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OK enough at the intro section. Here is my pride and joy. It was my grandfathers and is in amazing original condition, or it was
, now it is in amazing custom condition
. Funny thing is Grandpa actually thinks its cool, He was quite the hotrodder in the day and can appreciate custom, which is cool for a man his age. Enough of the talk, lets get everyone caught up on my build.
The Merc in stock form and my other project (Yes that is a Pontiac 6000 LE) sitting way to high.
My air management system is very unique, I am a mechanical engineer and work as a manufacturing engineer. We scrap a lot of expense valve banks and fittings every time an old machine gets recycled. I had an idea to use what we call PO checks, (pilot operated check valves), they are very reliable and we actually use them for safety applications so if air is removed from the retract of a heavy tool the cylinder will not drift. Sounds perfect for holding air in an air bag. When you want to to deflate you just supply a pilot air signal to reverse the check valve. I scavenged 4 of the best I could find and gathered up some parts from old valve banks that would control the air to the PO checks. Then I scored some old R134 tanks that quickly became my 8 gallons of air tanks. Like I said in my intro, UNIQUE! Oh yeah the valve bank was 24VDC, so I bought a voltage doubler off ebay for like 10 bucks, still have to order a spare, oops.
Collecting junk yard parts to avoid cuttin up the nice original bits.
More goodies!
Using the Factory rear bags presented a small difficulty in that they have their solenoids directly fitted into the air bag and are fed by a measly 3/32 inch air line from the weak little compressor, none of that will do. The solution was to remove the solenoid and replace it with a bung/adapter that had a standard 3/8 NPT thread in it. Shown here in Solidworks. Spun them up out of aluminum and installed new O-Rings.
Believe it or not the factory air springs swapped directly in place of the factory coil springs. I hooked up the compressor and voila the back of my car now had variable elevation capabilities! Only unbolted the shocks.
On to the front which was much, much more work, no there is no kit I could find to do this. Springs removed for a test of the travel
Modifying LCA's
More to come...
, now it is in amazing custom condition. Funny thing is Grandpa actually thinks its cool, He was quite the hotrodder in the day and can appreciate custom, which is cool for a man his age. Enough of the talk, lets get everyone caught up on my build.The Merc in stock form and my other project (Yes that is a Pontiac 6000 LE) sitting way to high.
My air management system is very unique, I am a mechanical engineer and work as a manufacturing engineer. We scrap a lot of expense valve banks and fittings every time an old machine gets recycled. I had an idea to use what we call PO checks, (pilot operated check valves), they are very reliable and we actually use them for safety applications so if air is removed from the retract of a heavy tool the cylinder will not drift. Sounds perfect for holding air in an air bag. When you want to to deflate you just supply a pilot air signal to reverse the check valve. I scavenged 4 of the best I could find and gathered up some parts from old valve banks that would control the air to the PO checks. Then I scored some old R134 tanks that quickly became my 8 gallons of air tanks. Like I said in my intro, UNIQUE! Oh yeah the valve bank was 24VDC, so I bought a voltage doubler off ebay for like 10 bucks, still have to order a spare, oops.
Collecting junk yard parts to avoid cuttin up the nice original bits.
More goodies!
Using the Factory rear bags presented a small difficulty in that they have their solenoids directly fitted into the air bag and are fed by a measly 3/32 inch air line from the weak little compressor, none of that will do. The solution was to remove the solenoid and replace it with a bung/adapter that had a standard 3/8 NPT thread in it. Shown here in Solidworks. Spun them up out of aluminum and installed new O-Rings.
Believe it or not the factory air springs swapped directly in place of the factory coil springs. I hooked up the compressor and voila the back of my car now had variable elevation capabilities! Only unbolted the shocks.
On to the front which was much, much more work, no there is no kit I could find to do this. Springs removed for a test of the travel
Modifying LCA's
More to come...
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