Kenworth 8 bag air ride pros and cons

Hit search for 2002 KW 2000 rear suspension question. Some of those suspensions can cost a lot of money to up date because replacement parts are not available.

 

You are welcome! Not what you asked but the old 350 HP 8 bag still here comes and goes off the hard road where the Columbia's spin out. Other than the update has been very dependable and low maintenance.

 

My old t-600 had the 8 bag under it. I found it rode good under load. Empty it was a little rough. It had the steel elephant ears and they were known to crack. Most people upgraded to the aluminum. The wrap bushings on the sway bars do seem to wear out fast but are easy to change if the 9 inch long bolts arent seized into the 8 inch deep aluminum block. Big dollars for that piece iirc. The upper air bag pedestals broke in two on mine due to corrosion. Plus there was a little aluminum block that the air line went through that would corrode to the line. Grrr. So a simple air bag replacement turns into a 2 hour adventure. Gets old fast when you know theres 7 others that will eventually need the same job lol

 

The ag200 has wish bone bars. If that is what it has take a pry bar and see if they move. If they do they are wore out. You can upgrade to the flat bars which make it an ag400. Also some of the first ag200's had small airlines to the bags. Restricted the air flow and rode ruff. The later ones had the bigger airlines that helped with the ride.

 

Those "elephant ears" are called pedestals. You can have a single pedestal or heavy duty dual pedestal suspension. The single pedestal has one pair of brackets for 2 axles, the dual pedestal has got 4 brackets, one pair per axle.
The steel pedestals used to crack, but the aluminum ones don't.
I've got the Airglide 100 dual aluminum pedestal on my KW. The sway bars or torsion bars whatever you want to call them have been known to break, I replaced both as preventive maintenance a couple of years ago, they were slightly worn where the rubber bushes go. The old sway bar is in the pic.

 

Oz up here they had the dual pedestal style when they had a 60" spread on the suspension. All the 54" spreads were single. I assumed it was because the sway bars were a certain length. Do they have dual pedestals on the smaller spreads in your part of the world?

 

That's actually not true .
4 pedestals can be had on any spread .
It is just a heavy duty package that was an option when ordering your truck.
My 2000 kw k100 came from the factory 54" spread with air glide 100 with 4 aluminum pedestals.

 

Ok thats what I was asking.

 

I just measured the spread on mine and it is 52" centre to centre. The truck is rated to 79 tonnes with the dual alloy pedestal but KW rated them to 62 tonnes with single alloy and 42 tonnes with single steel pedestal.
It's an old truck, the new 8 bag KWs are Airglide 200 but there could be a later version than that, I'd have to check.