Going off air

Hello. I know what you're thinking - he's here again with another post apologising for the lack of posts; not much happening, winter weather, etc, etc. I thought it best to put something up here as there's been quite a few things happening under the radar over the last few months.

 

There's a double-meaning in the post's headline; yes, I went off-air in terms of writing anything here - apologies for the two year gap, and secondly, the much discussed and documented air ride is no longer on the van.

I had all kinds of issues, mostly with Airrex and quality (or lack of) issues with their product. Both front struts failed, leaving me with no option other than to find a quick replacement - I need the van year-round after all. This is where the wrangling started; I had bought the struts through iKustoms who originally ordered them through an Airrex UK distributer. Unfortunately for me the UK distribution had changed hands and the new party wanted nothing to do with replacing my struts. I was well out of warranty and had nothing in my way of consumer-rights as time had passed since the purchase date.

To make matters worse I had sent the struts back to the new UK distributer who then 'lost' them. I had no front suspension, no replacement, no refund, no one taking responsibility, Airrex suddenly couldn't speak English... this went on for nearly a year.

Eventually they admitted fault and honored me with a fresh set of the latest version of their front struts. I was then able to bundle everything together and sell the kit on. I look back and kick myself for going down the airride route. Having said that, there's now much better products on the market, these were unavailable when I specified my setup.

But we should only look forward I suppose. We've still been using the van regularly; Cornwall and the southwest, city breaks, VW shows, days out, it's still being used. I've made a few little changes here and there, changed a few camping products - I'll go in to more details soon.

This year's big thing - Airride

Just before heading off on our Volksworld Show roadtrip, Iain at iKustoms asked for a couple of photos of the van aired-up and aired-out. I was thinking they would be for a new advert for his company, turns out they were for a full feature on airride in this months Volksworld VWT magazine!

It's a great article, written by Iain, which answers many of the questions that we are both being bombarded with at the moment!!! Although the majority of those questions still seem to be 'how much?' I'm hoping that this article will dispel some of the myths, rumours and heresay that surround airride as a viable, useable and practical suspension solution. Go out and grab yourself a copy - it's a good read.

The Volksworld Show 2013 Roadtrip

Planning had begun back at the beginning of the year for a trip south, a day in London, a weekend at the Volksworld show, and an overnight stop on the way home. Like all best-laid-plans, things started to fall apart (literally) almost straight away.

Ready for the off...

The snow, hail and rain didn't dampen our spirits, but the cancellation of Sunday night's stay at the St. Neots C&CC site due to flooding meant some frantic last-minute rebooking was in order.

Our first port of call was the C&CC site at Chertsey. A nice, riverside site with great facilities and a friendly welcome. We were pitched up and in the pub in no time at all - an almost perfect first day...

Almost perfect? You ask. Well, we soon noticed on the way down that we have become a victim of the ever-popular frozen and split windscreen washer pipe.

Pitched up, hooked up and perfectly level

The Chertsey site is ideal for visiting the centre of London. Just a brisk walk across town to the railway station where we purchased a combined rail/underground pass for the day that delivers you into Waterloo in less than an hour. Trains are incredibly regular, compared to up North, and run late into the evening so you can enjoy a full day in London and avoid the evening rush hour.

Amazing to think roads were closed with drifting snow back home

Friday saw us head over to the Volksworld show. My only gripe with the whole show was being told on the paperwork that camping opened at 3pm - so we milled-around, killing time between leaving the campsite and getting to Sandown. When we arrived at the racecourse at 14:45 (expecting to queue) but we found people had been camped up for ages, bagging all the level spots, great!

I quickly jumped out of the van and found a not-quite-level spot that did look dry and firm under-foot - some campers were already stuck and being towed out.

Parked up and aired-out

By Sunday the temperature had dropped considerably; the windchill on the racecourse was freezing. I guess this kept the show attendance down, everyone was indoors at the show and I felt really sorry for anyone with an outside trade stand or display. I'll go into more detail about the show in a future post.

If only I could convey how cold it felt...

So we come to leave on Sunday lunchtime, a quick adjust of the mirrors and the driver's side (which had been on the exposed side to the weather all weekend) promptly fell off and cracked. A slow steady journey up to the C&CC site at Milton Keynes (our replacement site) was on the cards. A stiff drink was in order when we arrived. The Accuair eLevel touchpad had also given up on Sunday morning - I was starting to wonder what else could go wrong...

Monday dawned bright and cold, as we're both early risers we headed straight for the Volkswagen Van Centre in Bletchley near Milton Keynes. At this point we were all prepared for 'none in stock' or 'that'll be X hundred pounds' but we were greeted with a very helpful 'I'll see what we can do'.

