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Lately I've been thinking about my front airbags which are basically like McPherson struts, but with an airbag instead of a coil spring And I was concerned because these were made to lower a Maverick not keep a broncos sport at stock height And then raise and lower it like 3 in each way, especially one that's basically like a badlands with the extra inch lift. Because you can adjust the height. You basically screw the bottom part of the McPherson strut up or down and I was worried I didn't have enough thread contact.
Of course once I had already bought the parts and got everything off I realized that I had as much thread contact as I was going to get, although this did allow me to screw down a little more. So it still sat a little further down in the bottom pipe part of the strut cuz basically what I was worried about is I'd accidentally jumped the car like 6 months ago like a foot in the air front and rear and I didn't notice any bending or anything or damage, + to the baby bronco, but just in case I accidentally did that again I wanted to have a little more contact and I guess security for the front part cuz those airbags are expensive. If you have to replace and I don't know if they even sell parts I'd probably have to buy the whole thing.
So anyways the airbag place didn't make spacers and I had made my own for the rear and learned my lesson that that sucked without actual milling tools and took too long even though it was fun then I got shit to do now and if I could buy some at a decent price I was going to.
So I looked around at the lift kits and decided on hrg because I'd actually used their instruction video for their lift kits for figuring out how to put my air suspension on and they seem like a good name brand. A lot of people have good experiences with and their part was very good quality and the customer service was really helpful and they let me buy only the parts I wanted. Not a whole kit which was really nice places don't always let you do that.
I got the 1 and 1/4-in spacer cuz that was the smallest they had. I really wanted to do just an inch but these worked out fine.
The one thing that I had forgotten from my old mustang days is when you combine different manufacturers parts they don't worry about what other manufacturers do and the way that the hrg spacer was and the studs were on my air suspension struts. Actually I had to buy these 1/4-in bolt spacers. I got aluminum this time because I'd use steel before and they'd actually rusted even when it was stainless and I figured with as wide as they were And from my prior experience that they would be good enough to take the weight and even if they crush, there's not a lot that can happen except I get some clunking noises and I have to take them out and figure out something else which basically just means replacing with stainless steel ones.
Besides that, everything worked fine and I got them on in about 6 hours. Mostly because you know there was no instructions for this. I had to redo some things over and over. It should take about an hour for each side really. Plus I had to do some stuff in between.
The only thing I would say about the hrg spacer is the hardware. The studs that go in the top. It's actually didn't match the thread pitch of what was on my air suspension which very well could have been different than stock and hrg did match stock. I don't know but it was weird. Also I really wish those studs had like a hex insert at the top to really tighten them down good because I had one nut where I had to take the spacer off and the stud came with it and I could not get the stud out of the nut. There just wasn't enough room on the bottom thread to do the tricks that I would normally do and I did not want to have to think about trying to find that part on my own or waiting for a replacement to come in and I was able to go ahead and put it back in okay. It was just really close when I put the washer on the nut that went on top of the strut mount And I would have liked to see the stud come all the way out the top so I knew it had full thread contact And honestly, it just makes installation better. And you know that the stud is all the way seated and if you ever have to take them out it's a hell of a lot easier. And if you ever get a nut stuck on them like I did, it's easy to get off. But again it's not a huge deal.
Oh the other problem was for the hrg spacer where they put that. Really neat cut star that's not there on my air suspension so now I can't adjust the front dampers without taking everything off but I've never adjusted them before. I guess I got them right the first time and if I ever do I'll just remember to cut the Stars out and make all big enough for the future again, issues that come up when you combine different manufacturers.
I'm not going to explain the process. It's very similar to if you were putting spacers in the front in one of their kits, but I will include a couple of pictures in case anyone's interested and if anyone does buy this air suspension kit for the baby bronco more than happy to help with any questions they have.
Of course once I had already bought the parts and got everything off I realized that I had as much thread contact as I was going to get, although this did allow me to screw down a little more. So it still sat a little further down in the bottom pipe part of the strut cuz basically what I was worried about is I'd accidentally jumped the car like 6 months ago like a foot in the air front and rear and I didn't notice any bending or anything or damage, + to the baby bronco, but just in case I accidentally did that again I wanted to have a little more contact and I guess security for the front part cuz those airbags are expensive. If you have to replace and I don't know if they even sell parts I'd probably have to buy the whole thing.
So anyways the airbag place didn't make spacers and I had made my own for the rear and learned my lesson that that sucked without actual milling tools and took too long even though it was fun then I got shit to do now and if I could buy some at a decent price I was going to.
So I looked around at the lift kits and decided on hrg because I'd actually used their instruction video for their lift kits for figuring out how to put my air suspension on and they seem like a good name brand. A lot of people have good experiences with and their part was very good quality and the customer service was really helpful and they let me buy only the parts I wanted. Not a whole kit which was really nice places don't always let you do that.
I got the 1 and 1/4-in spacer cuz that was the smallest they had. I really wanted to do just an inch but these worked out fine.
The one thing that I had forgotten from my old mustang days is when you combine different manufacturers parts they don't worry about what other manufacturers do and the way that the hrg spacer was and the studs were on my air suspension struts. Actually I had to buy these 1/4-in bolt spacers. I got aluminum this time because I'd use steel before and they'd actually rusted even when it was stainless and I figured with as wide as they were And from my prior experience that they would be good enough to take the weight and even if they crush, there's not a lot that can happen except I get some clunking noises and I have to take them out and figure out something else which basically just means replacing with stainless steel ones.
Besides that, everything worked fine and I got them on in about 6 hours. Mostly because you know there was no instructions for this. I had to redo some things over and over. It should take about an hour for each side really. Plus I had to do some stuff in between.
The only thing I would say about the hrg spacer is the hardware. The studs that go in the top. It's actually didn't match the thread pitch of what was on my air suspension which very well could have been different than stock and hrg did match stock. I don't know but it was weird. Also I really wish those studs had like a hex insert at the top to really tighten them down good because I had one nut where I had to take the spacer off and the stud came with it and I could not get the stud out of the nut. There just wasn't enough room on the bottom thread to do the tricks that I would normally do and I did not want to have to think about trying to find that part on my own or waiting for a replacement to come in and I was able to go ahead and put it back in okay. It was just really close when I put the washer on the nut that went on top of the strut mount And I would have liked to see the stud come all the way out the top so I knew it had full thread contact And honestly, it just makes installation better. And you know that the stud is all the way seated and if you ever have to take them out it's a hell of a lot easier. And if you ever get a nut stuck on them like I did, it's easy to get off. But again it's not a huge deal.
Oh the other problem was for the hrg spacer where they put that. Really neat cut star that's not there on my air suspension so now I can't adjust the front dampers without taking everything off but I've never adjusted them before. I guess I got them right the first time and if I ever do I'll just remember to cut the Stars out and make all big enough for the future again, issues that come up when you combine different manufacturers.
I'm not going to explain the process. It's very similar to if you were putting spacers in the front in one of their kits, but I will include a couple of pictures in case anyone's interested and if anyone does buy this air suspension kit for the baby bronco more than happy to help with any questions they have.
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