Thread: Tennis Ball Air Bags

Oh that sounds like a bit of rubbish to me...you can bust a tennis ball by just standing on it. They would not, even if you used a few of them, stand up to the load or the pounding on a corrugated road. Sound like someones having a lend...

Angus

Actually does work as a stop gap, well. When you fit quite a few tennis balls in there the load is spread between them and they last for a while.
During the 1992 Oz safari, we had the rear coils fail in the rangie, so I cut up some cast off motorcycle tyres into 4" lengths, and stuffed them into the springs. They got us to the finish in Darwin, and then all the way back to Perth after. Saved us from a DNF as the springs had got so soft that the axle housing had begun to crack from belting the bump stops too often.


JC

same thing works if you have a spare inner tube, a cotton (silk works better) pillow case and a burlap sack. pillowcase into the sack, tube into the lot, stuff into the spring and inflate...

Fencing wire and an appropriate length of mulga or gidgee and some fencing wire works a treat. Wire one end of the stick to the chassis and the other to the axle and you have a spring.

One of those mesh bags Oranges come in.
Fill with tennis balls and insert into spring.
Elcheapo polyair!

This has been done since the introduction of the Range Rover in the early '70s. Towing horsefloats and caravans caused excessive bucking (pitching and yawing) so the fix was to fill the rear coils. It worked well, making the vehicle more stable This was before all the aftermarket coils and Polyairs. The Polyair developed from a rubber air bag within a light coil and they were used a lot on leaf sprung vehicles as an additional load carrying spring - still have a pair on my LR trailer.
Bob

I have not had a problem with my poly airs

I have run them between 2psi (off road no load) and 25psi (fully loaded n an outback adventure)

They were fitted by the previous owner

I have done 80k which includes the gulf and the simpson with no problems

How many tennis are required, I always have one or two for the od game of cricket but I'm guessing I would need a few more

I have heard of this theory

Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm

Fencing wire and an appropriate length of mulga or gidgee and some fencing wire works a treat. Wire one end of the stick to the chassis and the other to the axle and you have a spring.

much easier to do it on a leafer tho, cut it to size, wedge it over the axle and between the spring hangers and wire it to the existing spring or the swing mounts...

and if you get just the right size it will sit nicely inside the 2 ubolts that hold the axle/spring/spring plate together.

Dont ask why I know that.