Today I finally finished up an On Board Air system, based around an ARB CKMA12.
I had originally wanted to reserve the spot in front of the passenger firewall for a dual battery setup. But then decided that's not going to happen for a while, so, like many, I decided to use that space for a compressor.
Work on this started about 10 days ago. I made an initial template out of cardboard (free), then made another template out of very light gauge aluminum ($5) to get a good check of the fit. I then got a 12" x 14" piece of 1/8" aluminum plate ($9) and cut and trimmed it based on the light-gauge template. I took it back to the shop where I purchased the plate, and they put the three bends in place using their large press (a bargain at $10). Given the time invested with this build, rather than buy decision, this only made sense because my time must not be that valuable...
Doing it this way did allow me to cut the tray to place items where I wanted them, without worrying about the cost of cutting up someone else's higher priced starting point
. And if I decide to relocate it in the future my investment was just mostly my time.
I used some information from this site as a starting point for decisions on the manifold:
ARB Dual Air Compressor “The Wifey Air System”. However, I've changed out some of the components, based on my research of reviews.
Further, I've not gone as far as he did, with running air lines to each of the wheel-wells (at least for now). Instead, I'm going with the 4-tire air distribution system, similar to the MORRFlate (and others). Once the final parts for that I'll post some notes about it.
In the last picture, the gauge has been holding stead at 60PSI for over an hour. Re-tapping all connections whether they need them or not, plus Teflon tape is a marvelous thing...
I'll post a thread (or maybe I should finally start a build thread), with some of the design decisions/lessons learned.
