Customs Air Bags: The Case For And Against

I've been following this thread specifically to see your reply


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Wow. A six hour drive away here in Ontario and we don't have half that shit!!! Same country......


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...psssst...Photoshop...

 

My 50s cars rode pretty rough with cut coils. I always wanted to try bags. My 48 Pontiac would hit bumps with the crossmember so hard my brother would have to get out and close the hood again...and again. I'd loved to at least try bags on it.
At a goodguys event in Madison Wisconsin, I went for a ride on an early 60s chevy belonging to one of the air bag manufacturer. Loved it but felt it needed a stiffer stabilizer bar in the corners. Rode nice tho.
Conversly, when Blackmerc {Brad] blew a bag out on the interstate in the middle of nowhere, he vowed to go back to springs in a black rage while loading the merc on a trailer. He made good on his promise too.
On our traditional forum I believe it should be "don't ask, don't tell". If it has bags, don't make them the vocal point of the car. Keep that info to yourself.

 

Yep. I’ve seen the photoshopped ones laying frame. But a lot of the illustrations seem to have less gap in the fender wells.

 

Those artists back in the day were the Photoshop for their Companies and they did use artistic license that's for sure...

 

Okie Dokie...I guess it's time for my 2 cents on "to bag or not to bag". I built my period custom '36 Ford Coupe to be low and level from day 1 without bags. Mission accomplished. Then had driveway issues... too low! The car rode good because of careful planning and construction and I thought drivability would not be too much of an issue, but scraping my brand new chrome on my rear bumpers was not a compromise. So...after discussing my issues with Jimmy White at Circle City Hot Rods, it was decided to raise my car 2 inches to remedy my driveway issues. Out came my 2 inch dropped spindles for stock spindles, then relocated forward mounting on my rear parallel springs to get car level again. Once this was completed, we put it back on the floor and the 2 inch higher stance still had the lowered custom car look. So far so good. Drove it home and lo and behold, still had driveway issues. Out came the wood ramps and slowly drove the car back onto the driveway. I didn't want to worry every time I had to enter driveways, so another solution was needed. You'd think we were trying to dock the Queen Mary. Upon further discussion with Jimmy White, the dreaded "B" word was brought up. Pros and Cons were discussed and the decision was finally made to bag the rear springs. Jimmy and I are not big fans of air bags, but we rationalized the need for them in this case. They will not be used to lower the car, it's low enough as it is, they will raise the rear end to clear the driveways of the world and assist to keep the car level if I decide to put something in the car or trunk heavier than lawn chairs and a cooler for my thirst quenchers. I had pride in knowing that the car's lowered stance was from a static lowering job, but practicality was more important. I loved how it looked before raising it and I still love how it looks after lifting it, but bagging the rear of the car should make my life a little easier. That's the plan for now.
Picture above before raising it 2 inches....

 

Nowadays the net is flooded with all kinds of altered ads n' such...
I've even seen stuff I did floating around here and there...Honestly I have alot of
fun doing mods to stuff...Back in the good ole days it was a full time job...Love the Art
they rendered then...Hudsons were pretty darn low to begin with...
I remember a Fella at a Garage I worked at bought a 53/4ish Lincoln Capri
and it had some kind of factory auto leveling system in it I saw it working too...







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I was going to stay out of this but...
Many, many threads have started here - mostly by new guys that have not read the rules, but not always - and they start with "I'm gonna build a kustom and here's my build thread."

Now I like customs and will open any custom type thread, but sadly once they get past the opening line
it's rip the body off and build basically a mini -trucker lay frame air bag chassis.

Okay, so where's the custom start?

They never get to that, there's no involved body work, it's all about the mini-trucker lay frame thing.

Usually the thread gets deleted because all it is is laying frame with bags.

To me, that is not what building a custom is about. Sure stance is important (and what looks like broken suspension, sitting on the belly is not stance), but customs are about bodywork.

If a custom build thread was all about the body mods and related stuff and the car happened to have a bag suspension, I wouldn't mind so much.

When step one is to build a mini-trucker lay frame chassis, I do.

 

@bigm I cringe at the thought of the perfected details on yours or anyone who has expended huge amounts of money to have it scraping going into a place. So if having a method of adjusting for the poor excuses for roads I guess this offers a viable solution. It is probably cheaper these days as it has been around for a few years now. Gotta do whatcha gotta do.

