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5,000-lb Capacity. LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate air springs have internal bumpers, so you get the adjustable load support of air springs and the comfort and reliability of jounce springs. Jounces also work as a fail-safe if air springs lose pressure.
Features:
Specs:
The air springs and jounce springs in this system work together to give you the best ride whether your truck is loaded or unloaded. Air Lift's LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate air springs have internal urethane foam jounces that protect the air springs and provide added ride comfort when your air pressure is low. The jounces also allow you to temporarily carry a load if the air springs lose air pressure. This gives your 3/4-ton or 1-ton pickup, motor home, or commercial truck air springs that are easier to maintain.
Carrying heavy cargo in your truck bed or trailer puts extra stress on your truck. Your brakes erode faster, your tires wear unevenly, and handling suffers severely. When towing, you might also experience excessive sway, bottoming out, and even inaccurate and unsafe headlight aim.
By pairing your existing suspension with LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate air springs, you can seriously beef up your suspension, ensure equal load distribution, and get the support you need. The springs provide up to 5,000 lbs of load-leveling capacity (depending on the weight-carrying capacity of your vehicle) and distribute the weight of your payload to all 4 wheels. As a result, the stress on your factory suspension is significantly reduced. LoadLifter's air bags are adjustable from 5 to 100 psi for precise support, and they can be inflated equally for front-to-back leveling or independently of one another for side-to-side leveling.
The air springs are made of high-quality, 2-ply, fabric-reinforced rubber. Most air bags lose air at the ends where the bag is enclosed with steel caps. These caps can rust and corrode over time, creating small holes. But the endcaps on Air Lift air bags are fashioned from corrosion-proof Zytel nylon, a material that is both stronger and lighter than steel, ensuring that the air bags won't lose air.
The air bags also have Air Lift's exclusive roll plates, which protect the air springs and beef up their load capacity. These sturdy plates help guard the springs from moving parts under your vehicle that might puncture the air bags. The plates also provide a larger surface area for each spring to roll on. The extra surface area gives you a higher spring rate at a lower air pressure, resulting in a better ride.
The closed-cell urethane jounce spring inside each air spring gives you a more stable, comfortable ride. Each jounce acts as an overload spring and engages when your current air pressure level isn't enough to support your load. So on a rough road, the springs will kick in if needed to absorb bumps and shocks and help you to avoid bottoming out. When the jounces support a load, they adjust progressively - the more weight you pile on, the stiffer they become. The urethane material engages more smoothly than rubber jounces so you get a less jerky ride.
Because these jounces are taller than your factory jounce bumpers, they engage sooner than your factory jounces would to provide better support. And if the LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate air springs have insufficient or zero air pressure, the internal jounces will help to temporarily support your suspension and protect it from damage until you can repair or adjust the air spring system.
This system installs easily. Just mount the springs, inflate them, and ride. The springs install between your truck's frame and its leaf springs. To inflate the LoadLifter springs, you just have to pump in air through the inflation valves. A line kit is included with the springs so that you can install the manual inflation valves (one for each spring). These are typically mounted on the bumper but can be installed anywhere that is easily accessible. If you want to make the springs even easier to use, you can get a compressor and gauge system (sold separately) that allows you to monitor and adjust the springs from the cab of your truck.
Along with a lifetime warranty that has no mileage restrictions, Air Lift offers a 60-day satisfaction guarantee. Just install and use LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate springs for 60 days, and if you are not satisfied at the end of this time, you can remove and return them for a full refund.
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Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Instructor Today we're gonna be taking a look at Air Lifts line of LoadLifter 5,000 Ultimate Air Helper Springs with internal jounce bumpers. These bags are specifically designed for three quarter and one ton trucks and motor homes, you're big heavy dogs here. These bags are a custom fit for your particular truck so you want to use our fit guide to ensure you get the appropriate hardware and brackets to install them. To show off our airbags, we're going to add about a thousand pounds of water weight to the back of our truck. We're working with a Chevy Silverado 3,500 today, but the principles are the same regardless of your vehicle. Having your vehicle loaded down like this, bringing the back down and the front up, changes the geometry of your suspension, and it also changes the way weight is loaded onto your front brakes.
