Air Bags

[Keith Moffett]

This may be a dumb idea but....
I have several air bags which have reached a point where they 'might' be losing air slowly through the rubber coating.  The bags themselves seem good but crumbling rubber has made them porous. 
Why can't the outside of the bag simply be recoated?
Several threads here mention the cost and difficulty of total replacement.   Seems like a couple coats of a good spray on rubber done right would resolve this issue.

Who has an opinion?

[Larry Fritz]

Keith: You have little to loose by trying it. I use this stuff for various things but not that application.

I also repair lots of small tires off of golf carts, 2 wheel garden trailers and the like With RTV.  Usually if you screw out the valve stem, squish the remaining air out (tubeless) and push down you can use your finger and put a thin coating on the  rim (the bead area) and on the tire. Air it up and the fix works great.  I even fixed a leaky valve stem rubber section 5 years ago on a trailer and it has not leaked since.


If your air bags on the coach are totally collapses, then I think your proposed fix may not work.  Seems to me the biggest problem is to get to where you could actually spray anything on 100% of the air bag due to obstructions.

Spray it one day and repeat the next. Who knows, you may be on to something great for those of us with older coaches.


Larry

[Gerald Farris]

Keith,
I doubt seriously that you have porous air bags, and there is no way to spray a coating on the outside of a leaking air bag (if you do actually one leaking) that will hold the 60 to 80+ PSI inside the bag. The adhesion properties of a spray on coating on a dirty air bag are not high enough to hold hardly any air pressure. Besides the outer rubber coating on an air bag is not where the leak is. The leak is from a break on the inner coating of the air bag. The outer coating is to protect the fabric cord body that gives the air bag its strength from the environment that it functions in..

Gerald

[Bill Lampkin]

Keith, Are we going to see you on a Flex-Seal ad soon? If your bags are a leakin', I think you would want to seal them from the inside, since that's where the air is...They are built like a tire. .Just sayin' you might want to ponder on this one awhile

[Lee Welbanks]

Keith, There is no way you are going to seal a air bag leak from the outside and you would not want to put anything in any of these bag because when you dump the bags the air goes back through the manifold and you will muck up the solenoid valves. Both of my front Rt side bags had small leaks and the only way I found the leaks was removing the bags and put them in a water tank aired up. The main leak I had with the Rt front was the cheap 3/4" hose Monaco used to connect the bags to the surge tank.
If in fact any of your bags are leaking the only cure is replacement, end of story.

[Eric Maclean]

Hi Keith even if you could access the whole rolling lobe which you can't without removing the air bag and extending it fully to expose the upper area of the rolling lobe.
The problem is that the outter rubber was vulcanized to the canvas to protect the canvas from deterioration at this point the fore mentioned deterioration has already begun. the only real fix is to replace the air bag.

PS
 I have witnessed an air bag expose on a dump truck in a quarry from a distance you could actually see a shock wave travel across the quarry  it scared the crap out of me.
I would not want to be in a coach when one went off.

With that said I have only ever seen this once and  I believe that vehicle had other contributing factors ( over inflation)
The air bags aren't too expensive and can be done one at a time if necessary . Us the old water and dish soap spray to find your leaks and replace as needed .
Most leaks are at connections or ride height Valves and not the air bags themselves.
Just my two cents worth
Eric