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Lincolin Air Springs. Update: Converted.

Fordum

Fordum

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Friend of mine has a 2001 Town Car. Its got the rear air springs. So far its doing good, but he is hearing the pump come on more often.
That means that one or both of the bags are cracking and starting to leak.

He was wanting to put on a new pump thinking it might be letting the air bypass.
I explained to him that each airbag has a inflate/deflate solenoid on it to control the amount of air according to the control system.
The pump only sees pressure when its running.

I found a place that will sell a new pump, dryer, both bags and solenoids for $360
But, I am trying to talk him into doing the spring thing. They sell a set of springs to replace the air bags for $159 for the pair.
With new shocks, its $229.
I have done some spring work from time to time and its ranged from easy to Holy S*it!
The place that sells the springs claims its as easy or easier than doing a brake job.

They have a video of the job, and they make a good case. I think I could manage that in a driveway even with my bad leg.
If someone is super interested, here is the link. Not going to embed it, not that interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=t1uQaN9x37U

My long drawn out question, is: Has anyone done this and can give me a report on the results?
He is worried that the ride is going to suffer. I told him for the peace of mind and money saving, he could live with a slightly rougher ride.

I say go with the springs and dump the air. He is not going to be hauling fertilizer or sand around in his trunk, so the leveling system is not needed.

I know there is a lot of people here with lots of experience, figured somebody might have done this.
And if not, who knows, someone might be needing the info one day soon anyway.
 
Last edited:
Fordum said:
I say go with the springs and dump the air. He is not going to be hauling fertilizer or sand around in his truck, so the leveling system is not needed.
Click to expand...

I assume you meant car and not truck here.

If that's the case, I'd keep the air system unless he's pinching every penny. My parents had both a '95 Grand Marquis (coils) and a ~'01 Lincoln of the same body style (air rear suspension), I greatly preferred the Lincoln. Especially with five people in the car.

For less than $150, why ditch the air bag setup? Many would argue that it's an "unreliable" system but it isn't. If he wants to drive that Lincoln for another 400K and doesn't care how it rides, sure, do the coils (which are far from bad of course). If he wants the ride height/load capacity of the Lincoln as it should be for probably way longer than he'd own the car, splurging less than $200 may be worth it.

My .02
 
I read that stupid thing twice, and could have sworn I wrote trunk, not truck. I'm gonna change it.
I agree the air system is good, but its an 11 year old system. Replacing the bags, solenoids and pump will get rid of most of the wear items, but there is still a lot of old plastic hoses.
I was just trying to avoid later problems.

And the springs are an easy fix.
 
Screw the bags, they're for towing and that's not a tow rig. I went thru this with a Range Rover and was perfectly fine with the ride quality afterwards. I also didn't miss the leveling capability or the fact that you couldn't drop it to let the elderly get in and out.
 
Just my $.02 (which is probably equivalent to $-.08 in this economy), but a Range Rover is not the same type of vehicle. No it's not a tow rig, but it is also not truly useless. Remember these cars have very long overhangs on the back, and adding weight to the trunk makes a huge difference in the ride height of the rear suspension. The bags help compensate for this, and reduce wear on the rest of the suspension components. Trust me when I say this, it doesn't take a lot of weight in that trunk to make a huge difference to the suspension travel.

Right now the ELC in the back of my Caddy is not working, and we loaded some sleeping bags, a small suitcase of clothes, and a cooler with 8 cans of pop and half a gallon of milk, plus ice, and the rear suspension was bottoming out. I am not exaggerating when I say we put less than 150 lbs back there. This weekend I am getting underneath and doing my best to try to find out which components are bad, then I will be replacing them. I already suspect the compressor is bad, but that is usually caused by a failure elsewhere in the system. When I do it, and assuming the ride sensor is still good, the lines, compressor, dryer and shocks(Cadillac used shocks with air bladders, not air shocks or bags) will all be replaced. For a bit of cost upfront it should last a long time.
 
With all due respect that argument doesn't seem realistic. True, they are not the same vehicle however... the op stated nothing heavy is hauled in the trunk i.e. manure, sand, bodies etc.. there are plenty of vehicles without air bags and long over hangs that ride fine on springs. I personally have no experience with town cars but can tell you that when a bag goes @ 80 MPH on a cross country trip it isn't any fun on the heart or wallet. Dropping to your bumpstops on I90 sucks. These aren't Firestone bags with a line to your bumper, they're complicated which = $ and lots of it.
My. 02 or. 08 ¢
 
As I said, we had less than 150 lbs in the trunk, and it still dropped it down a lot. Keep in mind that Cadillac is very different, there are coil springs on each of the rear wheels along with shocks that use an air bladder. The shock is not a true air shock, with air in the tube, it is a gas shock that incorporates a bladder to help level the car. Even with that spring, a real coil spring, the back end sags heavily with very little weight on it. It is simple leverage, and when you look at the total car length plus the trunk length, it is a ton of leverage on the rear suspension.

