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Old 09-15-2019, 01:17 PM   #1
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2008 Beaver Contessa Air Bag replacement

There have recently been several threads on aig springs or air bags. Rather than adding to those, here is what I found.
September 15, 2019

When I spoke of trying to catch up on projects, I thought I was all done until I noticed some cracking on the air springs (air bags) on the coach. Oh no!

I checked and cracked bag led to finding one more up front. This is a 2008 Beaver Contessa built on the Monaco RR8R chassis. It has a total of 8 air bags to support the beast. With 50% of the front air bags bad, I decided to change out all 4 of the front bags. This led me to take on replacing all of the 4 rear ones the following week as well...oh..and all 4 rear shock absorbers!

It took about 12 solid hours to change out all 8 air bags. Not all in one shot, but about 3 separate sessions. Each bag is held in place with 4 nuts on very long studs with 1 air line.

Carefully blocking the chassis between the H Frame and the actual frame with a combination of 2x4 and 4x4, I was ready to go. We full-time, so you have to make do with the situation often times. The spot we have been in for more months than I care to remember, it un-level and covered in crushed rock (OUCH). I aired up the system to its maximum height and placed in the wooden cribbing. 4 sections of 4x4 or 6 2x4's was all that would fit without additional jacking (which I had to do in several of the 8 positions to get the bags out).

A note on cribbing; I have read others suggesting that you can simply cut a section of 4x4 or 4x6 to 10 or so inches and place them vertically in between the frames. NO! DO NOT EVER PLACE CRIBBING WITH THE GRAIN OF THE WOOD VERITCAL! It can fail with catastrophic results! Always, always, always place cribbing with the grain horizontal to the load!

Anyway....I carefully watched as Debi released the air from the suspension to assure everything was solid. It was, so I moved right along.

I found hat the push lock air fitting had too much sand in them (they are in the vertically) that I used a sharp razor knife to cut the lines right at the top of the fitting (new fittings going in anyway).

The nuts for all of these are 3/4” (fittings are 11/16”). I used a combination of 3/8 and ½ drive breaker bars and ratchets, open end wrenches and I bought 2 different offset wrenches (I never would have reached 3 of them with out these). I also bought a Milwaukee M12 3/8 power ratchet to aid in removal and installation. It was strong enough for a few, but not all of the nuts. But it saved a lot of pain! Pre-soaking the studs with penetrating oil also seemed to help a lot.

As I said earlier, I had to jack up the coach on several locations to get the bags out. This was in conjunction with some larger prying bars, screwdrivers,m etc to help collapse the old bags to get out. You cant simply compress them with your hands, they are way too stiff. I started with a 6 ton jack...it puked oil on me when I loaded it a bit too much. I them bought an 8 ton jack and had no more problems.

Many of the areas you have to shoehorn yourself into in order to reach the upper nuts where EXTREMELY cramped and tight. Many times I asked myself, ,”Why in the world are your doing this?”

To put the new bags in place, I needed to install the new air fittings, and then compress them and hold them compressed with a small cargo strap. When they are new, they are even taller than the old ones. Carefully think about the orientation of the strap so that you can actually reach the buckle one it is in place.

Also, all 4 of the rear bags and 1 of the front ones needed to be be properly 'clocked' to orient the mounting studs in the proper position. There is a large bolts on the bottom mounting flange that can be loosened and then the bottom mounting flange can rotate. I read one posting that said they had a large hole in the bottom mounting flange on the coach, in order to access this bolt. That would be way to easy as on this model they didn't provide that nice upgrade! I had to level each back on a piece of plywood , use and angle gauge and then orient them. Note my nice tailgate workbench! LOL

I should have thought about rear shocks at the time I ordered the bags (already did the fronts 3 years ago), but I forgot. That was an additional 1-2 hours to finish up the project.

Parts total (8 bags, 8 fittings, for Bilstein shocks) just about $2000.

I figure I saved about the same or more doing it myself.

Would I do it again? Probably NOT! LOL My aches have aches and I found muscles I forgot I had!

My neighbor said I looked like I just came out of a coal mine when I came out from under one day!

Air bag PN
REV 10109709
old # 01808670
Contitech AS9551
Firestone W01-9551

Front Bilstein 24-186605
Rear Bilstein 24-186612 (Orig Monroe 557035)
Note, these are the version shock with a loop on bottom and stud on top
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Old 09-15-2019, 01:29 PM   #2
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Ok.... We will try to load pics from the app insteadClick image for larger version

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Old 09-15-2019, 01:30 PM   #3
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Old 09-15-2019, 02:06 PM   #4
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Nice write up john. I'm watching my bags carefully. This will be a handy reference.

BTW, don't you have the RR8S chassis? You mentioned RR8R.
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Old 09-15-2019, 02:23 PM   #5
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Pretty sure it is the RR8R.
???
Plaque up front doesn't say.
Quote:
Originally Posted by windsorbill View Post
Nice write up john. I'm watching my bags carefully. This will be a handy reference.

BTW, don't you have the RR8S chassis? You mentioned RR8R.
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Old 09-15-2019, 03:05 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Captjake1 View Post
Pretty sure it is the RR8R.
???
Plaque up front doesn't say.
John,

Everytime I read one of your projects, it costs me money as I put it on my list of things to do. Kidding aside, I admire you tackling this fairly big project.

You have the side radiator, corrrect? At least I thought you did.. that's the last "S" in RR8S.

A RR8R is the 'rear radiator'.
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Old 09-15-2019, 03:07 PM   #7
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Nice write.... Will use this if/when I get to my airbags!
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Old 09-15-2019, 03:33 PM   #8
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Ah! You are right! Couldn't remember what the abbreviation meant. It is an RR8S
Quote:
Originally Posted by windsorbill View Post
John,

Everytime I read one of your projects, it costs me money as I put it on my list of things to do. Kidding aside, I admire you tackling this fairly big project.

You have the side radiator, corrrect? At least I thought you did.. that's the last "S" in RR8S.

A RR8R is the 'rear radiator'.
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Old 09-15-2019, 03:34 PM   #9
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Thanks
Quote:
Originally Posted by TRH299 View Post
Nice write.... Will use this if/when I get to my airbags!
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Old 09-15-2019, 03:39 PM   #10
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As usual, an excellent job in detailing what is obviously a very lengthy, tough and dirty task (your facial expression says it all!). Thank you.

It's going in my to-do folder.





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Old 09-15-2019, 04:18 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RustyTools View Post
As usual, an excellent job in detailing what is obviously a very lengthy, tough and dirty task (your facial expression says it all!). Thank you.

It's going in my to-do folder.





Thank you!
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Old 09-15-2019, 10:22 PM   #12
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Good job John! Coal miner? Yeah, I get pretty dirty frequently but DW had to take a picture the other day when I emerged. If I had a lift I'd use a pressure washer first.
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Old 09-15-2019, 10:32 PM   #13
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Both of those would be helpful!
Quote:
Originally Posted by hypoxia View Post
Good job John! Coal miner? Yeah, I get pretty dirty frequently but DW had to take a picture the other day when I emerged. If I had a lift I'd use a pressure washer first.
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Old 09-16-2019, 07:10 AM   #14
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Thanks for posting.
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