[HO455]

Jacked up the WMB and removed the front air bags earlier this week. It went easier than I had figured to cut through the welds. I did buy a good quality thin cutting disk for the rotary grinder. Then I fabbed up some upper plates to bolt in place. That took longer than expected as I decided to bend the inside down to match the cross member. I used a hydraulic press and like a hundred trips back and forth under the truck to get them to fit right. Then it was time to drill the holes. Oh boy nothing better than laying on your back drilling above you. I clamped the plate in position and drilled 3/32" pilot holes to start. After removing the plate I drilled the the cross member holes to 3/8" with a screw machine length drill bit I got at Grainger. The bit is only 3 1/8" overall length so using a 90* pneumatic drill I was able to fit the drill and bit without having to remove the lower control arm. Then it was on to the easy part of drilling the plates to 3/8" on the bench. That done I drilled holes for the air lines to exit on the back side of the cross member. With the bag bolted to the plate I realized that I would not be able to compress the new Slam Specialties bags by hand enough to get them in the proper location. So I ran the the line through the cross member and grabbed the shops power brake bleeder and hooked it up. The vacuum provided by the bleeder easily collapsed the bag and I was able to slid it into place with inches of room. Then I started all the bolts on the plate and the lower cup. After i turned off the bleeder the cup dropped right into position. I saved a ton of time over pulling one of the control arms off for clearance.
Looking at the old bags I think part of the problem with the alignment of the top of the bag and the bottom is either the upper part was installed at an angle or that part shifted over time as it was only welded about 180*. With no welds on the inside half there was nothing to keep them from moving.