 

This discussion, argument, pissing contest, will never end because there is no right or wrong...like the difference between religion and faith.
Here is my 69 year old two cents worth.
My 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 was dagoed using a torch on the front. And you know how it rides? It rides like a 1957 Ford Fairlane with manual transmission and that is that . I have a brand new car sitting next to it in the garage if I want to drive like I'm sitting on the couch.


This is still a great site even though not everyone thinks like me."

 

And that, my friends, should fill in a whole lot of blank spaces for you regarding the HAMB core mission statement. Thank you for that Boss. Somebody who posts here a lot should make that their signature, to remind the faithful.

 

@apenglish64

This Corvette is beyond sweet! Man what I'd give to afford an early Vette to put wires and thin white walls on it purely as a result of seeing this photoshop!

 

I happened across this, as usual in the process of looking for something else:

Huffaker "MG Liquid Suspension Special", built for Indy at the tail end of our era. It used the interconnected hydro-elastic suspension system from the BMC ADO 16 (Austin/Morris 1100 etc.) introduced in 1962. If you look at the Hydrolastic units, what they basically are is airbags running a water/glycol mix as an operating medium, with an integral deformable rubber springs. (Legitimate industrial applications for the airbags which we know today include uses with incompressible water/glycol media.)

My point? That bags are very much a product of the way of thinking which led to a lot of suspension innovation in the "traditional" era. Many of these innovations died out not because of any intrinsic defect but because they were eclipsed by the torsional rigidity of "safe" modern unit bodies and the ready availability of electronic control. That is, the roots of the airbag lie in our era; it was developed to solve a problem of our era, and is something of an interloper in the modern era.

Of course this kind of innovation lies on the technological fringe of the "traditional" era's landscape; and though it is thus in no way definitive of the era it is nevertheless present in its landscape. But then it is so as bona-fide suspension technologies as opposed to mere ways to vary ride height, as in the majority of modern street-rod or mail-order-kit applications.

 

Or is it???

 

To have a traditional looking custom, there is no reason to get as low as bags will allow.

 

I'm building a chopped 1937 Lincoln Zephyr Coupe with an LS, Mustang II, air ride, power steering, and air conditioning because I want all of the comforts a fat old man needs.

 

Flat out gorgeous car. Did you consider wheelie wheels or something to hit the driveway before your back bumper, or is that a faux pas in Customville?

 

I like bagged customs but not hot rods. I see a lot of rat rods that are bagged...I consider these to be a different group, being neither customs or hot rods. I like rat rods but like a lot of others here, my idea of a hot rod is something more representative of what was actually built before bags and billet appeared.

 

I have changed the airride Setup on my 56 at least 3-4 times over the last 17 years, but I'm still not fully sold on it...it rides better than ever, but I 'm glad I left all the stock leaf spring mounts on the frame, just in case... I may change it back in 10 or 20 years, who knows... It was a lot of work to get it to handle well at high speeds. Now that it' s done i mostly drive the 55 with cut coils and lowering blocks...

 

..... 3 pages, and STILL no tea bag .... pros or cons.

 

Why not the original engine? That was my point. We put in a more powerful engine but expect the original suspension to suffice. Why not improve the ride and handling too? Many do replace drive trains and some suspension components but draw the line at certain things which I assume is why Ryan started this topic as it seems he might be wavering on this.

 

I don't have bags on either of my rides. I like the long road trips and use my trunk, plus I didn't want modern parts on my car. I must admit bagged cars are growing on me. Once and awhile I think maybe my Lincoln would be cool in the weeds.

 

Fat yes, old no. Did you crawl out of the toilet your sitting on?
hi Aaron

 

I had a '65 Caddy that was way down low. I mean...WAY down low. I sold it, that owner sold it. The 'new guy' proceeded to tear it apart and bag it. It went MAYBE 1/2-3/4" lower. When I had it it looked awesome and rode great. Just had to watch was ahead of you...To me bags were $$ wasted on that car.

 

I’ve gotta agree and have dealt with this first hand. For my 57 f100, I had purchased, had plans to install one of those “police car” front suspensions.
But it became very clear that I like my old truck because it puts me in a different place when I drive it. Why would I want to loose that? I’ve got a modern to drive when that is the best tool for the job.
I determined that I’d learn to flip spring eyes, play with leafs, shocks, mounts, axles, etc.
Happy I did as it rides nice, looks nice and I can discuss it with other like minded folks on this site.

 

to claim to be a traditional forum yet allow the use of bags is a contradiction. a traditional cooler stance comes with consequences... a harsher ride and scraping. keep the stock suspension but channel the body over the frame

to allow bags on customs yet refuse the hot rods such modern convenience is just wrong.