So this causes poor handling, as well as poor braking performance. By adding air bags into the back of our vehicle, we can raise the back of our vehicle back up, and that's also gonna help restore the suspension closer to that factory ride height as well. That's gonna give us better contact on the road with our tires so they don't wear excessively fast, it's gonna increase our handling because we're going to have better contact to the road, and with it level back up here at the front again, our weight's gonna properly transition onto the front brakes restoring a lot of that loss breaking performance. Another added benefit is by bringing the back of our vehicle back up, we're picking our headlights that we're pointed up towards the sky and bringing them back down on the road, so we we're able to see better at night as well. And here we can see our airbags installed.
They're going to sit between the axle and the frame of your vehicle, and they'll provide up to 5,000 pounds of leveling support. Now this doesn't increase the amount of weight that you can carry with your vehicle, that's just how much these can help to support and lift your vehicle back up to restore that lost ride height that you had from being weighed down. Inside of our airbag here, there's a jounce bumper, and what that does for us is in the event that we've got it so loaded up and we hit a really big bump, and our axle moves up. If it we're to go up so far, it could contact the internal jounce bumper and that's going to prevent any metal on metal contact, And it's also going to save our bag from any potential damage. This is mostly for when you get really heavily loaded, really pushing it, getting close to the maximum load limit of your vehicle, that jounce bumper can really come in handy when you're maybe doing some good speeds and you hit a pretty big pothole or something like that, that could save you and your vehicle from any issues.
To further increase the structural integrity of our bag, there's roll plates on the top and bottom, so as our vehicle goes to sway to the left or to the right, when we're making invasive maneuvers or just regular turns, the bag as it wants to lean to one side of the other, from that sway can contact on the roll plate here, and that'll provide it with additional support to ensure that our bags stay in place doing their job. The double convoluted design will help increase the structural integrity of our bag. It gives it a higher burst pressure by displacing the air as necessary as it moves up and down. And to further ensure the durability of our gags, they're constructed of a two ply fabric reinforced rubber, and they're very durable here. They have a increased size on that internal jounce bumper as well.
The urethane bumper is a little bit taller so it'll contact a little bit sooner, and that's really nice if you maybe haven't adjusted your air pressure quite yet, either. Maybe you've loaded it up and it's still a little bit lower pressure, that jounce bumper is always gonna be in there to provide contact, and then if you find that, hey, you're hitting that jounce bumper, it's a little stiff, you can up the air pressure a little bit to help bring that away and get the best ride quality, as well as the best support. You also receive a heat shield in your kit, this is gonna further protect your bag from any excessively hot sources, such as your exhaust here. You'll receive clamps with it and everything, so that makes it nice and easy to get that installed, and it's very easy to position it and however you need to for your particular exhaust system. So it's nice, even if you upgrade your exhaust system, you'll still be able to use something like this. Included with your kit, you're gonna receive airlines and all the hardware you need to get it installed. You'll receive two air fittings so that way you can inflate each bag independently from one another. This is nice if you're trying to correct any uneven loads, but really in most cases, when you're loading down your truck, you typically want to load both of your bags the same to just bring that support back up and level your truck back out, and in those instances, the easiest way to do it will be to install a compressor on your vehicle. On this vehicle, we've installed Air Lift's WirelessONE compressor, and this is one of the easiest compressors to install. It's completely wireless and you can operate it with your phone, so you don't have to worry about losing any kind of device when you're trying to inflate it. And you don't even have to get out of your truck to inflate it. So you could pull up to a place and have somebody drop a pallet in the back of your truck, adjust the pressure on your phone and take off. The operating range of our bags is between five and a hundred PSI. Five pounds is when we're just normal driving around, completely unloaded. It is important to have five pounds in there because as your suspension moves up and down, it can create a small vacuum in there if you don't have any pressure, so we just keep that five pounds in there. And then for your heaviest loads, we can go up to all the way to a hundred pounds to provide that support. Just wanna keep in mind that up at those higher pressures it does get pretty stiff, and in most cases, about 40 to 50 pounds is gonna probably be sufficient. And that completes our look at Air Lift's line of their LoadLifter 5,000 Ultimate Air Helper Springs with internal jounce bumpers..