A phone call to the TPS around the corner, a quick trip there to pay, and we're back with replacements for both sides - it seemed to make sense at just £30 each - I never liked the tinted glass that Merseyspeed had fitted; they had no anti-rattle prongs either which might have explained why one fell out!

Back to VW and the helpful girl on reception collared a young lad on his tea-break who followed us out and fitted them for free. We were on our way and very grateful for their help.

Our next stop, having left our traveling companions to make their way home, was back to iKustoms for a quick spanner-check of the airride install, fit some new top mounts, and hopefully diagnose the eLevel problem. I'll not go into too many details but a quick two-hour stop here turned into a marathon five hour visit with nothing going right. Many thanks must go to Iain at iKustoms for his persistence in sorting problems large and small when us lesser-mortals would have thrown in the towel and slammed the garage door shut!

By 16:30 we were on our way. Everything was working, we had everything crossed. Just the washer pipe to sort at a later date.

Stock vs. Dropped

After driving around for ages looking for a suitable T5 to do some height-comparison shots, we finally borrowed some friends and their T5 to take a few quick pics...

Airride - time for some pics

The novelty is far from wearing-off. Parking up becomes funny wherever you go; airing-out in front of unsuspecting passers-by with a loud 'Pttsssssshhhhh' seems to stop people in their tracks.

Here's a few 'aired-out' (that's all four bags devoid of any air pressure) pics to whet your appetite - click any pic for a larger version:

So far, the ilevel app has been faultless; being able to pre-set ride-heights and have the trim-mode set to permanently monitor ride-height is awesome.

Here's the van in setting 3 - 90% full - Ideal for getting on to campsites, rough terrain etc. Ride quality is good at this height if a little firm.

Here's another pic with the van set to pre-set 2 - daily driving - looks cool and driveable. Ride quality is fine at this height; similar to factory.

And between the presets we have any infinite variation of height and rake, perfect for leveling up at a campsite:

Nose up, back down - good for those sloping Welsh campsites.

Nose down, back up - for that hot-rod rake!

Being able to control all four corners independently means side-to-side slopes can also be dealt with. Here's driver's side front and rear up and passenger side front and rear down:

Camping whilst there's very little air in the bags also gives a firmer base - no longer when turning over in the night does it feel like the whole van is moving. Dubfreeze was a great night's sleep.

You'll notice there's no pics of the eLevel touch pad on the dash yet. I'm still undecided as to how I'm going to mount it. I'm tempted to remove one of the heater outlets next to the head-unit and flush-mount it there. For the time being it will sit loose on top of the dash.

So that's the airride in a nutshell. If you have any questions (just not 'how much?') feel free to get in touch using the ask Stone174 link at the top of the blog.

Stone174 airride specs:
Airrex front bagover struts and rear bags/dampers.
Viair twin 480 air compressors
Accuair 5 gallon air tank
Accuair VU4 solenoid valve unit
Accuair eLevel management
Accuair iLevel iphone integration module

Fitting/setup by iKustoms

On air...

Here's a quick 'first-look' at the van on airride. No doubt there will be many more pics soon.

Needless to say I'm over-the-moon and big, big thanks go to Iain at iKustoms for his work over the last 10 days. I can't stop giggling every time I see the van aired-out.

Sneaky peek...

Just a quick teaser shot before picking the van up:

Early progress...

Nothing like waking up to find an email sent late in the previous night:

Compressor mounts made and installed
Compressor wiring done and tested
ECU mounted
Valve block mounted
Power cables run
Wiring is into the dash area

Will be making tank mounts first thing and running the first air lines, Should be able to pressure up that side of it by lunch

Struts and bags will be going on Monday

The touchpad will be left loose for now, maybe mounted permanent at a later date. More updates soon...

And so it begins...

Parts arriving ready for dropping the van off on Wednesday.

Santa brings bags of joy

I don't get to play with them until February, but the struts are built and delivered to iKustoms ready for the big install.

So it's a Merry Christmas to all Stone174 readers! We're spending our first couple of nights under the pop-top roof during the break so will report back on how it goes...

Taking things to another level

So I guess you're thinking 'where does Stone174 go from here? - the van looks pretty sorted and perfectly fit for purpose as a campervan'. Well, as a closet-perfectionist, there's still loads of little details that I'm not happy with. One big detail that isn't to my liking is the suspension, time for the whole story...

