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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- 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 with the included brackets and hardware. Just mount the springs, inflate them, and ride. 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 (1 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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Average Customer Rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars (852 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.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.
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.
Installation was pretty easy and when one side isn’t leaking they work great
The major problem I have with the system is the capacity is so small, adjusting pressure is a PIA.
It does level the load and smooths the ride.
Unfortunately there is no kit available from Firestone for my application.
Arrive fast
The product was as advertised. Instructions were provided and fairly straightforward. Be sure to jack the frame up high enough to access the area where the airbags go. Be careful when inserting the clips into the frame. I had one that slipped and shot into the inside of the frame and thankfully I had a long handled magnet and retrieved it. One recommendation I have is for the manufacturer to preassemble as much of the product as possible which would minimize the chance of parts being assembled incorrectly. I mounted the valve stems on the bumper on each side of the license plate.
Installed on a 2024 GMC Sierra Crew SLT with rear poly mono springs. This worked great and the install was easy. It took me about 2.5 hours on a 4 post lift, but you could do it in the driveway if you needed to. I reached out to airlift to make sure it would work on a vehicle with mono-springs and they were not 100 percent sure if it would. So I took a chance and it worked flawlessly!
This product was fairly easy to install. The biggest problem I faced was a suspension bracket on my passenger side next to wear I installed that airbag. It was not mentioned in the video instructions. I really struggled getting my tools and hands on such a tight spot. After an hour, everything was ready to roll.
Slight pain in the ass to install on a 2020 ram 1500, but so worth it. Hauled home a 3500 lb dump trailer today with 40 psi in the bags and it rode like dream, rear end didn’t even sag. Can’t wait to see what it does fully loaded
The air lift is of high quality. I was able to lift my 2023 Thor Sequence RV 2.5 inch with the air bags. I needed that to get over a hump in my drive way. I loved the fact I did not need any additional parts for installation. I would highly recommend this product. It will be very useful for leveling at camp sites you can level one side at a time.
I purchased the wireless 5000 helper system for my new Toyota Tundra. I pull a 21ft boat and a 33ft travel trailer. The Tundras rear suspension set down a little more than i liked. So, i researched helper kits and with "etrailer's" assistance i decided on the above mentioned system. I installed myself within a couple hours and have used for about 1 year now. i haved had great service from "etrailer" and am extremely happy with the product. Have had no issues at all with the product and will use again on my next truck. Thanks
Ordered the airbags on Monday. Received them on Friday. I have the same week. Great customer service.
Adds the leveling needed when I tow our 5th wheel. I have used these before on another brand of truck and would highly recommend them! Etrailer is always a pleasure to do business with. Shipping is always on time if not before I expect it.
The kit got here and it was in good shape and everything that was supposed to be there was there. Haven't tried it out yet but I have no doubt that it's going to work perfectly. The staff was very friendly and a very helpful in picking out the right system for my motorhome, I will add more photos when I get the project done plus a video.
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.
So I installed the airbags in my drive way. It wasn't anything difficult. My truck had some ass drag to being with but I primarily purchased the airbags because at the time I was trailering a boat I bought. SO I needed them to level my ride while towing. I currently run the bags at 50 psi and 60psi while towing. They have worked perfectly and added comfort to my ride as well. I noticed more of a bounce in the rear of the truck so I up graded my shocks to bilstien 5160 rear shocks. Problem solved.
I was able to install this kit on my 2021 GMC Sierra 1500, following the etrailer video. The video was absolutely essential from my experience. Removing the spare tire and heat shield were necessary to have full access to the area. Jacking up the rear of the vehicle with a floor jack was also necessary. I didn't have any power tools. Breaking a few bolts loose took a pipe extension over the wrench handle. All parts fit well. The air lines went in easily. I routed them to the bottom of my license plate holes. The air springs definitely puts my vehicle back to its normal level after hooking up my 7,500 lb. RV trailer. Everything feels solid when towing. Very pleased with this product.
Wish I would have ordered the one with the airpump . Works great on my ram 2500 pulling 40 foot fifthwheel
The airlift bags are really nice quality! I would say they could go into a little more detail in the instructions for putting the brackets together for the diy people.
Very Nice! We watched the video on YouTube, very helpful! I ordered the additional Tee. So, as to only have 1 air inlet, under the rear bumper. Have the DeWalt 20 volt compressor with the digital air pressure display ( which will air up 10 ply tires) and it’s always on the truck. That way I didn’t spend extra money or time installing an onboard compressor or pairing Bluetooth “Technology” and no remote to lose.
Product was delivered quickly. Took about 1 1/2 to install these air bags. The instructions were very helpful and precise. Ran the air fittings out at bottom of bumper in the black trim next to hitch. I have had these on for about 3 weeks and just went camping. The bags help keep my 40’ travel trailer riding smoothly and gave the support that was needed being that my camper is tongue heavy. Would definitely recommend these bags. I would also recommend etrailer because they was very helpful with my questions and got the product out quick.
Tow 11,000 lb. FW witha Ford F250. Love the feel of the Air Lift airbags, and the insurance of the internal jounce bumpers if needed. Over 5,000 miles logged, and still going strong.
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Jenny N.
11/3/2021
Thank you for your feedback. I reached out to Airlift and found that the kit will come with 16 feet of airline hose. If an additional compressor system is purchased then an additional 20 feet will come with it depending on the kit. In the manual there are instructions on how to route the brake lines for non disc and disc brake systems.
Helpful Links
instructions.aspx?pn=AL88205