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  1. Vehicle Suspension
  2. Chevrolet
  3. Suburban
  4. 1997
  5. Firestone
FITS 1997 Chevrolet Suburban
Firestone Ride-Rite Air Helper Springs - Double Convoluted - Rear Axle

Firestone Ride-Rite Air Helper Springs - Double Convoluted - Rear Axle

Item # F2101
Retail:$708.26
Our Price: $449.30
You Save: $258.96
Vehicle Suspension
Confirmed to Fit
1997 Chevrolet Suburban

1500

2500

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Call etrailer.com at 1-800-940-8924 for expert service. We are your Chevrolet vehicle suspension experts, and offer a great price. etrailer.com carries a complete line of Firestone products for your Chevrolet Suburban 1997. Firestone Ride-Rite Air Helper Springs - Double Convoluted - Rear Axle part F2101 from Firestone can be ordered online at etrailer.com. Complete vehicle suspension installation instructions and technical support.
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1997 Chevrolet Suburban - Firestone Ride-Rite Air Helper Springs - Double Convoluted - Rear Axle

  • Rear Axle Suspension Enhancement
  • Air Springs
  • Firestone
  • Heavy Duty

5,000-lb Capacity. Ride-Rite air springs enhance your factory suspension for safety and stability when you are hauling heavy loads. They reduce strain on your rear axle, keep your Chevrolet Suburban level, and adjust to load size for a consistently smooth ride.


Features:

  • Maximize safe load-carrying capacity, increase stability and improve ride quality
    • Install between your vehicle's frame and its rear suspension
  • Keep your vehicle level when you are hauling a heavy load
    • Improve steering control and braking when you are hauling or towing
    • Level your headlight beams
    • Reduce tire wear
  • Maintain even load distribution with air pressure, leveling off-center loads
    • Air bags adjust manually, side to side, with individual inflation valves
  • Reduce strain on rear suspension
    • Prevent permanent sagging and excessive friction in leaf springs
  • Increase stability
    • Absorb road shock for a smooth ride
    • Soften contact between axle and frame to prevent bottoming out
  • Provide maximum load support and durability with rubber construction and double-convoluted design
  • Include all materials necessary for installation
    • Brackets, air springs, hardware, air line and separate valves for manual inflation
    • Switches and gauges, compressors, and air tanks (sold separately) are available for quick and easy air spring inflation/deflation from inside your vehicle
  • Made in the USA


Specs:

  • Load-leveling capacity: 5,000 lbs
    • Ride-Rite springs will not increase your vehicle's weight-carrying capacity. Do not exceed the manufacturer's recommended weight limit.
  • Adjustable air pressure: 5 psi to 100 psi
  • Limited lifetime warranty on air springs
  • 2-Year limited warranty on hardware


Note: The construction material of the fittings may vary.


Firestone Ride-Rite Air Spring Basics

Firestone Ride-Rite springs are designed to increase safety and reduce the strain on your vehicle when you are hauling heavy loads or towing a heavy trailer. The springs partner with your existing rear suspension system to help keep your vehicle level, maintain even load distribution and increase stability. Hauling heavy loads or towing a heavy trailer can make the rear of your vehicle sag and the front end rise. This puts more strain on your rear axle and reduces contact between your front tires and the road, causing problems with braking, steering control and traction. By adding air springs to your rear suspension, you can help to level your vehicle and improve braking and handling. The air springs also help to level your headlight beams and reduce wear on your tires.


Firestone Ride-Rite air spring airline installation

Adjustable Air Pressure

The air pressure in your Ride-Rite springs can be adjusted manually, side to side, to compensate for off-center loads. A centered load improves the stability of your vehicle by reducing body roll. The air springs will also help to absorb road shock and to soften contact between your axle and frame. This prevents bottoming out, thus improving ride comfort. Route the air line tubing for the springs to your vehicle's bumper to provide easy access to the manual inflation valves.


Firestone Ride-Ride air spring components

Air Spring Construction

Firestone's double-convoluted Ride-Rite air springs are designed to give you maximum load support and enhance the performance and ride comfort of your vehicle. The rubber springs provide cushioning between your suspension components and operate at up to 100 psi. The springs have four layers of reinforced rubber to ensure durability and enhance load support. A braided wire girdle creates the double-convoluted shape of each air spring, increasing the burst pressure of the spring. The rubber springs are attached to corrosion-resistant metal end plates with a time-proven, rolled crimp seal that keeps the bags securely anchored.


