I am relocating my compressor to under the hood and the tan kunder the chassis. I am in the market for a longer leader hose. I suppose I dont need one to be stainless steel braided like on the Viair site.
Does anyoen have any ideas on what can be used for my setup? It will be run on the exterior of the truck so take that into consideration. It wont be near any heat source (exhaust is on the other side) and the engine compartment has a nice spot whee it will not receive direct heat from the engine…its a large engine bay.
what about the fittings too? Is there something I need to look for specifically?
It has been mentioned that Hornblasters can get you a longer leader hose, although I have never heard for sure. If you call them to find out, would you let us know?
BTW - the leader hose does have to withstand high heat coming directly from the compressor.
Other than the fact they are almost snobs when it comes to certain topics, they dont sell them. Their answer was “youre not suppose to disassemble tghe connections between the tank and the compressor, blah blah void warranty, blah blah, go to a hydraulics shop, blah blah”.
I finished my install of a dual 480C setup. I needed longer leader hoses and just used a compression fitting on the end of the leader hose and used regular 1/2" air line. It worked great.
In there defense, they were telling you what viair tells them. Being that hornblasters buys from viair , and sells there product / and warranty’s there product. They have to make sure consumers of the product are using it in the correct manor especially when it is within warranty period.
Otherwise if hornblasters excepts a bad compressor back and sends a brand new one to you, only to find out the head of compressor was tampered with, viair will not credit them back because of consumer abuse.
Now if i were wanting a larger lead hose, I would add on another hose to the factory viair hose and make it as long as you want.
Only the first 1-1/2’ or so, is the most important to have the steel braided hose since the head of the compressor gets so warm, and the air coming out is so warm.
DOT airbrake line (the same type of line you are using for hooking up your horns). Now 1/2" could mean OD or ID… I’m guessing he meant OD.
When I called Viair, they couldnt be mroe helpful. The lady who answered even told me that the best option would be to find the hose like you mentioned. I asked fher for a 7’ hose and she said it would be so expensive to make and would require multiple connectors to piece together, the best option would be to use the DOT hose. Thats what HB shoulda done. Offer something useful.
so…
when it comes to the black dot hose, is this the proper path
tank> black dot >check valve > braided hose>compressor
when it comes to making all these connections, is red thread lock suggested?
I decided to change to a custom feeder hose and had one made at a local area hardware store. It is 60" long and has worked just great. I have a post on the feeder hose vendor. Check them out.