Air Doubler
I tend to be very cautious regarding the tire pressure when we're on the road. I check every tire every time we're about to move the bus, and so far there have been no dramatic air pressure losses whether the stay was a couple of days or a couple of weeks.
My first order of business was to get the bus weighed.
The left front weighed in at 7750 lbs and the right at 7700. So, based on the heavier of the two, I need to support a front axle weight of 15,500 lbs.
According to the Michelin tire charts, the recommended tire pressure would extrapolate to about 113 psi. The rest of the recommended tire pressures, based on my weights, comes out to be 90 psi for both the drive and tag axle tires. They can easily be aired up using the bus compressor.
The challenge became maintaining the front tire pressures. It was very difficult to achieve the recommended air pressure relying on the bus engine compressor alone. My small portable compressor would also struggle to make it to 110 psi.
So, after much research among the forum threads, I decided to install and air doubler. The installation was fairly straight forward so far no nasty surprises. I did install a ball valve between the doubler and my air manifold as a way to segregate the add-on from the basic installation in the event of a problem.
The system works great. Absolutely no problem getting the front tires to 120 psi as a test. And, it only took about 5 minutes.
Pictures of the installation are attached.
And, a special thanks to Joe C. and Tuga for their consultation and advice during this project!
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