Suspension Follow-up

If you've been following our posts you know we updated our CRE3000 equalizer with Lippert's Center Point Air Ride Suspension. It basically adds an airbag in place of the standard equalizer between the axles. The airbag takes a lot of the road bump shock so that the springs don't have to handle it all and should help us keep from breaking springs out on the rough roads of America.

I've already posted about the installation which went fairly smoothly at least the airbag system itself. Running the lines for the air was also fairly easy though Lippert didn't provide enough line to make it to the front where checking and maintaining the air pressure would be most convenient. We had to buy some more line and the combination of push in fittings they provided wasn't going to work well on the 3/4 inch plywood wall we were installing on. I got some on order and when they arrived, installed everything just to find out that I had a leak somewhere. I hunted that leak down and found another both were the first two connections I had made and clearly flubbed!

Finally, it held pressure for several days and I thought I was good to go but the day before we left for our current trip, the pressure was down again and I found myself crawling around under the RV again with a soap bubble mixture spraying all the connections to find the leak. it turned out that the push in connection on the right side into the airbag system itself was leaking slightly so I pulled it apart and recut the line which was ever so slightly crooked and reset everything, repressurized and then found the next connection over was also leaking. Once again, a quick snip of the cutters smoothed the end of the line and the leak was sealed up. We put the pressure where we needed it according to the instructions and let it set overnight. In the morning, the pressure had held and I felt confident that we could set out finally!

Of course, for the first several stops along the way, I was looking in the compartment to be sure it was holding. So far, so good. The lessons I learned through the install were that these type of push-in connections are very finicky when it comes to having a "perfectly" cut end on the air line and that the quality of the connectors makes a big difference. I had much less trouble with the ones I ordered versus the ones that came with the set.

Check out our Travels section for updates on how things are going! We've added Kartchner Caverns State Park, Tombstone Arizona and Saguaro National Park in the last 2 days!