Average Customer Rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars (445 Customer Reviews)
5,000-lb Capacity. LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate air springs have internal bumpers, so you get the adjustable load support of air springs and the comfort and reliability of jounce springs. Jounces also work as a fail-safe if air springs lose pressure.Very easy to install on my 2021 Ford Transit! All hardware is provided and the instructions were spot on. I definitely recommend these when running at or near capacity. Makes a huge difference in handling and ride.
Leaking since day one
Sierra K - 07/08/2022Excellent customer service as usual. This is truly my favorite vendor.
The install was easy. I installed the air pump inside my van on a shelf behind the driver's seat.
Works great. The only con is the price of the air pump. This pump is made in China and $800 plus
Is more than twice what it should cost.
Product arrived quickly. Very easy install on a Transit 250.
Great customer service, thank you
Excellent product+++++ Recommended +++++
Review from a similar LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate in Vehicle Suspension
They were easy for any handy guy to install . It took about 2 hrs. They lifted my 2500 ram to sit level with my 37ft. 5th wheel. I even leave them as is, when I'm not hooked up, and don't notice a difference. I ran two separate lines to near my rear license plate, no compressor. I'm glad I didn't spend that extra money. You rarely change the pressure, and it's so easy to do.
JIM S - 03/04/2022Review from a similar LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate in Vehicle Suspension
This was installed on a 2021 Chevy Express 2500 van conversion by Explorer Conversion Vans. Explorer installed an Eaton rear suspension and it was not up to the task of a heavy conversion van. I think the air bags help but I will need to upgrade the shock absorbers to eliminate some of the bounce from the air bags. There were three primary issues with the installation:
1) The parking brake cable bracket is in the way and has to be cut off the axle. I attached the parking brake cable clamp to one of the Air Lift bolts using a nut. This is not something every at-home installer can do.
2) The air hose is barely long enough. I specifically asked how long the hose is because I wanted to route it where the future compressor will go and was told there is enough to go around the entire vehicle. That is incorrect. I will have to replace the hoses at my cost when I upgrade to the onboard compressor system.
3) The etrailer video says to drill the mounting holes to 5/16" diameter. The 3/8"-16 bolts immediately stripped out. I should have drilled the holes to 9/32" diameter.
I have bought a lot from etrailer and I will purchase from them again. Most of my issues stem from the poor design and instructions of the Air Lift product. For example, it doesn’t say anywhere on the box or product literature how much air hose is provided.
Jenny N - 11/03/2021Review from a similar LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate in Vehicle Suspension
The air bags do their job well and would be great for someone who caries the same load all the time or doesn't carry a load often these would be great. I have different loads on my trailer or I'm empty multiple times per day, I definitely recommend buying the setup with an air compressor and remote.
James - 02/13/2022Review from a similar LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate in Vehicle Suspension
This 88205 kit was installed into a 2010 Roadtrek 210P (Chevy express 3500 chassis). If you own one, you know these vans run overloaded even on a good day. This kit was installed to increase stability and to reduce the "crash" as the van goes over bumps. These vans ride on the overload spring and there is no real progression to the rear suspension. The airbags will help absorb some of the impact from bumps in a progressive manner. I will also be installing new front coil springs to bring the ride height back to factory spec. The rear height has come up about an inch (25 psi in the bags) - as you can see in the van picture, there's a rake to the van. This will be resolved when the new coil springs are installed to raise the front height by a couple of inches. I will leave the front Sumo Springs jounce bumpers (black=medium) in place with the new coils. I mention all this in particular for 210 owners - you need to address both front and rear suspension issues.
