Grande Airbag Retaining after a Lift

[craigm]

Just be careful about Auto-craft's method of retaining the air bags if they do it part of their suspension upgrade. One member on here has had their's welded in place making it extremely hard work to replace should an airbag failure occur...

[awd2.0t]

If I was to go with Auto-craft -(ATS Geelong) kit do you still need the spacers?
Is there anything else I should be mindful of with this kit?
ATS have noted you still retain the high/low function, but lose the soft-hard settings as the factory/tems shocks will be replaced. Anything else I should be considering here before handing over hard earned??

The reason for replacing the shocks is one or the rears is starting to weep and will need to be replaced shortly.

Car is a 2009 D4D Grande.

Cheers

Troy,
Mine are now Airbagman ones after the driver's side blew up during a trip to Robe.

[Troy1]

Andrew,

Are your airbags standard on the extended after market ones?

Cheers

Troy

[craigm]

Nice work Andrew... I also see from helping out macaroon1 that the latest version of the OA611 airbags include a retaining bolt for the top of the airbag.

I then went for a test drive and put ramps on the rear passenger's side


This is the passenger's side being compressed


This is the driver's side extended


So far so good with no difference with the ride.

After some back and forth correcting the spacers, they are now installed on the Prado.
This is what it looks like


This is a pic of the spacer installed on the driver's side prior to pressurising the airbag.


This is when the suspension is set to LOW


NORMAL


HIGH

[Peterpilot]

Sounds good Andrew, put me on the list for a set. I can also test them with the standard Toyota airbags since I haven't upgraded them yet.

Hi Peter,It is only a few degrees and is between 30-40mm high. As the 2nd spacer couldn't fit into the hole, I pulled the pin on inflating the airbag and put everything back to standard. It then started raining. the picture shows the airbag uninflated. Once I get both spacers in, I'll put one wheel on ramps to simulate full articulation.The grub screw will ensure that the spacer will not rotate. I have not added the split pin yet until I have tested out how the new spacer will sit. The split pin will be orientated such that it is 90deg to the key in the seat so the spacer will be retained along with the airbag.

[Peterpilot]

The angle correction looks great Andrew! At what angle is the spacer set at and how big is the spacer? How does the airbag sit with that angle at full compression? Also, is it the grub screw that ensures that the spacer sits in the correct position in relation to the airbag angle and doesn't rotate, or is the locating pin keyed to match the airbag seat? Thanks.

Finally got to put the Mk2 spacers in today.


It has corrected the angle nicely. Unfortunately, I couldn't add the 2nd spacer in as it was a bit too big to fit into the airbag seat. It will need to go back in the lathe to take 0.1mm off. So I removed the spacer as I wasn't going to run only one side.

I have received the prototype Mk2 spacers a couple of weeks ago but have not had a chance (rain, no daylight, narrow garage) to put it on. Yesterday, I was swapping tyres and took photos of the angle of the airbags at my normal ride height. The second picture is of the Mk2 airbag spacers with the angle nearly matching that of the airbag. Sorry, couldn't take a more wide angle shot. Only had the phone camera at the time.

[Troy1]

Yeah ok no worries. Thanks for the reply. Only problem is in NSW I would have to get 3" engineered. I wonder how that set up would go. Any thoughts?

Cheers

Troy

I can't see why not. But you'll have to consider other parts of the suspension like the swaybar links, extended brake lines, maybe more angle on the spacer, and obviously longer shocks.

I'm still waiting on the 1st set of spacers.

[Troy1]

AMTS,

like the idea of your spacers, do you think that with the spacer and the longer airbag man airbag (designed for 2" lift) you would be able to fit a 3" lift?

Any thoughts you have would be appreciated.

Thanks

Troy