Major problems with Airlift wireless

TrickTruck · May 27, 2016

For three months it worked great.

Then it blew the switch (upfitter.) Figuring I'd selected one of the 7.5A switches I wired it to one of the 15s.

Another 3 months and it blew again. This time right as I went to pick up the trailer and needed the darn thing. Went w/o, w/ a saggy tail and piss poor handling.

Another month goes by and I was fixing various things on the truck, hot wired it to the battery figuring that the upfitters just couldn't handle it. So sad, so sorry, not the problem. Time for diagnostics.

Crawled up under the truck and tried to manually activate the compressor, no dice.

Finally called Airlift. He had me check a few things and said the compressor was bad. That they'd send me another.

Gets here yesterday and I'm fixing things and STILL it won't work. Hot wired the new compressor and it comes on. Now wtf?

Called Airlift again. He has me trying to yank the plug out of the valve to test it and no amount of force will pull the plug, finally it breaks. Now they say the valve or relay is bad, but can't ship me one until next week. I'm like: I have a trailer to tow 15hrs this weekend, gotta have it. He says put the schrader valves in the system. I complain they never sent the nuts for them. So sorry, you'll have to duct tape them in place temporarily. DUCT TAPE????? Seriously? GRRRR.

So I loaded back up and went to the local o'rileys for some nuts. Well WTF? it's no thread known to man. 5/16-24 is almost right, but not quite. 8mm almost right, but not quite. Ugh. Bought the 5/16 and went home and rethreaded the stupid things with a die.

Get it all in there and put pressure to it, now the Airlift valve is stuck open so it won't hold pressure. fook.

Bypass the entire airlift POS and can finally air up the system. Unfortunately there wasn't enough hose to hook them up independently so both are on one air source.

I was really happy with the wireless airlift compressor until this cluster f'. A bad compressor has killed the whole system and my upfitter module - they even knew they had a bad lot of compressors. And I'm pretty fed up. Is there a better system out there that is reliable?

drservo · May 27, 2016

Man that sucks, I haven't had any trouble out of mine.

tbsimmons · May 27, 2016

Might be too late but I am doing the following on my dually.
Get energy suspension bushings and put in the lower over loads so they will hit the main pack quicker. PN 9.9102G (G is just for black ones). I am going to bolt them through the bottom overloads.
I am also putting some on the top overload if you have them. PN 9.9109G. I am just going to remove the rubber bumper from the stock mounts and bolt these in.
I have a little more than 4" before the up overloads make contact so they are not really being used at all. Plus 4" sag in back is too much.
I have air bags also but the suspension on this dually is much softer and squats more to get to the overloads than the 08 F450 did. I need to either max the air pressure out or let the truck on the overloads with my fiver on the truck or the ride is crap.

gnxtc2 · May 27, 2016

I have the Airlift wireless kit on my OBS and the Firestone wireless kit on my SD.

There should be a relay on the Airlift kit. The only complaint I have with it, is the batteries in the remote go dead and freaks out the controller. My kit is over 5 yrs old.

Where do you have the compressor mounted?

Billy T.
[email protected]

WHY NOT · May 27, 2016

The threads should be pipe thread. Also on my truck I have a valve ran to the back of the truck so I can air it up out of any compressor if the air lift ever quits on me I won't be stuck with a saggy truck. I have it plumbed right under my tail gate and can use a bicycle pump to fill it if I needed to. Also there is no need to have the bags in depend of each other. If you hook up a trailer to the truck the weight is always on the center of the truck anyways. They won't go back and forth all to one bag or another. They are plumbed into one line on both of the trucks we have bags on and it makes it nice and easy. Even if you have a big load on one side of your bed I can't see needing them plumbed separate

Zmann · May 27, 2016

what a mess

I installed my Airlift wireless over the top of my spare 6 years ago and never touched it again I use it every time i load my 4000lbs truck camper

if you had the relay in the system and popped a up fitter fuse then it seems apparent the relay fell apart and shorted the up fitter lead or it shorted someplace in between the up fitter and relay (IMO)

not sure what unit you bought but I have this one and would never think twice about suggesting it to anyone

workingdan · May 27, 2016

I use a firestone ride rite wireless kit. Works well for me. I think I may buy a bigger pump later down the road.

gnxtc2 · May 27, 2016

WHY NOT said:
Also there is no need to have the bags in depend of each other. If you hook up a trailer to the truck the weight is always on the center of the truck anyways. They won't go back and forth all to one bag or another. They are plumbed into one line on both of the trucks we have bags on and it makes it nice and easy. Even if you have a big load on one side of your bed I can't see needing them plumbed separate

In theory yes but it doesn't work. When you go around a turn and the truck leans, the pressure in the bag with less load with increase. Example....when you make a left turn, the body rolls/shifts to right. This places more force on the right air bag and the air is forced to left side.

Billy T.
[email protected]

WHY NOT · May 27, 2016

gnxtc2 said:
In theory yes but it doesn't work. When you go around a turn and the truck leans, the pressure in the bag with less load with increase. Example....when you make a left turn, the body rolls/shifts to right. This places more force on the right air bag and the air is forced to left side.

Billy T.

[email protected]

I have yet to see this when pulling a trailer. Only time I have ever seen any instability was when I had a tall heavy load in the bed. But this problem would probably be better solved with a sway bar since my truck doesn't have one in the rear. I have had some more than decent sized loads as well

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

little luke · May 28, 2016

gnxtc2 said:
In theory yes but it doesn't work. When you go around a turn and the truck leans, the pressure in the bag with less load with increase. Example....when you make a left turn, the body rolls/shifts to right. This places more force on the right air bag and the air is forced to left side.

Billy T.

[email protected]

Didn't test it with a trailer, but i installed a 1/8" ball valve to separate the air bags on our excursion, which is pretty much a 2 seat truck with an aluminum bed. Had a pallet of 106 4" solid concrete block in the back, and even with the rear sway bar I didn't like the body roll. I stopped at the hardware store on the way home, deflated the bags and spliced the line in the parking. Aired it back up, closed the valve, and was on my way. It stayed flat on our curvy roads.

Zmann · Jun 4, 2016

i wouldn't plumb the bags together for my needs camper sway is my enemy

this is why = https://www.airliftcompany.com/workshop/single-path-vs-dual-path/
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TrickTruck · Jun 4, 2016

I have the dual valve. They have sent me everything now, EXCEPT the damn shrader valves which I had to mangle to make work.

Gotta call them again monday