Firestone Ride-Rite air spring installation

Air Spring Installation

Each Ride-Rite kit includes custom-fit brackets that connect to your axle and frame. The brackets provide the mounting points for the air springs. Drilling may be required for some applications.



W217602101 Firestone Ride Rite Air Bags - Suspension Kit - Double Convoluted - Rear Axle

2101

Installation Details F2101 Installation instructions

Customer Satisfaction Score:


Customer Reviews

Firestone Ride-Rite Air Helper Springs - Double Convoluted - Rear Axle - F2101

Average Customer Rating:  4.7 out of 5 stars   (2448 Customer Reviews)

5,000-lb Capacity. Ride-Rite air springs enhance your factory suspension for safety and stability when you are hauling heavy loads. They reduce strain on your rear axle, keep your vehicle level, and adjust to load size for a consistently smooth ride.

by:
1996 ChevroletSuburban

Installed on my 1996 Suburban. Everything bolted up perfectly. Only thing that would make it better is having one air chuck for both bags instead of seperate ones for each bag. One tip is make sure when you trim the airlines, keep your cuts clean and straight or you will have leaks. Overall great system.



by:
1997ChevroletSuburban

Product was as described. Fits my 1997 Chevy Suburban K1500 like a glove. Easy to install, less than two hours. Works great leveling with trailer tongue load.



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1995 GMC Suburban

Easy to install works perfectly



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1999 GMC Suburban



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1994 ChevroletSuburban



by:

I installed this about two weeks ago. I don’t have a lift so spent a lot of time on a crawler. Thank goodness there is sufficient underbelly height on my Silverado 2500HD.

I bought these just to remove a bit of sag when I hook up the fifth wheel. Installation was pretty easy and the instructions were fine. Although I learned from my mistakes doing the first one, which made installing the other much smoother. I haven’t had the fifth wheel hooked up yet, but I don’t think there will be any issues. I have had them inflated to 10 PSI and the haven’t lost any pressure yet. That’s with an empty bed, so we will see how they hold up with a load.

Since I didn’t get an air compressor kit with them, I was able to use two spare TPMS sensors that I had on hand to monitor the PSI of the air bags.

So far so good. etrailer service was great as usual.



by:

Install with 1 person took 4 hours, mostly looking for misplaced tools. I had on for 1 year and have had no problems. I did install a 3 way tee which allows for air to be equal on both air bags from 1 valve stem. What a difference these make while towing. I can actually tow my trailer at level height and get a better ride inside the truck. If you get these bags, you will want to buy a bigger trailer!



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The Ride-Rite air helper springs work great. If I'm pulling a heavy trailer or loading my truck with a heavy load, I can add air to adjust the ride and level my truck. They really help the ride.



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They do not fit. The kit claims it bolts right on the 2018 transit 350HD and it does not. First thing I found is you need to drill holes in the frame, even though the packaging says bolts right on. I put the top bracket on the frame with the bouncer bolt to line up to drill the hole and found the bracket is not even the correct size - it extends too far back and hits the cross beam on the frame. see pic. I spoke with e-trailer and they confirmed I have the correct parts according to Firestone. I am sending this back and going with sumo springs .....



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I install this for a customer that I have on the recommendation of etrailer as being the one that was necessary for this vehicle. On receiving the product was having problems as the truck was not set up the way that the illustration showed the truck was bought new by the original owner and had 50,000 miles and have never been modified spoke to fire stone about that at the recommendation of a trailer other parts were necessary, it turned out to be quite a mess. Mini phone calls hours of trying to make something work. The system failed at about 500 miles customer was very upset. I spoke to eat trailer no help at all referred me to fire stone no help at all. It was just to say the way things go sometimes and they were very sorry. I ended up having to give the customer his money back very expensive for me all the way around very poor recommendation on what I should’ve bought for this vehicle very poor product service by a trailer and fire stone both so end result after turning the truck back to stock, I haul the airbag system that I purchased to the dump



by:

Works perfectly! It's so nice not having the truck sag and sway after installing the ride rite air bags. I built my own hard side pop up camper on my flatbed dually and it turned out a little heavier than I wanted but with the airbags I hardly know the camper is there.



