Bullheaded Posted December 2, 2016 Share Posted December 2, 2016 (edited) Anyone run Raydan (now Hendrickson) Air Link rear suspension? It's basically the old Hendrickson walking beam, but on 4 air bags instead of springs or rubber blocks. In theory it looks good. Gives the articulation of walking beams, and the bags have rubber stoppers in them, so it says in the event you loose air or blow a bag they can be ran deflated. Has an MP8 505M and Allison auto. I'm waiting on pricing for one with 14 speed M-Drive and M-Ride with Mack rears. Will have a 22 foot dump box. Edited December 2, 2016 by Bullheaded spelling 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fjh Posted December 2, 2016 Share Posted December 2, 2016 (edited) We have dozens of raydan here it's ok real fussy to set the ride height raydan both ends? As with almost any dump you'll need to dump the bags to get the load off. We have a half dozen twinsteer mixers with it here no complaints. Edited December 2, 2016 by fjh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bullheaded Posted December 3, 2016 Author Share Posted December 3, 2016 Thanks FJH. My last couple dumps have been air ride, so I'm used to it. No this one has springs and equalizers in the front. Simard does have a full air ride front, but I've never priced that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fjh Posted December 3, 2016 Share Posted December 3, 2016 I'm not hot on the raydan front like the spring set up better the front bag set up is too tecky Use the kiss theory works best ! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bullheaded Posted December 3, 2016 Author Share Posted December 3, 2016 FJH....do you have experience with the air ride fronts on a twin steer? Do they ride better than the spring? I only have experience with the AMS40T2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bullheaded Posted December 3, 2016 Author Share Posted December 3, 2016 This is the air ride they offer. The AMS40A. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fjh Posted December 3, 2016 Share Posted December 3, 2016 (edited) Just the raydan not the one you have pictured there as I I said the air ride front is quite complex However the ride quality is good a bit on the sqishy side As with any air ride the shocks have to be kepted up on !We have sold mixers a few with the raydan and most often the AMS40T2 ! Both work OK from a customer stand point Usually A simard install If I was doing it I would go for spings stability wise I think having a dump on total air you would feel horribly tippy when dumping Mixers dont have 20 feet of material in the air. Edited December 3, 2016 by fjh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbigrig Posted December 3, 2016 Share Posted December 3, 2016 (edited) We had a Raydan come in a few weeks ago where the bushing attaches to the beam split. had to replace the beam. it was a twin steer dump on a large dump fleet customer in Toronto. I wouldn't bother with it. plenty of other proven suspensions available. I'm starting to see more Simard twin steers coming in with helper air bags on the spring centers to the frame. one large cement customer has them on all. that looks like mid Ontario Barrie you are shopping at. Edited December 3, 2016 by bbigrig Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j_martell Posted December 3, 2016 Share Posted December 3, 2016 the crane rental guys we deal with have the air over walking beams front and rear on most of the bigger units. the operators love them. all that i have spoken with say they ride great and still have the travel/articulation of rubber block/spring walking beams when the pavement runs out. they also have retrofit kits for Haulmaxx etc rubber block walking beam equipped trucks. Quote Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bullheaded Posted December 4, 2016 Author Share Posted December 4, 2016 (edited) Yes you are right bbigrig. Doing some pricing on other options but so far no one is even coming close to what we can get another fully loaded 600 h.p. 4900 Star for. Seems like everyone still keeps ordering rubber block. I'm no longer interested in those, LOL. I'm waiting on some pricing on one with M-drive, M-ride and Mack rears. Thanks for the info too FJH and j_martell Edited December 4, 2016 by Bullheaded Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j_martell Posted December 4, 2016 Share Posted December 4, 2016 (edited) i have blocks in both trucks...and while they are AWESOME in the muck, they ride like crap empty.....ive been bugging the boss since i found out about the AR2 to convert the Granite, for my comfort and to save the beating on the truck and the bins/equipment i haul. after putting nearly 120,000$ into the RD, hes a bit gun-shy..... 2011 Granite has this, with Meritor Rears 1989 RD has this, on Mack Top-loaders. Both can supposedly be converted to this: Edited December 4, 2016 by j_martell Quote Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bullheaded Posted December 4, 2016 Author Share Posted December 4, 2016 I had that first one (HMX) in my Paystar. It did ride good for rubber block. The second one with the big blocks holds up better in logging. And the last one is the same as Raydan Air Link. Hendrickson bought them. And did also offer it as a conversion kit. Funny thing about that Raydan Air Link though.....I had Mack reps at the Truck World show tell me years ago that they didn't like that because it puts too much stress on the frame because it has only that one mounting point at the