First, the results. I was anticipating an improvement in driveability but I was very surprised at the huge improvement. Test drive was with 25 psi in the bags - I'll test other pressures to see what they result in. There is much less lean on turns and the rear suspension feels resistant to making every bump a big event. The bags absorb the initial shock and improve ride quality significantly, a lot of the cringe factor is now gone. Much more pleasurable to drive.
The internal jounce bumpers are worth the extra cost - not only do they help reduce the shock of bumps, but they supplement the response of the rear suspension. By this I mean that the airbag will initially take the impact, then for larger bumps, the internal jounce bumpers will progressively absorb more impact. At the same time the rear springs are able to work better since they are not completely dependent on the thick overload spring. Additionally, if an airbag loses air completely, the vehicle can still ride on the internal jounce bumper until repairs can be made.
I installed the fill valves below the rear bumper lip (they point downwards). A bit clunky to get to, but I plan a later install of an on-board compressor. The amount of air line was just enough to run to the back bumper, you need to plan carefully on routing to ensure you have enough line. I did not combine the lines, each bag is filled individually. In my case, due to location of spare tire, water/sewer tanks, fuel tank and coach storage I wanted to be able to tweak each side to get to level ground to fender lip measurement on each side. Gives me a level vehicle even with varied load locations.
I think this is a better kit for our application than the Firestone air bag kit as this kit places the airbag right between the frame and the axle, the best place for load bearing. The Firestone kit places the top bag mount on a bracket mounted to the side of the frame. This can weaken over time with the bracket always trying to resist being pushed off the frame. The Air Lift kit doesn't need any connection to the leaf spring u-bolts and I like that too.
The kit included everything I needed. One of the few times I've not had to change something in order to do a complete thorough installation. Instructions were fine and I liked the torque numbers given - sure you can get the bolts "tight enough" but it's good when a mfg provides complete data. I used the heat sleeve and shield too, the shield is a good idea.
Before final install of the airbag assembly, check the angle of the horizontal bar that extends to the rear from the top bag mount bracket. It's a bit off from the bend in the frame, just needs a check and possible tweaking of the bar. Easy to do, and this will let the top bag mount bracket bear directly on the frame as it's designed to do. The lower bag mount bracket installs easily, and I used the relocating bolt/spacer for the passenger side hand brake cable. Nice to have that detail covered.
On 210's you may have a 1.5 in spacer under the leaf spring - installed by Roadtrek. It will probably have a ledge extension for the frame bumper. You'll be removing the frame bumper anyway, and the ledge extension needs to be cut off to provide space for the airbag. I removed the spacer, cut off the extension and re-installed the spacer. I replaced the original crusty u-bolts at the same time - you should not re-use u-bolts, especially these high torque bolts. U-bolts stretch and also distort at the threads. Get new u-bolts and check them for a few hundred miles after they are installed as they may stretch a bit more. U-bolts are square bend, 2 9/16in. inside dimension to get over 2 1/2in. spring width. Originals were about 11 3/4in long but you can knock an inch off the length. I used oem length and you can see they are a bit long.
I like cost-effective results - this kit provided those results in our case. You always hope for the best and I think that it's of particular benefit to our tubby 210s with that substantial rear weight and overhang. Took me a couple of days to get everything done, but it's well worth the time and cost. Highly recommended.
Review from a similar LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate in Vehicle Suspension
Good product. A slight change from the Firestone double convoluted airbags that originally came with my Chevy p30 Itasca motorhome. But after a few hours of getting them into position properly, the ride is extra smooth. I run these at 100psi and they may only have a slow drop to 98 or 97 psi after a few days. Instructions for the 90 degree elbow say hand tight and then 1 and half more turns, but my passenger side bag, leaked immediately. Pulled the bag back out and reset the elbow with teflon tape and gave it a few more turns. Checked with soapy water, and everything worked perfectly. Depending on the position of your axle, you may have to set the bag a few times adjusting the mounting plate for best fit. The printed template unfortunately didn't help in this 3d space. Best to get as close to upright as you can when you find the correct mounting position.
etrailer was able to deliver these in 2-3 days and had them shipped the day of order.
