Front axle question!

[Hermann Kersten]

Hello everybody,

 

Does anybody know if it was common or possible, that the US low ride straight trucks or high volume straight trucks, had an air suspention on the front axle?

At the moment i'm  building a Marmon straight truck with low ride tyres from the earley early 90's.

For european low riders it was common, but i dont know if this was also the case in the US.

The only info i get is, that back in 50's or 60's a truck manufacturer had once a truck, sorry i forget the brand, with an air suspension on the front axle.

After finding out that the truck was hard to ride when it was unloaded, they skip the airsuspension on the front.

Hermann.

 

 

Edited May 2, 2018 by Hermann Kersten

[TheSDTrucker]

Like you said, it has been tried in the U.S. but it wasn't very successful. I've never seen one at all. So I would guess this would be quite rare around here, but that's just based off of what I've seen.

[Force]

I know many who lower their trucks now in the US use front axles for car haulers wich have more drop than regular axles, and low profile tires.

Edited May 3, 2018 by Force

[Hermann Kersten]

Brenden and Häkan, thanks for the replay, and for my Marmon i will make a lower drop on the leave springs of the front axle.

 

Hermann.

[Mike77]

I found a website last year that sold drop axles for the Italeri Peterbilt 378 kit but I can't recall what the site was. I wish I could find it.

[vincen47]

3 hours ago, Mike77 said:

I found a website last year that sold drop axles for the Italeri Peterbilt 378 kit but I can't recall what the site was. I wish I could find it.

I think it was Class A Resin, but I could be wrong. I can’t remember the actual company that made them. Regardless, I don’t think Ben is running that operation anymore. Moluminum currently has most of the items Class A distributed, but I’m not sure about drop axles. 

[Hermann Kersten]

Mike and Cary,  thank you for the reply.

After all these info i know what to do now, i will make 2 new leaf springs for a little lower heigt, and the front axle will be modified to a drop axle.

 

Hermann.

[Mike77]

18 hours ago, vincen47 said:

I think it was Class A Resin, but I could be wrong. I can’t remember the actual company that made them. Regardless, I don’t think Ben is running that operation anymore. Moluminum currently has most of the items Class A distributed, but I’m not sure about drop axles. 

Thanks for that Cary. I checked Jamie's site and no drop axles, but I'm guessing that being more for the custom crowd rather than stock builders they probably didn't sell well.

[Fabrux]

My company has a batch of Cascadias that have air bags in addition to leaf springs on the front axle. Dump the air and the whole truck lowers. I believe Volvo also offered this as an option. I didn't notice that much of a handling difference.