pivot. But I can't see how it could be too bad with both axles having transverse torque rods? That's why I wanted to see what your opinions are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j_martell Posted December 4, 2016 Share Posted December 4, 2016 Likely because both the rubber block suspensions mount via a cross member right in the centre of the tandem, with torque rods fore and aft, spreading the load better across the frame. easy to have a cross member--> Torque rod -->centre section --> torque rod -->cross member. Versus the AR2 with the mounts to the frame ahead, and both torque rods aft, placing all the stress behind the cross member.. best you could get is the mount, then both torque rods, then a cross member, leaving a large amount of un-reinforced frame to take the stress. I hope that makes even 1/3 the sense it did in my head lol 1 Quote Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fjh Posted December 5, 2016 Share Posted December 5, 2016 Im an old school guy Give me camel back any day Over any air or block set up How ever I ain-t driving it I just work on the stuff! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbigrig Posted December 6, 2016 Share Posted December 6, 2016 Very few order camelback up here anymore. Lots of trunion and spring issues over the last few years here. I got to see an m ride fail that was less then six months old on a front end loader. broken torque rods and and all. Every mixer company in Ontario right now is ordering Chalmers still to this day. Hendrickson is your best bet in my opinion. most of the reps don't even get involved in how the customers spec is doing on the road. they just input orders. talk to the fleet owners. get the real story. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bullheaded Posted December 6, 2016 Author Share Posted December 6, 2016 I love Camelback, but they are also expensive to rebuild here. So you are seeing M-Ride fail? I figured they would be good because they look very much like Tuff-Trac and we ran a few of those and they are bulletproof. Chalmers is good too. I have that on my ponies. With a twin steer I would look at all options, but on our SPIF lift axle trucks it is air ride only! Air seems to be the only way you can keep the SPIF reliable. They work a lot better off air than load cells. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gearhead204 Posted December 6, 2016 Share Posted December 6, 2016 we had a super 18 with air ride rears .....it likes to lay on its side every so often. the Ar2 doesn't have the internal rubber stop blocks that the raydan does, I was pricing one for my superliner , Hendrickson will no longer sell just the upper air ride conversion for the existing walking beams they now want 12k for the conversion, raydan was around 8600.00. Raydan claimed that for off road or on site overloading applications to deflate the bags and ride on the interior blocks. If I remember right they would allow an extra 12000lbs when deflated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbigrig Posted December 7, 2016 Share Posted December 7, 2016 Not very many M Rides in use yet. but I have seen 1 come apart pretty bad for a none off road use set up. it was an MRU front end loader. rear axle had to be chained to the frame to tow it in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james j neiweem Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 What the F___ suspension problems! They had suspensions down pat 40-50 years ago (Camel backs 70 years ago) Must be cheap materials, under design as opposed over design and letting the horses out of the barn before testing. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
41180 Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 That is weird a mack ride busted with low miles . a friend of mine has a volvo vhd 2004 with The t ride and loves it . I've always heard positive things about t ride. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbigrig Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 3 hours ago, logtruckman said: That is weird a mack ride busted with low miles . a friend of mine has a volvo vhd 2004 with The t ride and loves it . I've always heard positive things about t ride. I'm sure they work just fine and that design is quite commonly used in Europe. very few in use here in Ontario right now for rear suspensions but I heard Mack has priced them well on new orders and hope that this design replaces the camel back because the M series can be used on both truck brands. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
41180 Posted December 8, 2016 Share Posted December 8, 2016 3 hours ago, bbigrig said: I'm sure they work just fine and that design is quite commonly used in Europe. very few in use here in Ontario right now for rear suspensions but I heard Mack has priced them well on new orders and hope that this design replaces the camel back because the M series can be used on both truck brands. I'd rather have camel'back any day. freightliner has a version of t ride called tough trac . it must be ok if Daimler copied volvo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bullheaded Posted December 10, 2016 Author Share Posted December 10, 2016 Yes logtruckman.....we have two trucks with Tuff-Trac. A Sterling and a Freightliner 122SD and that suspension rides almost as good as my air ride truck and neither of them have failed. That's why I thought the M-Ride would be good. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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