some kind of issue,even if you try your best,you will still have to plumb into the existing system somewhere.If the valves can be opened with the GAP tool,plumbed into one main line would suffice,that is if there was an EAS faut,and the compresser was shagged.That would cover most issues,apart from a huge leak somewhere.

Thinking out of the square,a bottle of nitrogen or CO2 would do the trick,with the correct regulater.Alloy bottles come pretty small these days,and they are not that heavy,but i have no idea what sort of volume would be needed.

Or a high pressure 12V compresser,but one that pumps the sort of pressure needed maybe pretty expensive.The OEM one is probably the go.Its actually pretty compact as well.

Preparation is also key,before travelling,i go over everything on the vehicle,including following all the EAS lines to make sure they are not chafing on something,same as coolant hoses,electrical wiring,fuel lines,etc,etc.

Over the years doing numerous trips,we have never had an issue with our vehicle.But have helped many others,and its often the modifications to the vehicles that has caused the issues,together with bad or no real vehicle preparation.

Originally Posted by PerthDisco

There was a GOE permanently installed version and a light solution to carry and fit in an emergency. I’ve got the latter version never used if need info on that.

The light solution if I recall correctly was to allow cutting into the existing lines and adding a shrader valve - not a bad basic emergency kit to have for something that hopefully you will never use.

More fun with air pumps and hoses

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