Replacing rear air bags

billygoat

Registered
I decided to replace my leaking rear air bags on my '97 Mark 8. The fronts had been replaced last year. Thru this forum I found Arnott and they gave a great quote and a discount. The nice lady said I also needed solenoids and a dryer. They were shipped next day. Everything was looking good. I started at 7:00am this morning and here is what happened:

I am working on concrete no shade. I jacked up the Mark correctly and removed wheel. Removed solenoid as directed but can't figure out how to remove air line. I then removed air bag, but it wouldn't come out of compartment. I decided to call Arnott for help. Nice lady said she would get back to me on the problem with space, but the solenoid is simple "just push the orange ring thingy and the air line will pop out".

It has been 4 hours since that conversation and no call back.

I read Black Ice article about his replacing air with springs (great article by the way) and decided to drop the lower control arm and lower shock mount. That gave me the room needed and I successfully installed new bag. When I lowered the arm the plastic teeth holding the bag at the bottom broke off. I then decided to realign bag and turn on the compressor. This worked to inflate the bag. Wish someone would have warned me. Hope those plastic teeth aren't needed after the bag is inflated and aligned. Oh well.

Obviously, the old solenoid went back into the new bag. It is 2:00pm and temperature just hit 99 degrees. What an adventure. I have not done the right side yet (the one that leaks). Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the nice lady from Arnott will call back. I am not holding my breath.

By the way, I have a very nice new air dryer that I have no idea where it goes. Does it have the same problem with the air lines? How much trouble is it to replace? I should have asked before I started this.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Glen in Tollhouse
 
RE: Replacing rear air bags

I just recently changed my rears, too. I also broke the tabs on the first one. I had to use two jacks, one for car, one for LCA. Lower LCA all the way, r&r air spring, inflate bag, jack LCA up to align tabs, lower car AND LCA in tandem to avoid breaking tabs. The broken tabs on mine don't appear to be a problem. I reused my solenoids, but put on new o-rings.

The air lines probaly have hardened inside. I had this problem with my old dryer. Of the four lines, I got one off normal, had to yank the second out, then cut the other two near flush. The ends were hard and needed cutting anyway.

The dryer is more involved. The problem is getting to it. It is attached to the compressor, and is located in the front passenger fender. Pull tire, remove about half dozen screws in wheelwell splash guard (toward front of vehicle)(btw-the passenger side of wheelwell has the fuel filter)You will probaly need to remove the air silencer to get enough room to work in there. Removing the air silencer is a good thing anyway, gets more air into the air filter, with less route restriction. Remove the air filter box, below it, around the round air hole in fender, are three screws, remove these, remove air silencer thru fender. You will be amazed how big it is, it will take some wrangling to get it out. You will easily see the dryer then. You will probaly have to remove the compressor, then remove dryer. There are four bolts with rubber isolators holding it down. There are four air lines into dryer(that will come out fender with compressor), however there is an electrical connector on the far side of the compressor, that is a pain to get to (very, very little slack in harness), that must be disconnected to remove. As an alternative, you can remove the front bumper cover and grill, about 15-20 screws fender well to fender well a bolt or two in each sidelamp and two or three behind grill, and whole thing slides off. Then it is EASY to work on compressor, it's then sitting out in the open.

You can try the orange o-ring, but you can just snip the lines off close, check for "roundness" of line end where cut, then insert into new dryer(any order, as I recall).
 
RE: Replacing rear air bags

WOW! The nice lady from Arnott said the dryer is no big deal.

Thank you for your response. It is nice to find out that I am not the only one out there struggling with this stuff. I think that I am a decent mechanic from the old school, this stuff is tough.

I love the car and will continue to try.

Thanks again.

Glen in Tollhouse
 
RE: Replacing rear air bags

When I installed the cold air intake in my '93, I removed the front bumper to lower the air compressor to make room for the new air filter. Like most, I was a little hesitant, but it is easy to remove and replace and makes a world of difference for access to the compressor and other components.
 
RE: Replacing rear air bags

You can reuse your old dryer, just open it up put the material in a pan and toss it in the oven for 15 minutes at the lowest setting. Immediately take it out and put the dryer back together. All the moisture is now removed and it's good as new.

I think the best tool to replace the rear air spring was a strap wrench. I had my old one out in 20 minutes (including jack and wheel removal time. I installed the new one in about 5 minutes. I also broke those tabs and I haven't had any problems, I'm not too worried. I just cycled the air ride a few times and it was back to the normal position. So in less than an hour I was all done.
 
RE: Replacing rear air bags

I read somewhere that one of the reasons that the car lowers itself, is to use the vented air to blow thru the dryer to "dry" it. I imagine one could rig up two air lines to "tee" into the existing lines (two of the four) open one to vent, and force warm dry air thru the other, to force dry the dryer.
 
RE: Replacing rear air bags

The system vents through the dryer to get rid of moisture. If it was a one way system where the air was only dried when it was induced and not rehydrated when it was released there would be a build up of water. That's why leaky bags cause a moisture build up, air comes in, moisture is trapped, dry air is released from the bags and not evacuated from the dryer. Do you follow? I'm not sure if you can remove the dryer without taking off the front bumper but either way it would be a good idea to dry out the dryer in the oven like I suggested if you have had a leak. Just open up the dryer, empty the material into a pan and bake on low for 15 minutes. Reinstall you have a nice moisture free dryer.
 
RE: Replacing rear air bags

My experience with Arnott on this has been that overall they are less than helpful. No instructions available on the replacement of the rear bags. When asked for help, and help is promised, no one calls you back. It has been a week since they promised to call back. I am less than pleased.

A one page set of instructions would have solved many of my problems and I could have saved a lot of time.

Glen in Tollhouse
 
RE: Replacing rear air bags

I just went through the same with front struts, dryer, mounts for air compressor (suggest you do this while in the neighborhood), & top arms control. Arnott shipped me two left side struts, versus one right & one left. However, they took care of it promptly. The instructions on the Arnott web were OK for the front...

The dryer isn't the easiest thing without removing the bumper (I opted to not pull the bumper). I ended up grinding down some of the bolts on the air chamber before reinserting - made the installiation better.

Warning: Replacing the driver side top arm is a real pain. Rathet wrenches are the only way to go (it takes awhile to turn a compression nut 5 degrees at a pass through...).
 
RE: Replacing rear air bags

[div class="dcquote"][strong]Quote[/strong]
Warning: Replacing the driver side top arm is a real pain. Rathet wrenches are the only way to go (it takes awhile to turn a compression nut 5 degrees at a pass through...).
[/div]

This is how I do it. It worked great for me on 4 marks so far.
http://mark8.org/users/madstgen/images/upperAarm.jpg
 
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