Review from a similar LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate in Vehicle Suspension
The air bags work great, I have a 2017 F-350 and I add 40psi of air to the bags and truck is back to level . Ride is smooth and no bounce ,5th wheel hitch weight is 3900 lbs and trailer weighs 16,500lbs unloaded. Even with a 1ton truck the bags save the suspension. Had them on my 1st truck and this one , will do it on my next truck if I keep camping.
Review from a similar LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate in Vehicle Suspension
Installed in my garage and install went smooth. Look at instructions as slight adjustment based on what suspension you have (sway bar) all went together in one evening
Review from a similar LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate in Vehicle Suspension
Great setup. Everything fit well and was moderately easy to install. The airbags at only 5 psi tightened up the handling of my truck noticeably.
Review from a similar LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate in Vehicle Suspension
Exactly the parts I was looking for to the model of vehicle chassis I have. Easy to find on the website and everything there to help you install it as the RV owner. Thanks to Etrailer.com again for having exactly what I needed to accomplish my latest task with our motorhome.
Lawrence - 07/09/2022Review from a similar LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate in Vehicle Suspension
Towing a 30' camper with sway bars, the camper would still sway. Added the air lift to my Ram 1500 4x4 adjusted to 80 psi. This solved my problem. Left the loadlifter at 80 psi without the camper and the ride ad handling still felt good.
The install was easy. I added a T fitting so I only needed to install one schrader valve.
Review from a similar LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate in Vehicle Suspension
The package arrived all beat to heck but everything was still inside. The installation was fairly straight forward except the instructions had me leave the airbag loose in the mount until the mounts were firmly bolted in place on the frame and spring,this would have been ok but there was no room to get a wrench in the top and bottom to tighten it up. I had to use the by guess method to get them aligned and tightened down then sliding them into place to attach the mounts. I'm a handy guy and the installation on my motor home took about 4 hours, they did the job and brought it back up to level. Will see how the handling is on my next trip.
James - 04/13/2022Review from a similar LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate in Vehicle Suspension
THE AIR LIFTER SET WORKS GREAT FOR TOWING MY CAR TRAILER WITH MY TRUCKBED CAMPER LOADED IN THE BED.
Bernie - 06/04/2022Review from a similar LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate in Vehicle Suspension
The air bag I purchased was to replace one that leaked. The replacement bag STILL did not hold air. Am tired of constantly having to keep this bag aired up.
Jenny N - 06/29/2022 Jenny N - 06/29/2022Review from a similar LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate in Vehicle Suspension
Lower bracket is not strong enough. Collapsed on the first trip. A replacement was sent out but did not last. I had to fabricate a support under the center of the bracket to prevent bending.
Jenny N - 05/05/2022Review from a similar LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate in Vehicle Suspension
I installed the air bags and everything fit as advertised. Works excellent and would recommend to anyone who is pulling or hauling heavy loads. The only issue I had was some of the small parts for the air valves were missing.Not a big deal as I have a maintenance shop had extra fasteners to finish installation. Very good product
David - 04/11/2022Review from a similar LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate in Vehicle Suspension
Purchased the Airlift 5000 Series Airbags, 88288. Do it yourself installation was fairly easy with no complications. Installation instructions were detailed and there are several online Installation videos to view online. Would highly recommend these bags over the various leaf springs helpers available.
Review from a similar LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate in Vehicle Suspension
These bags are amazing. Make the rear end ride pretty rough so I put deaver add a packs from carli and did the day star buckets for the bags. Now they are connected when I need them, and disconnected when I dont. Pretty awesome set up. I've put 5200 pounds of rock in the bed of my truck, the rock yard thought I was crazy but then I aired up the bags. You should of seen their faces. Rode level, sat at about 85 psi and rode like a caddy.
Review from a similar LoadLifter 5000 Ultimate in Vehicle Suspension
Installing this was easy if you follow the instructions and look at video installation as reference. I took my time about 4 hours from start to finish. Ready to help with towing our 30' Coleman travel trailer with our Toyota Tundra to the grand canyon this summer.
Jose - 06/29/2019
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Instructions for AL88205
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