Air ride seats

[Grenadiers]

Thought I'd post my question here, since it's a more active board. I have a Saurer 6dm, and want to add a pair of air ride seats. The mounting platform is flat. The seats in question are a matching pair from a Freightliner Cascadia. I currently have a spring/hydraulic seat for the driver and a car seat for the passenger side. Question, then, where does one find an air source for these seats? I see plenty of Schrader valves throughout the truck, maybe tapping into one of these? Thanks Dave.

 

[Neil]

Your air system will have several circuits that probably fill up in an order. Ie the foot brake circuit fills before the handbrake. This means you can't drive off without the foot brakes working.
The last circuit is probably some sort of auxiliary circuit such as exhaust brake or engaging diff lock etc.

I would tap into this circuit and avoid breaking circuits etc. A leak on this circuit presents the least danger.

Neil

 

[Sitec]

Hi fella. As Neil said before, the air systems come 'on line' in an order (on the Merc's anyhow).. Like Neil says certain things take priority. When building air pressure on my truck, the primary air gauge comes up to 2/3 full which then opens a valve to fill the second tank (I assume). The first gauge drops until the second gauge matches it and then the pressures rise together. At a set pressure, the first thing to go out is the warning light. The brake circuit now has enough pressure to function efectively, and the park brake can be released. At this point though I have to wait a further 30 sec for the pressure to continue to rise to 'running' pressure. Only at this point does the air seat lift to it's set floating position and the pto function work. This is the circuit you need to tap into on your Saurer. If it does not have one, then a line fed directly from your main tank to the seats should work, but be sure to put an ignition switched valve in the line as near to the tank as possible... Ignition on, seats come up, ignition off and seats go down. (With a bit of electrickery and a 5 post relay, you could set the system up so that only when the red air warning light on the dash goes out do the seats lift to your driving position... No driving off in comfort without adiquate air pressure!!).

 

[VerMonsterRV]

I am also in the process doing this. Trick for me is getting an 8mm nylon pipe to the 1/4" nylon pipe. Trying to mix "American" with the rest of the planet is a bit challenging at times.