When first taking the van over to Merseyspeed to discuss the colour-coding/facelift options, I mentioned that I was looking to swap the -40mm H&R lowering springs for coilovers. My reasons were that I wanted some adjustment in the front to lessen the gap between wheel arch and tyre, and to sit the (now slightly driver's-side heavy due to interior) van completely level - it was about an inch or so out at the back.

Coilovers are ideal for this as you can simply wind up or down each corner until everything sits perfectly level. I had done some research and was about to commit my hard-earned to Bluebird Customs for a set of Gaz coilovers when Merseyspeed offered us a deal on a set of Prosports with free fitting, seeing as the van was in for so much work.

Why didn't I listen to my own mantra of 'buy cheap, buy twice'? The Prosports were great for approx 200 miles when, after traversing a large speed bump at less than 5mph, the fronts seemed unsettled. Since then they have creaked, groaned and clonked in protest. I've had them checked-out in-situ and everything looks and feels fine, but it seems the spring just isn't seating correctly - just a few minutes research on the forums and it seems there's a whole batch of T5 owners on Prosport coilovers with exactly the same symptoms.

I don't blame Merseyspeed for this, they had fitted sets before without complaint. But I'm now forced to look at other options when they should have been a fit-and-forget item.

So in the true Stone174 style of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, here comes the solution...

Remember in old posts I used to say this was to be a 'no compromise' van. It has to be air ride. To begin with I started to repeat the 'buy cheap, buy twice' mantra (don't worry readers, I'm not going mad) and the research started. There's quite a few companies offering a variety of setups, some better than others, some with a good reputation, some that are obviously 'budget' and some that are in the realms of lottery winners. Whilst I was keen not to make similar mistakes as with the coilovers, I have had my eye on one setup that stands out amongst all the others - Accuair - and with the announcement of a very special add-on being released just as I have the funds to fit air, made it all the more an obvious choice.

All air ride setups consist of the same component parts; bags and struts, compressors, tank and valves, and a management system. One great feature of fitting this to a T5 is that it all mounts externally underneath and can be unbolted and transferred to the next van if required. No welding, no chopping.

Bags and struts
High durability 2-ply double convoluted air springs help provide both a comfortable ride at driving height and maximum drop when aired out. Compression fittings are used to ensure a reliable leak free seal when used with 6mm or ¼ inch DOT nylon air tubing.
The front strut is fully threaded to maximize adjustability similar to that of a coilover. You can easily adjust for maximum drop or for maximum comfort at driving height by simply loosening the lower lock collar and turning the damper and air spring assembly up or down, perfect to dial-in a sweet stance. The strut has a 12 click adjuster for damping and rebound.

Compressors, tank and valves
Using 2x 480 compressors and a 5 gallon tank will allow the bags to quickly replenish. The T5 won't be a dancing lowrider seen in music videos! As with any compressed air system, water tends to collect over time. The setup will have inline water traps that can be easily emptied by raising the van up to the highest setting and reaching in and draining. The valve unit is the element that sits in the middle between management and bags to distribute air to each corner - Accuair's is one of the best there is.

Management
This is the 'brain' of the setup. The absolute killer feature of the Accuair setup is that it 'knows' where each corner is at any given time - other systems work on calculating the air pressure at each corner, good but not precise. Pushrods and level sensors feed information back to the management system to keep the van at a pre-set constant. You could load a washing machine into one corner of the van and it would re-level to suit.

The e-Level touchpad (which will be somewhere on the dash) gives total control and three pre-sets;
90% full - this is almost like stock ride height
Drive height - a nice useable lowered setting
Low cruise - perfect for running low on the motorway where steering input is limited.

Then press and hold the 'all-out' button for five seconds to drop the van when parked.

Down the right hand side of the touchpad is a set of controls for individual adjust; both front up or down, both rear up and down, plus individual corner tweaking - this will be ideal for uneven campsites!

And the special add-on I mentioned? How about a replica of the touchpad on your iphone - yes please!

Here's a little demonstration:



The final component in the whole setup is possibly the most important of all - they guy who fits it (no pressure!). For this task I've chosen to go with iKustoms. For a number of reasons; firstly, they've had their own T5 running this setup so are familiar with it. Geographically they aren't a million miles away, like a lot of others offering Accuair. And finally, they are good people who take pride in everything they put their name to - from the very first email I've had nothing but sound advice, all my questions answered - and there have been some questions! - and a genuine excitement for getting the van in and starting the transformation.

Nut-cracked? I hope so. The struts are paid-for and are being built at the moment, I'll keep you informed of the other elements during the build up to the big day - the van goes in early February 2013 - and hopefully some in-progress pics will be up whilst the van is in.