Airbag compressor, 87 290

[ericjan2]

My current compressor is pumping air endlessly! I can fill the bags with my industrial shop compressor and it holds air for about two weeks, but the onboard compressor just pumps and pumps and never tops off the bags! Can anyone recommend a replacement compressor at a reasonable price?

[Waipio Rim]

I recall seeing a post from Tevake where he ordered a rebuild kit from the manufacturer of his compressor and made it work. Can't find the post now....

[mayco]

I recently installed a ViAir 400 series. I wanted something powerfull enough to fill tires and what not. Real happy with it. You may want to consider adding a relay and power the compressor straight from the battery and use the existing circuit just to switch the relay. It really reduces the load on your system through the fuse block. On my 310 Airstream ran a 12ga wire of the ignition circuit to power the compressor. Thats a pretty long run and small wire to carry the amp draw on a decent sized compressor. I used 8ga wire to the battery, a 30amp automatic reset circuit breaker, and bought the combo ViAir pressure sw/relay. Works real well. Also, The stock configuration had two air lines connected to the pressure tank, one was the feed from the compressor and the other line returned to a pressure switch. You can illiminate one of those air lines using the combo relay/ pressure switch. Thus less trouble shooting for leaks in the future. Its something I would recommend doing for sure. Especially to reduce the draw on that ignition circuit, generates a good deal of heat on that old plastic fuse block.

Mike

[Smartstream]

Ditto what Mike said and Viair is just up the street from you in Irvine. I went with the IG 450 because it has a 100% duty cycle at 100 psi. I've had it for about 60000 miles now and it has been flawless.

[tevake]

Here is a link to my thread about rebuilding the compressor on my 345.
http://www.airforums.com/forums/f160...ts-127308.html

Sorry not to have documented the rebuild process. It was pretty straight forward. Just need to keep the old parts in sequence as they come off to use as a guide to reassembly . It is working well now but does have limited volume output, sounds like the unit mentioned may be a nice upgrade.

Feel free to PM me with questions if you go the rebuild route.

Cheers Richard

[dadstoy]

Are you sure the air compressor needs replacement? If it runs it probably is ok and I would check for a leak, a faulty check valve or dump valve. Do you have the Gast compressor that AS put in the earlier years? If so, it is an excellent compressor and it should run forever.

I had a similar issue where my pump ran and never shut off. It was a bad check valve which is external to the Gast compressor. This is a generic part that I just picked one from Granger. The compressor also utilizes a dump valve which unloads the pressure off the compressor heads when it shuts off. This is also an external part.

I'm guessing that if your compressor runs and doesn't shut off, there is a leak somewhere in the tubing, fittings, dump valve, check valve or the pressure sensor switch.