Classic 1966 Amazon Volvo 122S Lowered on Air Bags – photos, video, and more!

A few people have been asking on the setup of my Volvo 122S Amazon so I thought I’d post it here.  In the end it was the nice guys at AirRide.com.au that were able to put a full kit together in one tidy box.  A word of warning, this isn’t an easy job and I didn’t do it myself – for that I had the awesome team at Heritage Garage in Malaysia do the work.  Ask for Sanjay!

Here’s a video of it in action.  The keychain remote goes up twice – once for ride height, second to the original Volvo 122S ride height, then all down.  There is still some work to do on the programming – you’ll notice the front starts up first, then the back, and then all movement ends together.  This is because the front is heavier and takes longer to rise.  The solenoids that control air supply are either on or off, there is no tuning the rate each bag goes up.  It’s something I’m working on in the programming of the electronic control (see below).

To start, here’s the kit:

Air Control System:

• Viair 400C heavy duty compressor
• Braided stainless steel comp hose with built in check valve
• Accuair VU4 electric valve pack
• Dual gauge control panel with rocker switches fully assembled
• Compressor wiring plus 40A relay & circuit breaker
• Gauge panel wiring with terminals & fuse
• Compressor on / off automatic pressure switch
• 5 Gal Accuair Air tank
• High flow water & particle trap (Italian Made)
• DOT approved 3/8″ airline as well as 1/8″ gauge line
• One way check valve for valve block
• All brass DOT approved straight and angled swivel push to connect fittings

The Airsprings :

• 2 x Premium quality Slam Specialties RE6 Airbags

Electronic Control:

All that above gets you up and down – but I’m 6’4″ and it just wasn’t as impressive as stepping out and having the car glide down to a resting position.  Every time you want the car to move you have to sit in the car and fiddle with 4 switches, which means a 4 finger salute and then tweaking up/down to get the pressure just right on each corner.

To solve this I built my own keychain remote:

• Arduino Uno board
• 8 Relay board
• 4 button keychain remote w/receiver board
• Lots of homework and experimentation!

Without this setup, the only way to go up and down is using the switches – which I’ve mounted here:

Mounting the air bags:

The bags were all custom mounted on fabricated mounts.  Again, Vijay at Heritage Garage did a great job here.  We moved the front shocks onto custom mounts right behind the bags. Here’s a few photos.

 

Here’s a few other shots of the trunk (not yet finished cleaning up yet!)

On the right side, you can see where I’ve wired in the relay switches right into the wiring harness of the Viair control.  These wires go up to the switches in the front, so I’m basically controlling the switch contacts using the Arduino to fire the relays/switches.  I can post the code I used, just message me if you are interested.  Possibly the subject of an Instructables.com post someday!

Lastly I wanted to make a shout out to Anthony who did the amazing paint work.  If you are in Malaysia looking to get your classic ride a FLAWLESS paint job, be sure to give him a call.  +60123161391.

More photos!

And one more special shout out to Joe @ Unicar Auto and team mechanic for the Kelab Volvo Klasik Malaysia (KVKM) for keeping me on the road.  He’s “The Man” in Malaysia for all classic Volvo needs!  Look him up!

Had a question from a reader, “how did you work around the Panhard bar?”  Here’s a few shots from the back.  Hope this helps.  I don’t recall having any issues!

UPDATE: I had to have the lower control arms reinforced due to the leading front edge where the shock was mounted.