Christine

Over the years our Boss Phil has done a fair few jobs for film and TV companies including supplying parts for Fast and Furious 2, Fast 9 (still waiting for the Covid delayed release) and for vehicles used on TV programs such as EastEnders and in the old days The Bill. A decade ago, he even worked on 3 episodes of Pimp my Ride UK. Most of our work is very much off camera as mentioned or even behind the camera such as airbags for tracking vehicles (often seen in the background crew shots on Top Gear/Grand Tour,,,) and AirRide delicate load solutions for outside broadcast units for various companies in trailer and van configuration.

Late in 2020 we were pleased to be asked by Workerbee TV to help Goblin Works Garage with their new show “Mod Shop”. Having seen the finished Discovery Plus show for the first time the MINI looks amazing and we are so pleased to see that the owner of the car was so happy he was moved to tears by the finished car.

The show can be seen by streaming Discovery Plus and we are told will also be on Quest/D-Max later in the year. Big thank you to Derek for the loan of tools and bolts we forgot to take and to Jimmy, Helen and Ant for making us so welcome. It was a fun experience to see how some of our favourite shows are actually made – particularly how many times you have to do the same bolt up and from how many angles!!! ?

As the evening draw in we often get asked whether air suspension works in winter, so we thought we might look at this question for you.

Air suspension is popular in the Baltic States and in Russia, where winters can be brutal, and the temperature can be anywhere between -10° C and -30° C. Some of the Motorhomes and 4x4's we supply air suspension for are used to get to ski resorts - so how do they do it? People imagine that the rubber will get too solid to work and the air will freeze? Surely this must cause serious problems with air suspension? It should be remembered that Range Rovers and Bentleys often come with air suspension from the factory as do most buses and lorries - do they have some sort of special parts?

Most of the common branded bags on the market are rated for use in temperatures between -30° C and around 70° C.  Bags do behave noticeably differently as the temperatures increase or decrease and life expectancy might well be reduced (we simply don't have enough data to determine). Any problems are likely to come from water in the system which is a natural by product of compressing and pressurising air.

Therefore looking after your air suspension in winter is very straightforward: simply drain your air tank once a month to reduce the amount of water in the system. You might want to consider adding an extra water trap to further reduce the chances of problems or a cooling coil or dryer. Air contains a lot of evaporated water which condenses out of the air when it is compressed. It is this moisture that freezes. Additionally, you can run airbrake anti-freeze through the air pipes to further winter-proof your air suspension.

So in short, yes, air suspension can be used all year round subject to installing a good system using quality branded parts.