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The kit I received had mismatched air fittings: one was a 3/8npt elbow instead of the required 1/8npt elbow. etrailer sent a replacement elbow and I was able to source a reducer to complete the install as I await the replacement. Glad i checked my parts before I started.

The install is pretty straight forward and the instructions are clear. The fasteners are difficult to access if you are doing the install by yourself. Must have tools include quality hose cutter and two 1-1/8in sockets.

The bags added 1in of lift to my unladen 2023 Tacoma Trail Edition at 5psi; 1-1/2in at 10psi; and 3in at 70psi.

At the 5psi minimum pressure the ride is firmer than stock. On acceleration the back end no longer “stuffs” wich is fine with me.



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I have purchased a few items for my 2020 Fontier e.g. tow package, wiring, electric brake control, fog lights/switch, etc. - it's a 'tweener' year i.e. new power train with old style body. This Firestone Airbag recommended by etrailer.com is NOT a bolt on product for the 2020 Nissan Frontier. The driver's side rear is the issue where with the new power train there is a cannister - not sure exactly what it is...but, it interfears with the hardware. After cutting, fabbing spacers, adjusting brake lines I got it installed - took me two 14 hour days. When it was finally installed after a lot of headsctatching and figuring out how to solve yet another problem - I felt like Firestone should have paid me for all the hassle.



by:

The airbags were easy to install. There was an extra part that wasn't mentioned in the instructions. I figured it must be a muffler shield and inserted it. After 7 months of use a clunking noise occurred. The top nuts had loosened up. Lock nuts might helped. It took time to find the doc of the noise and a couple hundred dollars in mechanics fees. The other issue has been how long the bags hold air. I need to check them every couple of weeks when I'm towing my 24' RV on long trips. They do reduce the road bounce and rocking motion some that I got them for. My nausea is less than it was as a result. I don't like the fact that my truck rides 1/2" higher on one side than the other and I can't correct it with the bags



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etrailer was very helpful with making sure I ordered the right product. As for the product... I love the addition to my 20201 Toyota Tundra TRD PRO. It made towing my 2021 Lance 2285 Travel Trailer a dream. The truck and trailer sit perfectly level now and the truck handles great. Easy install only took a couple of hours. In my pic... the stabilizer jacks are down because I was doing a quick overnighter and didn't want to unhitch. But the stabilizers aren't lifting the camper or truck.. just kissing the ground to keep the camper from rocking when inside. Its the only pic I had handy.



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First, my order was processed and shipped on a Sunday. There's not too many companies doing that outside of Amazon. Awesome! If not for UPS delay in Sparks, NV, I would have received my order in less time then mentioned at check out.

Second, my Firestone kit came complete. I was skeptical due to some reviews stating they received the wrong size air hose connector. Not this one. Seems they've worked it out. Kit is installed and doing exactly what I expected.

2023 Tacoma TRD OR.
2.5 lift with Icon AAL
Trailerlife WDH
Hauling 4400 lbs (dry) camp trailer
Reduced squat from 2.5" to 1" at 25psi for comfort. Can easily level, but I prefer slight squat at the tounge.

*truck and trailer pic is on a slope.

Over, great experience!



by:

So far so good. I installed these in just over 2 hours on my 2013 Chevy 2500HD for help with my fifth wheel. I pull a 12.7k pound (dry) camper. My truck was level prior to airbags, but had really harsh bouncing over bridges, put holes, etc. The side to side way and roll was noticeable was noticeable as well. These bags put all of that to an end. I've towed twice with them and 35psi seems to do the trick (doesn't life the truck higher in the rear, and takes away the bounce and roll).

I must point out that installation while straight forward, still had some issues with stock components. The parking brake cable and brackets had to be removed on both sides for the springs brackets to be installed. The passenger side bracket covered the OEM parking brake bracket location and the driver side is too tight of a fit without crimping the brake cable. My brake cable is no freely resting across the truck which I'm not a huge fan of.



by:

High quality and easy to install. These air bags are working very well and keeping my truck level while towing my tow hauler.



by:

The kit did exactly what I was hoping and helped to level out the rear of the truck (2016 long-bed, 2x4, Frontier) when towing my 24'camper trailer. Installation was straight forward with the most difficult aspects being removal of existing rubber axil bump stocks



by:

It happy. Poor packaging allowed parts to bang around in shipping and paint and pieces of metal to flake off on the larger pieces.



by:

Product arrived on time and perfect condition. Take about 3 hours to install. Have taken is out with 5th wheel yet. Raised that back 4 inches at 70 #. Only want 2 inches so try them at 30# and see now it rides is with 5th wheel.



by:

These bags serve my purpose. It’s good to be able to level the truck up when I have a heavy load in the bed. Not too difficult to install. It would be more convenient to have the air bags with a built in compressor.
I do a lot of camping. When using the weight distribution hitch, you have to let the air out of the bags, before hooking up the trailer and hitch. Then put air in the bags. This is inconvenient, but the instructions for the hitch say to deflate the air bags.
I sometimes take a Foreman 500 four wheeler when I camp. I have to put it in the bed of the truck. It made the truck squat down a good bit. With the air bags, I can level it back up after hooking the camper and hitch up.

They do the job, but spend a little more and get the one with the built in air compressor.


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See what our Experts say about this Firestone Vehicle Suspension

  • Firestone Ride Rite Air Suspension Enhancement Recommendation for 1996 Chevy Suburban 4 in Lift
    The correct Ride Rite part # for your 1996 Chevy Suburban 1500 is actually # F2101 and the correct spacer to use on a vehicle that has a 4 inch lift is part # F2370.
    view full answer...
  • How do I Setup my Reese 49912 Weight Distribution System with Rear Air Bags on my 1996 Chevy Tahoe
    Both great questions! To the first yes you should re set your Reese Weight Distribution System w Shank part # RE94FR after installing the air bags like the Firestone Ride-Rite Air Helper Springs part # F2101. As for the second question you should hook up the camper to the vehicle and level it with the air bags. Then hook up your weight distribution system. This will help to aid in your air bags and the weight distribution system working together really well and not over doing the effect.
    view full answer...
  • Will Firestone Ride-Rite Air Helper Spring Kit F2101 Fit 2-Door Version of 1998 Chevrolet Tahoe
    The Firestone Ride-Rite Air Helper Spring Kit # F2101 is a confirmed fit on the 4-door version of the 1998 Chevrolet Tahoe. My contact at Firestone advised that the 2-door Tahoe is not listed as a fit but he did not have the specific information as to why. We do offer rear-axle jounce spring kits that work on your Tahoe. If you have 2WD use kit # TGMRYT2 or for 4WD use # TGMRYT4. Both kits provide 2000-lbs of load leveling capacity and install without any drilling.
    view full answer...
  • Air Bag Helper Springs for a 1995 Chevy Suburban 1500 4x4
    We have air bag help springs for the rear axle of your 1995 Chevy Suburban K1500 but there are no options for the front. But there are other options we can use for the front. Starting with the front you can use Timbren springs # TGMFK35C. These will be easier to install than air bags and require no maintenance. The front of the vehicle usually stays pretty constant in terms of ride height and the amount of weight at the front so the fixed Timbren springs are ideal. For the rear axle we...
    view full answer...
  • Recommended Air Suspension System For 1999 Chevrolet Suburban 1500
    The air suspension spring system I recommend for your 1999 Suburban is the Firestone Ride-Rite Air Helper Springs, part # F2101. The Ride-Rite system will help absorb road shock which means a smoother ride. This system is designed to be a supplement to a suspension system in good working order and will not increase the load-carrying capacity of your vehicle. This includes all the materials needed for installation. To be able to control the levels of the air springs from the comfort...
    view full answer...
  • Can I Purchase the Mounting Brackets for F2101 Firestone Ride-Rite Helper Springs Separately?
    Yes, you can buy the brackets and the hardware for part #F2101, the Firestone Ride-Rite Helper Springs separately. The part numbers and quantities you need are listed below. 1 of # F2135825157 Replacement Passenger Side Upper Bracket for F2101 1 of # F2135825158 Replacement Driver Side Upper Bracket for F2101 2 of # F2135825159 Replacement Lower Bracket for F2101 1 of # A217602101 Replacement Hardware Kit for F2101 I've also included a link to our FAQ on Firestone Suspension Enhancement...
    view full answer...

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Info for this part was:

Employee Leah B
Updated by:
Leah B
Employee Mary K
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Wilson B
Employee Daron K
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Employee Alex H
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Employee Tyler C
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Employee Adam R
Expert Research:
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Employee Jeffrey L
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Employee Dustin K
Video Edited:
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Employee Shane H
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Employee David F
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