A failure of the air bladder in my car is obviously much different from an air spring like the Lincoln uses. This means that the coils are going to have to be much stiffer to help compensate on the Lincoln which will translate to a big difference in the ride. Realistically speaking, is it worth the $140 he would save to make the car far less luxurious on the road? That's a decision for the owner to make, but just like you giving your opinion, I gave mine to let him know that it makes a big difference. I don't haul dirt, manure or dead bodies in mine, it doesn't mean that even small amount of weight doesn't make a big difference in these big boats.
 
This is the reason I was hoping to luck out and find someone here who had already done the conversion.
Other than the leveling part, it would certainly be possible for a set of springs to match the ride of air springs if properly designed.

But, do they? That is the question. I have been having some rather nasty health problems the past couple of days, and he called me this morning on the way to work to see how I was doing.

We discussed the car, and right now we are leaning toward the full rebuild. Its more expensive, but its a known quantity. He has the links and will check them this weekend and maybe make up his mind then.
Like he said, he was not planning on keeping this car for another 11 years, so putting in springs to prevent future problems with the air springs is not a worry.

Either way, when he makes up his mind, I'll post back. He turned off the suspension system when he left for work, and is going to monitor the ride height to see how bad the leak is.

BTW, Lectric, when I read what you posted, I went to some of the sites that had parts for his car and looked for stuff for yours.
Did not look promising.
The two main places that had both conversions and replacement stuff for the air had nothing for yours.
Lots of conversion stuff, but no replacement air parts. Makes me wonder how lucky you are going to be in finding parts except from the dealer.

And just for information, here are the two main sites I was looking at.

http://www.strutmasters.com/

http://www.suncoreindustries.com/
 
My friend has installed the coil spring kits to replace air bags on many Fords and Range Rovers,most of the owners didn't have the money to fix the air bags so they opted for the cheapest route out of the problem....none of them have ever returned to complain the vehicles no longer rode as well as they did with air bags ...(yet!)...I would ditch the air bags if it were my car...and not just because I'm cheap!..they dont last long here in salty winter conditions and seem to always be problematic...
 
I have done this to a Town Car. It was during my demo derby days. We got the car for free but the rear was sitting on the ground. Got some rear springs from a Crown Vic and swapped them in. The job took minutes to do although we were not concerned with rubber insulators, job quality and the such. So, if you decide to go that route, it is an easy job.

I can't speak for ride quality though or long term results. It was a demo derby car so ride quality was not a factor and I think we killed that car in less than 20 minutes. :D
 
Replacement parts for mine are readily available, although certainly not cheap. Compressor runs around $200, replacement line set is around $60, shocks are spendy at $106 (Monroe) each, and complete replacement with standard shocks is way cheaper then you simply switch off the computers reading of the auto level system. At least I don't have the active suspension system, which would take the shock cost into the $400 range for each shock.
 
I will add my voice to the don't do it camp.
I did that to my Fifth avenue new yorker, and it sucks, I am going back to air.
The ride is bouncy and it only looks good when it's empty, as soon as you put anything in the rear it looks like it's dragging it's rear end.
I even got some helper springs on the shocks, so now it can take a few lbs in the trunk but put 2 people in the back and it goes down.
With the air suspension it rode like a dream and looked good even with a bunch of stuff in the trunk and 6 people in the car.
By the way the chrysler system is like the caddy, coild spring with an air leveling shock.
My compressor was good, but the air shocks where leaking.
 
Well, for better or worse, its done. We discussed it, and his position was that he was not planning on keeping the car long term.
If he was, he would have put the $360 in it and gotten the air right. But, he just wanted to stop looking like a moonshiner with a full load.

So, I ordered the basic spring kit from Strutmasters. The other company had the springs for the same price but they had rubber bushings top and bottom.

I did not see any other kits with the bushings, so I just figured they were just one more thing to wear out.
Ordered the springs on Tuesday, second day air, got them on Friday. $195.41 with shipping.

I was planning on hauling my floor jack to town and changing them in the driveway. But, his younger brother had a couple of floor jacks over at his house, so he went over there and changed them out.

I think they did it in the back yard.
I didn't even know they were going to do it today, so I got no pics. He called a few minutes ago, said it was all done, and the ride was great.

Said it took longer to tie up the old solenoids and harnesses out of the way than to do the actual changeover.

I told him I would have just taken them off, but he said he had not run down the module and cut the wire to prevent a warning message on his dash, and did not want to disconnect anything until he did.

So far, so good.
 
I did the monroe conversion on my old 98 TC. rode great. I went the extra mile and ran air shocks to keep the load leveling capability. all I had to do to keep the warning light off was bolt the potentiometer up at mid travel so that it didnt move. the stud off the sway bar its attached to works great for this:waytogo:
 
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