Onboard air

In a number of posts recently about damaged and loose turnbuckles, several people weighed in that reducing tire pressure driving off road can help minimize damage to your equipment. It also widens the tire profile increasing traction, and makes the ride significantly more comfortable, especially on washboard roads.

Prior to getting my Eagle, I spent a fair amount of time driving in the Southwest over roads in various degrees of maintenance. I would typically air down to 15-20 PSI and it made an amazing difference in both ride quality and traction. But, in order to air down, one has to have a way to air up before hitting the asphalt for the drive home. After a lot of research and talking to people more knowledgeable than myself, I ended up purchasing an ExtremeAire compressor from Extreme Outback. It wasn't cheap but I wanted something that would air up tires quickly and could be upgraded to run air tools if necessary. The service and customer support from George and his team were fantastic.

Before the camper, I had it installed in the bed of my Tacoma. This particular unit can be frame mounted but given the amount of salt Minnesota dumps on its roads, I didn't want it exposed to that much corrosive material. I found a spot in the camper that was out of the way but could be easily accessed from the rear door when necessary.



There is a small space to the right of the door that sits underneath the rollover couch. The compressor is mounted on a 1/8 steel plate and bolted to the side of the cabinet. I also mounted the air outlet and the switch on some aluminum scraps I had in the shop.

All of the relays and wiring are inside the storage cabinet in such a way that I can still fully utilize the storage, and the wiring is protected.




Any questions, send them on.

Cheers

Those are nice units. A bit pricey though.

They are but in 4 years, Ive never had an issue with it. It will run all day and fills tires quickly.

What's the old saying, "you get what you pay for" unfortunately these days that's less and less true but fortunately its still true occasionally.
I've always had full size trucks 3/4 ton or 1 ton and often these trucks ride at between 60 & 80 psi. I would drive on the beach with almost 4000 lbs of camper on the back and would air down to around 25 psi for optimum performance in the sand. My question is does your air compressor have the ability to fill my tires in less then 3 minutes per tire (approximate time at air station at the beach).
I'd like to have onboard air but I've used portable 12 volt units and its like 10 minutes a tire. Which is not cool.
I've read good things about the unit you have, I'd like to know what the actual performance is like.
By the way tire deflators are a must if this is something that you do more then twice a year.
Thanks

From 15 psi to 40 is probably 4-5 minutes. I'm going to guess that the air station at the beach is hard wired with a pretty big tank.

You can run an air tank for faster fills since speed is obviously an issue. Or get a CO2 tank -- I understand they are very fast.

I have an extreme air compressor on my truck with a small tank (2 gallon if I remember). Fills my tires from about 20 lbs to 70 lbs in 3 ~ 4 minutes each. As kmacafee says, these are great compressors. Mine's been on the truck about 5 years and completely trouble free.

Thanks guys, I often wondered if the tank was a big plus or not, I guess K6ON gave me the answer.
Do you guys have the magnum model or the regular one ?

DanT said:

Thanks guys, I often wondered if the tank was a big plus or not, I guess K6ON gave me the answer.
Do you guys have the magnum model or the regular one ?

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Mine is the Magnum.

Mine is the regular.

I picked up one of these MV50's 5-6 years ago from summit racing:

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200442866_200442866?cm_mmc=Google-plaAir%20Tools%20%2B%20CompressorsSingle%20Stage%20Electric%20Air%20Compressors305400&ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=305400&ci_src=17588969&ci_sku=305400&gclid=CIWi-bn3w8ICFSRo7AodVn4Asw

It has worked great and will air up my truck tires from 20 to 45 psi in 2-3 minutes per tire.

OBA that I built: http://www.wanderthewest.com/forum/topic/8192-oba-system/
I would guess that the compressor is a low dollar clone of the ExtremeAir. Not to imply that performance will be the same, but so far it has worked well. As it is a junkyard find I'm not going to be hurt if it goes tango uniform. I do carry an MV-50 for back-up and remote use (other people's rigs that are too far away).

Thank guys, The camper is going to break the bank for Jan. and Feb. but I plan on putting OBA on my list of must do mods.
Thanks Kilroy for posting that exportal article, now I remember reading it a while back but I forgot about it.
There was a good post here about a year ago if anyone else remembers. The guy did a sweet job and I think he used an extreme air unit.
Anyway thanks for the advice and at least now I have an accurate sense of what kind of performance I should expect.
DanT

Started out with a MV50 and works pretty good. Now that is my back up and have a Puma air compressor that works great for me. I divorced the tank for better mounting. I can use a 3/8" harbor freight impacts wrench to remove lug nuts.

As long as you have one and it works, go with it. Many choices out there.

After seeing many units in use I"m going with a C02 setup, eventually. Moves easily between vehicles, will reseat a bead. Fast. I broke both beads on my jeep last year on a snow run and with a strap and C02 it was back in action in a few minutes. Pricey though.

craig333 said:

After seeing many units in use I"m going with a C02 setup, eventually. Moves easily between vehicles, will reseat a bead. Fast. I broke both beads on my jeep last year on a snow run and with a strap and C02 it was back in action in a few minutes. Pricey though.

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Does not sound like a good option for me. I looked around the internet and found this site https://powertank.com/category.rv and the tank performance chart claims, if I calculated this correctly, that I can fill 10 18" tires from 20 to 80 psi per tank. That would mean every third trip to the beach I'm shopping for CO2. I don't like adding things to my to do list when I'm trying to get away. I think that would be a deal breaker for me.

I just carry a portable Viair 450P which does a good job, I don't really have a good place to mount onboard air on my rig although I'll need to find somewhere if I add an ARB locker down the road. Too bad the quad cab long bed Tacoma isn't available with the TRD Off Road package since I liked having the electric locking diff on my FJ.

SL -- a friend of mine has the quad cab TRD with the 6 foot bed. Apparently, they make very few of them and I think he waited 5-6 months for the dealer to locate it. That was in 2012.

Re: CO2 and re-seating beads. There are other, more dangerous and/or more technical ways to do it, but I've re-seated a bead using one of the small CO2 bottles that used to come with the GM cars that had those "space saver spares". Wish that I knew what happened to the bottle. It was small enough for easy transport, but big enough to do the job once or twice. Assuming one of those could be found and assuming that it could be refilled I think that one would be the perfect compliment to an OBA system.

The ARB compressor can do re-inflating duties but it seems like that's asking a lot of it. Other thing to note is that ARB systems run something like 90-100 psi so if your OBA system has it's pressure set to run air tools you'll need to regulate down the supply to the ARB.

kmacafee said:

SL -- a friend of mine has the quad cab TRD with the 6 foot bed. Apparently, they make very few of them and I think he waited 5-6 months for the dealer to locate it. That was in 2012.

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Mine's a TRD but Sport not Off-Road. The Sport does not have the locker and ATRAC. They don't make the Off-Road with a 6' bed in the new trucks. Even if I do add the ARB locker I would probably still use the portable to air up tires and air bags.

Any welding supply place can refill CO2. Just don't buy a quickair. Mine in the Jeep is a pos.