I'm planning a trip to padre island national seashore next year, so I'll be airing down the tires. This got me thinking how convenient it would be to have on board air available. I've looked around here and haven't seen any threads about it.

I think an electric compressor would be easiest, unless I want to ditch my AC. I would like to mount it under the hood somewhere, to save space inside the truck, and also to decrease the length of wiring. I've looked at a couple different ones on ebay ($$$$$). I've heard some vehicles came with an air ride suspension, and was thinking of using a compressor of one of them, but I'm not sure if it would put out enough pressure or cfm to air up tires, though.

Also, how about mounting an air tank under the truck where the spare tire used to live?

Just wanting to get y'alls opinion, if someone has done something like this, I would love to hear about it, and pictures would be great!

 

I am wondering the same thing and this is what I know

I have a cheap cigarete lighter 12v powered compressor ,it will fill up a tire but painfully slow and not sure doing 4 tires in a row would kill it or not

I have a 120v twin stack compressor that I use in the garage that could easily be filled up and put in the back but I suspect bt the time I got 2 tires filled it would need to be plugged in

I was concidering a co2 tank and inflation kit ,something like these
POWERTANK - CO2 Air Systems

 

there is something available at places like homodepot called JacPac
it uses a paintball gun style/ size tank not sure how many tires you could fill
Its designed to run brad nailers etc

May need to go see the local paintball boys and see what they got

 

I run a York AC compressor on my Jeep, it works great, but it's huge. Turning the factory AC compressor into an air compressor works well, but you will need a pre-oiler, and an oil separator in the air line, and of course no more AC. ARB compressors work well, but slower than engine drive compressors, and $$$! A Powertank may be an option for you, it's what I was going to put on my Blazer.

 

btw they have a clearance area
POWERTANK - CO2 Air Systems

 

Well my old Pontiac Aztec had a compressor built into the RR corner of the trunk, I believe it was standard equipment on all Aztecs, so you could look in the junkyard for one and take it? It wasn't a huge unit but was fine for blowing tires and air matresses up.

 

just run you a vairr air compressor and a tank.
VIAIR Corporation - 12 & 24 Volt Air Compressors you wont have to move anything, just run it off your battery with a relay, and a switch, and you are good to go, then you can hook anything up to the tank, hell, even power tools if you wanted to.

 

this is what im running in my truck for onboard air and it works very well. i have a 400 watt power inverter and a 2 gallon mastercraft electric compressor with plastic flex line and air chuck

 

Thanks for all the ideas, guys! I like the looks of the VIAIR setup. Their medium duty kit is only $300, not bad considering it comes with everything you need.

I'll admit I'm intrigued by the Aztec compressor. I'm sure I've seen them in the yards before. Of course, I would have to come up with my own tank and lines, fittings, etc. I'll have to research them a bit more.

 

heres some pics of my friends custom made onboard air tank system for his 2001 s10 zr2