Into the belly of the beast - Day 3.......

 8:24 am - Thursday - February 3rd - Newell House, AZ - 34° F, 19% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the north.....clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 57° F.....BRRR!  On this date in 2012 our solar installation had been completed, and we were one our way south.....↴

As has been the case since I first entered the belly of the beast on Monday I began Wednesday concerned with being able to compress each airbag sufficiently as to be able to squeeze each one in between the upper and lower plates where the old airbags resided.  I spent about 30 minutes trying to devise simple compression tool.  First I employed a ratcheting cargo strap, but it was too bulky, and would be difficult to remove once the bag was in place, then I tried a long zip tie, with a quick release tab, and it worked.  Once I had a system I thought would work I crawled under the front of the coach to the right front wheel and had TLE push the first airbag under the coach.  What I thought would be a problem, was not a problem.  In fact, the actual problem was they went into position quite easily without the zip tie, but it was difficult to get the two threaded studs on top up through the holes as the bags were actually too compressed.....DOH!  These Firestone airbags are very heavy duty, and it is way easier to compress them, than to expand them manually.  After wrestling with the first of 8 airbags using a pry bar to push of top of the airbag up high enough to get the threaded posts to go through the holes in the mountain plate (the first picture below is of one of the airbag compartments where the light is sitting) I was finally able to get all three nuts started on each post, and had them tightened down in about 5 minutes.  There are two holes in the top mounting plate, and one hole in the bottom mounting plate, and the airbag must fit in between those two plates......

.....in the next picture you can see that there are two airbag compartments, one of each side of the shock (the old shocks were still in place).....

....at any rate, after struggling to install the first couple of airbags I took some time to think through my problem.  I needed to be able to partially inflate each bag while the bag was in place, thread on the three nuts, and then be able to release the pressure.  I suddenly occurred to me that I have a shutoff valve that I plug into my quick connect air fitting in the engine bay.  I thought if I attached that to one of Tom's many air hoses I could then insert the male end into the top of the hollow threaded post (one of two posts on top of the airbag....this hollow post is where the air fittings are attached, and how air gets into the bag - see picture below).....

....so when I had pushed in the next airbag I simply stuck the male end through the hole in the top plate, and into the hole in the threaded, hollow post on the airbag.....

.....and what do you know?  It worked!  Once the bag was inflated, and all three posts were through their respective holes I threaded on the three nuts, and then turned off the air.  The amount of time this idea saved me was amazing.  I was done installing all 8 airbags by 1:30 pm....about 3 hours after I started.  I could have finished everything Wednesday by proceeding directly to the next step....reconnect all the air fitting, but I decided I was too tired, and wanted to do that when I was fresh, so I deferred that task until Thursday.  It shouldn't take more than 2 hours Thursday to attach and reconnect all the air fittings, then it will be time to reintroduce air to the suspension system to check for leaks.....

At the front of the coach installing airbags.....

....and at the rear of the coach doing the same thing

.....after a suitable recovery period, and then a long hot shower I headed out to the Jacuzzi to soak for about 40 minutes......

My best 'Kilroy was here' impression

.....once again we ate dinner with Tom, Darlene, and Wade (long time friend from Alberta, Canada).  Tom made Quesadillas for us, which were very good.  As TLE and I walked back to the coach around 6:30 pm I snapped this picture of the beautiful sunset afterglow with a crescent moon......

......once again the things I was concerned about proved to be no issue, and the installation of the new airbags went much more quickly than the removal of the old ones.  Nevertheless, after 3 days in the belly of the beast I am really worn down physically, and I have sore muscles in places I didn't know there were muscles.  

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