Tank leak - Accuair

[Psmity]

Guys.

I have a quick question. Just completed my air ride install and I have found some leaks on the tank. Soapy water found them no problem so they are quite big leaks. Overnight the van drops to the ground when I come out in the morning. Would a leaking tank cause this? I thought the accuair manifold would keep pressure in the bags despite the tank having no pressure? Or I'm I misunderstanding how the manifold works as I thought it would hold pressure between the manifold to the bags?

Thanks
Paul

[Alex@BagRiders]

Hey Paul! The VU4 manifold has the tendency to lift valves and back flow when you have a tank leak, which in turn will drain the air out of your bags. This is normal but you can also put a check valve on your supply lines (between the tank and the manifold) to prevent this from happening when you do maintenance to your management. You obviously want to fix the tank leaks before anything else though!

[Psmity]

Perfect mate thanks lot for the help. So basically the VU4 manifold needs back pressure from the tank to keep the air in the bags. That makes more sense. Sounds like a good ideas with the check valve, I'll get onto that ASAP once the leaks are fixed. I was thinking of getting 2 x smc check valves to replace the viair ones, guess I could use the spare viair one to put between the tank and manifold?

Thanks for all the help
Paul

[Alex@BagRiders]

Sure thing! Yeah you could put the Viair check valve in between the tank and the manifold but those tend to have issues if you live and drive in an area where temperatures drop below freezing so it might be more of a headache than it's worth. If you do end using the Viair check valves in between your tank and manifold, you will need to pick up some extra ptc fittings since one side is male 1/4"npt and the other is female 1/4"npt.

[Psmity]

Cool, so are the smc ones female to female? If so I take it I will also need an extra fitting to connect to the female end of smc water trap?

Thanks
Paul

[Alex@BagRiders]

Yes, the SMC check valves are female to female so you will need a 1/4"-1/4" hex nipple to make it a direct replacement for the Viair compressor check valve.

[Psmity]

Perfect, thanks for the help dude!

[Alex@BagRiders]

Of course! Let me know if you think of anything else!

[Psmity]

Hey mate I have another question if you don't mind.

What's the best pressure to run my accuair system at. It gives me the 3 options of 110 -150, 135 -175 or 160 - 200 psi. Is there any advantages or disadvantages for each settings?

Thanks in advance

Paul

[Alex@BagRiders]

Hey Paul, that really comes down to personal preference and what you need based on how you use your air ride. The higher your tank pressure, the longer it is going to take for your tank to fill but at the same time, the higher the pressure the more air volume you have to play around with. I would suggest starting out at 150psi for a couple of weeks, and then switch to 175psi if you feel like you are running out of air too quickly.

[Oh Damn, it's Sam]

Hey mate I have another question if you don't mind.

What's the best pressure to run my accuair system at. It gives me the 3 options of 110 -150, 135 -175 or 160 - 200 psi. Is there any advantages or disadvantages for each settings?

Thanks in advance

Paul

Hope I'm not speaking out of turn, but this also depends upon your gear, particularly your compressor(s) and tank(s), and what they're rated for. If you've got gear rated for 200 psi, then you can get about 1/3 more movement range out of your air supply by running at higher pressure.

The only disadvantage of higher pressure (assuming you've got gear rated for it) is that it takes that much longer to completely charge your tank if the system has been drained. That doesn't really affect how the system operates, but it means you'll have to listen to your compressor(s) run for another minute or two if you're filling the tank from zero.

[Psmity]

Thanks guys that's a big help!

I'm running 2 x 480 viar compressors, 3/8 lines, 5 gallon accuair tank, elevel management, smc water traps so is that safe for 200psi right?

I understand why it would take longer to get to 200 psi from aired out but since the different settings are all at a 40psi range then the compressors will be on the same amount of time regardless of which setting I use? (not airing out)

Hope that makes sense lol?

[Oh Damn, it's Sam]

AccuAir's tanks appear to be rated for 200 psi, so you're in good shape, assuming you're running good DOT air line.

I'm not sure I 100% follow your second question, but compressors tend to flow less air at higher pressures. For example, a 480C flows 1.13 CFM at 100 psi, 0.85 at 150, and only 0.56 at 200. Thus, if you change from preset 1 to preset 2 and your tank drops from, say, 150 psi to 100 it'll charge back to 150 psi faster than if the tank had dropped from 200 to 150 and was charging back to 200. This only matters in terms of how long you're going to have to listen to the compressors run. In the volumes we're talking about here, the difference is minimal, maybe 15 seconds difference at most with twin 480s on a 5-gallon tank.

I think the higher pressure is worth it for the additional movement range. If you do a good enough job isolating your compressors, you'll hardly hear them. If I have music on even very quietly in my car, I can't hear my 444c at all as a result of how it's mounted and where.

[Psmity]

Thanks guys that helps a lot!

Cheers
Paul

[Psmity]

Hey guys,

I've recently fitted an elevel accuar set up on my van and it's been great!

I only have one small leak which I can't get to the bottom off. Over night the front passanger bag drops and the others are fine. The tank drops 9psi overnight at this time too.


I have sprayed down all the tank connections and they seem good. All fittings have been done with the accuair loctite and I then left to cure overnight before pressurising. Think the tank is good. I also sprayed the manifold down at the push fittings and that seamed good. I also ran the tank up to 175psi and put a pipe from each compressor into a cup of water to check the check valves and that was fine too.


After that I focused on the front left that was dropping overnight. I sprayed down the leader lines and push fit connections and it all looked fine. I also sprayed down the bag at the bottom as much as I could while fitted and it never showed anything. So for safe sake, I took the leader line out and put loctite on both ends and re fitted it. Then I recut the air line just incase it was that where it pushes in. I left the loctite to cure overnight and then pressurised it but it still dropped the front left over night with a 9psi drop on the tank.


Kinda struggling now to find the leak. Only thing I can think of is it's so small I can't see it via soapy water or the bag has a leak at the top and I may have to take it out and pressurise it off the van and spray it down.


Just wondered if you guys had any ideas to try?
Thanks

Paul


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