Air Lift Air Spring Kit RideControl 2WD/4WD F-150 2015-2020

We're going to make a 2018 F-150 a champ at towing with some help from Air Lift.

Our 2018 F-150 has a bit of a squat with just the weight from the spare tire that's in the bed of the truck and it squats even more when we hook up a trailer. So today we're gonna fix that installing this Air Lift air spring kit.

This is Air Lift's ride control air spring kit, which is designed to fit your 2015 to 18 two wheel drive and four wheel drive F-150. It comes with a pair of adjustable air springs that secure to your truck's spring and leaf springs with heavy duty steel brackets and the provided hardware. They can support up to 2,000 pounds to make your truck more level and stable and safer while towing. For information and pricing on this air spring kit, click the link in the description.

Tools you'll need for this installation: A lift or a jack and jack stands, 13mm socket, 14mm socket, 17mm socket, an extension, 3/8" ratchet, 19mm socket, 1/2" ratchet, a Torx wrench, 1/2" wrench, 19mm wrench, a pair of cutters, an adjustable wrench, some sort of cutting tool like a die grinder and safety glasses.

Okay, we're going to start off this install by assembling the air spring. Grab your fitting and thread it into the top of the air spring. Get it hand tight and then you're going to do a turn and a half with a wrench. That's it. Do the same thing to the other spring. Then you can bolt the spring to the bottom bracket with the provided bolt. Get the bolt tightened by hand, but you don't need to fully torque this just yet. Do the same thing to the other bracket. Yeah, I just got a little bit more dirt to clean out before we can move on with installing these air bags. Just a little bit more. Trying to make it look presentable. I think when you get this much dirt off of just one corner of the truck, that means you had a pretty good time.

We just got done cleaning up a bunch of the mud to try to make this a cleaner install for you guys. Now the first thing we're going to do to the truck is remove this bump stop right here with a 13mm socket. With the bump stop removed you can see how there's a lip right here on the outside of the bump stop. You need to grind this down to make it nice and flush, so it fits with the Air Lift bracket. You can use a cutoff wheel, a grinder, whatever. We're going to be using a die grinder to do this. Get it looking pretty much just like this. You want it nice and flush right here. And then once you get it nice and flush, hit it with some black paint, so it doesn't rust.

Alright, we hit it with some black spray paint. Got it nice and covered. This thing is good to go now. Next thing we're going to do is put these U bolts around the frame. We're going to put them on from the inside of the frame to come out. We want them to be in between the frame and the brake line because you do not want to brush these brake lines. Just like that. Now we can install our upper bracket. They are side specific so make sure you install the one that's marked L on the driver's side and the one marked R on the passenger's side. We're now going to reinstall the factory bump stop that we trimmed flush right here. We're going to install it with the provided bolt.

When you install this, make sure that the part you shaved down is facing outward. Make sure you tighten it all the way against the frame. Before we go ahead and tighten these U bolts, make sure once again that they're not pinching your brake lines. You don't want anything in between the frame and the U bolt. Torque the U bolts down to 14 newt meters or 10 foot pounds. Then we're going to torque the bump stop bolt to 30 foot pounds. Install the spring and lower bracket onto the leaf spring and get your air fitting through the upper bracket. Get it in a good position. And secure it with the provided U bolts.

Install the washers and nuts just like on the top U bolts. This part's pretty impossible to show you, but we're going to install the lock washer with nut on the air fitting on top of the spring. Once you get the washer and nut on to the top of the bag, tighten it down. With the air bag in place, find a location where you want to put your air lines, then you can run the air lines. We're going to put ours in the rear bumper. We're going to mount our air lines in this compartment. It's in our HoneyBadger rear bumper. And we're going to run this line and connect it to the bag. Get the airline ran to your bag. Make sure you have a little bit of slack to account for movement in the suspension. Then make a nice straight cut on the line.

To attach the air lines with the bag, simply just push it into the fitting. If you need to remove the air line for any reason, pull on the very end of the fitting and push it in to compress it and pull the hose out. With your airline ran and connected, put about five psi of air into the bag. Now that the bag has air in it, make sure the brackets are parallel with each other. When everything looks good and now and tighten the bolt on the bottom of the spring. You only want to get this to about 15 foot pounds. The U bolts can also be tightened and torqued. The U bolts get torqued to 15 foot pounds. The top plastic nut on the air bag can now be tightened as well. You're either going to need an adjustable wrench or a 1-1/8" wrench.

You don't need to make this too tight, just four foot pounds will do. Okay, we got our Air Lift ride control air spring kit installed on our 2018 F-150. It's going to help to get rid of the squat from the extra weight in the bed and it's going to make this thing a champ at towing. Install really wasn't that bad. It should only take about one to two hours. And before you know it, you'll be heading off road.

Okay, we have our truck outside and we have it hooked up to our trailer, which isn't that heavy of a load. And as you can see, the truck has a serious rake going on. It's squatting really bad. Let me put some air in these bags and show you what they do. Okay, so as you can see, we got our air bags completely filled up with air and there's still a little bit of a rake to this truck but that's because it's lifted. It's way better than it was before. And the trailer is tilted up a little bit. With a drop hitch, it would be absolutely perfect. Towing with the air bags is going to make this thing a whole lot better.